he's kind of losing track of all the bullshit occasions that require him to wear a proper suit and watch his colleagues getting drunk and trying to fistfight and/or fuck each other, but as much as they hold a certain reality tv kind of appeal he's kind of running out of things to talk about. there are only so many times you can explain the cybernetic locomotion project team to admin staff before you find yourself giving the speech in your sleep, and max has been reduced to just availing himself of whatever alcohol is available and trying not to get too shitfaced.

but he's not gonna lie, the boss' wife is a pretty cool person to have at your table. of course there's the vague best behaviour thing hanging over their heads, but she doesn't seem to care, and at least there are some fresh subjects coming up. of course, as he gets elbowed and chokes a little into his beer, he's kinda wishing some of them weren't.

"oh, my god, no. syl... sylvie? i just call her french stalker chick in my head, it's easier." he laughs to cover up the full body cringe at the thought of her. "who was it that introduced her to all of us, was it david? he's on the list, i swear to god. the second i'm king of the universe, he walks the plank off the moon or something."

he takes his hand off the neck of the beer bottle, using it to gesture to mrs veles to draw her into what he's saying, a cue that he knows she has no idea what he's talking about. neither does anyone else at the table who doesn't work in mech lab 2, but she's the one who's been driving the conversation. "it was one of the interns a couple years back, she left, but a guy in our lab was trying to impress her and she decided she didn't care about him, she thought i was gonna be a better boyfriend, so. skipping over a whole bunch of stuff, she thought - my last name is fischer, right - she was gonna start calling me this-" and he brings both hands up in a single air quote gesture, "'cute' nickname, ends up making me 'mon petit pêcheur' to every single person in accounting."

he takes a pause, a swallow of the beer to punctuate, and a single flick of one long hand. "i'm the one who does all of the budget correspondence for lab 2. it lasted for six months, no joke."

he leans back in his chair with a shrug. it's not that he misses the sudden weird wave of intensity, but he doesn't let it show on his face. "nah. it wasn't worth ruining an intern's career over. probably thought she was just being enthusiastic in pursuing a guy who she knew didn't have a girlfriend."

as he speaks he flicks out the barest extension of his mind to touch hers, curious about the reaction. "is that still harrassment? a girl fresh outta college, half my size?" it's framed as simply casual clarification, rather than the probing cue that is. he doesn't exactly want to go further unless he's sure there's something real good in there.

physis

well holy shit. who knew?

the smile freezes a little on his face but max is nothing if not good at faking it. "really? who? whoever it is, they're lying to you." and it looks perfectly natural, even, the false humility of his ducked head, his dismissive gesture. "i bet nobody talks about me at all and you're just trying to make me blush, ms veles." he's dimly aware of the others starting to talk about the OS launch, but he maintains the demand for eye contact, his easy smile.

he has kind of a rule about this: looking deeper into fucked up people never goes well, and he pretty much refuses to do it unless they ask, but it's pretty rare people are carrying trauma this close to their surface. or is it? who fucking knows. max is a psionic, not a shrink.

still, though. it's vague - really damn vague - but he can tell it hurts. suddenly the remark about wounds makes a little more sense. 'humans', too.

"besides, if we wanna talk about things that are probably untrue, i wanna know about how everyone keeps saying that the boss built you in a lab." it's friendly, 'light' conversation, but his tether is still in place. who knows what it might provoke.

physis

the pet name cuts into the veneer like a knife and max’s smile changes ever-so-slightly - corner of his lips lifting, an edge of teeth. it reads as confident, relaxed, but his eyes are piercing, laser-focused on sophia. predatory, almost “i don’t think so, ms veles, you don’t strike me as such a scandalous person. have i got you wrong?” he lifts the bottle to his lips again as opportunity to pause, elbow propped on the table. again, easy and confident body language, but with the faintest edge to it.

he won’t lie to himself, this is probably the most interesting max has found a woman in months. she’s kind of fascinating. he replays the car-crash intensity of the glimpsed moments in his head again, watching her.

