driftfleet | first one to make that doctor who joke loses

Listening is a wonderful thing. [ peggy shifts in the passenger seat. her fingers are crooked under her chin, and she watches him with alert interest. maybe he doesn't realize how much a blessing it can be to work with someone who listens. ] Driving when you're bloody well asked is a wonderful thing -- when it's for a proper cause.

Lives were saved. I would call that wonderful.

[He purses his lips, thinning them from fullness to an unsure line.

He flusters, just a bit.]

It's not like that. Wasn't like that.

[Look who can't take any form of praise, like, at all.]

M'not any of that... They helped me, I repaid them. Fair exchange.

[Yeah, that's it. That's definitely it.]

Whatever you say, Handsome.

[ -- she'll let him have his meager victory and deflect the description of 'wonderful', but only if she gets to keep the nickname. clearly. ]

[He makes such a face at that.

Without skipping a beat, he throws back with a sour tone:]

Good. Glad you agree, Beautiful.

[yeah he just did that, that's a thing he just did

and he almost immediately regrets it

like immediately]

[ here is the cat who got the canary and the cream. self-bloody-satisfied, indeed. she seems almost ready to preen, she's just that happy with eking in the last word within their exchange.

but then he says it. he says beautiful. and it's so terribly wrong wrapped up in his gruff tones that it sounds alien to every other time some smarmy-mouthed git has pressed the pet-name slyly past his tongue. howard chief among them.

at first, it's like she has something caught in her throat. ]

Aren't you damned charming. [ she drawls. but her sudden discomfort is betrayed in the way she stiffly adjusts the mask still nestled in her lap. a muscle twitches along her jaw. did she deserve that? likely, she argues with herself. after all, she did start it.

but it's hardly fair! her protest whips forth like a whirlwind. ] You know, all of this current unpleasantness could have been avoided if you'd just let me use your damned name.

[ it's been months. she's been so utterly patient, max. ]

[Max has no time or care to gloat about his own nudge back (that might as well be them in primary school, it's so very juvenile, but Max is so beyond maturity). He glances at her with a furrowed brow, looking every bit as disgruntled as she is. Checkmate, Peggy, only he's not one to count his victories. Ever.

He's mostly just confused.]

Why is that so important? It's — [He motions with one hand.] Unneeded.

Tell me, [ she leans forward on her seat. her tone denotes a desire to urge him into answering. ] What do you call me? In your head? You must have something that stands in for me -- and if it's my name? Why, then it's only fair and just I should use yours in return. Or if not your name, then some other something you can live with hearing.

[ she'd done it for winter; she can do it for max, too. ]

I don't — like to hear my name.

[He looks frustrated. His forehead scrunches, is a dozen annoyed lines over his eyes.]

You're the first mate — [He cuts himself off. Of course he thinks 'Peggy'. Of course he does. And he knows she knows his name; she's too nosy to not look at the roster, to not know in some way. She calls him Max, too. In her head. It's an unfair attempt to pull this out of him. She should know that. He glowers out of his peripheral, looking back ahead.]

I don't want to pick anything.

[He sounds almost like a child on the verge of a tantrum and he knows it. It's annoying. It's her fault she was poking fun; he poked fun back, and now they're talking about names? Utterly unnecessary. Like names. He thought she would have dropped it after the first few months of skirting around it.]

So you cast that burden onto everyone else. [ harsh words from a harsh woman -- one who wouldn't speak half so harshly if she didn't care half so much. peg curls her fingers against her palm and examines her red-polished nails. feigning disinterest. ]

I happen to like your name, you know. I like the way it sounds -- though it's your own prerogative if you don't want to be called it. However, I would like to know what I ought to call you. 'Handsome' is clearly untenable.

[Burden, is it? That's a nasty way to wring him. Piss him off. Drive some semblance of guilt into there.]

Fine. My name's Max.

[He says it quickly and roughly, like it's all but forced out of his lungs, wrenched out. There's a clear displeasure and discomfort in it, but he's grown too frustrated with her to fight -- too frustrated and feeling trapped in the shuttle. So fine, he thinks miserably. FINE. He throws it out there because he doesn't bleeding know what to give her. What will satisfy. He hates every word of it, hates the sound of it.

He stares ahead, his chest twisting painfully.]

You happy?

[It's what she wanted. So there. Now she can just have it. He feels utterly certain nothing else would have sufficed.]

Hardly. [ she shoots back. pistol-quick. he had to have known, hadn't he? that passing along his name so aggressively and so vindictively would turn it instantly to a thing unusuable. unspeakable. saying it, now, would be like dredging a wound with salt. and peggy carter is not so cruel a woman. ]

Edited 2016-04-19 09:58 (UTC)

[He grunts unhappily behind closed lips, squinting ahead.

