Who: Max Rockatansky madman & Capable _capable_ What: A visit to the county social services center. When: Backdated, Monday, June 15 before Max leaves for a run Where: Orange County Social Services Center Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Max and Capable both have mental illness issues including PTSD and very nasty past histories. Some triggers might be included depending on what they talk on. Status: Closed/Completed GDoc
~*~
Seating was limited in the social services building. Strange considering how they had more chairs than a motion picture theater. Max thought they did at least. Been awhile since he'd been to any pictures. Too many people in them. No windows. All the darkness got to him in a way which had nothing to do with being afraid of the dark and everything to do with remembering how it'd felt to suffocate in a crushed vehicle under the weight of dead comrades. Max wasn't much for any sort of socializing really.
He preferred staying to himself in his rig. There was quiet to be found on the road. His cabin bunk was more than enough to keep him comfortable. Max viewed comfort in a different way than most. Chronic pain wasn't so much a curse for him as it was a way to be certain he was still alive. The brace he wore on his mangled leg was a constant reminder no matter how crazy he felt? He wasn't dead. Not dead meant still alive which meant there was some hope, even if it was a slim sort.
Max had slumped through the waiting area three times after his check-in. The clerks behind the front window had started to eye him funny like. He knew the signs of them getting ready to call in someone to check on him in a way he'd not like which had him sitting down quickly beside a young woman. She reminded him of someone. Hair the color of fire. Skin pale as if she rarely saw the sun. Someone's treasure, he supposed. Strange to see a treasure in the land of those society threw away.
"Check-in for me. Mandatory."
It was the closest to a conversation starter as he could manage. It made him clench his fingers into the metal of his leg brace, reminding him it could be worse. He wasn't dead. He was alive. There was still hope, slim but there. They were on him about socializing it up. Meant he had to talk more, didn't he? Should get better at it. Max had been able to talk once. His wife -her name was there yet not- had laughed at his jokes because he'd been a right funny bloke. She'd given him a son on account he'd made her laugh.
Sprog.
His son.
The boy had also had a name which was there yet not in Max's head.
He needed to stop thinking about the past. There was nothing good for him in the past as he couldn't change it and not being able to change it? That was what drove him crazy.
Swallowing thickly, he licked his lips and murmured without looking at her, "Sorry if you'd rather as not I sit here. Clerks eyeing me. Had to sit. Send me out if they say I'm not behaving. I try. Don't like waiting. Hate mandatory anythin' myself. You here as a want or a mandatory? Don't have to talk. Can tell me to move though. If you please. All needs doin' is point to another chair. Can go there. Me, that is. I can go there."
Pronouns were hard for Max. He didn't like thinking of himself as a person. He wasn't one. Not anymore. Not really.
~*~
Capable knew the office well, part of the agreement to be let out of the rehab centre had been weekly check ins here as well as education classes and psychiatrist appointments but she felt that it was a small price to pay for her freedom. And she was free now. Nobody told her when to wake, when to speak, when to eat, it was all her choice. Something which had been overwhelming at first but she was now embracing it wholeheartedly. She even had a job which was very new but exciting too. She liked people, found them fascinating and interesting to watch and interact with.
When the nervous somewhat awkward looking man sat next to her and spoke to her she smiled kindly, “I don’t mind you sitting here. You’re welcome to. We wouldn’t want them sending you out” she told him, “I’m mandatory too” she added, “I don’t mind, they’re just trying to help” even if they couldn’t fix things which is what she thought they hoped to do sometimes. But not everything could be fixed.
~*~
Raising a brow, Max muttered, "I mind. Hate them. The lot of them. Bothersome."
All he wanted was to be left alone. His mind was his own maze to wander lost in. There were no others who could traverse those paths with him no matter what the doctors, therapists, social workers, nurses, any of them said. They weren't miracle workers. They couldn't fix him. Max was broken in a way which wasn't meant to be fixed. His was the kind of break one learned to live with rather than to heal.
There was no permanent healing for what was wrong with him.
