driftfleet | Text/Action.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[After Sam catches sight of Max's network post, he decides to seek the man out. It's not hard to find him where he's working on a shuttle part. He'd noticed the way he favored his knee in their previous encounter, and he wonders if he's asking about medication for that, or for other reasons.]

Hey, Max.

[Sam always makes sure to make plenty of noise around anyone he knows has PTSD, former soldier or not. Trauma can kick in at the worst times, and nobody needs to get hurt because they thought he was sneaking up on him.]

Your knee doing all right?

[As likely predicted, his eyes snap open -- it's rare to wake up quietly, peacefully, or even groggily with him. As much as he's adapted to this place (for the worst, he thinks, most days), it's hard to undo twenty years of jerking awake with a gasp or with swinging fists. It's not a severe reaction, though; Sam knows how to handle his type, something Max is well aware of, and he sits up stiffly to eye the man.

Hnn. He twists his leg a little, looking down with a frown.]

... Still works enough.

[Wastelander medical: if it still works a little, it's good enough.]

Still attached, huh?

[A slightly wry grin. He's known enough people who'd lost limbs to IEDs that he understands the logic that simply having a limb is good enough.]

You asking about meds for your knee? 'Cause I don't know what's available here, but I know what we had back home.

Still attached.

[That's something. He gives the man a skeptical look, unsure if he should actually tell him anything. It's all so sensitive -- the whole... terminal crazy he's got. 'PTSD', some others call it, but to him, he's a criminal psychotic. Doesn't need a nicer name. Not him. Still... It's not like it isn't obvious. Some day are worse than others. Some days he ends up twitching at the lights, staring off into another year or world. Sometimes his brain doesn't let him be -- whatever counts as normal anymore.

He shrugs.]

Knee's one problem. It's old. Been getting worse n' worse.

We have pills to ease the pain back home. Gotta be careful with 'em, though, that's some powerful shit. Easy to get addicted.

[A pause, and then-]

Therapy would help your brain more than pills. Not saying you couldn't use both, but both is the key word.

[He was going to mention that. Really, the main reason he hasn't looked into getting the medication on his own terms and time is partly fear of addiction. He's already messed up enough as it is; if he ends up hooked some thing, what good is he really then? That second bit, though...

He looks. So skeptical.]

Therapy. What, talking?

Some talking, yeah. But it's more important to learn coping mechanisms. The way it works, certain things throw your mind into a loop of reliving the experiences you went through. Not even things that you'd think are related, necessarily, but things that make you feel like you did then.

[oh my god is someone actually listening to him talk about this without immediately dismissing him what is his life]

[Careful, he's still ready to dismiss you, buddy.

He does wrinkle his nose, though.]

... I don't — talk.

[Did he just do air quotes? He just did air quotes.]

M'a psychotic anyway. Far gone.

[Shhh, this is more attention than anyone's given him so far.]

I've noticed. But if you wanna get better, you got to put effort into it. Can't just take pills. Probably a doctor would say the same thing about your knee.

Hate to break it to you, but if you were half as bad as you make it sound, you wouldn't be nearly this functional, and you probably would've murdered the rest of us in our beds already. The fact that you can think about getting better means you aren't hopeless.

[It genuinely throws him off.

Someone calling him functional. When did he become that? Has he always been?

Functionally like an animal, one would say.

He stares with his arms crossed for a long moment. Thinking. Then nods slightly.]

....

Okay.

Okay?

[He needs Peggy here to translate from Max to English.]

[He looks entirely unsure of his life choices, and shifts uncomfortably, but... He thinks of Peggy with blood on her brow. Beverly with a black eye. Steve, having to grapple him, knock his lights out. Days of floundering awake, panicked a moment too late, and the quiet relief nobody had been there to take the blow.]

How does it work?

We'll have to talk first, so I can find out what's happened to you. Plus talk about the present and the kind of things that trigger your reactions, and combine the two to come up with a plan. It's called cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT; basically, you retrain your brain's thought patterns from the rut they've been in.

[Sam pauses for a moment, then adds:] There isn't a cure, you know. You just get better because you're trying to get better. It's gonna be a lot of work, and there'll be times when you think you aren't making any progress. But you just gotta keep going. You'll always have some problems, I'm not gonna lie to you about that. There are still nights when I don't get any goddamn sleep. But if you compare it to where you were at your lowest point, then it's always worth it.

[Max's gaze draws away, unable to keep eye contact while he speaks — what's happened to you. The thought of even saying the words out loud... it makes his hackles rise, makes the hairs on his neck stand on end. The hand sitting across his crossed arm clenches fabric. Of course there isn't a cure; he wants to get up right now and run off, hop in a shuttle and drift in the middle of space. At least he's stopped wishing he could drift until there's nothing; that was a darker time, back when the hallucinations were at their worst. When he saw Angharad in every crowd, around every corner. When Glory would tickle his eardrum.

He glances sparingly up.

That's true. The guy's honestly right, because his lowest point was forgetting his own voice, standing and looking out over the Plains of Silence and quietly daydreaming of getting so far out, so lost, that he would finally just die. He clears his throat.]

If it makes me more reliable.

[More reliable. It's kind of depressing that's the catalyst for this, but at the same time, a lot of people need that kick in the pants from an outside source. So he can't really blame Max for that.]

I hope it'll do more than that. But reliable's a good start. How long you been here, Max?

[He considers for a moment; this part's easy, really. He doesn't mind listing off facts, but of course, there's the problem of him being terrible at knowing what's when... He drums his good fingers on his good thigh.]

Not used to keeping track of time anymore.

... Probably... Almost two years soon. Hnm. Something like that.

Was on another ship for a year, too. Called the Tranquility.

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