Theories on Cats [ @ruby ]

Ruby was so reluctant to show her feelings it felt a little sad somehow. It felt that way to the cop probably because he showed too much of it. Feelings. He passed a period a few years back where he had been as black as stone, showing nothing, no feelings, no expressions. But he suffered inside. It wasn't easy for him to be angry and not being able to show any of it. After healing from his addiction, he was so emotionally drained it was all he could give. As years passed he had learned to appreciate more what feelings did to his mind, freeing him from pressure and unwanted feelings that could destroy him. Recently however things began to get all mixed up, and his self control was constantly being pushed around in the most pleasant and unpleasant ways. He needed to get a balance back, an equilibrium that would avoid him some mistakes he had done. He wondered if Ruby was the same. If she was just emotionally drained because of past events and now unable to show a large range of feelings. Maybe she didn't know how to do so anymore, or perhaps she didn't want to to protect herself. All those questions, with time could be answered. That was what Max believed.<p>
Obviously his change of attitude didn't go unnoticed, and Ruby's next words made Max chuckle. So she took the time to translate what he said that night at the masquerade. "I find it hilarious that you went through the trouble to understand what I said. Maybe I should start giving you even more homework." the man's smile disappeared slowly, looking into her eyes as she took his tie between her fingers, only to bring him back to her. As if it had become a natural defense mechanism against her choking, Max took an audible breath as she pulled, his gaze losing a bit of its intensity as his focus failed him. She played those games much better than he did, and he believed it was so because she wasn't afraid of the outcome. Max feared her for good reasons, and he didn't quite give her a reason to fear him. The fear he had given her at the aquarium was probably erased when he apologized, hugged her, offered her pizza and kissed her. She probably didn't forget and might have made it a life promise to never let him be at peace. And right now was one of those moments where she made him regret his life decisions. Regret maybe wasn't the best word, since he enjoyed how she was doing her vengeance, but it made him feel overwhelmed, weak and toyed with. Those things he enjoyed less. "And what do 'you' mean by Exclusive has its ups and downs?" I only see ups, he wanted to add, but she pulled on the tie, giving him that sensation of choking once more. That's right, he was supposed to hate her for that. Too bad she wasn't actually choking him right now then. Still avoiding the question Madden, where is that going to take you?<p>
They both agreed to spare Andrea the annoyance of the mocking PD members. In Ruby's eyes, Max could already see that mischievous glint he had seen before when she starts getting ideas. He wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing. It was always hard to know with Ruby, but one could safely say that it was probably good if the idea didn't involve them.<p>
"You are so suspicious. Not everyone wants to kill you, you know? The entire world isn't after you and those two poor neighbors are probably asking themselves if you are really shy, or just a plain bitchy woman. And pardon me the B word, I'm just trying to help out." He lifted his hands in defense, raising his brows and pinching his lips. For moving as much as he did, Max was used to introducing himself to his new neighbors. He had a few annoying ones, but he always managed to live with them without any troubles. "No you are right, no one does that. What people do is make lasagna and give it as an offering. It's a thing, I swear I can count at least ten of my new neighbors who did that for me. All lasagna....I don't even know why the lasagna! Do I look Italian to you?" he asked, pointing at his face in an alarmed way. Or maybe people just mistaken France with Italy? That would be stupid but he guessed that anyone who wasn't really good in geography or couldn't pick up accents wouldn't be able to tell the difference.<p>
When did the tables turn again? Oh right, when he stopped paying attention and let his guard down. He had put himself in a compromising position and Ruby was taking advantage of it. He raised an unimpressed brow as she pinched his leg, creating a small tickle effect on his leg, which moved uncontrollably forward for a quick kick. Social never won a war. Well socializing with Ruby seemed to make you lose every war, that was for sure. Despite his unimpressed look, he could feel the beating of his heart speed up, and a sensation that gravity operated solely inside his stomach was making him freeze. She was too good at this teasing game, it was frustrating. Keeping his cool he smiled, looking at her face and speaking in a light tone. "You'd be surprised. Veni, Vidi, Vici." Max ended up taking out a few latin words he remembered. I came, I saw, I vanquished. He believed it stood pretty well in this situation. And who knows, maybe Ruby knew those words and would be able to bounce off of them. Who was he kidding, even if she didn't understand them she would find a way to get back.

