Text/Action.

[theroadwarrior]

Who: Max and you
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Starstruck
When: Now-ish! Potential talk of mental health, but who knows! PTSD always, anyway.

[Max is not really social, in the days that follow the calibrations. In fact, he's downright hard to find — even for the Starstruck crew. Not mysteriously so, as there's always a shuttle missing and one can assume Max is marooning himself nearby in space itself, but he's still even more out of sigh than usual. He mainly just checks in to make sure nothing much has changed. Finally, after so much avoidance, he wanders back in and appears to seem... semi-manageable as company.

Or maybe he just got sick of space. Feel free to find him around the Starstruck; he's not leaving it much, if at all. He likes napping on the lounge chair, leaving the record to spin without the needle or a tune. If your character is really quiet they can sneak around him and play something. Or maybe try to stir him. But — wait. What's that? Written in Max's handwriting, there's a little note on the spot beside him.

Such a pleasant note. He's apparently learning after the last few punches or near-punches he's given people.

Or, you might find him with his rather nicely-crafted knee brace off; it's sitting beside him as he sits at his desk, and he's carefully working on a busted part to the shuttle with a melding gun. His bum leg is stretched out, relaxed, with a little TLC — one of those nice icy hot packs to quell the ache. Is that a single solitary beer bottle on the desk? Shucks, he's just having a nice cold one while he works. Or, you know, maybe a cuppa tea he took from the kitchen. Maybe. Maybe you find him in the bathroom, trimming his beard, because he hasn't been cutting it and it's getting way too out of hand. Like his hair, which is currently trying to go down his forehead and eat his eyes.

Anyway. He's had some things on his mind. What better way to ask than a text, so he can possibly ignore replies or disconnect early or take his time building his social gauge again?]


medication.

how far has it advanced for you
back home.

doesn't really exist anymore in my world. not a lot other than some natural remedies.

no pharmacies to visit.



anyone need to take them here?


[Just... wondering. He's got a bad knee, after all.

And, well. A bad brain. But he's not about to go into detail about that being a reason he's asking.]



if you were in my head




leave it alone. don't want to talk.

Comments

[theroadwarrior]

[Max looks up with slightly rounded eyes, as if he's already innocent of whatever she's huffing about -- a sort of "ahh?" to her arrival, bookmarked with him adjusting his leg just slightly to avoid it going numb on him. The imp takes a moment to look at the tea cup, and then at the woman, and then back to his work on the shuttle component.]

We don't have much of that back home.

... Straw.

[What a nuisance. And more than willing to face the captain's sour mood.]

[mucked]

[ she reaches for the tea cup -- planning to take it back. reclaim it, as it were. ]

It's not cute, you know. This act of yours.

[ her lecturing voice is out in full regalia, this afternoon. ]

[theroadwarrior]

[He huffs.]

Don't want to be. Would rather take after you and be curdled milk.

[Also that cup is half-drank, on closer inspection. The devil.

He's back to working on the blasted doohickey without much fanfare over the thievery.]

[mucked]

[ she tilts the cup towards herself, tsking and and letting her lip curl when she sees how much has already gone to waste. an unkind sentiment, that, when ordinarily she wouldn't consider even his most egregious thefts to be a waste of her tea. peggy's usually more permissible about it. ]

Well, that should be easy enough for you. [ a huff of breath as she tilts the half-drank and lukewarm tea towards her mouth, fully intending to finish it off despite the fact that he started it. ] I've never met a man quite so curdled.

[theroadwarrior]

Mm, at least that's usual. Calibrations and first mate out, though... Made you more ornery than usual lately.

[He moves to stand, using the desk to balance the weight his bum leg doesn't want to, reaching for another wrench that's smaller for his task. He's been rather avoidant, but most expect that out of him to begin with.]

[mucked]

And you've been running away. More than usual. Lately.

[ peggy drains the cup before slamming it back down on the table. two can play at this game. ]

[theroadwarrior]

Not really running away when there's nowhere to run to.

[Nice try, Peggy. He's turning right back to his work after getting that wrench.]

Just don't want questions. Annoying.

[mucked]

You could do what I do and simply not answer them when they're asked.

