Who: Max Rockatansky madman & Integra Hellsing ladyhellsing What: A most unfortunate intersection. When: Saturday, June 27, morning Where: Alongside Costa Mesa Freeway (SR 55) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Max has a mental illness and Integra comes with her own warning. Status: Closed/Completed GDoc
~*~
Coming back was as easy for Max as leaving out. His runs were smooth-sailing from either direction because The Road was his favorite slice of life. Nothing touched him on The Road. It was simpler, everything, while he was behind the wheel of his rig. He could be the king of his world rather than a hapless victim to his illness when he was driving. It was as if the voices, the visions all retreated as soon as they heard him crank up an engine. One turnover led to another with no explanation doctors could give him.
Max found it comforting seeing as they always seemed to imply they knew everything.
He'd a tendency to switch from the interstates to the freeways when he was in the home stretch. It was mostly to refamiliarize himself with Orange County, a place he was supposed to feel at home, rather than an attempt to avoid heavier traffic. All traffic was heavy on all roads in the OC. There weren't easy places to drive there nor were there low flow hours as in other places in the country.
No one needed to tell Max about traffic anywhere inside the States. He'd already learned all there was to learn on the subject on his own merit.
This run he'd tried to be more social with everyone. It'd been hard. Every word for him was hard. People had wanted to keep on talking at him when all he'd said was a simple 'Morning' or 'Evening' to them. Max had fought hard to maintain control. Only once had he been forced to mumble an apology while darting for the cab to escape the onslaught of words. He figured the social worker would consider it progress. Might manage to put a smile on her face at the very least which made the effort worthwhile.
A tire blew on his rear axle, slinging alligator skin toward the emergency lane where a woman was jogging along as oblivious as could be. Max slowed down, hoping the gator would pass her without harm, breathing a sigh of relief as it did. She was still on her feet. He hadn't hurt her, killed her, maimed her. No one would find him at fault for a blown inner tire on a rig run as much as his. Max had been telling his boss in his reports they needed new wheels. It was always next run, next run.
Luckily, he knew they had a series of four spares on hand due to his insistence to keep his rig a solitary State of its own Union.
Max pulled over to the side slowly, leaving room for the woman runner, and shut his rig off before climbing down with awkward thunks of his big, booted feet, his braced leg stiff from the drive.
"Careful. Gator-bait so close to the road," he called to her as he went to inspect his axle.
~*~
Integra was used to running on the road. The busyness of it made her run better. She didn’t like dealing with nature while running, not always anyways. Although today she decided maybe she’d have better run out in the trails than on the road as the tire blew out behind her and sent the alligator skin in her direction. She’d dodged and gotten well out of the way before it hit though.
She was tall, slender and had more blonde hair than she knew what to do with, it was tucked up into a tight braid that was still hip length. She smiled at him and shrugged idly. “So I’ve noticed.” she didn’t seem upset, merely treated it as an accident that was out of everyone’s control and really was just one more thing in the day.
Integra looked at him and nodded a bit. “Sorry if I worried you.” she really should have been paying more attention to the trucks on the road, but she’d been off in her own land of thinking and hadn’t worried about it much. But she felt bad if she’d worried someone on accident. This wasn’t her dreams, not everyone was out to get her, take control or other.
She smiled a little bit more. “Did you need a hand?” she offered warmly, but she was not worried if he said no, after all, she didn’t expect anyone who drove a rig to need help, but she was compelled to offer because she was here.
~*~
No one had ever apologized for worrying Max before. He was used to being tormented both while awake and while asleep. His dreams were blood and violence whereas his waking hours were paranoia and pain. There was little could be done for him even with the best medication. The social services workers did the best they could to keep him safe for the world as it was, but safe wasn't the same as sane.
Max Rockatansky had been Mad Mad for too, too, too long to ever be sane.
He shrugged, "No worries. Tire's a tire, rig or not. Crippled, yes. Helpless? No."