She wasn't going to get an answer regarding what he thought of the word exclusive, and neither would he know what she thought of it. A fair bargain, even if right now he really wanted to tell her what he thought of that special word. But no he had to keep his mouth shut just for that. Quite frankly he believed exclusive was for two people who hung out with each other and showed their marks of affection only to one another without sharing it with anyone else. But they weren't officially a couple. Was it a fancy word for sleeping buddies? Max actually wasn't quite sure. She was clearly teasing him, still tying to take advantage of the situation. The question was, should he let her? How much teasing should he allow before he would return the teasing even more? He caught that quick glimpse to his lips. Was that provocation or something she didn't actually control? She'll need beast control in a minute if Max continued to pick up those small details and realized they weren't on purpose. Regarding her final answer on the matter of the word exclusive, he gave her a disappointed look, breaking their eye contact to look to the side. "You really want to let me find out? I'll probably mess up something and misunderstand you." he chuckled, smiling at her as he faced her once more.<p>
"Pff. So you don't want to bake normal cookies and just, give some? I say normal because I have no idea how you cook your cookies and for all I know you might be a terrible cook. And I don't live here. It's not my job to greet your neighbors for you." she was terrible at being social and clearly a little push wouldn't hurt. But he would rather have her not try to be social than to accidentally doing something regretful.<p>
He frowned and pouted his bottom lip, raising his upper body, pushing himself from the couch while his legs remained over the backrest to get closer to Ruby's level. He considered her words a second, squinting to try to perhaps find a second meaning to them. "If I only look inoffensive and appealing then I can stand looking Italian." he leaned back again, as if she just escaped a storm. Not a real one, more of a fake one that would contain teasing more than actual thunder to rip her apart and make her regret her words.<p>
He stared at her in confusion as she spoke a language he didn't understand. Well he felt like he caught a few things but really nothing made sense. He believed he heard german somewhere in there but not all of it was, that was for sure. Ruby surprised him by letting him know she knew several languages. That actually brought down a shiver down his spine and his mouth gaped in a disbelieved way. He turned his head from side to side before closing his eyes and opening them again a moment later. "Alright I surrender. You came, you saw and you conquered. I have nothing more to say to that." he raised his hands, surrendering to her superiority in languages.<p>
He observed her quietly as she played with his leg, coursing her fingers, continuously toying with him it seemed. In his eyes there was a kindness, a look of complete peace and trust that perhaps he didn't give to anyone in a very long time. He was still smiling, unable to shake it off for now. She looked at her own hand, as if fascinated by her own actions before darting those steel orbs back at him. His train of thoughts came to a stop, simply waiting to see what she would do next. She wasn't afraid of him or what he could do if she went to far, and that was possibly the best part in all of this. Max could be surprised.

If she was indeed bad at cooking then he would rather not try the experience of it. Ruby bad at cooking would probably mean something deadly in the end. He had a hard time picturing the two criminals cooking at all to be honest. The only thing cooking related he could see them do was doing chemistry to create something deadly or butchering some dead animal in the back of a slaughterhouse. Nothing that inspired the image of 'family friendly' cooking. He raised his hands in a defensive way. "That's right, I said nothing against you. So stop pointing that accusing finger at me." he'd push away her finger, keeping his tone as gentle as necessary.<p>
Yes his accent was indeed giving him away every time he hoped to pretend to be someone else. It was something he had been trying to work on without really wanting to change it. A part of him just really liked it that he had an identity, that people remembered him because of that french accent. It wasn't something good when he was on a field job and needed to be undercover or had to go unnoticed. And that was the main reason why he wanted to learn to control his accent, or be able to fake an english or american accent when it was required. But he guessed the only one who could really teach that to him was himself. He nodded at her words. "Yes, I guess I'll never be the Italian dragged into the Bianchi family I wished to be." he said in a teasing tone, pouting his lips before smiling widely.<p>
"Surrender is necessary to avoid further casualties." he pointed out. He never translates his french words, what would be the point of it if he did? Ruby will just have to learn a bit of french to compensate. He guessed he could be learning a few words as well in whatever language she used for that previous sentence, but it was unrealistic to think he could learn a variety of words wide enough to compete with her obvious long lived experience. He'll just have to learn to take sentences that mean nothing to him and be strong enough not to just ask for the translation.<p>
