Mazie | LORE (_lore_) wrote in rrinitiative, @ 2012-08-26 12:58:00 |
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Entry tags: | cal, cal and mazie, mazie |
Psychoanalyze
Characters: Cal and Mazie
Setting: Courtyard to the kitchen, late afternoon.
Even if Cal had only been up for two hours (or a little less), he was already feeling accomplished with his day so far. Working on the journals had kept him focused since he’d grudgingly crawled out of bed to stop his monitor’s blinking, and the mental energy eventually shifted to physical. Cal had bailed on his room, pulling an a-shirt on before heading to the kitchen for breakfast and a coffee.
Old habits had him eating as he walked, idly chewing an apple and lobbing it up and down between bites. A workout sounded good, especially after the slight stiffness of a new bed, no matter how much softer it was than his jailhouse bunk. But a few minutes with the jump rope or on the bench press would work it right out. Moving across the walkway, Cal stopped at the edge of the courtyard, peeling off his shoes and socks before starting across with a grin.
Mazie had finally decided she needed real food from the kitchen after she'd eaten only pretzels and chips most of yesterday. She hadn't bothered changing out of her pajamas, only tightening the strings on her sweatpants and tugging a little at the white tshirt she wore as she headed towards the kitchen. She walked the path without really thinking about it, down the stairs and towards the courtyard when she looked up to see someone there, taking his shoes and socks off. She wasn't wearing either but even if she had been, she probably wouldn't have taken them off before stepping on the grass. "...What're you doing?" She called across the courtyard, curiosity getting the better of her. That and her promise to try and be sociable
“Just enjoyin’ it,” Cal replied as he walked, stopping to look back as he curled his feet up. “The whole thing, you know? Normal clothes, food I made myself, my own shower... it’s kinda enough to make me wanna confirm that the ground under me’s solid.” He shrugged a little, wondering if he might get a grin to match his. Cal turned back, heading Mazie’s way with a sip of coffee. “Don’t think we’ve met unless it was on the computers, I’m Cal.”
She could smell it before he even got to her. He had coffee. And she needed some. She was listening to him talk about not being sure if this place was real and she guessed that made sense, but she also wasn’t aware of any real technology that would allow something like to to happen in such detail virtually..but that was all before she smelled the coffee. “We did meet, Doc. Mazie,” She said, trying for a smile and she was able to give a small one. “You’ve got coffee...”
Cal laughed, nodding in recognition. “On the computers, yeah,” he realized. “It’s funny, you know? With those surveys, it’s free insight on folks before you even have a face to face, which is kinda weird, but cool too. Good meetin’ you in the flesh.” He hesitated before taking another drink as Mazie pointed out that, yes, he had a mug in his hand. “Caffeine, one hell of a harsh mistress, yeah?” Cal asked rhetorically, taking a sip before offering the mug to Mazie. “Get down on it, but I gotta warn you, I’m kinda heavy on the sugar.”
"You should be happy you met me virtually first. I'm better that way." He was just offering her some coffee. Just like that, his coffee, and he was offering it to her. Mazie really had no clue how so many just...nice, considerate people had ended up in jail but maybe that was why they were all here instead? And she was starting to wonder if maybe, just maybe, the Elders had mistaken her for one of the same kind. Still, she took the coffee and took a sip of it, closing her eyes as she realized for the first time how much she'd missed it. Her mind had been elsewhere, on the one real comfort of having a computer, and then on Autumn and Adam and anyone else she happened to meet here. But the small comforts, the things like a bathroom to herself, hadn't really set it. Until right about how when she realized that yes, she was allowed to have coffee again. Real coffee. "Wow," She said, handing him back his cup but obviously reluctantly. "Is there more?"
He couldn’t help a little pause there, some extra bounce in his smile as he regarded Mazie. Social awkwardness? Check. Same with the slight pallor that worked with her own words and her survey, here was someone not as big on these moments as he was. Here was someone who stayed indoors and preferred these moments via computer, at least. “I’d say you’re doin’ just fine in the here and now,” Cal assured her. “And there was when I left, yeah. If you’re game we can split this, get me a refill and yourself a cup to boot.” Trust was his goal, the direct openness that Cal worked in seemed a consistent medium for gaining it, and his free smiles didn’t seem to hurt. “Figure I wouldn’t mind one more cup,” he offered, nodding back towards the kitchen.