Nodding to her, he rapped his knuckles against the brace on his leg before making his way to the back of the trailer. It was easier to unfasten than one would think. He didn't need a trailer tail for the return load. That one was always lighter. Max had the most weight on him when he was heading the opposite direction. Fancy dog food was a shade heavier than one might imagine given it came in fifty-pound bags.
Sometimes he wondered about the dogs who ate the food he brought from California all the way to Tennessee. Shipping alone was exorbitant with today's fuel prices. Max had a feeling it was the kind of food fed to pets with more than one name who came with more papers than he'd arrived in the country with as a teen. Seemed fitting he'd be serving a world of animals rather than a world of Man.
Max got the heavy hydraulic jack out to drag it behind him back to the edge of the trailer. He'd jimmy it up enough to get the axle on that side alone off the ground. His load couldn't be shifted too much. Breaking those bottles inside it? He'd be in trouble.
"Need anything yourself?"
Seemed she wasn't running off. Could be she'd been running for something other than health though healthy running was no rarity in the OC.
~*~
Honestly, she hadn’t noticed. “Oh, well, that’s good then.” that he had it. Not that he was crippled. That wasn’t good. But Integra only smiled a bit, she was mostly a hermit, save for Alucard and Irisa, she had been forcing herself to volunteer with kids but she still wasn’t back to her usual self. She liked the solitude that her home gave her, and her career. But she wasn’t going to get back to feeling like her, and not her dream self, that way.
Integra waited to make sure things were well in hand. “No, just waiting to make sure you get back up and running okay.” she was careful and worried about people more than she let on. She would feel awful if he had more issues after she’d run off.
She was running for her health. But mostly because her trainer said to. That it would help her in the ring. That it would be something useful to keep her stamina up and going in the fast, hard rounds in the cage. She’d grown to love it, even if she still whined a little when the trainer upped the miles per day.
*~*
"As you like," Max allowed, giving her a curious look.
He had no idea why the woman would want to stick around to watch the tedious process of changing out a tire on a rig. She didn't seem the type to be interested in The Road. There was more of a healthy air to her than that of someone who spent their life behind a wheel. Given she was also running instead of driving, Max had a feeling it was more she felt some strange sense of responsibility for his happenstance than anything else.
Strange to think on it that way.
No one put Max at the top of their priority list save the social workers. They did it on account they were paid to do it. It was their livelihood on the line if they set him loose on the world without making sure he was safe. Max knew as well as they did if he caused some dramatic accident or hurt someone after a check-in? It wouldn't be only his ass in the sling for it, but the social workers, doctors, therapists, the whole lot of them as well.
Muscling the outer wheel off the axle, Max used the handle of the jack to fish forward the second wheel from whose rim dangled only remnants of what had once been a good tire. It was almost like looking at a plucked bird to him or a skinned lizard. Max could feel the muscles in his back bunching and seizing as he pulled it off the axle to lay it to the side. His arms felt warm from the effort, not burning, not yet, but warm. He wondered how long it'd been since he'd done any proper exercising for himself. It had to have been a while.
Wiping his brow, Max straightened to pop his spine, "Sitting too long. Forget sometimes should exercise more. Hard to remember on long runs. Only The Road matters on those."
~*~
Integra was someone concerned with those around her. Not that it had been her fault, but she didn’t like the idea of letting someone stand on the side of the road alone when they had their attention elsewhere. Ironic considering she’d had hers elsewhere during her run.
She was a strange person, she’d grown up in money but spent most of her time in a gym doing physical work, not trying to live off the money and trying to make her own name. She did indulge, of course, she bought nice cars for Alucard and her to drive, and had a nice house, but she tried to give back instead of just indulge.
Though she’d never changed her own tire. She found herself wondering if it’s something she should learn to do, in case she ever was in an area that she couldn’t get help in. She did like to be reliant on herself. She smiled at him. “Getting a little exercise or stretching is good for long trips. Though it is something easily forgotten in the face of getting the work done.” she said with a nod.