[ -- she waits. it seems she's not going anywhere. ]

[theroadwarrior]

[He hmmmphs in that sandpaper voice, not quite looking at her.]

Look how much we have in common.

... Except I don't linger around. I scowl at a distance.

[mucked]

I'm the captain. [ her hands find her hips. ] It's my bloody job to linger.

[theroadwarrior]

[He glances up, sighing as he puts down his equipment.]

You're not lingering because you're the captain, lately.

You're lingering because everything's shit and you don't know what else t'do about it.

[mucked]

[ everyone's a bloody critic. ]

I'm open to suggestions.

[ -- except she really, really isn't. ]

[theroadwarrior]

Hmmm. Don't think you are.

[CAUGHT YA.]

But you could always leave the ship for five minutes.

[He rarely ever does, but hey, he's been doing that lately!

It's easy to get tired of all the socializing when people were just in your head.]

[mucked]

And go where? The planet seems -- dull. Frankly.

[ it actually seems like anything but. ]

[theroadwarrior]

[He raises his eyebrows at her.

That's his response, that's a full paragraph of conversation detailing what a liar you are and how stubborn you are and how you should just go to the damn planet, Peggy Carter.]

[mucked]

[ OH FINE... ]

I can't just leave him behind, Max. [ a huff of breath. ] Not in his current state.

[theroadwarrior]

[Max hums.]

... He doesn't want you hovering like he's Sleeping Beauty.

[He considers for a moment.]

Want me and Rock to be guard dogs while you take a break?

[mucked]

[ peggy's glance cuts, knife-like, when she finds max's eyes once again. it's on the very tip of her tongue: what makes you so certain you know what he wants and doesn't want?

and she just about barely manages to swallow the retort.

another one, perhaps just as barbed, fills the vacuum: ] Oh, yes, and let him be met with dog breath should he wake up in the interim.

[ and she doesn't necessarily mean rock's. ]

[theroadwarrior]

Better that than a captain who isn't sure what to do with herself.

[He taps his nail against the cup of emptied tea.]

.......

I prefer dogs, anyway.

[mucked]

-- Steady. [ she warns him.

before he speaks (even more) out of turn. ]

I'm only doing what he'd do if our fates were reversed. [ which is a more accurate statement than she knows, really. ]

[theroadwarrior]

What he'd do and what's actually good for everyone involved are two different things.

[He shakes his head, rolling an old pen across his knuckles, before tapping the pen to his temple.]

The crazy one's telling you this. Makes it more legitimate.

[mucked]

[ she'd lost him, once.

and then she'd lost him again and again during calibrations. his blood, taken from her night after night. if she's touchy about it now, then there's likely some part of her that recognizes how vain it all is.

that's not the part at her helm just now. ]

Forgive me if I'm not rushing to heed your advice. [ actually, to that end-- ] Did you leave the ship when I was knocked out?

[ it seemed a long time ago, now. the last time she'd been hit by a coma. ]

[theroadwarrior]

[He scowls at her.]

Recall a time you fell down and hit your head for a day, and I played nurse.

[He scoots back his chair, looking up at her, unfazed.]

You trying to 'win' this conversation, Peggy?

Jab at someone else, find a wound to wriggle your finger in, so they don't notice yours?

[mucked]

Max. [ max. she wields his name like a weapon. perhaps he's acclimatized to hearing it, but she can too easily recall a time when saying it would get under his skin. ]

If I wanted to find a wound and -- as you so charmingly put it -- wriggle a finger in, [ but oh god that's exactly what she wants to do, ] then believe you me there are better and deeper wounds I could be poking.

[ -- she can barely hear the tension in her own voice above the klaxons warning her out of this conversation. ]

[theroadwarrior]

... Is there, now?

[His fingers curl on the back of the chair, as he stares with some seriousness.

Perhaps the faintest appalled niggling, in the back of his mind.

Oh, Peggy. You may know way too much about him — but he knows plenty of your flaws, too. And let it be known, he's been screwed up enough from the calibrations to not just drop this and turn away, leave her to her little victory. He can be pretty damn stubborn, too; they have that in common.]

Would Peggy Carter pull skeletons out of closets to come out clean, then?

What other 'wounds' d'you wanna mention, so you can use 'em to ignore my advice?