driftfleet | ∞ 007

[Max has a bad week, at first. His crew won't see much of him, either — he's gone entirely for the entire week after his semi-social and ridiculous broadcast. Where he was, it's hard to tell. When he comes back later, though, he's hardly around for maybe an hour a day at a time, a distant look in his eye and an eerie silence in the way he wanders to hide a jug of water away in one of the secret cargo compartments (where a lot of emergency supplies are that he's stored often). He also returns with decent blades. Thick, sturdy, ones he can sharpen with the tools they have in the cargo bay area.

Any attempt to talk to him will be met with silence. Not stubborn silence, either, but a sort of way about him like those trying to strike up conversation might as well not even be there. It's a mental fog, and sometimes Max gets lost in it, left to wander aimlessly while he looks for — something. Anything. He doesn't stop moving, not for an instant, and it seems the only company he has is the voice(s) inside his head. Occasionally he replies to questions. Important ones, important thoughts.

But today, there appears to be some lucidity regained. He stops by the kitchen, suddenly too hungry. He stuffs his face there with whatever there happens to be. Sorry if any of that food is yours and you were excited for it, it's gone to a good cause. Max's iron stomach.

He also stands in the bathroom half-naked in all of his scarred, tanned glory, after a horrifically quick shower. He's looking with a troubled little frown at the mirror, because his beard is getting downright unruly, and his hair is a bit too overgrown now. He hasn't cut it since the Citadel took his scratchy mane... months and months ago. He grabs a long tuft of locks between his fingers, rolling them and considering it.

Maybe he should cut it.

Hmmmmmmmmm.]

[ it starts like any morning. get up, drink tea, and consider another round of falsified food-matter. peggy watches the network with an idle eye as she sits in the kitchen. and oh, she was there to witness some of max's grand feasting, but she didn't say a word. he'd been out of sorts, lately. she doesn't want to push her luck.

but a bit later, she encounters him again. this time it's with a short towel tossed over her shoulder and a toothbrush in her right hand. she'd been aiming to refresh herself (however briefly) with a face-scrub and a minty smile. but instead she walks in on...well, him. and while he's busy looking at his front, she's busy looking at his back. peggy's head tilts. keep muzzled...? ]

Hello.

[ after a few more heartbeats, she announces herself. ]

[He glances back towards her, brow quirked and hair still caught between his fingers in its paused consideration. He doesn't seem very torn up about her finding him half-naked or anything like that; it's probably a good sign. If he considered her a threat, he would have moved to retrieve his jacket and blade much more quickly. Instead he just gives a slight nod.]

... Hey.

[He glances at what's in her hand, and then side steps to give her room at the sink while he plops down on the closed toilet to start tugging his shoes back on. His knee brace — shiny, not as abused as his old model from home — sits beside him. It does wonders for him; Tadashi doesn't remember making it for him, but it's not any trouble to him.

He tugs at the laces on one foot, full-well knowing what she had been up to before saying her hello. The upside down tattoo has, admittedly, been a small little point of interest for himself as well. He's never actually stopped to fully inspect it, not that he can remember anyway. He has a few ideas. He huffs.]

Don't know what it says, but I don't bother.

[The implication is probably well enough; he didn't choose to have it done.]

Not much point.

[ this isn't trust, exactly. but by now the pair of them have reached a point of mutual comfort. they can inhabit the same space without flinching too hard. and peggy! well, peggy's never been one to turn down an opportunity to admire a man's physique, but the ink on his back has put a damper on that particular pursuit.

so, instead, she lets the water run a moment so it might get well and truly cold. ] Doesn't seem fair. That you should have words on you but you don't know what they say.

[ she dips her toothbrush beneath the stream, then shuts the water off to preserve it while she reaches for a tube of toothpaste. ] You're not in the least bit curious?

[He scoffs humorlessly.]

Nothing's really that fair.

[He figures she knows as much, but he'll make a point to say it regardless. He stops to consider her question, though. Does he want to know? That's a good question. Most of him is a resounding "no". Because reading it means knowing what invasion they had done to his body. What claim they made.]

Mm. Maybe. Mostly just wanted to run, get away. They took my car and my blood; I needed the rest of me.

But I can guess what it says.

[Isn't too hard. It's a cattle-approved informational tattoo, perfect to match that ugly raised scar brand on the button of his spine.]

[ her own curiousity is palpable. almost selfishly, she wants a better look at the ink now out of her sight. looking him in the eye means she can't read any more of it. peggy brandishes her toothrbush at him with an airy wave, not yet committed to the act of teeth-cleaning. ]

There's guessing. And then there's knowing. If you ever wanted...[ she swallows her eagerness. ] If your mind changes, I would tell you.

[ -- i would read it to you. ]

[He quirks his eyebrow, working on shimmying on his other boot.]

If I needed, or you wanted?

[He knows Peggy well enough. Not a lot, of course, but enough that he can figure up that she's interested in it. Honestly, she does have a point, but he also believes that it really doesn't matter. It's black ink on skin. It's certainly invasive, certainly a grim reminder of his captivity. Of hanging upside down, getting drained of blood until he can hardly focus, and then to be dumped back into your cage weakly to recuperate for the next cancerous War Boy.

