bakerstreet | wake up, wake up

"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.

Max nods and grunts, satisfied. "Good. I'll add words." She may learn, when she starts to interact more with the War Pups and the Wretched, that reading is not so common a skill anymore. Not everyone had a Miss Giddy to teach them, or books to learn the words out of.

"Other towns, out there." He nods, half to himself, thoughts drifting a little. Max is more widely traveled than most people in their current world.

She looks out towards the sky, fingers splaying over her knees as she thinks about that. Her town is out there, somewhere, lost to the desert. She can't remember how many days it's been since she left it. She can't remember a lot of things about home.

"Have you been to many?"

"Been to too many." He nods, playing with the frayed edge of his map absently. "None like here, though. Noplace this green." Most of the towns and settlements he's been to are more like Gastown or the Bullet Farm, dirty, crowded places where resources are hoarded and human life is cheap. That's par for the course, in the Wasteland, and he can tell that what they're trying to build here is something very unique.

Cheedo likes the idea of that, that they're cultivating something in the Citadel that can't be found elsewhere. The green covering the tops of the rocks and growing within it is lovely. Why wouldn't everybody be striving for a patch of it? Her next question is a little more personal than the last:

"Did you come from one of them?"

It takes him a moment to even understand the question, and when he does he frowns a little, but she's so young, she's never known a world where the soil wasn't poisoned, and the ocean was still deep and full of life. Someday, nobody is going to remember the way it once was, if they're not told about it from those that saw it before.

The thought makes him feel old.

Still frowning, he scrubs at his jaw and shifts, drawing up the good knee. "Came from... The coast. When there was one. When... Before..." He makes a vague gesture, then a quiet grunt of frustration over his own difficulty speaking. "Memory is all broken. So are my words. Sorry."

So his town is gone, too. Cheedo doesn't know for sure if her town is really gone or not, but when she can't find some way to go back and check on it, it feels like it's gone. She puts her cheek on her knee and goes silent, lifting a hand to tuck her hair behind her ear.

The Coast. It sounds quite dreamy.

She shakes her head at his explanation, giving him a hesitant smile to show that she understands, that she doesn't need an apology. "Um, it's okay. I don't remember much about my home either."

"Remembering hurts." He sighs, and gives her an apologetic look. He knows the reason his memories come so hard is because of how many things got broken along the way. He had a life, in the old world, and it was torn apart piece by piece while he grasped helplessly at the ruins. His old life went under the wheels.

"It was different. Before. So different sometimes... Mm. Sometimes I think I dreamed it up."

"Miss Giddy told us about it, a bit," she remembers, "But not too much. She said we couldn't go around wishin' for things to go back to how they were, just in case they never did."

At the time she had felt cheated out of the extra information, but listening to Max has changed that. He's right, after all: remembering does hurt. Maybe Miss Giddy didn't really want to talk to anybody about Before either.

"She's... Not here, now?" He's very cautious asking, because losing people is so common in their world, but no less terrible for that. He doesn't remember meeting her, though. If she were here, they wouldn't bother to compare notes. The old world has been firmly left in the past, and this one is too far gone to come back to what it was in their lifetimes.

"Was right." He adds in a grunt.

"No..."

Her expression crumples, just a little, but she's careful to hide it. She looks down at the ground again, at the swirls she had drawn earlier in the dirt. "She didn't come with us. I thought she would be here when we got back, but the Vault was empty."

She sucks in a little, shuddery sigh, and presses her forehead against her knees. "... I miss her. And I miss Angharad."

Dead, then, which is a safe thing to assume about anyone who didn't make it back from the wild chase up and down the Fury Road. Max knows what it is, to mourn the dead, and he knows that most people don't see them still hanging around after the way he does. Hearing the other Wife's name brings a stabbing pain of guilt, though, and a quick glance around in case she should appear to scream at him, bloodied and accusing.

When she doesn't, at least not yet, he leans forward and gently pats Cheedo's foot in what he hopes is a reassuring way. There are other spots he could reach, like her shoulder or her arm, but he's vaguely aware of what they've all been through and what he could represent. Patting her foot seems like the least threatening option.

When he touches her she flinches immediately in response, then pauses, looks at him with wide eyes. Perhaps his touch is meant to be reassuring? Like when the Dag takes both her hands in her own, and holds them tight- but Cheedo hasn't been comforted on the foot before.

She stares at him for a while longer, and then her surprise abruptly gives way to mirth: she snickers helplessly, pressing a fist against her mouth.

