driftfleet | Open | A Monthly Starstruck Mingle!!

He snorts, humored and smiling a bit at the thought.

"Vulgar dancing and crazed fans."

Oh yes, people lost their minds one way or another. He flips the record, placing it carefully.

"... But he had good music."

He plays the flipside, a more raucous and energized in sound in comparison to the sweet tune before.

One could imagine, somewhere distant, that Max would sit in his over-cramped kitchen, littered with baby toys and hoarded full of strange decorations and plants, the dishes partly done, his son sitting precariously on the counter, his wife pulling the window blinds apart, and a record much like this would drift through the entirety of the tiny place.

One could imagine.

"Oh, listen, it's a song for you--" Peggy teased, because she could. Max always felt a little like a stray she'd insisted on keeping once he'd found his way to their doorstep. Mind you, she's responding only to a fraction of the chorus. The music itself, however, managed to inspire an easy shimmy in her shoulders. Halloween had lightened her spirits; she was eager to enjoy the beat.

"You're lucky you still look like such a fright, because otherwise I'd ask you to dance. Only I don't think you could keep your balance just now."

He raises his eyebrow at her mild inclination to dance, but is actually a bit more eased by her own easy spirits. If she's in a good mood, it's not very polite for him to sour it, especially on a day like today. After all, he got something to work, and that smooths a lot of tension out of him that he'd been carrying this week.

The mention of his appearance leaves him thoughtful for a moment.

... Yeah, was a rough time. He shifts, clearing his throat. But ultimately:

"I thought I always looked like a fright."

Self-deprecation at its finest.

"True enough. But now you could give even fear itself a bit of a fright."

Maybe if she harangued him long enough about his state of being, he'll tell her about what happened -- at least, that was her current strategy. It was given to being revised on the fly should the need arise.

Huff. But it's not really a very dedicated huff, not enough attitude to it. Letting the record play out, he sits in his thoughts for a lengthy moment, rubbing a thumb in quiet circles on the inside of his elbow, where the vein would be. It's always a trial of patients, with this one. Always a holding of breath in a room before he makes his hesitant thoughts known.

"It'll heal up."

He reaches up, runs a hand over his hair, where there's a set of stitches, right on the crown. He'll probably have a little spot there that doesn't grow hair. But if you really look, he's got a few of those already.

"Got lucky."

"You did," Peggy answered. She wouldn't necessarily agree with his definition of lucky, however -- "But your 'luck' is starting to look an awful lot like a pattern. I don't need to implore you to be more careful, do I?"

Because she can just about expect how poorly that would go over. And yet she implied it all the same, feeling her own particular brand of stubbornness raising its head.

He seems to genuinely consider her request, eyes glancing up toward the ceiling of the cargo bay. Hmm. "Don't think it'd change even if I promised to be good. Tends to follow me." That's 100% the honest truth. He doesn't often go seeking out trouble — in most cases, it just sort of finds him and drags him around against his will.

"Don't regret it, though. I was... hm... being good. By your definition."

He turns back to the record collection.

"Scavengers tryin' to attack a passenger from the fleet. I stopped 'em, they found me later, wanted to get even." He doesn't really feel like he made a mistake there, anyway. The main mistake he made was Tempest getting dragged into it. He didn't exactly want anyone dying on his behalf. It's good that she's alright, in the end.

"I doubt it's only my definition," Peggy responded. But without much argument to her. It was true: whatever happened to Max, he'd accepted it as a worthy bargain for someone else's safety. She'd long-believed him to be a good soul beneath it all, but it wasn't always like him to say, aloud, that someone else's safety was worth endangering his own. Mister Survivalist, indeed.

She reaches for one of the records, eager to browse. "But I'm glad the cause was just -- and not merely someone kicking your stubborn head in."

He hums, expression a bit more subdued.

"Becoming a real problem, worrying about everyone."

It's hard to say if he sees it as a genuine problem, or if he's joking. The surly expression doesn't dissipate; it merely shifts a little, lips twitching, something unreadable in his expression as he watches anything but what Peggy's doing. Rubbing his calloused and crooked fingers against the scruff accumulating on his chin, he seems to be formulating another comment.

"Was worried you'd think I left again. On purpose."

And then he'd be some slave somewhere in space, while everyone thought he'd bailed.

That was his biggest concern, and he kind of hates that a little.

...Oh. Peggy digests his words. Her expectations had mattered to him. Perhaps not hers, alone, but certainly the Starstruck's. And whatever other bridges he'd build within the fleet. She hemmed and hawed for a moment -- and erred on the side of a very light and very brief touch. She cups her palm against his elbow. A little moment, and then she retreats.

