driftfleet | OTA | recovering from a pitfall (and being stuck with you-know-who)

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max rockatansky

OTA | recovering from a pitfall (and being stuck with you-know-who)

Who: Max Rockantansky and you!
Broadcast: N/A; action only
Action: Just a quick Starstruck log for Max!
When: April 1st and the few days after that.

Max eventually gets back to the Starstruck after his tumble into the mines -- and Beverly's hesitantly accepted medical assistance. But his brace is broken and he's been put on... temporary bedrest. Sort of. Kind of. Look, he has at least agreed to use the crutch until he could get his brace back in order, okay? And yes, Beverly will probably have follow-ups for his leg. He's not willing at all to do anything invasive with it, but... he's listening. More than he has before. There's a plus, right there, to having spent two days down in a toxic mine shaft with no mask and a gimp leg. He sleeps a little bit, but even after all that's happened, he's restless and quick to get back up on his feet.

He hadn't let anyone treat his other injuries, but they were much more minor. His the forehead gash under a bandage needs to be stitched. He's got bruises the size of fists on his torso from his miserable tumbling. And goddamn, he is tired. He stops by in the bathroom of the Starstruck and slowly pulls off his shirt with a pained grunt, revealing the sad patchwork of scrapes and purple mottled shapes. Ramse had been nice enough to get him heat pads -- he's slowly administering them to his shoulders and ribs. He can't reach the marks on his back, intermingled with black ink, but it's a start.

Once he treats himself (or potentially gets help, because lbr, he's sick as a dog), he's quick to hobble himself into the cargo bay despite said nausea and spreads out a collection of scrap metal, bolts, straps, and welding equipment. He can be found repairing his knee brace there with Rock under his leg, propped up on the dog's shoulder blades as Rock slumbers. He looks tired as hell, but at least he's not going off all over the planet like he had at the ice one.

Apparently he's pretty good with a welding gun; the end result is something a bit like this, mish-mashed between Tadashi's and his own slight modifications. It's functional, will keep the knee steady. Feel free to say hello while he's focused; we all love to interrupt him while he's busy, right? Or maybe you'll find him sitting in a chair, cycling through Rock's many dog talents: sit, lay down, speak, stay. He seems a bit less restless compared to the other times he's been confined here, but then maybe he's just really, really glad to not be stuck in a goddamn tunnel. Or maybe there's a tension eased there thanks to Beverly managing to treat him without anything horrible happening this time. Either way, a sick and limited Max busy with his usual routine is a contented one.

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Her laughter hides in the back of her throat. A half-nasal noise, arch and somehow distanced from the conversation. Peggy gives his head a gentle wobble -- like proving the mastery she possesses over its angle, its position, and its stillness. She doesn't mean to rub it into his face that she has power in this moment, but that underpinned understanding can't be avoided. Peggy controls this moment because she needs that control -- need to springboard off it in order to patch him up just so.

"Would you prefer a sloppy stitch? It's bound to scar like the rest of you -- but I'll be damned if it doesn't scar neatly." However strict and steeled her voice sounds, there's a humour lurking in its syllables. Or perhaps it presents itself more in what she doesn't do. Peggy doesn't retreat; she doesn't relinquish what control she's taken, because they both know deep down that (for now) it's for the best.

She starts in on the last few stitches. "Besides," she breathes these words more than she speaks them, "you're lot bloody easier to get a grip on -- I imagine -- with that beard gone. Might as well make hay while the sun shines."

Peggy gives in and smiles -- but stops herself just short of falling back on the old woman's endearing little nickname for him. Now's not a moment for nicknames.

His head wobbles freely under her palm, and he pinches one eye closed, grumbling like an old man complains -- not much real effort behind it, but a sort of huff that's required at this point in his life. And the complaint that follows is just as ridiculous coming from the somewhat youthful, sturdy fella she's got underhand.