When she flinches he winces, but the way he withdraws his hand is slow and easy, because he knows what it is to startle like a frightened animal at sudden movements. Knowing what it is to be hurt, and to be afraid and flinch at everything, makes it easier to soothe others in the same way. He knows what would make him twitch so he tries not to do it to anyone else, at least in the luxury of quiet moments like this.

The second bout of laughter just leaves him puzzled, though. Before, he was trying to make a joke. This time he has no idea what she's found funny. Max tilts his head at her like a confused dog.

The look he gives her only makes it worse, and she giggles harder, ducks her head until her hair swings across her face like a curtain. She hides like that until she is calm, then breathes in steadily, feeling shaky and satisfied in a way that only comes after laughing for so long.

"Sorry," she says, and bites her lip before she smiles. "You're strange, but you're nice. Are you going to stay here with us?"

It probably does not help that whenever Max is confused, his eyebrows scrunch up and the lines on his forehead multiply and he takes on a look like a mournful basset hound. Cheedo does not need to have ever seen a dog in her life to still know the expression is a little comical. The hair that perpetually sticks out every which way doesn't help. It's growing out some, and it just makes him look shaggy.

At her question Max fidgets, sobering again. "I don't... belong. Too many people. Too much..." He gestures vaguely at his own head, unsure how to explain that every time he walks down the tunnels he's fighting flashbacks. "...'M still a blood bag. In there." He points to the doorway, to the indoors of the rocky caverns, without even looking up.

Her smile slowly disappears as he speaks, and she ducks her head, embarrassed for presuming anything. He may be talking to her now, but she's reminded strongly of the fact that she doesn't know him, not really.

The words blood bag don't mean much to her, but she has the foresight not to ask about them. It's something that distresses him, and what if he were to ask her about the Vault, or about being a wife? She should hate to answer questions like that. She's startled to know he feels like he doesn't belong, though, and so she asks something else:

"But," she says, hesitant in her wondering, "Furiosa is here."

She may or may not have ever heard Nux refer to him that way, but exactly what that means has probably not been explained to her. At her meek protest, he looks away and rubs at the brand on the back of his neck. "She... is. She's very kind. To me." Cue yet more fidgeting, because Furiosa is a slightly awkward subject. What she wants of him, if anything, he's not sure. "You're all kind."

Kindness is foreign and strange, and there are times he's not sure how to react to it. This is yet another reason he's not sure he belongs there.

"We're not, really," Cheedo says, and looks at her feet, at the one he had patted just moments before. She thinks she would act this way with anybody who was nice enough to listen to her, and give her a couple of consoling pats on the foot. "But we like you, and you deserve kindness."

"I'm not... mmn..." How can he tell this sweet young girl that his head is full of fire and blood and he still feels closer to the feral madman that first threatened them all with a gun than someone deserving of gentle words and kindness? Perhaps she's forgotten, in the wake of his help along the way, and why he ended up helping them he still can't quite say. They stir old instincts, some broken memory of the man he used to be, but that doesn't erase what he is now.

"...Waved a gun at you." It's a mumble, but he wants to remind her who he is.

"Sure, at first." She shrugs a shoulder, unconvinced, and gives him an oddly piercing look. She has a feeling she knows what he's trying to say, but it's not something that she thinks she can accept. If Furiosa trusts Max, then Cheedo does too.

"Because you thought we were scary. You thought everybody was scary. But you helped us anyway."

"Still scared." He meets her eyes, honest and sober, and only a little bit ashamed. The wives and Furiosa are helpful, and they remind him of the open road and keep him anchored for now, but every time the rock walls close around him he's fighting flashbacks, the sizzle of flesh under a brand and the buzz of a tattoo gun, the crackle of an electric prodding stick and the stink of dying men, both in cages and sitting under them.

When he does panic and fall into flashbacks, he doesn't know what he's doing, and he lashes out. The longer he stays here, the more he worries one of them will be nearby when that happens, and they'll get hurt.

She looks back at him for a long moment, and then away, out towards the night sky. Still scared. Of them? Cheedo makes a face- but, she remembers how he talked about the Citadel being too small, too full, too claustrophobic. He doesn't like the place.

"Oh." She hadn't meant to say that a loud, but it escapes from her in a little huff of understanding. She smiles nervously, and loops her arms around her knees.

"I'm sorry."

Edited 2015-07-09 13:45 (UTC)

"You're not... scared of what I might do?" His eyebrows rise a little, because it's surprising to think they're not afraid of him lashing out by accident, while in the grip of a panic attack. He's afraid of the place, but hes more afraid of what that fear might make him do, by accident.

"No..." but her voice trails off regardless as she darts a quick, panicky little look at him. What does he mean?

"What are you going to do?"

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