driftfleet | everybody's starstruck in june.

Entry tags:

everybody's starstruck in june.

Who: starstruck crew & visitors
Broadcast: n/a
Action: aboard the ship
When: june

[ another month; another mingle. but there are changes in the air! the starstruck has some fresh crew to boast of, as well as a spiffing new lounge. things have been difficult, lately -- the common area might make for a great place to decompress and socialize with your fellow starstruckers.

after all, it seems the captain's gone and requisitioned max's record player. for the first week in june, it'll be returned again and again to the new lounge. good luck hiding it from her, rockatanksy.

ready steady go! ]

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My mom would read to me, sometimes. After a while, I think even she got a little tired of the stories repeating themselves.

[ but not steve. he never minded the repetitions so much. books were a way out of his sick bed and his love for the written word lingered even after the serum. ]

Never really knew my father.

[ personal information for personal information ]

... Didn't really know my mother.

[He resists the urge to reach over and pick up the top book; as much as he's a rude ass who takes food from Peggy when she's not looking (don't leave food out, he's told you, alright?), personal items like books or jackets or jewelry are different. He sympathizes with holding onto the past, or at least enjoying it from time to time, even if he doesn't necessarily do himself the favor of indulging, too.

His mother died giving birth. Hospitals weren't doing so well, even when the guzzoline wars and water wars hadn't hit full swing yet; the world was still crippled by the state of things. Max is just content to have had his father for eight or so years before the cancer ate him up, after the black snow.

Less and less people back home remember the hot black snow.]

Different worlds.... Probably around the same time for them, though. Maybe.

... Send 'em on a blind date.

[Also, Max just made a joke.

Again, don't point it out, it's a rare dinosaur bone.]

[ he doesn't laugh so much that his smile becomes more amused and his scoff a bit light, a shade brighter. sarah rogers never moved on after her husband passed and steve and her were a bit of a team before tuberculosis came and took her away. ]

I think she'd be as bad at those as I would.

[ not that he tried but who are we kidding, he would have been horrible. ]

[Max is confused for a moment, okay. You're a handsome dude with decent values and you throw shields really good, what's there to be horrible at?

... Oh yeah, many years of awkward scrawniness and social woes.

Though, Steve is a bit like his father in personality and stature. Mr. Rockatansky was a tall guy; not really buff, because he was academic, but he casted a long, sturdy shadow wherever he walked. Max has forgotten a lot about him, but he remembers that. Making sure he wasn't separated from his father in town by running in that shadow. Always rushing to keep up with those long strides. Mr. Book Reading Quiet Man, always thoughtful, very careful with his ration of genuine laughs. Hnn.

Max became more like him after he lost people, too. Maybe that's how it happens.

...

Hah.]

They could sit and just read at each other until the date's over.

I'm pretty sure it's not how a date goes but it might just work.

[ granted, steve has never been in an official, traditional Date. he and Peggy lost their evening in the Stork club when he went in the ice and here, their dates have been anything but ordinary.

it's just fine with him. he would have stumbled and babbled his way through one, he's pretty sure. ]

You know, you can take one.

[ he looks at the books. ]

Some of them I'm reading for the fourth time.

[He actually looks a little unsure as he glances back at them. It's still hard to touch things that aren't his. Things like books, anyway. Things with the power of memory behind them. Or perhaps worse than that, it's yet another way for Max to integrate in this world and lose a little more of the old one.]

... Seems like that'd get boring. A fourth time.

Some of these I could read a hundred.

[ some stories never die, it would seems. he takes breaks between them but he always comes back to them eventually and not only because of the limited variety. he has his own books, purchased on different planets, new, alien stories. it's different than the books from home. ]

There's one I read every year since I was a kid. Was kinda glad to find it in the library here.

[ he goes through the pile and places the winds in the willows between them. ]

[Huh.]

Must be some story.

You can have it. I'm not going to read it again for a while.

[ not when he has two new books and four that he only read twice. ]

You could tell me how you liked it.

[He picks it up slowly, with surprising care.]

... Alright. Ahm. Won't get any shuttle oil on it, either.

[He holds up a hand, like an oath.]

Unless you break my record player. Then I shoot it out the airlock.

You know it's all her, right?

[ this plotting regarding the record player, the theft. ]

I just know better than to try and stop her.

Mm. That's what happens. Captain and lovebird, either way you're doomed.

[He tugs on his ear, a charade, one Steve might get, might not.

She's got you by the balls, mate.

Max knows the feeling, but it's a twenty-year-old feeling.]

You know, if you drop by the bridge sometimes or come to the kitchen at breakfast time, she'd probably stop stealing it so frequently.

[ probably. he's not sure of anything Peggy Carter. it's always an eighty percent chance, at best. ]

[He rolls his eyes.

He'd die for this crew, yeah, but eat with them? Now you've gone too far.]

I like my quiet.

So do I.

[ he gets the loner ways, max. ]

still. drop by early enough and it'll be just you two.

[ god knows she doesn't sleep all that well as of late. ]

[Max snorts, so skeptically.]

There's better company for her to keep.

You and the Bird Guy, and the Sneaky Redhead, t'name a few.

--- Do you call him like this to his face? Because I won't mind being there when you do.

[ Bird Guy, ha. sam would be beside himself. it's the best thing that happened to steve today, hands down. ]

You know, there's a lot she keeps to herself but I do know that she hates it when anyone tries to do this. Let her decide what company she wants to keep.

[ a beat. ]

She likes you and she's stubborn. I'd hate to find out how much.

Yeah, mmm... well. I've been doing it for decades. Gonna be disappointed when she figures out she can't roll the rock all the way up the cliff.

[The mental image is great, though.]

[ he scoffs. ]

You know she'd only take down the cliff, right?

[ come on max, you know he's not wrong. ]

[Hmm.]

She's only one person.

[He studies the back of the book, thoughtful.]

Used to be like her. Lot like her.

But if she, um... thinks every cliff's breakable or climbable, she's gonna have a painful life. She takes too much on her shoulders.

... Probably like most of you hero-types.

I'm not a hero.

[ but peggy is; and to steve, she always will be. max isn't wrong; he's probably more spot-on than he knows. ]

I don't know about any cliff. She won't fight windmills. If she's fighting this cliff, it's because it's important enough.

[ he picks up one of the books, passes a finger along its spine. ]

Whatever we can spare her.

[ it's their responsibility. ]

[Max looks so very skeptically at Steve.

Because as important as the other part of the conversation is, he just — ]

She also said she's not a hero.

[Look at his eyebrow hike up, bud.]

... You're both fulla' shit, though.

[ that does make him laugh. ]

Well, I can't say I'm surprised. I'm glad you told her, though. She deserves to hear it.

You say she's one, she says you're one.

Lots of bickering.

Lots of record-stealing.

Actin' like you wouldn't drop everything and rescue a cat out of a tree for a little girl.

[With the most straightest of pokerfaces, as he folds his arms:]

You're both lucky I put up with you.

[this little shit-]

Oh that's how it is?

[ he can cross his arms too buddy. ]

You know if you won't do it, she'll keep stealing it for the rest of time. God knows what it'll be next.

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