"M'too old to worry about scarring now," he says, and boy if it makes him sound like he's in the final stretch of his life; a bit bleak, but also surprisingly funny in tone. Like really, Max, you're only in your forties. And yet, that's so old. It really is, you know. "Nowadays, young lumps running around think scars are as important as fingers. I don't get it."

I don't get the youth these days.

"Young lumps! Christ. What does that make you? Methuselah? I hope you're not calling me a young lump. Do recall who has who's face underhand, old stone."

Young lump, indeed. But Peggy is laughing, so it can't be all that horrible. Indeed, she hasn't laughed this properly since before allies started dropping like flies.

He seems completely undaunted by the fact that she's got him in a precarious position (those nails are scarily sharp, though, he has to admit). Instead he considers her reply with the utmost seriousness.

"... Methuselah is a mouthful."

But since you're the one bringing it up now--

"But you are pretty young. You were probably a baby chick when I started work--" He pauses. Ah. Well. He clears his throat, figuring it doesn't matter. Right? He's told someone before he was a cop. It's not... anything... "When I was a driver. You were probably this tall. I'm betting."

He makes a motion, a shorter height befitting a child.

He started life as a cop early, granted. It was the way of things.

She tugs the last stitch through his skin -- and then busies herself with the work of knotting it before it's cut.

"Depends entirely on your yardstick, I'm afraid. When you started work I was likely long dead. 1947, remember?"

Provided their world is even one and the same -- which she rather hopes it isn't.

He shrugs, and there's a clear smile forming at the edges of his mouth, however thin.

"My yardstick is the fleet."

(You're a baby chick, deal with it, Peggy.)

He's quiet for a long moment as she cleans up, thumbing the tender area around his stitching. His hands are clean, so it shouldn't be a problem. After that pause: "All the days blend together; aren't much different from each other." He talks casually, though, despite the topic. "People tend to count in them, in a lot of places. Days."

He nods over his shoulder.

"They did, anyway. Has a count on the tattoo. Could be the days since he took power."

Nobody knows his age, and he hardly knows it himself.

For a moment, conversation is drowned out by running water. Peggy washes her hands -- small, quick motions. Only a small wellspring of fresh blood had sprung, but she's fastidious in washing it off her fingers. Out from under her fingernails. The faucet, and the end of its water stream, punctuates her reply. The sudden silence creates a vacuum, cleaned and prepped for her words.

"Calendars are obsolete?" Somehow, she isn't surprised. "Suppose it felt a little like that during the war. We counted days since the beginning -- less the actual months."

She offers him an adhesive bandage. This part, he may do for himself.

"Did you ever count the days?"

He accepts the offering and begins to bandage the injury; it's slow and shaky, his body protesting every new motion, but he's forced his way through worse scenarios. As she asks the question the strip's been applied, covering the wound. He shakes his head grimly after, despite the miniature assault it does on his vision.

"No. Not often. If I needed to remember to get from one place to another..."

He snakes his hand through the air, though the motion is heavy with weariness.

"Hours and minutes... often pointless. You have night and day. S'all you need."

"All you need, maybe. Some of us need a great deal more."

Peggy might never admit to counting certain days. Days since losing Steve. Days since her brother's death. Days since that bizarre adventure in Russia.

"Some work requires precision. Forget hours and minutes -- I like to work in seconds."

He gives her a side glance, something mischievous and teasing in the way he looks.

He's having a good day, despite the pain. A good mental day.

"How ever do you do it."

"I would remind myself that should I fail to meet my goals down to the very second -- well, then I risked not only my own neck but also the necks of countless soldiers whose efforts might depend upon the intelligence I was sent to sniff out."

What use is there in hiding her work, now? Least of all with Max. She isn't certain he understood precisely what she did -- although she'd dropped the word 'soldier' often enough, 'spy' is a trickier thing.

"It's all about margins of error. Mine have always been narrow."

"Mm. I was... A cop."