“well, they don’t pay in advance, you have to actually sell the story to them. i’m hoping a couple grand? the wild party lifestyle doesn’t pay for itself.” he shrugs, tilts his head - he’s kidding, genuinely making a joke, even if he thinks the resulting smile may only be skin-deep. even if it is, that tells him something. “i figure if people are looking hard enough that they’re coming up with conspiracy theories, there’s probably a good reason they don’t know the real facts.”

he lets that hang again, taking the last sip of the beer. “hey, if you have the money to maintain your privacy, why not?”
physis

”i always thought that the value of the present depends on the situation. if you already have everything you want, everything you need, then sure.” it’s been years since max found himself having anything that could be considered philosophical debate, not since cody and the whole formative period of ‘morality is relative’ in his life, and honestly it sort of feels a lot like sitting in the college dorms sharing a joint and arguing about politics. the setting is fancier, sure, but he’s not about to start thinking he’s any more worldly than that. “besides, our pasts are what make our presents, right? and everything we do in the present is going to become part of our past. it’s not who we are, sure, but it’s context.”

the tether is thin, barely-there, but he easily admits to himself that the boss’ wife makes him nervous. he wants to crack her open and take a look, honestly, but she’s done nothing to warrant it and again, his policy about fucked up people holds true.

“i think you’re asking the wrong person. i’m an engineer, ms veles, we’re kind of allergic to the idea of mystery.” if he had to guess? the woman is a construct. not in the sense of an android, not in the sense of the AI jokes, but he’s known people who’ve spun shells of half-truth and disguise for themselves before. he used to be one.

he laughs at the statement. there’s little humour in it. “i’m not saying that, ms veles, i’m just saying that if you have it you might as well use it. besides, i think everyone needs privacy sometime, right? pretty sure i wouldn’t want people knowing my life story either.”

physis

the hostility is so veiled it has to be real, and he can practically feel her dislike of him growing. max gets the feeling she probably has a better measure of him than most people do. “that’s the plan, ms veles. i’m not good for much else.” the humility is completely false but to tell the truth... well, that’d be too easy.

better to be one of the ‘humans’.

god, but he really wants to know. the whole 'who hurt you' thing is a joke, sure, but here it's kind of painfully apt.

“i thought i was, once.” the change of subject is a little left-field but he rolls with it, sets his empty bottle on the table and spreads long fingers against the cloth. “turned out it was just how it goes. great for six months and then entropy sets in. you start hating each other the more you know each other.” he drops his gaze for a split-second, the wry smile a bitter-edged thing, eyes cold as he looks back up at her. “of course, it’s not universal. you would know about that, married and all.”

physis

fucking god, woman, cool it with the mushy shit.

the contrast is kind of hilarious in a decidedly weird way, the flashes of old scars to this intense wedded bliss. maybe it’s because he’s a cynic when it comes to this. he feels her sincerity about it, sure, and maybe if he wasn’t careful he’d end up in deep undying love with his boss as well, but the concept is alien to him. “must be nice, i guess.” he’s aching to lapse into more comfortable language, but calling the entire concept of love bullshit to sophia veles’ face is probably not the way to go if he doesn’t want to get escorted out of the building by security. that, and the joke about being easy that he really wants to make.

“i guess it’s just that i...” need to choose my words real carefully, “i’m one of those people who kind of gets other people. i pick up on the little things. i’m also amazingly humble, obviously.” the little laugh is two notes, quiet. “i mean. nobody is ever on that pedestal. they can’t be, when you notice every flaw, every misstep, their doubts and suspicions and misgivings about you and who you are. on the plus side, perfectionism is something people actually want in their R&D staff, so i’m not totally out of luck.”

he knows that he’s drawing the cynicism up as a shield against the frankly uncomfortable level of emotion he can feel. “that’s... admirable. i won’t call it luck, i’m sure neither of you think it that way, but you must be... happy to have found one another.”

he’s very studiously leaving out everything he wants to say about the inevitable tragic ending, some way or another. he’s especially leaving out the part where his own relationship with cody ended in stab wounds and a defenestration. it’s probably not appropriate.

physis