He'd read some on it. His illness. Schizophrenia. Voices and visions were par for the course for those like him. Drugs could stamp those down. They'd also push down all of the rest of him, too. He'd gain weight, lose muscle, and become less of a man for it. Max would either choose sanity -or the version of it the people at the center deemed necessary for him to achieve- or he'd be institutionalized where the choice would be taken from him.
Some men could be caged.
Max Rockatansky was not a man meant to be caged in any way. His natural instinct was to fight any bindings. He even hated the brace on his leg though it helped him walk. It felt as if he were voluntarily strapping himself into some kind of restraint every day he put it on, but he had no choice on that either. Not if he wanted to walk. Insurgents had insured his leg was too damaged to remain free and still standing. He'd never get back what he'd lost there. No amount of PT could fix it the way no amount of drugs could fix the break in his mental pathways which had switched him from a cautious man to a madman.
"They'll put me in hospital I don't check-in. You?"
~*~
“I’m sorry you hate it so much” she said honestly, she wondered why they made him come if he found it so hard. It obviously wasn’t good for him to be forced to attend. Sometimes she didn’t understand the way things worked. But she truly felt bad for him having to come here when he sincerely disliked it.
“I would have to go back to the rehabilitation centre they told me” she replied softly, her hands twisting in her lap, “And I’m not sure they’d let me continue my education lessons so I don’t mind coming here if I get to continue those. And I’m staying with a friend which I’m really liking.”
Capable was used to structure and while she had to attend these things she still had far more freedom than she had ever had before which she was still learning to enjoy.
~*~
Rehabilitation center sounded like hospital to Max. He grimaced in distaste. She seemed normal enough to him. There was a bit of shyness to her. Demure women were rare in these days, especially in the States. He supposed it could be she had some physical injury, but she wouldn't be in social services for mandatories if that were the case.
Max had his leg to worry over. He knew how physical disability worked as well as mental.
"Seem well enough to me. Sorry they make you come. What sort of education?"
Schooling had been one of the few things Max had been particularly good at growing up. He'd loved learning. Maths and sciences had made more sense to him than anything non-concrete, but he'd done well overall. It hadn't been until later in his life he'd stopped being able to understand as much as quickly. He could still work his way around equations, mechanics, everything with a motor was fair game for him. Max didn't mind pulling something apart only to put it back together. To him, it was the cycle of life for everything and everyone, living or otherwise.
"Trade school or smart school?"
~*~
“Thanks” she told him with a bit of a brighter smile, “General schooling. I was in a controlled community so I didn’t go to school or experience things most people did. I’d not used a computer properly until I escaped” she told him.
She didn’t mind talking about it, it was getting easier though she still had trouble with the word ‘cult’, it was silly but she seemed to have a hang up over the word and she wasn’t sure where it had come from. She enjoyed learning though, especially reading which was why her job at the bookstore was so exciting to her.
“What’s the difference?” she asked him with a slight frown.
~*~
Differences Max understood better than most. He was as different as one came from a standard point of view. It was easier for him to understand differences than sameness in others. There was nothing same or ordinary about him save for his military experience---which he didn't enjoy talking on. Family, life, pain, Max understood the whole experience of living. He simply chose not to get into it with anyone.
People weren't as necessary for him as they were for most.
He had his truck and the road; Max didn't feel as if he was missing anything as long as he had those which was why he was sitting in the seat he was in. They could control him as long as they held his freedom over his head. Taking his license would cripple him more effectively than the blow to his leg had done. Walking with a brace and a limp might hurt, but without his rig? Max was a dead man drifting through a dead world, a wasteland of impossibilities and improbabilities he had no way to understand. They'd kill him as effectively as shooting him in the head if they pulled his license. He had to sit in the chair he was in until he was called, seen, and stamped approved.
Max didn't have any other choice.
"Trade school teaches you to do something. Hair. Mechanics. Computers. Gets a job for you. Smart school teaches reading, maths, gets you a degree. Smart school lets you apply for jobs what require smarts, not training."
He shrugged, his shoulders feeling too wide in the space between them as he shifted to try not to touch her.
~*~
For Capable people were very necessary, after having others control who she could and couldn’t talk to for so long she loved the freedom of being able to talk to whoever she liked whenever she liked.