"I was told to keep the droolin' on myself to a minimum," Mazie said as she looked back his way. She walked with him, but mostly tried to make his words make sense to her. "...Why?" She asked, looking back at him curiously. "With the coffee, why do you want to give me any of it?" Let alone share it and still get himself a refill and her a cup. It just plain didn't make sense to her, when he could have twice as much as opposed to less.
“Understandable question,” Cal answered as they walked, letting himself nod in thought over how to explain it concisely. “We’re supposed to be a community, right?” he started, emphasizing his point by offering the mug again after another drink. “And yeah, that means working together on whatever they give us to do, but it means trusting each other too. Not just to do chores and all, neither, I was always terrible with my own.”
He flashed a grin there, fixing his glasses as Cal left the courtyard behind with Mazie, moving past the doors to other resident’s rooms. “We gotta know we can look to each other, I figure. If there’s trouble or you’re just not feelin’ right, one of the worst parts of prison for me was knowin’ how far help was if I needed it, and this place is supposed to be better than that. So let’s help each other, and it won’t ever be too far away. First step? Coffee.” Clearly, he wasn’t jaded by his time in lockup, or possibly anything. Ever.
Strange man, but oddly enough she kind of liked him. He was giving her coffee and it was pretty delicious. And sure, he waxed on a little bit, but maybe he was right. They were a community and she was supposed to trust these people. "Who can you trust more than a doctor, anyway?" She asked, smiling a little more this time after she sipped the coffee and handed it back to him. "But you're real quick to trust me and you don't even know who I am or what I did to get in here. You sure you want to?"
“I’ll trust you until you give me reason not to,” Cal offered with another shrug. “I’m sure some of us in here are gonna be kinda raw, but with a little luck we’ll deal with it and get through this.” In fact, he knew there were dangerous sorts in here, but did any of them have a choice? Beyond going back? “Let’s play it like this,” he suggested with a thoughtful turn to his expression. “You think you’re the kind of person I shouldn’t trust?”
Oh...Huh, that was interesting. Did she? "No, of course not. I'm trustworthy...I do stuff for the good of people like us." She said, shaking her head a little bit. Narrowing her eyes a little bit, she tilted her head back at him. "Just what kind of a doctor are you, Doc?"
Cal shook his head in amusement at that, turning the last doorway into the kitchen with Mazie. “I was a general practitioner, which means wherever they needed me in the hospital. Assisted on surgeries and all. But I knew a guy during residency who was working through the psych program too, we’d talk on quiet nights,” he explained earnestly, technically not lying, just leaving things out. “I’m not trying to spook you or anything, but you asking about trust means you expect people to worry about you because you worry about them. I think this kind of situation merits taking a few chances, at least we’ve got ‘em here.”
Mazie nodded, listening as she let his words turn over in her head. "No offense, Doc, but I don't know if I believe in the psych stuff. Maybe you can prove to me that it's worth some credit, though. Whatcha got off of me so far?" Mazie could smell the coffee from here and it had her gravitating towards the coffee maker and awkwardly stopping in front of it as she realized that she hadn't looked around long enough to find the coffee mugs when she'd gotten her stash of chips before.
“I did say I wasn’t a psychiatrist or psychologist, right?” Cal reminded her, one step ahead of Mazie as he pulled a fresh mug from the cabinet and offered it over. Should he do this? Probably not, not if he wanted to stay as unobtrusive as possible. Still, from what Mazie had already told him, Cal had gotten quite a bit. “You’re hyperfocused,” he said first, idly refilling his mug and leaving some for Mazie. “Which I got from you going for coffee before you have something to drink it out of.” It was a challenge, though, and that made it harder for Cal to just joke like that as he leaned against the edge of the counter, blowing at the steam curling off of his fresh coffee.
“Everything else is just me spitballing, so tell me what sticks,” he said as he moved for the sugar. “You’ve got a divisive worldview, with the ‘good people like us’. Us versus Them, yeah? You’re a skeptic, probably with good reason, and that’s a good part of you preferring the machines. Controlled environment, right?” he asked rhetorically, spooning sugar into his mug. “Also got some doubts in your own judgment from time to time. But then you’re the sort who doesn’t flinch back when that outside world barges in, else we wouldn’t be standing here. You’re attentive, logical, and engaging, with focus on supporting evidence in your perspective. How’s that?”
The hell? It was like he was in her head this whole time. And Mazie wasn’t sure she liked that. Turning to look at him, she studied his eyes carefully,squinting her own as she did so. "You've known me of all five minutes and you got all that off me so far?" Mazie asked, taking the mug from him and pouring a generous amount in it, then turning to the sugar. Hyperfocused, divisive worldview...it all sounded correct but she wasn't sure she liked the way it sounded when it was laid out like that. "Are these all bad things?" For some reason, she felt like if he was able to gather all that from her in such a small matter of time, those qualities had to be negative. How would positive ones shine through so quickly?