He admits it in a quieted voice, gentle even. It's not something he talks about often. But then again, it wasn't often he talked until these passed few months. He feels like he's been here an eternity, with these walls and this bathroom and this crew. Nothing changes but everything did.

He glances to the side. What an interesting piece of work this wall is, huh? But he wanted to be equal in this exchange. Tit for tat. She offers, he does, however barebones his reply.

"I was supposed to count the seconds, once. There were..." He licks his lips. His stomach churns, but he's not sure if it's the illness or the topic that causes it. He pays it no attention. "... margins of error."

"You? An officer of the law?"

Peggy smiles to herself as she reassembles the aid kit. A place for everything and everything in its place. As she sorts this out, she lets the idea roll around in her head. Perhaps any true rule of law or sense of justice has long since deteriorated in the way Max sees the world, but now that she considers his existence in light of this new information? Yes, she supposes she can see the hollowed out indentations where justice used to be. Even in defense of his heroics, he spoke of fair trades. Of deaths avoided.

With a gentle click, she closes the kit. And when she turns to face him, her expression is nigh inscrutable.

"I suppose I could see that being the case. Provided I squinted while looking at you."

The topic doesn't seem to be one that brings Max much joy or pleasure, but he relents with the information regardless. It's more of a sad and distant world to him now; he could barely recollect the 'normalcy' of that life through a clear lens these days...

But then, it's been so long. So, so long.

"Mm." He glances distantly to the leather jacket hanging nearby. The police jacket that's more polished thanks to the Atroma, one and the same. Relic from the past. One of his few possessions left, especially now that the Interceptor had died a fiery death on more than one occasion. A distant look in his eye leaves him entirely missing her inscrutable expression; he's lost in his own little world, as he sometimes ends up. Sometimes it's hard to tell if he's talking to himself or someone else.

"Joined when I was... eighteen. After the black snow stopped... maybe younger. We tried..." He looks absolutely exhausted now; tired from his difficult journey with FDR in the mines. His hand squeezes his good knee, the other stretched out more. It's still swollen, still a miserable lump. "Wasn't going to fix anything, though. It was already over."

So. There you have it. The end of (nearly) everything.

He retreated into the Wastelands and that was that.

Edited 2016-04-16 01:05 (UTC)

Well, isn't this interesting? Peggy's shoulders square. And then she watches him with a new and separate kind of attention. Until this moment -- and despite being well capable of seeing good in the man -- she'd never truly considered he might have once lived a life of sacrifice and service. It ought not to make such a difference, but it does. She catches sight of him sighting his jacket. Puzzle pieces materialize, and fall into place.

"You tried," she echoes. God, she'd known so many who tried. A brother lost at war and a scrawny punk in Brooklyn. Sousa, every damned day. Angie whose career always seemed a little too far out of her grasp. It's no secret that Max must've tried all his life to survive. But somehow, this sheds a different light.

"Eighteen," she breathes. "Hell, what a young lump you must've been."

Bittersweet is this realization.

"Weren't we all at some point."

There's a humor there, perhaps, but it's under a grim expression.

He shrugs.

"But the past is over. Talking about it only makes it harder to move forward." At least, that is apparently the case in his world. After all, while it's taught to remember the past to fix the future... it's a little more difficult when there's little to nothing left of the past. Max isn't one who believes their world will be okay ever again. He's not so optimistic. Really, if Furiosa and the wives can keep the Citadel alive and flourishing? That's as close to a good ending as they'll probably ever get.

Ever.

The world will wipe itself out. Of this, he's sure.

And he'll be hopefully dead before then anyway.

"At times," she agrees, "certainly, it can be a hindrance. But it doesn't have to be."

Her hip leans into the counter. And her arms cross over her chest -- snugly beneath her bust, making crisp silk lines in her sleeves. She stands most comfortably like this.

"I'm -- I'm glad to have learned something new. Thank you."

