driftfleet | Text. stuck in the middle with you.

Who: Max Rockatansky
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Starstruck
When: Today, for a short little glitch post.
(Also warning for some serious death talk in a thread below.)

[Max doesn't ask for a lot in life. Food of some kind so he doesn't starve. Water so he doesn't have to drink questionable things when its not there. A lack of ultra violence or cannibals. You know. Typical things. And he's been pretty good about behaving himself, keeping out of the way, not having any issues to speak of.

And then shit like this happens.

He's fiddling around at the little desk in the cargo bay when something peculiar happens. His screwdriver sticks to his hand. And no, he's been very hygienic, thank you — more so than usual — so there's really just one reason this is happening. He realizes it about when the empty tea cup on the desk also moves to stick to his arm.

Glitch.

So it goes. His time on the Starstruck the next few days are terribly bleak for him. See: the multitude of things that have somehow find a strange pulling gravity around him. It's not metal, really, it's anything. He's a Katamari character, and things just sort of fly and stick and he has to pry them off with way too much force necessary. Or they just fall off. In the kitchen, a plate falls off him at last, but shatters on the ground.

At one point, he just stays in the chair he's at, because if he stands up... Well...

It's stuck to his ass.

Records, hair pins, food (ugh), anything people leave behind...

And yes, people. People also stick to him.

This is the literal worst day of his life. Obviously. All the trauma that came before this is nothing.]

don't keep anything sharp or explosive on the starstruck right now.

might need remedies for nagging captains soon.

still tempted to saw the augment out of my neck sometimes.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Haven't scrubbed the realist out, Peggy.

[Peggy, he says, naturally. When did that happen? Maybe somewhere between Ochako cooking him pancakes or him combing a hand over Maggie's head as he gave her blood, or perhaps between his quiet strolls with Furiosa through the garden, or Nami's free bottle of booze in exchange for the confetti in his hair. He shrugs, glancing back up at her again.]

Might not remember. Might remember.

... Either way, I can't live like this there. S'not a bad thing. It's natural. It can be a good thing.

[ she mumbles something. a soft hell, a muttered damn. and maybe his arm has demagnetized from her skirt or perhaps her fingers aren't quite so glued to his scalp -- peggy can't know; she's not testing them any further. there's a lump in her throat and she thinks back to how deep and dark she'd dug her guilt one she'd learned the reason for all the ruination in max's world.

but they're so far beyond it, now. max is family in a way she's not felt since michael died. she has friends aplenty, but max was never a friend. he might as well be blood. ha, in a different moment she might have shared that irony with him.

instead, peggy pulls him tighter against her -- wrapping her as-yet untangled arm around his shoulder and dragging him into a quick'n'dirty hug. it's awkward; his head is at her rib cage and she holds him like a lifeline. up, above his crown, she shuts her eyes and fights to keep her voice even.

once, reclining in his shuttle, she'd excitedly explained to him her death. it would come -- eventually -- and it would take her peacefully in her sleep in 2016. is it so different, what he's telling her now? ]

It can be a good thing. Yes, Max, of course.

[He lets her pull him in, and he closes his eyes and sighs quietly under his breath. He's so completely and utterly wrecked. People don't really see it, not like he does, but he feels his grasp on 'survival' slip every time something happens. Beverly treating his knee, FDR hitting on him while they wait for rescue. Natasha offering coffee, or Katie helping him re-deliver a child, someone he actually saved for once. Kiddo, he called her. Haaah.

Did you know he hasn't seen a single ghost today, Peggy? That'll change tomorrow, but he's never had so quiet and still a mind since They'd died. It's awful. An awful terrible thing that he is more than happy to run off the rails with. Because running in general doesn't work here. He's been defeated, ground down into something like a human. It'd started with the Wives, and it'll end here. He's thoroughly fucked and home will be impossible to play pretend in.

And it feels kind of nice.]

Mm. You admitting I'm right for once?

For once.

[ raw emotion does awful things to her voice. it pitches a touch high -- nearly girlish, for a moment, before she clears her throat. it's not fair to feel a man's death before it happens. not fair to feel her heart seize in her chest as though she'd just heard the news. she wasn't there when michael died; she won't be there when fate takes max, either.

at least with steve she --

no. peggy clears her throat a second time. her fingers bite into max's shoulder; she doesn't care how hard. ]

For what it's worth, I hope it'll be a good one.

[ a good death. ]

... Yeah.

[He's pretty sure it won't be. It'll be a ugly, natural death you'd see in the wastelands — in the wild, beyond civilization. Return to nature in some way, but it won't be pretty, and nobody who loves or even likes him will be there to send him off. Or more likely, someone will rip him to pieces out there and take his shit, leave him for the mutated vultures to find. But that's alright; it's what he expected since the day he got in his car and started driving, away from what he used to know. You don't do what he's done and come back clean on the other side. He's not exactly innocent himself, neither. He's had blood on his hands. He's tried to wash them, but at the end of the day, he's killed... mmm, who knows how many, on the Fury Road alone. Self defense don't change a damn thing. The Thunderdome was a bloodbath he'd signed up for. And he's turned his head away from plenty of people suffering and in need.

But really, especially now more than ever, he just wants to be left alone. He wants to know that the last time he saw it, the Citadel was taken, would grow. He doesn't think for a moment it'll all last, but he hopes just enough that maybe Furiosa and the girls would live long, together. Here, though. Here... he's not left alone. He can't even do anything stupid, because people catch him doing it. And even when he's having one of his episodes, people are there. People, always around, always insistent.

The wankers.]

......... That hurts.

[Er. Wait. Did he upset her? I mean, obviously, but.

Upset her beyond his usual thing?

Well of course, Max, talking about inevitable doom upsets 95% of people—]

...

[He awkwardly pats her hand.]

Ummm.

There, there.

... I'm not dead yet.

Right. Exactly. You're still a pain in my arse.

[ -- and just like that, she breaks free. whatever glitch had glued her to him gets momentarily suspended and peggy manages a good wide step in retreat. there's colour in her cheeks and a bit of dew in her eyes. but otherwise, she looks quite the master of her own emotions. ]

And will be for some time yet.

[ ahem! she straightens her skirt. ]

[Haaa.

There's a slyness in his eye as he holds out a hand full of hair pins.]

Aaa... I'll keep that in mind.

Text. stuck in the middle with you.

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