“No, I’ve known you all of five minutes and tossed out some conjecture,” Cal clarified, head shaking as he offered a reassuring smile. “According to my buddy, most people out there have those traits to one degree or another. Nations exist because of ‘us versus them’, right?” But apparently he was dead-on, which made Cal feel a little bad for her reaction. “And even if I were right, no, those aren’t all bad things. They’re just traits, not intrinsically good or bad, though I’d say in your case they’re good.”
Cal just kept up the earnest expression as he met Mazie’s eyes through his heavy glasses. “I could go into why on every count, but that might start sounding like a pick-up line. Figured I’d let you drink some coffee before I start on all that,” he teased, tipping his mug Mazie’s way in a little toast.
Not intrinsically good or bad. Huh. Sipping at her coffee, she watched him while he spoke and ended up smiling a little more. Sure, she was still kind of weirded out by the fact that he'd so easily tapped into her and the qualities she knew and admitted she had, but something was starting to occur to her. "...You like doing this, don't you? Making things like this make sense to other people. Because they make sense to you but not everyone gets it like you do. You like seeing what you find and explaining it?" Maybe people to him were like computers to her?
As she mulled that over, she had to wonder if it was really the case or maybe he was just good at this kind of stuff naturally. Maybe he was just intuitive or whatever. "You ever have someone do that kind of stuff for you? Tell you about your qualities?"
Cal turned the questions around in his head, puzzling out a safe answer, because otherwise it was an unabashed yes. He loved doing this, he would’ve been amazing at it if things hadn’t gone entirely sideways in his life. “I like helping people, yeah,” he agreed after a moment. “And usin’ my brain for more than dodging fights at mealtime or in the yard. The fact that I can do both in here? It’s a better perk than a soft bed, maybe a tie with a private shower,” Cal teased with a chuckle. “And yeah, same guy I keep talkin’ about from my residency training? He told me I had a knack for grief counseling, but that I turned shit around in my head too much. ‘Good with others, not with yourself’ is what he said, so now you got some insight on me. Makes us a matched set.”
That was definitely a relief, them being matched now. Pulling herself up on the counter, she sipped again at her coffee while she listened. "You and I have some things in common, Doc." Mazie said, watching him again. "The helping people stuff, doing more with your brain than just surviving...I can understand that. The reading people thing? Not at all, but the helping people thing...yeah, in our own ways I guess. But if you're so intent on helping people, how'd you end up here?"
His smile dimmed noticeably as Cal shrugged, drawing in on himself a touch. It was more noticeable with his stature, the slight slouch and folded arms diminishing him a bit. “I was doing outreach work with a prison. Medical conditions at Atlanta USP are pretty shit, some of the inmates leave with injuries that make reintegrating twice as hard, and it’s all shit that can be corrected with proper medical care,” he explained, forcing himself to say it. If Cal wanted trust here, he’d have to give it in kind. “I don’t know who did it or how, but someone dropped cash and smack in my bag. Shit, next thing I know I’m gettin’ booked for trafficking and thrown back in the joint where I was working. But I didn’t do it,” he stressed, “I don’t fuck with that stuff, not even the medical-grade if I can help it.”
Mazie watched him dim and was surprised that he did. She was positive nothing would make him look like that, not when he had looked so happy and welcoming before. And she hated that something had happened to the good doctor to make him that way. So she was quiet, not even sipping on her coffee while she listened. At the end she realized her list of things to do here was growing, but that was fine. She wanted it that way. Maybe these were her people all along, maybe these were the people she needed to be helping instead? "Don't worry, Doctor. I'll find out who framed you. And when I do, I'll make sure his prison sentence doesn't get picked up by this place."
It was such a bold, unresearched statement that even Cal thought it was idealistic, but all the same it was heartening to hear. Trust earned, he told himself as he smiled a touch for Mazie. “Wouldn’t be much to feel good about if you got locked up the moment you got out of here,” he told her with a little shake of his head. “But thanks, I... it’s nice to hear. Hell, it’s just nice to hear someone believe me. Loan debt like I had, wasn’t too hard to think I’d make some extra cash however I could, I guess.” Cal shrugged again, gulping down a swallow of coffee. “But if we do this right? Clean slate, yeah?”
