bakerstreet | wake up, wake up

She looks at him for a long moment, clearly uncertain, until he speaks. His voice is soft, and slow. Cheedo nods numbly in reply, and lifts her hands to knuckle a little more thoroughly at her eyes, fingertips swiping away new tears that just won't stop leaking out.

"Mmm," is all she can think to say. He isn't Furiosa or one of her sisters, but he understands, and that's enough. Slowly, she trails towards him, finds a place on the rail to lean on and breathes in the cool night sky, trying to calm herself down.

Considering how much of his responses are simply grunts and hums, he's not about to demand more than that from her. When she comes out to join him he just nods, shifts slow and careful again, and bends down to rest his forearms on the railing. It's sturdy, he made sure of that before he leaned on it the first time, and he's smart enough to guess what the Wives have suffered at the hands of Men. He keeps his own body language as non-threatening as possible. Cheedo reminds him, a little painfully, of the little girl who so often haunts his days, and sometimes his nights. The tears just make him feel paternal, but he's forgotten what you're supposed to do, to make somebody stop crying.

So much wasted water.

Max fidgets a little, massaging his mangled hands, and looks at the railing, the quiet ground far below, and the starry sky. He licks his lips and makes a quiet little hum, and then his mouth works a little bit, soundlessly, before he gets words out again. "People... used to see pictures, in the sky. Stars." It's a non-sequitur and he knows it, but maybe a distraction will help?

For a while they stand there together in a semblance of silence, Cheedo trying her best to gulp down her sobs before they start up again. She doesn't like how quick she is to cry. Toast doesn't cry.

Her head jerks a little in surprise when he suddenly speaks; she's jumpier than usual, hands balled into little fists on the railing.

"What kind of pictures?" She says eventually, sniffing. Tips her head back to look at the stars. She remembers Miss Giddy pointing them out to her through the glass ceiling of the Vault at night, remembers how she had special words for some of them. The ones that burned brighter were planets. The moon is low in the sky, and curvy, like a fingernail.

Max frowns in thought, the furrows on his forehead multiplying. He used to know, he thinks, but so much of what he used to know has been discarded or shut away into the back of his brain. He doesn't use it anymore, it has no place or purpose in the world he lives in, now.

"...Bears. Or spoons." He pauses, because he's trying to decide if that sounds right. "...And heroes." Maybe they can make new shapes. Better ones. Better than spoons, anyway, because that's stupid.

On hand lifts and he tries to point out some of the brighter stars. "Draw lines, from one to the next, to make the shapes."

"Spoons?" Cheedo mumbles, disbelieving, but her mouth curls up at the corners in a hesitant smile. She can't imagine who would look up at something as beautiful as the night sky and choose to see something as ordinary as spoons in it.

She follows the movement of his hand, and squints up at the stars, lifting her arm to copy his movements.

"That one– where it curves? It looks like a wave."

Max just shrugs, because his own memory is faulty as it is, and surely they can come up with something better than spoons. It's impossible to guess, sometimes, what people in the old world were thinking when they did what they did.

Scratching the back of his head, he squints up at the sky and nods. "Maybe somebody'll look up and see you. Mn. In the sky." He did say they made the shapes of heroes, up there, and he knows stories of what Furiosa and the Wives have done are already spreading.

She's made shy by his answer, head ducking to stare down into the dark that drowns out the edges of the Citadel. Why would somebody want to see her in the night sky? She'd like to see the others, though. Capable, Toast, Furiosa, the Dag. Angharad. She tucks her hair behind her ear, and looks at him.

"Maybe they'll see you too." After all, he's a part of their group: the ones who had come from the Citadel, and then gone back to take it for themselves. He belongs in the sky, too.

Both eyebrows grow up, and he looks at her with an expression that's both amused and incredulous. "Me?!" Max scrubs at his stubbled jaw, and ducks his head, sheepish. "'M too dirty for the stars." It's meant to be a joke, and he darts a look at her that's supposed to be a smile. He isn't used to smiling, but he tries.

