fresh starts [open]

[tadashiwashere]

CHARACTERS: Tadashi Hamada and several others!
LOCATION: Throughout the ship during the month of June
WARNINGS: Fire. Always fire. Maybe some science bro shenanigans.
SUMMARY: Coming soon! Hiro's starter is in here now. I'm working on the general one and some other individual ones.
NOTES: He's working his way out of his more somber mood as the month goes on!



[SHUTTLE BAY]
[open for earlier interruption, though the end is aimed at Hiro]

The time following the memory swaps that he and Hiro had gone through had been rocky for Tadashi. He had decided to continue forward as best he could, but the nightmares that greeted him nearly every time he closed his eyes were demoralizing. There had been a few days where he had to drag himself out of bed (and several more where he just stayed planted there without opening his eyes, mumbling and waving a hand at Hiro if he tried to convince him to get up). When he did get a decent amount of sleep, he found himself slipping into his own thoughts, wondering constantly what he should take away from his fate -- what he should do with his borrowed time to repay the universe for the extra chances. And also what he should do for Hiro to get him safely back home to Aunt Cass. Connected to that, he agonized over every goodbye, especially before the Jump. If one of them was sent back home, that would be it. There wouldn't be any other chances.

There were several times when Tadashi had to fake smiles and shrug off his brother's concern about him. While he appreciated it, Tadashi just couldn't find a way to confront what had happened out loud after that time lost in the corridors. He wrestled with it mentally plenty, but saying it out loud... it would have only led to drowning in the reality of it again.

So Tadashi decided that "fake it til you make it" was going to be his motto to live by.

He threw himself into his projects, volunteered wherever he could, and tried to redouble his efforts to be the voice of optimism on board the ship.

Eventually, it seemed to work. While he wasn't completely over it, Tadashi didn't feel like he was faking happy. That shift that had started the moment he forced himself to keep moving had clicked into place. He was going to be okay.

Which... led to making it up to Hiro for the times he'd been occasionally distant while putting himself back together.

Tadashi had slipped out of their room impossibly early to get out to the shuttle bay and make some shady decisions. He'd technically volunteered his services to help do various repairs, but he didn't know if that extended to possibly breaking things. He didn't plan to break anything, but you never knew... He at least took precautions to place his little work station far away from the shuttles in a relatively open space.

Over the course of a few days he'd dragged the parts together that he'd been using to get a hands-on idea of how some of the mechanical bits for the shuttles went together, then went to town with a welder, scrap metal, and a temporary disregard for common sense. What he ended up with was reminiscent of a childhood project that... honestly could have ended better. Once he was satisfied that it was ready enough, Tadashi wiped the back of his arm across his forehead and keyed the voice function of his communicator, sending a message to Hiro.

"Hiro. Hey, knucklehead. You up? I need you to get down to the shuttle bay ASAP. I've got something to show you."

He smiled to himself and leaned back against his project, arms folded across his chest. This was probably a bad idea. But it was a good bad idea.

[Near Engineering]
[Open to anyone around Engineering + Rikku]

Maybe he should have signed up for Engineering.

The idea was still appealing, despite Tadashi's convictions that training under medical would allow him to more effectively help his fellow passengers. There were an entire twenty-four hours in every day (and time was relative in space with no windows, anyway) and only a few of those needed to be dedicated to sleep. And showers. Eating could be taken care of while working -- Tadashi had mastered snacking between projects during his first semester of college.

His goal today was to meet up with Rikku to talk over some ideas he'd had for her bots and see if he could brainstorm with her for his own project rebuilding Baymax. But right now... he was just loitering sheepishly in the corridors, trying desperately to look busy when he had nothing to do.

Somehow, he'd gotten some messages crossed, or looked at the time wrong... he was definitely early. Really early.

So this was Tadashi. Attempting in vain to look like he wasn't up to anything. He'd been hanging out with Hiro a lot -- he was starting to feel guilty by association. Even when his intentions were perfectly innocent!

[Bar]
[open, also Firo can come scoff, any science-y friends can come and techno babble]

The talk about supposedly psychic abilities had piqued Tadashi's interest lately. He was still leery of the connection that had allowed his and Hiro's memories to swap, but at the same time... science demanded experimentation and answers. The real tipping point had been hearing about some of the people on board creating objects with their minds. On one hand, it was so far away from science fact to Tadashi that he stayed skeptical even as he made his way to the bar area for the fourth night in a row. Looking at it from the other way, a controlled ability like that held endless potential.