"As much as you likely don't want to hear me say it, I have far more faith in you than that."

And it's her victory; he doesn't flinch, despite his guarded and skittish nature this week. Maybe he looks a bit flustered, though. A bit embarrassed. It's a very open thing for the likes of him to admit. And really, he's not sure whether he should be relieved at her answer or not. It's such a terrible mistake to put faith in him. A terrible, horrible, no good mistake. Makes a icy pit in his stomach at the thought of how badly it could go wrong.

"Worry about that, sometimes," he says, shaking his head.

A pause. He scratches his nose, careful to avoid a spot where a deep dark bruise has formed.

"... Thank you."

Because it's something. He appreciates it, even if it scares the piss out of him.

Also he just thanked you for something the sky is falling.

Peggy smiles. Nothing broad and gaudy -- but small, thoughtful, and bursting at its tiny seams with affection. As smiles so, it's more in her eyes than anywhere else. She can sense his wariness when it comes to handling someone else's trust, but she means what she says. Having faith in him means she also has faith in his ability to digest such a gift with at least a grudging amount of grace. And, with two words, he proves her right.

"Now, there is some sweet music." She teases, calling abrupt attention to the rarity of his spoken gratitude. "Wouldn't I like to have that on a record. Play it back all bloody day."

He gives her the flattest stare, all black and blue and frazzled.

It's quite funny, even if the situation had been relatively dire.

"Sure you wouldn't have enjoyed the peace and quiet?"

"It's not like you're a particularly boisterous person, you know."

At least, she thought, so long as the rest of the crew keeps from underfoot. But Peggy resisted the urge to give him an additional fwap on his arm. He looked bashed up enough, and she wasn't feeling particularly needle-y today.

"But -- your continued absence would have been noted, Max."

Well. Maybe a little needle-y.

"Only when someone takes my things," he grumbles.

... He has things here. Very strange. Almost sounds unnatural to him. Not that he has much — but the tools, the shuttle, his jacket, they're all very important to him. And now he's collecting... records... things like that. He owns a record player. He lives on the ship. What a horrifying thing. He rubs a scabbed and ugly mark on the back of his wrist, tormenting it. "That's... hnm..."

He's not really sure what to call it. Not sure how to explain.

He settles on something simple.

"Frightening."

Frightening? When someone takes his things?

Peggy cants her head. It took her a moment, truly, to suss out what was truly chilling the blood in his veins. It wasn't the loss that unsettled him. It was the gain. She betrays that brief desire to lay a hand on his shoulder -- but, ultimately, resists.

"Believe it or not, I understand. It's hard to trust the nicer things found here. The record players and the -- opportunities."

Her opportunity, it seems, is shaped like Steve Rogers and she barely knows how to trust its presence. Barely understands how to take hold of it, and set aside grief.

He glances at her, and for a moment, he offers a sense of vulnerability in the way the light is cast across hollowed, bruised features. It's not like this is new information between them; she's told him before, the dangers of keeping people close. But now he's not just caring about people, taking care of things like wounded dogs. He's carving a place for himself here that should have never been carved. That's what he tells himself. People expect to see him wandering the cargo bay. People visit him. And sometimes even need him for something or another.

He's been here for nearly a year, he'd surmised.

A year. He hasn't been in one single place in decades. The fact that he's settled even as much as he has is what is frightening. He was taken on that ship and actually had a passing thought that he wouldn't be where he was supposed to be. He was taken, and instead of wondering where his captors would lead him, he worried about where they were pulling him from.

He reaches to rub his fingers against the scarring on the back of his neck. A symbol of where things changed, before he'd ever shown up on the fleet. Max drops his fingers and leaves them to scrape the scab on his arm again.

"Almost lost the... opportunity." He really lives here. As a person, living with a name, with a job on the ship, with frie — with shipmates, who have names that he says sometimes. He shares with them sometimes. He worries about them. And they worry in return, much to his eternal confusion. He raises his eyebrows at her, and he finds it surprisingly easy to look her in the eye when he says, rather softly, "You mean the people."

The record's over, been over, skips over itself without music. And you know, Max had already determined he'd take a blade to the throat for Peggy not too long ago. He'd drain himself dry of blood to save her, Furiosa, or a number of people on board the ship.

Maybe he says as much with the loyal, watchful eye he carries.

He hates what you all do to him.

And yet he's sitting here.