A piece of a greater picture -- given freely, and so she adds it to the mosaic that is Max inside her head.

He scoffs, grunting as he pulls himself to his feet. He's unsteady compared to the usual, but still sturdy enough to be a force to be reckoned with, if something were to happen. As it turns out, he has the stamina and bounce-back to go right back out into the wastelands.

"I'm not that interesting."

He considers her for a moment, lips twitching.

"You don't like it, do you. Not knowing something when the answers are close by."

He's not wrong. Well -- he is wrong about claiming himself as uninteresting. Peggy is deeply interested in him, his world, and the ways in which his brain still ticks around the place he no longer inhabited. But all else is spot on: Peg despises the hollow gaps of ignorance in her own knowledge, and hates it all the more when she knows the bits and bops what fill them are nearby.

She stiffens -- perhaps prepared to steady him on his feet if he seems too woozy.

"--Do you know what a codebreaker is?" Quid pro quo. "Good codebreakers pin down a lot of close-by answers."

He's not too familiar with code-breaking, because.. there's nothing much left to break codes for, you know? But considers her response for a moment. A codebreaker, then. A type of spy for... something or another. It doesn't matter to him what she is in honest titles, doesn't matter what the name of the group she's from is. It's just what she does that's critical. He glances over to her, hands supporting his weight on the edge of the sink while he uses one leg to support him.

The other's still a mess, still swollen. He's waiting for the medication to work. It's blissfully not hurting in general now; just when he puts too much weight on it. That's when the stars dance in his eyes and he curses.

"Too used to finding answers. You can't always have them."

He's not trying to be above her -- it's hard to explain the way Max's concern works, but the easiest and most basic fact is, he feels like he has to say these things. Remind people. It's all wrapped up in how badly he wants the people he's come to care about to not turn out like him. Peggy is certainly one of those people.

He clears his throat.

"But it's a... good quality to have."

"And a damned lucrative one, for a young woman during the late '30s. Codebreakers are good with puzzles. It was their duty -- my duty -- to take enemy correspondence and decipher it."

She acknowledges argument, but counters it with one that's part ambition and part narrow-sighted. "There are always answers -- even if I'm not meant to have them."

And if she's not meant to have those answers? Clearly, she'll want them anyway.

He gives a little nod, turning to start walking out.

"I'll remember that when I need them--"

Only, he sways to the side, his injured leg taking the brunt of his stagger, and he sees near-literal stars in his eyes when the pain jolts through his busted limb. His vision whites out for a moment as the knee buckles and he scrabbles to grip for the sink again. Somewhere in this split moment of time he thinks in a rather late revelation, maybe I shouldn't be standing.

"Ngh--"

"Oh, Hell."

Peggy is at his side in an instant. One strong arm braces against his back, while her opposite hand grabs firmly onto his elbow. "Steady, now," she cautions and holds his weight in place while trying to fish for the chair with her toes. It scrapes across the floor until its near enough to be his convenient seat.

"Sit back down. Have some water, for heaven's sake."

"M'fine," he says, and boy it sounds pre-recorded, for all the times he probably thinks or uses it. But he sinks back down into the chair with his shirt in hand and, sighing, rubs a hand over his face. Then proceeds to knead the thigh just above the flesh that's swollen under his pant leg. "Just my knee again. Carried too much weight in, uhm..." He loses track with the swirl of pain, but catches back up quickly enough. "The mines."

"What helps?"

Her hands hover -- above his shoulders, nearly dancing down his arms to feel the swell in his thigh for herself. But her fingers tighten, and she resists the urge to be quite so forward in her concern. Max is a man seasoned in his years, who likely knows how to manage his pain better than she does. He isn't some young buck soldier who needs a firm and guiding hand. Sometimes, the hardest thing to do is nothing at all.

"Ice? I can get you ice."

There is a restrained concern in the back of her voice.

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theroadwarrior - 2016-04-25 08:40 (UTC) - Expand

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