Integra enjoyed long drives, although never in anything like the rig, and she knew the feeling of the long road before her. She liked it, too, although she’d begun to enjoy running more than she did driving. But she tried to convince Alucard into long road trips from time to time, there was something relaxing about being on a long stretch of road and the wind in the window.
~*~
"Forget everything on The Road. That's me. Reason keep doing it. Always."
Max found the tire iron in the trailer, pinned to the wall like a cross awaiting a victim for crucifixion. He slid it free easily enough by loosening the ties which bound it. The weight in his hand was a nice reminder of how the world hadn't changed since he'd stopped his wheels. Things were still the same. All was still the same. This woman was new, but she wouldn't be new for long. All she'd be was a figure in the mirror as he drove away.
Soon enough.
Soon enough.
Dropping to his back, he used his feet to kick himself under the rig where the spares were fastened to the trailer's undercarriage. It was the work of moments to release one for the rear. The heft of the giant tire falling onto his chest was enough to force a grunt out of him followed by a broken chuckle. It figured he'd nearly get himself flattened fixing up the rig he loved. Only place he felt at home and it was trying to injure him? Yeah. Sounded about right to Max. He really didn't have the best of luck.
It took more effort to scramble from under the trailer with his heavy prize, but Max managed. He grinned, dust turning his hair a darker shade of brown than it was as he looked at the woman.
"New tire. Good as new soon enough."
~*~
She nodded at him. “Alright if you’re all set then I won’t bother you anymore. Glad things are all set.” she smiled a bit at him. Integra adjusted her braid and tilted her head to look at him. Blue eyes looked up then back down as she adjusted her shirt.
She had been so used to being anti-social that she had to force herself to be social. The volunteering was helping, but she got rather involved in her work and really forgot a world outside the gym or home existed. She was becoming far too serious and it wasn’t making her happy.
“I hope the rest of your journey is safe and easy.” she said with a smile.
~*~
Bother him? Most people didn't mind at all to bother Max. Everyone bothered Max in some way or another. He could say Porthos was an exception given he'd known him in the service, but otherwise? They were all out to get something from him he didn't have to spare. Himself? He didn't have spares tucked away neatly on his underbelly waiting to swap out after a blow-out.
Max only had so much of himself left and it wasn't enough to share.
He made a noncommittal sound as he fastened the new tire onto the axle before sliding its mate in place. The damn things were heavy enough he'd want a shower at the beach after he'd checked in his load. This would be a weekend worth relaxing during. Could be he'd see the Russian kid again. Teach him how to drive a big. Max would have to go by his trailer, but it wasn't so bad.
The place had only ever housed him. Not Jesse. Not Sprog.
"Only going to drop in my load before heading to beach. Like to park the rig there. Sleep near the ocean. Walk in the waves. Brace don't like it much, legs do all the same since gets a good stretch. Sorry to interrupt your run. Maybe see you again. Doing a social thing. Online. Myself that is. Max. My name is Max."
~*~
Integra had had a relatively easy life, after her mother was killed, and so she didn’t truly understand the struggles of those who didn’t. But she tried. Not that it helped, of course. She smiled at him and nodded a bit. “That sounds like a good place to land.” Integra liked the beach. They were much nicer here.
She nodded a bit. “No worries, not a problem at all. I don’t mind a break.” she grinned then nodded again. “Ah yes the network, I’m Integra, it was nice to meet you Max. Have a safe drive.” she waved as she started off again, feet hitting the pavement softly as she fell back into a rhythm. She didn’t mind the distraction, she’d been running for miles already.
The OC drew all kinds of people. It was good to remember that. She idly wondered what happened but she wasn’t one to pry, or ask questions that weren’t necessary or polite. She lifted her hand in a wave as he inevitably passed her and made her turn towards home. It had broken up the monotony of the run, it hadn’t been all bad.