“Didn’t say I was going to do it once I got out of this place,” Mazie said, a smirk forming on her lips. “I don’t like hearing people didn’t believe you. I trust you until you give me a reason not to, right?” Mazie asked then went in for a sip of her coffee. “Clean slate, yeah..though I don’t particularly think I want a clean slate. I like my slate just the way it is.” Shrugging a little, she glanced back at him. “You didn’t ask what I was in for. Are you not curious?”
“No, I am,” he confirmed, keeping his focus on his coffee for a moment. “I wonder about everyone I met so far, everyone that’s gonna do a checkup with me tomorrow too, but I don’t think it’s my place to ask.” He looked Mazie’s way, more composed again and even smiling faintly. “Don’t need to know someone’s record to tell if they’re dangerous or not, and for all I know it’s private. But I can tell you’re cool, which is the technical term according to my psych buddy,” Cal joked, cracking his smile wider. “Now, if you wanted to tell me? Don’t see myself complaining.”
"You're doing checkups?" She asked, looking back his way and trying to remember the last time she'd had a check up. "Don't know that there's anything wrong with me but might as well cash in on that one. We've got a Doc here who wants to do check ups, guess you need some patients first?"
Sipping her coffee, she smirked a little. "They caught me for, what they called, cyber theft and espionage. Which are just fancy terms for saying that I tricked some high-powered people out of their precious money and some of their secrets too."
Disassociation, Cal noted silently, wishing he could turn off the observant, clinical side of his mind. But he knew he couldn’t, it was no surprise that he was still dissecting Mazie’s persona as they talked, even if she’d already supported him in his own confession. “Yeah, my old man used to say that you never heard about the evils of the world as much as when rich folks had to suffer ‘em,” he recounted with a slight laugh, shaking his head at Mazie’s wording.
“I always kinda figured computer crimes would be, like, white collar jail, you know? Like it’s technically a jail, but there’s a spa too or somethin’.” Cal sighed, hoping he was right in that assessment; Mazie had already endeared herself some slight bit, and he didn’t want to think she’d suffered through the brutalities of prison. “And yeah, checkups. Just come on down to the library, we’ll go over anything worryin’ you, I’ll check the vitals. Won’t take up one bit of your day, promise.”
She lifted her eyebrows in agreement with his comment. "Rich people, man. Send you to whatever prison they want, put you behind jail for thirty years just because they got lazy protecting their own shit." Shaking her head, she smirked at that. "No spa for me. Maybe I wouldn't have even gone to jail if I was rich, not targeting the rich. But I have a problem with that, that entitlement. Those people are stealing money from people who really deserve it, who it really belongs to, and they're getting away with it because no one else is standing up to them. And I don't intend to let them silence me too." She did smile back Cal's way, though. "You don't have to sell me on it, Doc. I'm there. Might as well get a check up from a Doctor that I like talkin' to and isn't one hundred a seventy years old...and subsequently the only doctor around for three towns."
He almost protested the nickname, though in the end Call held his tongue. He liked it, he realized; liked hearing confirmation that she didn’t see his record, just what he’d devoted his life to before coming here. Or maybe it was just easier to remember. Cal wouldn’t question it too closely, just enjoy what familiarities he could find here. “You like talkin’ to me, huh?” he echoed, just slightly teasing with the question as he hefted his mug for another drink. “I’m gonna remember that for lazy days, come pry you away from that terminal to walk ‘round these halls with me. Walkin’ rounds is still second nature for this man.”
"You can try," Mazie grinned. "If I'm in the middle of a breakthrough, you aren't gonna pull me away from nothing. Probably not something a doctor likes to hear, but that computer is real important and more often than not, I'm in front of it or asleep next to it." Mazie sipped again at her coffee. "But if there's nothing going on, I'll be more apt to walk with you around here. Still don't know this place too well yet."
“Well come on, then,” Cal insisted with a spark of warmth in his eyes, nodding to the doors they’d come through. “Help a man burn off some a’this caffeine, we’ll do a once-over ‘fore I stop bein’ lazy and hit the gym. And who knows? Just might meet another neighbor on the way around. If we don’t? I’m not complainin’,” he teased, stepping away from the counter with his mug in hand. Two days down and an unknown amount ahead of them, but so far? Cal was really believing that they could do this.
