wake up, wake up

[bababooey]

wake up, wake up, it's only a bad dream meme

bad dreams are ordeals, sometimes seemingly endless. when you wake up, your heart pounds, your head hurts, and you end up drenched in sweat. even if you know none of it was real, it takes a while to orient yourself. it is pretty nice to have someone there to wake you up or to soothe you out of it and remind you that... it's only a dream. ••• the usual rules apply. post with your character and preferences and then tag around, have your characters comfort others.

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[madmanmax]

He likes Furiosa, but he's not quite sure he has a place beside her in rebuilding the way he did back on the road. Fighting and driving are what he knows, and what she needed him to match her in, back there, but now that they've settled in the Citadel her aims will be different.

He likes all of them, really, even if they're sometimes a little overwhelming when they're all together. He didn't know they liked him in return, or in a way he did but he needed it put that clearly into words to become truly aware of it. "...You're all... kind. To people. Thought maybe..." He thought maybe he wasn't special in receiving that treatment from them.

[cheedo]

"Max," she says, slightly exasperated. His doubt runs deep, possibly deeper than she can understand, but how could he convince himself that he isn't special, to any of them? Perhaps that's just how he is, she reasons. Perhaps he needs to be told, before he can believe. If that's the case, she has no problems with reminding him.

"We don't need you," she tells him, perhaps too bluntly. She hastily backtracks, her hands jumping up to face him, palms out. "S-Sorry. I mean– we don't need you to be around, to do anything, if you don't want to. We'd really like you to stay, but you don't have to." She breathes out slowly, looks at him hesitantly, wondering if she's just messed everything up.

"If... If that's stressful. If obligation is stressful– you don't have any. We want you to be happy."

[madmanmax]

Happy.

Max isn't even sure he remembers what happy looks like, anymore. He was happy once, he thinks, in a world that seems like a lifetime away with a wife and a baby and a house full of plants that existed just because they liked them and not because they were anything necessary or needed. Maybe he's just imagined all that up, because it's hard to believe and time and place like that ever existed.

Poor Cheedo is subjected to one of those long moments where Max's gaze just drifts off into something very far away, and he seems to be utterly oblivious to his surroundings. When he drags himself back to the present he gives a hard shake of his head and blinks a few times, trying to refocus on the words she's said.

"Don't... want to break this place, by being here." It isn't about his happiness, but he'd be all the more miserable if he ruined things for them somehow.

[cheedo]

He goes utterly silent, and Cheedo waits patiently, anxiously. After a while her gaze drops, teeth pressing into her lip as she looks away. Perhaps she offended him? Perhaps he wants to be needed.

When he finally speaks, she breathes out steadily in relief, and allows her hands to unclench against the ground. "You won't break anything," she replies, and looks out over the Citadel, her brow furrowing. "We're strong."

Max couldn't break them if he tried. Nobody could, and nobody ever will. Not as long as they have Furiosa, and each other, and the Vuvalini and the Mothers. Not as long as they keep the Citadel. Cheedo is sure of it.

[madmanmax]

This time the answer comes faster, although it starts as a little hum and a nod. They're strong, all of them, even and maybe especially her. "You're strong." He echoes, and 'mm's again, and his lips quirk in a wry and fleeting little smile. "I'm not." Because that's the other part of the equation, and he'd be lying if he denied that scares him too. If he doesn't somehow break this place, there's a possibility it just might break him. He knows the fragility of his own mind, and he's grown used to it, but he does wonder when something will come along that makes a final crack and simply shatters him into pieces.

Max's gaze drops away from her face quickly, avoiding whatever he might see there, and he amends it carefully, struggling for the words. "Can't... stay. Can't. But I could.... mmm. Maybe... go and come back?"