Back home there were high-speed synthetic fabricators and continuous interface liquid production, but there weren't a whole lot of tech that you could carry around in your pocket for when you needed to create something on the fly. If this turned into something legitimate that the passengers were capable of and not just an illusion, maybe they could use it to produce necessary medical equipment as needed, or think up a perfectly realized model of the part they needed.

Those thoughts were the ones that had Tadashi perched on a stool at the bar, an untouched drink sitting within reach (just in case his inhibitions and skepticism turned into hindrances), and a puzzled expression on his face.

He wanted something simple -- just a block or a disc, but no matter how much he flexed his fingers or squinted at the space in front of him, it remained empty.

Once, something flickered, but it startled Tadashi so much that he completely lost concentration and had trouble reproducing it immediately.

Comments

[tadashiwashere]

Tadashi took in the reaction and quietly filed the name away as correct. He had gone over in his head at least a few times how to finally get an introduction out of this guy -- out of Max -- but he had never pictured getting the information this way. It felt almost wrong. Like an invasion of privacy. These weren't memories or feelings that anyone would choose to share, and Tadashi felt a little guilty after the fear slowly disappeared.

He bit the inside of his lip as Max concluded his explanation of the little girl. He still had a vague desire to know what had happened, but Tadashi had enough experience with death to know that the only good that would come from that question would be satiating his own curiosity. Almost every person he'd ever met, upon learning that his parents had died, would immediately ask how it happened. No matter how automatic the response became, it always dug a little at that buried wound to answer.

So Tadashi would never be the one to ask.

"I'm sorry." For the deaths. That Max still carried them around. For seeing things he shouldn't have been privy to. "I get it, I think. At least a little."

He leaned back on his heels, staring down at the floor for a moment before glancing up. Should he ask? Yeah.

"Do you mind.. Could you... not tell anyone? About me, I mean." He frowned at himself and pressed a hand to his forehead as he tried to sort through how he wanted to phrase this. "I don't want anyone to worry. And I don't want my brother reminded about what's going to happen."

[theroadwarrior]

Max hums. "I don't talk."

He's a secretive person himself; people's heads are their own business, and Max has no desire to go pouring Tadashi's personal life all over the network or to anyone at all. Ever. Really, he would never even talk about himself even an iota if not for the fact that Tadashi had bypassed him entirely and dove into his skull to swim around in his memories. As it is, Max is done with the sharing and caring in his life (or he'd like to delude himself into that much, every chance he gets). There are too few exceptions, ones he won't let himself fall back into, in a place like this. It's a prison. People need to remember this.

After a moment, he says firmly, "Don't tell anyone about mine."

A pause.

"Name, either."

He doesn't want the hassle of his name being out there for people to use.

Use it like a portal, try to worm their way into his eroded head.

He doesn't want anymore people to crowd the space there.

[tadashiwashere]

Tadashi could understand that sentiment now -- Max would be able to trust him to keep quiet about his name and past. That wouldn't stop the corner of Tadashi's mouth from turning down in a half-frown, though. As much as he could understand keeping certain secrets, he didn't fully understand why Max didn't want to even give out his name. In the end, a name was just a name. Back home, there was identity theft and some of the older regulars in Aunt Cass's cafe wouldn't give their names to telemarketers out of fear that the person on the other line would somehow use it to gain access to their bank accounts, but... that didn't seem to be the sort of reasoning that suited Max.

"I won't tell anyone," he promised at last, tucking his hands back into his pockets. "Is... there a reason you don't want anyone here to know your name? These seem like really good people. You can trust them."

Maybe he hadn't been here long enough to be sure, but Tadashi thought he had a good sense for people. Harry, Rikku, Chell, and all of the others he'd spoken to regularly seemed to genuinely care. He considered them to be his friends at this point.

[theroadwarrior]

He can't trust these people. He barely knows them, hasn't had any opportunity to see what they're like once the odds are against them and there's nothing handed to them anymore. If the water dries up and the food shorts out and death looms over the horizon, he has no clue what to expect from them. Maybe Tadashi does. Max only trusts that he could kill Tadashi before the kid ever got desperate enough to do something like that himself. Every killer used to be a boy. Every madman in his world used to have an inkling of sanity, somewhere, before it got smothered out by the wastelands. War pups had become war boys. Furiosa used to have soft eyes and an arm before she was snatched up. Max used to have a family instead of ghosts with their faces.

But that was the difference, between the Tranquility and the Fury Road. Furiosa took a gun from him, aimed, and killed. And he helped her. And in the chaos, they had wordlessly decided the other deserved to live, for whatever it was worth. Even with the odds against them and three towns on their tail. The Wives could have surrendered and ran. They could have picked up guns and blown their heads off, gave themselves up to their old, miserable lives. But Angharad cut the chain helping to crush Max's hand. Cheedo lifted Furiosa up when she was weak. Nux died so that they could climb to safety.