Though, he supposes there's nothing there but what the Citadel had guessed. Meaningless information. Maybe a mention of his blood type, maybe a medical examination. He remembers that section just as well. He hardly wants to recollect being stripped, fondled, and then dragged off to be stamped with the burn of Joe's reign. Wasn't pleasant. But regardless, the memories are the worst of it. The memory of the tattoo. The actual words inked there might as well be a shopping list in comparison.

Hm. He considers it.]

They're just words. You can read it. If you want.

[It really isn't anything. Not like a name, which she's used before.]

It could. Be good for me to know.

[Maybe. He doubts they figured out anything he didn't already know.]

Edited 2016-02-19 18:52 (UTC)

[ he has her dead to rights. dead to rights. and as she stands there, toothbrush in hand, she has to marvel at how the mostly monosyllabic man has read her so perfectly. she nearly smiles.

peggy understands his words as a foothold: a point of ingress, and she seizes upon it. ] Whoever did it to you -- why did they write it all upside down?

[ she doesn't ask him to turn so she can read them. doesn't ask him to do anything, really. she will even understand if he refuses to answer. ]

[It will be startlingly easy to answer.

Not because it wasn't traumatic, because it was. It's just... it's just normal. It's the Wasteland. He didn't have to explain these things to Furiosa and the Wives, because they knew. They knew what he had been used for, and they barely batted an eye, because it was all horrible. They were used for their bodies, in a way that is so unrelentingly invasive and grim. And Max, he had taken the war rig and left them behind to that fate again, because for him, at the time? Pain was common. What they were suffering, it was normal, it was being alive.

Everything hurts.

But he's tried to be better. Do better by them. Redemption, a piece at a time. A quiet offering to Angharad, who fell and died because he damaged the leg of Joe's favorite. He never meant for anyone to die. He had simply wanted to be left alone. Get away. He is sorry for that.

He hums, breaking out of that dark line of thought. Turns his body just slightly toward her. He won't turn his back completely to her, but enough. That's worth something.]

Blood rushes to the head. Bloodbags transfuse faster upside down. Mm, um. Leaves the vein much quicker.

[To a person at random, that would sound fragmented, but she can probably whip up a story behind it.

The biggest font O-PLUS HIGH OCTANE UNIVERSAL DONOR on the upside down smatter of words also helps, of course.]

[ the explanation isn't instantaneous. indeed, she appears confused for the first few heartbeats. eyes blinking, and mouth stern. what on earth is he prattling on about? blood. bloodbags. and then she has to flip her own thinking on its head to understand the dark function behind an upside down tattoo. it's barely a tattoo at all; it's a label. like a bit of faint letting slapped onto rations packets.

peggy schools herself. she doesn't allow her horror to show. why should she alienate him any further? bloodbags -- something rises in her throat, and she sets her toothbrush aside. it's abandoned. thoughtless. ]

O-positive. [ a murmur. isolate psychotic. keep muzzled. she raises her palm, but before she gathers enough courage to approach him that same palm falls to her side and forms a fist. ] You were used. Someone used you, didn't they?

[ for blood. for -- something else, perhaps. she can't quite read between every line of this conversation. but she's beginning to understand why he walks around in a fog of shellshock. why he's so eager to protect what little freedom he has. ]

O-negative, actually. 'Plus', unleaded guzzoline for the body. Hi-octane crazy blood.

[Echoed Nux's words, from the room he was hung up in. It's just a mild correction for a bizarre world. She might as well just shrug that off, because the Wasteland is a weird place that is better off not said.]

Supposedly universal.

[He's very calm and casual about it, at least. He's a prime example of what you turn into, in the radioactive deserts he calls home. If she saw the citadel, the disgusting tunnels full of sick and death and kamekrazy War Boys, she might understand. If she knew what the great terrible Immortan did to people like him... like the Wives... she'd know. Everyone has a purpose. A use. Most unwilling.]

Everyone uses people, out there. Blood is a commodity. Health locked up, leeched. Spread thin. The needle goes here. [He calmly taps a finger to his neck, where there are a few shiny patches. Puncture wounds for a large needle.] Blood drains. Rinse, repeat. Use until too weak. Recycle the body.

[He was never sure where the dead, shriveled up bags go.

Maybe fed to the populace. Cannibals were not a shortage. You use a whole dingo, you use a whole horse. You eat a body if you're shriveling up, yourself. From the way he says it, it's as natural as deer hunting, or maybe just visiting a doctor for your shots. Natural order of the Citadel. Horrors that nobody blinks at. The Wives knew of better things. The War Boys grew into that life, ready to die glorious, because that was the best case scenario in their minds. Exploding to bits and rising to Valhalla.

... Max just wishes they wouldn't waste bloodbag blood, bursting into bloody chunks.

Though... he has to hope Furiosa and the girls will change that way of life.]

OTA cargo hold, kitchen, or bathroom

bathroom » a-yup.

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kitchen

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kitchen

this is the most unhelpful tag i'm sorry yosuke my sweet boy

HAHAHA oh my gods this whole crew is such gold i swear...

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