Mazie pushed herself off the counter and started along with him, not really sure where they were going but pretty content to let him lead. "Doc, you don't know the meanin' of lazy if you think walking around before you hit the gym is it. Check in on me in a couple days, you'll see it." Her lazy was purely physical, though. Her mind did a lot more work than her body ever really did. Keeping pace with him, Mazie sipped again at her coffee. She wanted to know more about the good doctor, wanted to know where he came from and what more of his story was, but she wasn't sure she should ask. At least she could tell Autumn she was trying to be social and it paid off a little here. "So..what's your favorite doctor thing to do?"
Cal made a show of thinking that over, adjusting his glasses as they walked. “S’funny, that’s kinda tough to answer. Like, a lot of stuff in the medical gig’s pretty unpleasant, you know?” he prefaced. “Tanglin’ with patients or dealin’ with fresh trauma cases, things get bloody and leaky and infected, there’s mountains of damn paperwork to do. But sometimes when I got to walk rounds I’d catch little handfuls of time with patients? See ‘em when they had visitors or hear how they were doin’ better, or even just know I’d helped. That’s what I liked most, walkin’ the halls and finding reminders of how worth it it was to do four extra years of classes.” Watching Mazie after he spoke, Cal’s expression turned quizzical as he nodded at her. “Turn them tables, what’s your favorite part of the computer gig? I know it wasn’t a standard job, but it sounds like you made it your career.”
She made a face as he described the leaky patients, thinking that it was a little different hearing it from a real doctor than watching doctor shows on TV. Looking back at him, she sought his eyes. “Well..thanks, for what you do. It’s important work, stuff I couldn’t ever do and wouldn’t even know where to start with so...thanks.” She had made it her career and it was actually really nice to have that legitimized in the eyes of someone else, which Mazie had never thought she’d much care for, let alone want to hear. “Same deal as you, Doc. Helping people, though in a different way. Don’t want to equate what I’m doing to what you’re doing, you’re physically saving lives, but I’m trying to make quality of life a little better for the people who really need it. Too many people out there are getting screwed over by the government. If none of our decision makers were standing up for the ninety-nine percent, then I was gonna do it myself.”
Cal listened, smiling and giving a nod of approval at Mazie’s rationale even if he could’ve argued it. He didn’t want to, not when he heard her describe what people considered crimes, crimes that Cal wouldn’t disapprove of. He’d grown up poor, had worked for everything he had, and had seen plenty of trust fund kids in school. “Sad thing is that if there was a legit way to do what you did, there wouldn’t be a need to do it in the first place. In that world we’d already have a whole lot less folks screwin’ each other over in the name of a buck.”
“Damn straight we would. And if there was a way to do it, then we’d be livin’ in a fairytale, honestly.” She shrugged. “But I do what I do because people deserve what is theirs. This kind of stuff, the money, the secrets these politicians and government employees are keeping...that’s stuff that we as citizens deserve to know. And just because no one’s challenged them before doesn’t mean no one is gonna try. And I won’t be the last one, but I sure as hell am not gonna sit around, have the skills to do some right in this place, and then not.” Mazie said seriously, looking back Cal’s way.
It was good that she wasn’t looking over, because Cal didn’t like hearing that. He didn’t disapprove so much, but such a reckless ideology was what had landed Mazie here to begin with. If she kept at it, who knew what would happen? “Just don’t think of doin’ it all in a day, okay?” he asked gently. “Change takes time, Mazie, and when you push the system it’ll push back ten thousand times as hard. Don’t let it knock you down, and if you do? Come knock on my door, I’ll see to the scrapes,” Cal offered with a little chuckle, mentally planning on keeping a close eye on her.
Mazie listened and nodded, taking another long sip of her coffee. “I like you, Doc. Don’t worry, I won’t let it knock me down. And if you ever find yourself needing something that I can help with, you come to me. I’m not good with scrapes, but I’m good with some stuff.” She’d already made the same decision in her mind to look out for the doctor here, adding him as one of the people she actually wanted to be nice to in this place.
“I was already plannin’ on that,” Cal confided. “You got a good head on them shoulders, Mazie, might even call myself a fan of it so far. If I hit a snag, whether I think you can help or not? I’ll speak up.” She was a sweet woman, quirks and all, and Cal was left thinking that this would be an easy experiment if people like Mazie were as bad as it got. “See you tonight? I gotta get my laps in or I’ll kick myself all day, but I’m comin’ out for games when the sun sets.”
Those were nice words, especially from someone she’d decided she liked. Smiling she nodded back to him. “Definitely. Promised someone else I’d be there so you’ll see me tonight. Go ahead and exercise... definitely doing more than I will be in that respect.” She smiled once more at him and took her coffee mug with her as she headed towards the stairs. “See ya, Doc.”