Trust was earned. He had nothing, nothing at all here, but the quiet relief that everyone was too busy and well-fed enough to not point their weapons at him. That food grew out of earth that wasn't radiated. That things took to soil, that pantries stayed full, that the halls were well-lit and the medical facility stocked.

But there was more to it than just trust.

His name had come out of him in a rush, when Furiosa was nearly dead. Like a punch. He had even been a little startled that he had admitted it, but it seemed right. It was all he had left to give her, once the blood was flowing into her vein. He owed her a name. He felt the cost of giving it was worth it. Truthfully, his name is a source of torment sometimes. The ghosts say it over and over, a cuckoo clock that is stuck on 12:00. Over and over and over. Max this, Max that, Max, where were you, Max, Max, Max —

He shakes his head.

"Don't trust 'em." Not yet, if ever. He's not sure. Future's a blank slate. "My name's archaic. Nobody needs it."

Nobody. He could vanish anyway. Everyone would carry on, not think twice about the quiet crazy man. It's how it usually is. The rare exceptions don't make it any less true.

[tadashiwashere]

Tadashi might not have been a stranger to loss, but that didn't mean he had any idea how Max's world operated. Maybe if he had lived through strangers tattooing lines of ink into his skin and dragging him away from freedom, he would be less trusting. As it was, all he had to go on was support. He was a product of a supportive aunt who had taken him and his brother in and tried to be a parent for them even when she was suffering through grief as badly -- if not worse -- that her nephew was. At SFIT, he had supportive teachers like Callaghan who knew him by name and encouraged him. Supportive friends, who would trek out to his garage at weird hours bearing pizza and helping out his little brother get ready for the big showcase.

Even aboard the Tranquility, he had quickly found himself with new friendships and connections, creating a safety net between him and any true hardship. He made friends easily, and he couldn't really name any true enemies. He didn't even feel at lasting odds with bullies from high school.

Tadashi and Max's worlds were polar opposites.

"If you can, you should give them a chance," Tadashi said at last. He really didn't know where he would be without the friendships he'd already formed here. "They might surprise you."

He wouldn't press the topic more than that, though -- he would just offer his advice.

Max could take it or leave it, but Tadashi genuinely believed it was better to not be alone. No matter what the situation might be.

And even if Max decided to leave the advice where it was given, Tadashi would still go out of his way occasionally to check in on Max. It was just sort of how he operated.

[theroadwarrior]

He glances down the hall like he expects someone to prove Tadashi wrong right then and there. Max spends an unappealing amount of time around here waiting for the other shoe to drop, for people to change their tunes. A false sense of security is a bad idea. This not being the wastelands doesn't change as much as you'd think. He says quietly, accent thicker, "Not always a surprise for the better."

A sigh later, and he's shaking his head, turning himself more toward the hallway.

"People will use you. Just have to figure out which of them will benefit you back."

It may have it's small exceptions, but Max has lived by this code generously over the years. Forging friendships? That's all fine and dandy and all, but ultimately... people manipulate other people to fill a void, to get something they need. Even true friendships are forged by one needing to use the other to get what they need. It's just realizing somewhere down the line that you also need them as a person, that's the kicker.

The wastes are just like that.

Symbiotic relationship, or violent competition. Bartering. Negotiating.

Or else a meeting boilings down to the smooth slide of a bullet into a gun barrel.

... Or, you know. Getting strung up for blood.

He turns and starts away, the slightest limp to his walk as he goes. Usually the sand does better to mask it. Here, the brace creaks a bit in the silence of the halls, and he makes a note to have it oiled up so that he could be a deathly silence creeping around.

[tadashiwashere]

Tadashi presses his lips together as he watches Max walk away. For a moment, he considers calling after him and continuing the conversation, but in the end he decides to let it drop. It's strange, thinking about Max as a guy that held a scalpel to his throat not that long ago. Since then, their conversations seem to be falling into an odd pattern. The end result of that pattern seems to always leave Tadashi feeling at once both too naive and determined to try to change Max's mind.

The advice (if that's what it's meant to be) that Max gives seems weighty -- too heavy to be ignored. Maybe because Max doesn't seem to say anything that doesn't absolutely need to be uttered. There's no real small talk.

All the same, it clashes with Tadashi's world-view. Not unlike Hiro, he's too stubborn to be easily swayed to another way of thinking.

He reaches up, rubbing absently at the nape of his neck as he watches the other man. Shrugging in the next instant, Tadashi turns and walks off in the other direction.

If nothing else, the conversations with Max always leave him thinking.