“Oh then I guess it’s smart school, I’m doing English and Maths and everything I need to get a high school diploma” which she should have gotten already being almost twenty years old but still it was a nice goal to have. And thankfully she was on an accelerated learning scheme so it shouldn’t take as long as it usually would even with her lack of educational background.
“But I have a part time job too, in a bookstore” she told him looking at him with a smile.
~*~
Books were a thing of the past for Max. He grinned awkwardly and tapped his forehead.
"Can't read any longer. Brain's too scrambled to pay attention, hold in the words, make it all make sense. Used to like books. Before. Good for imagining."
Max had a great imagination. It was one of the unfortunate side effects of schizophrenia. He could sometimes wind up inducing an hallucination even while fully medicated through only day-dreaming too long at a time. There was something about thinking on those he'd lost which brought them back. Max both loved and hated that aspect of his illness. He knew it wasn't real. There wasn't a thing real about the visions or voices brought on by his brain's being scrambled due to inconsistent neurotransmitter reception.
It didn't stop him from appreciating hearing his wife's voice again or seeing his son playing.
"Sounds nice for you. Got my diploma when I was young. Went to trade school to drive truck after the Army. Never worked in any kind of shop. Make people nervous."
~*~
“Oh I’m sorry to hear that. I think I’d miss that terribly. I don’t suppose listening to books read aloud would help at all either?” she asked, if he couldn’t hold in the words so they made sense having somebody read them to him would probably not work either.
“I like reading for that reason, it means you can get away from everything and lose yourself in a different world, a different life” she smiled, she probably sounded silly she knew but reading had been her salvation in the community.
“So you knew from being young what you wanted to do? Driving?” she asked him, “It must be good to know that, to feel purpose. I don’t think I know mine yet but perhaps in time I will”
~*~
Shaking his head no, Max tried to think what he'd wanted as a young man. Purpose was something. He'd wanted a purpose which had been why he'd joined the service. His father had taught him to drive in the badlands. They'd had full run of the roads there. Nothing but sand and engines roaring, everything made up of fire and anger and fiercely grinding gears. It had been real living there. His father had been a man made for that life and that life only. Some days Max missed him.
Most days Max missed himself more.
"Soldiering. That was what I wanted. Got it. Too much of it. Why I'm here now," Max winked at her, more a facial tick than a flirtation, his grin was shockingly boyish in his worn face.
There was a bit of youth left in him. It only shown through in small increments, but Max knew to appreciate it when it did. He was pleased to think this young woman would find her own purpose. This place? It didn't help him. There was no help for him. She had the look on her face which was all hope and desire; she could possibly be helped.
~*~
Capable smiled softly, it was nice to see him grin and she noticed how young it made him look. It was a shame he didn’t do it more, she got the feeling he struggled with his own demons more than she did. And that thought made her sad, he seemed nice and someone who deserved happiness and light in his life.
“Oh you were a soldier” she nodded, “That is very brave I think” she told him because putting your life on the line as he obviously had was amazing to Capable, especially for a country who may not always appreciate what you did and the risks you took, “I am sorry you were hurt” she added honestly.
~*~
"Didn't die. More than some can say. Can limp and live. See? Not so bad."
Max chuckled, a rusty, worn sound. There weren't many opportunities in his life to laugh. There was very little mirth to be found on the road. He couldn't handle more than token stimulation when he was driving which meant his radio was silent, his cell phone was on vibrate, and no one was looking for him outside his CommOps who always knew where he was seeing as they were the sort of Dispatch with full GPS installed on their trucks.
LoJacked.
He liked the watching more than one would assume.
Max heard his name being called from the front and nodded a farewell at the woman when he stood, "Max. My name is Max. Never had anyone read to me. Might work out better than trying to read. Thanks for the idea. See you sometime here maybe. Maybe not. No worries."
It was a short walk to the front, but he did it in jerking, slow steps due to the brace and the weight of the eyes on him in their holding room. It was supposed to be a lobby, but Max saw it only as a holding cell for them: prisoners on parole. He hoped the young woman got more out of this place than he did. Seemed a shame if she didn't. She'd kind eyes.