There's frustration in the work of his jaw.]

You're exhausting.

[He isn't even attempting to be offensive - it's a genuine remark.

Things like this - interaction, arguing, being... normal-ish, it's so exhausting, and he can't help but say it flat-out in the wake of her voice poking at his brain like a frazzled woodpecker.]

-- Tell me, have they still got the idiom about the pot calling the kettle black?

[ huff. ]

[The inner workings of Max's mind are an enigma.

Case in point: the frustrated, pissy look is abruptly replaced with complete and utter puzzlement, as if he's been completely distracted from his own sour mood by his confusion. He looks at her, an earnestness in his furrowed brow and slightly owlish eyes.]

The pot what?

Edited 2016-04-22 08:04 (UTC)

[ her own mood settles considerably. it's easier to be patient when the crux of conversation is an explanation -- a lesson, of sorts. and it helps that he should so abruptly change from agitated to bewildered. that alone is something of a comfort: whatever had just passed between them, max isn't clinging to like some sort of grudge.

peggy is silently grateful. ]

There is an inherent...hypocrisy, I suppose, if an old black pot kicks up a fuss in calling a kettle black. They're both as sooty as each other. So -- when you called me exhausting just now...

[ she trails off. lets him link the thoughts on his own. ]

Oh.

[Oh, he says, like he wasn't just fuming. It's not that he isn't angry still on some level; it's just. Oh. He glances at her, expression still that serious and rigid way about him. Hrn, he contributes.]

Everyone thinks I'm frustrating, that's not new.

I'm... The dented pot?

[God why are we comparing ourselves to pots and pans tho. He adds grumpily, too serious for such a ridiculous metaphor:]

You're still an annoying kettle.

I suppose I'll have to settle with that. The dented pot and the annoying kettle -- what a team we'll make.

[ because despite this hiccup, they must remain a team. ]

[An eyeroll.]

Call me that, if you want. The Pot.

[He pauses, letting the silence trickle in for a long, long moment. They're nearly at the ship again when he speaks. Every word seems strained, like it's hard for him to say. Because this fleet is the first time he's ever spoken aloud about how his head works. A team, she says. He doesn't want to be on a team. But he's here, forced, and he -- tries. Doesn't he? They can't say he doesn't.]

They say my name a lot, my real name.

The dead.

They always know it, even when I don't offer.

The ones you see. The ones that aren't there.

[ with bold strokes, she fills in the blanks that they'd both left so intentionally blank. it isn't like she hasn't known -- hasn't seen the symptoms, nor witnessed the particular way his gaze shifted in more distressing moments. ]

They're only real if I let them live. They cannot touch me; they're dead and gone.

[He stares ahead, expression carefully blank.]

But they are... Noisy.

[A long pause, one Peggy may recognize by now as simply a heavy weight mid-reply instead of the end of one.]

The last time anyone spoke my name -- anyone... alive -- I was, mm... twenty years old.

[ she can be patient; she waits. ]

I'm not them. None of us -- none of us, here in the fleet, are them. [ she bites her bottom lip, for once uncertain. is she fighting the wrong battle? ]

No matter what we call you.

[He shakes his head.]

I know you're not them.

... It's, ahm, just... easier to tell when the voices are here — [He puts his finger to his temple.] — and not real, when they know my name. It's... just... a way to ignore them.

It's your canary in the coal mine. [ she flips, quick-like, to sympathy. ] Your litmus test.

Mm... Sometimes, on a good day, I never have to hear my name at all.

[His gaze flickers to her from his periphery, just a moment's glance. He's smooth-faced and more youthful and cleaned up — but the battered road warrior is still so very prominent in the way his expression sits, and despite all the steps taken and progress made in Peggy's presence, it's abundantly clear it is a hill among mountains; Max is a fractured mind, and he knows he'll never be... normal. Something in his head is damaged, not functioning properly, like the belt in a car that's snapped and has to be left in the sand. Max has never believed he could function like he did in the past, as a youth. He labels himself crazy. Others do, too. He believes in it, fully. A criminal psychotic. He's not so far gone that he can't see the whole-minded, normal men and women walking all around him. He's not so far gone that he can't tell he's a sore thumb trying to keep up with everyone else's stability.

The voices are reminders, that coping is hard, that adapting to normalcy is a struggle akin to throwing Max into the ocean and watching him make progress, get tired, and get dragged back towards where he'd originally started. But... progress is made. For every moment he drifts, there's a small push forward.

There's something helpful in trying.

He wonders if Peggy knows, that she's one of perhaps two or three people he even discusses these things with. Hell, Max doesn't even know he does it, sometimes. It just seems to be a role she's elected to fill, and for some reason he can't understand, he's allowed her that clearance in his life.]

... Today's not a bad day. The focus helps.

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