"No you aren't," she insists, but catches his smile all the same and is quick to return it. At first she had been anxious over stumbling upon him in search of anybody else, but now she feels a little better about it. After all, he's quiet, like she is, and interesting. She gets the feeling he knows a lot of things about the world that she doesn't.

"Thank you," she says, glancing at her hands splayed across the railing. Her heartbeat has long since returned to normal, and she's relieved to feel grounded once more.

The thank you takes him by surprise, and he has to think a moment to work out what it is he's being thanked for. After some consideration, he still isn't sure. Better to keep it light, and he gives her another flash of a smile and a firm nod. "Y'r welcome for my being dirty."

Cheedo stares at him in surprise, then can't help the little laugh that burst out of her mouth. She hunches forwards, shoulders jerking as she sniggers, hands reaching too late to cover her lips. She hopes he doesn't mind.

"That's not what I meant," she says eventually, and gives him a proper, wide smile this time. "I meant thank you for cheering me up."

The laugh is startling, such a foreign sound, and the attempt at a smile slips a little. He doesn't look bothered, though, just a little bemused. He didn't expect to be successful at cheering her up that much.

Max gives a nod, and straightens slowly from the railing, moving back to the wall and sliding down it carefully to sit. He stretches out his left leg, and looks up at the sky again. "Good. This place... needs to..." His hands gesture vaguely in the air, as if he could find the words there and grab them. "Needs filling up with good things."

"Yeah."

She looks over at him almost warily as he moves, but relaxes when he only lowers himself to sit on the ground. She follows suit after a moment's hesitance, gathering her shawl tight about her shoulders and lifting her head to look at the sky again.

"Dag's been planting," she says, and drops her head to the ground, tracing a finger through the dirt in wiggly, indistinct patterns. "Have you seen?"

He grunts and nods, letting his head rest back against the wall for better stargazing. "Hope it grows." There used to be so much more green, in the world. Some days he can dimly remember a place near the edge of the sea, where there were so many things growing green and an endless stretch of water, back before it all dried up and left only poison and salt.

"...Any of 'em trees?" He knows she has seeds, and all plants start from seeds, but he couldn't tell what any of those seeds are or have the potential to become.

"Maybe. They're still babies right now, so it's hard to tell." The Dag loves them. Cheedo's seen her singing over the sprouts, raking weeds so carefully with her fingers as she plants and waters and waits for her seeds to grow.

Maybe they will grow tall like trees, smash through the ceiling of the Vault, and extend up towards the sky. The mental image of this pleases her, and she smiles to herself, hiking her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on them.

"Maybe we can fill up the rock with flowers," she suggests, warming to the idea of it. "I think I'd like it more, that way."

"Hmmh." Hearing her refer to plants as babies is a little odd, but then he thinks maybe that's just how it should be, here. The green things are the children they choose to raise, and that's got to be a better course for their lives than babies that were thrust upon them, unwilling.

"You don't... mm. Like it here..." It's not really a question, because even as he manages to get the words out he finds that he is not so surprised at that. Why would she? Max doesn't like it here at all. It's a place of ugly memories, and not just for him.

"No."

She looks at him nervously, as if she thinks he might judge her for thinking it. When he says nothing in return, she looks at her hands, twists the fabric of her shawl between her fingers as she thinks.

"It's so big. I don't like how open it is. I wish it was just us, sometimes. Capable, Toast, Dag, Furiosa and the Vuvalini, and you."

He looks thoughtful rather than judgmental, gaze falling to her hands. He fidgets a lot, himself, and it's strange to see somebody else doing it. One hand rises to the back of his neck, to rub at the blurred brand there, and he grimaces. "Open. Feels close, to me. Tunnels closing in..." They're in agreement that the masses of people are too much. He'd feel easier, too, if it was just the women he knows, instead of all those sickly war boys and pups and the people that used to be below now finding places up higher in the rocky towers. They couldn't turn this place into anything without all those helping hands, but Just a few people is enough to make a tunnel feel crowded, to him.