Edited (shh i like editing randomly) 2016-12-01 08:40 (UTC)

-- Peggy meets his eyes with ease. They've always betrayed her feelings far quicker than the rest of her face. Just now, they gleam a little. She takes a seat on the ground and leans her shoulders against the nearest shuttles wall. By now, more than a year on, the fleet has changed her too. Some of her harder tenets of secrecy have softened. And thanks in no small part to those around her, she's managed to exchange abject grief for that same elusive thing they're talking about: opportunity.

"I mean the people," she concedes -- letting him have this correction with no argument and no indignation. "Do you know what it means when I say carpe diem? It's Latin. I don't know how much of it would have survived by your time."

He looks just a bit surprised, and the expression smooths into confidence.

"Seize the day." He ducks his head, looking toward the record box. "I know some."

Remember that saying, 'don't judge a book by the cover'?

There's apparently Latin in Max's book.

Peggy smiles. She relishes her shock that he should so smoothly understand that which has, by many measures, grown archaic already by her decade. She likes it when he surprises her with his hidden depths. She likes it when it turns out he's more than what he pretends to be. In those moments, Peggy supposes she feels closer to him. It comforts her, at times, to know he can be as tricksome as she is. Give her hope for his well-being in a world unlike his own.

"Bravo, sir," she tips an invisible hat. Tugs an invisible forelock. "The saying stands. I've been trying to teach myself how to seize the day, so to speak. And now allow opportunities to slip by me once again."

Gentler: "I'd like to see the same for you."

The idea has never been tempting, not once. He's never considered chasing opportunity other than that necessary to live. Playing it safe is simply a better option, regardless of what is forfeit. He's tried very hard to imagine going back home as he is, trying to live as he's done here. He knows that going home will destroy a part of him again. Maybe not immediately, but eventually, the moment life slips away again under his watch.

So... the idea of seizing the day is quite intimidating.

It makes it sound too simple. Not just one day. A whole lifetime. A whole lot of regret, all born from this one day. He breathes out, stretching out his bum knee, readying himself for the daunting challenge of rising back up to his feet. He's been alright and the general ache has been limited before, but the attack on him has set him back a little. Supposes its his own fault; he hates doctors, after all. Maybe if he tried to get anyone in his world to look at it...

But the Organic Mechanic makes his throat hot and rancid, and he avoids the idea.

"Maybe," he finally says, because he knows his true, honest answer isn't as appealing. It's at least a way to leave negotiations open, and he's learned enough about Peggy to know just how much negotiations matter in this relationship. It leaves room for further discussion, even if it's not immediate. "It's good for you, though. The opportunities."

He holds out his arm, frowning. Help him a little as he gets up? Usually such a request would be impossible, stubborn bastard that he is. He's in a semi-decent mood, though, and he knows he'd be more embarrassed struggling to get up on his own in her presence than getting a hand.

Besides, the joint's stiff something awful, today.

He needs to walk on it.

"Good for us," she corrects him -- a little curtly, maybe, but with undertones of something sweeter. Peggy eyes his arm and wonders whether he truly wants her help. Her eagerness betrays her, however, because she's quick to find her feet again and grip his wrist. A little too quick. A little too eager.

Peggy hoists him. She pulls him upwards and inwards, dragging him back to his feet. And she doesn't let him go, either. Instead, she hooks her elbow quite firmly around his -- insisting silently that should he want to go a-walking then they would go together. Arm in arm. Like two sisters in a Jane Austen novel.

Edited 2016-12-02 23:39 (UTC)

He bites back a grunt of both pain and exertion, but once he's upright and steadied he's already feeling infinitely better. He moves to pull away and finds himself glued by the other's insistence, and immediately, his expression flattens into the exasperation of someone who's eaten a sour grape.

"Can walk just fine," he says, but he just stands there with his arm still hooked. A clear symbol that too many people around here have him around their pinky finger, and it's not like Max doesn't know that. He huffs like an old dog, and takes a wobbly first step before they begin to smooth out, familiarity with the ache returning.

....... She still has him, latched like a rather helpful ball and chain.

He takes a few more steps.

The sour grape is sour still.

"Really."

P E G G Y THIS IS CRUEL, I'M A GROWN AND BITTER MAN WITH STUBBORN PRIDE.

"Call it practice," she tells him around a sly smile. "Practice for the day you actually learn some manners."

But it's much more than that. Peggy is a little worried about his leg, and she suspects walking alongside him -- even just the length of the hangar -- might help her diagnose it for herself: the extent of his aches and pains.

She pats him gently on the arm. "Walk with me?" Peggy asks. And he's right about one thing: it's a negotiation.

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