She nods, rolling her words around in her mouth before she speaks, darting a quick little look at him before she does.

"I think that– what's scary about it being open is not knowing what's out there." She's lived in the Vault for years, of course. She's used to closed in spaces, and being trapped. While she didn't like it some of the time, trading it abruptly for a world she knows nothing about is scary, and something she still struggles with every so often. It's why she hangs about the Vault even now that they don't have to stay inside of it, even though Capable won't come near it, and Toast spits onto the ground if somebody mentions it.

"If you don't like the tunnels," she continues, curiously this time, "Why are you here?" This place is mostly tunnels, after all. He can't possibly enjoy living in them. Cheedo likes the tunnels. They are good for hiding.

Edited 2015-06-30 03:06 (UTC)

When she looks at him, he's not looking at her, gaze dropped low and expression slightly awkward and sheepish. Social contact does not come easily, and he sometimes seems almost shy, unable to meet people's eyes. Licking his lips, fidgeting, he fights for words again. "I don't like... what I remember in them. Mmhn. But if I...mm, make new memories- good ones..." Maybe Cheedo needs to do the same.

Then the earlier comment about what's out there strikes him, and Max rummages in his battered leather jacket, in the pockets he's sewn inside, and pulls out a rolled-up scrap of fabric. What he unfurls is his homemade map, marked with symbols and a few words marked out in blood or oil or, in a few rare spots, actual ink. It's mostly indecipherable to anyone but him, but he gestures at it, inviting her to look. "That's what's out there." The only symbol she's likely to recognize is Joe's, marked in blood, then later scratched over with a vague kind of plant shape in oil.

She blinks, then scoots in towards him to take the little square of fabric, smoothing it out curiously on her knee.

"Oh," she says, in soft recognition, squinting down at the little oil symbol of the plant. She touches it very gently with her fingertip, traces her nail across the little dots, away towards the edge. He's been mapping the Wastes. So many questions flood to the forefront of her mind: has he been everywhere on this little map? Why is he making it? How long has he been making it? She looks up to ask him, but falls silent when she notices him still staring at the ground.

That's right. He's quite quiet, when he wants to be. She rolls up his little map carefully, and hands it back to him.

"Could... make you a copy. So you'll... mm. Know what's out there." It's his map, so everything on it is somewhere he's been, something he felt was worth marking down to help him find his way. He gets lost, sometimes, in the hallucinations. The map helps him find his way back. He darts a little glance up at her, and tries for a small smile again.

"It's big. Not all bad."

She nods immediately, then backpedals almost instantly, touched as she is by his kindness. "Oh– no, that's okay. You don't need to do that."

He's so nice. She remembers faintly (with a touch of shame) that not too long she had stared at the back of his head from her seat in Furiosa's war rig and hated him, for taking the spot in their party that had belonged to Angharad. She'd been so desperately sad, then. Max hadn't deserved the anger she flung onto him silently, even if it was without his notice.

Both eyebrows lift, and he smiles a little and nods back, seeing the answer behind the answer. "Need ink..." Or oil, maybe. He's fairly sure she'd prefer to have a copy that isn't written in blood, and he'd rather not open up scabs just for the sake of a map. Oblivious to any guilty looks, he forges on thinking of the map. "Can you read?" He could add words that will make more sense than his symbols, but not everyone knows how to read, anymore. Come to that, they may not expect that he can.

It's a little ironic, considering how much more feral than them that he seems, that Max actually came from one of the last pockets of civilization before the old world crumbled completely.

"I have ink," she murmurs, shy again, but pleased that he's apparently insisting on replicating the map for her. She likes the idea of having something to herself about the Wastes– though, maybe she'll share it with the Dag, some day.

She nods to his second question, although she's unable to help giving him a suspicious little squint in return. Strange question, to ask if she can read. Of course she can read. She remembers sitting with Miss Giddy and reading slowly along the wandering tattoos covering her arms.

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