"Sit like a normal person? What is that even supposed to mean for me? What even is normal? I know it sounds boring." he said, while she leaned over him, a curtain of blond hair falling on one side of the woman's face. "I could say the same thing for you: Can't you act like a normal person instead of a cat? How long before you start doing your claws on the couch hm?" he wasn't directly saying the reason why he came here, he was simply saying something he could have said in any circumstance. She circled the couch to come sit and turn on the TV. He had a strange sensation of deja vue. That day he had with Jacob had ended up exactly the same way. He looked at her while crossing his hands on his chest, looking at the TV upside down. His face had started to become red but not from embarrassment but more because blood had started to stack itself in his head. He could feel the pressure and with an annoyed grunt he complied to sit 'correctly'.<p>
Max knew the PD would probably call him soon enough to ask him to come back for a late night shift, but he hoped they would pass on that today. He didn't feel like working anymore and hanging out here was what he wanted to do. All that was missing now was Jacob for this entire calm afternoon to turn into madness. Madness wasn't bad, it was just tiring. Just like that day at the shootout, all Max wanted after that was a calm afternoon with someone he cared about and he had been grateful that Ruby didn't come to add madness. Today was very much the same. He left his arms rest on the back of the couch, leaning his head back to close his eyes while whatever was on TV filled the silence.

He decided to drop the discussion treading on the Bianchi part. It was nothing he really wanted to talk about and he was sure Ruby would agree with him on that matter. He wondered how her shoulder looked now. It was shot by some rather heavy weaponry, he understood there must have been more than simple muscle damage. Did she even have a few issues in doing certain things? Surely her father took care of paying for the bills and found the best doctors to heal her since she was sitting here next to him with nothing that showed she got shot weeks ago. He wanted to ask about it, make sure she was okay, but bringing up the subject would soon to rip apart the peaceful atmosphere ruling in the loft. "Oh I've been host at fancy balls before, I don't miss them." and there he was, telling Ruby the same thing he told Jacob before. Now they will be two to know he had been in a family awfully similar to the Bianchi, except it was French.<p>
The man chuckled. Indeed they were, all three of them, not holding up to standards of what normal meant. But that wasn't interesting, it wasn't fun, nor was it worth living for. Since the beginning of his life the cop had been the ugly duckling, the one people looked with a strange eye, the one who made others laugh but his parents frown. He was the one in his family who defied the laws and applied them, by being attracted to men and women and being a cop at the same time. Sometimes he had regretted to be who he was, making things more difficult and complicated. But how could he complain about it now. Oh there were many reasons for him to complain, but since he knew he could be in much worse of a place, his mind was set not to.<p>
"Thank god Jacob doesn't act like a bunny. Can you imagine him always coming to beg for carrots and nibbling on everything? Our pants, our fingers, our hair? Of course I can see him creeping on us at night but come on, he's more than a bunny and I'm glad it's the case." he said, purposely shedding light on the mercenary to make Ruby jealous for an instant, waiting a little before shedding light upon her as well. "Of course you are more than just a cat as well. But I'll help you see how you are still partly a cat." he was quite out of ideas right now to test his theory about cats, but right now he just felt like showing her affection. He laid against the couch's arm, pulling Ruby to lay on or next to him while he wrapped his arms around her. "To be perfectly honest you remind me so much of my sister sometimes I should be calling you rabbit and not Jacob." Alice, always the white rabbit keeping him on a straight line when he needed to tread on a dangerous path. He wondered what she had become, where she was now and how her life was fairing. Could she be married? She could, she wasn't so young anymore even though the only memory of her he had was that of a teenage girl. He didn't really regret talking about her now to Ruby. The situation was not stressful at all and the man was in the right mood not to completely crack into pieces if he were to talk a little more about his past. She already knew about what happened in New York years back, nothing else that he could tell her would be as hard to say.<p>
The cop movie on the TV seemed like a comedy and Max didn't care much for it, however he lowered the volume a little when the gunshots started to be heard. It was, in every movie, a sound that he did not appreciate very much. It simply brought too many things in him that will automatically make him tense up, and right now he didn't want that. Ruby presence so close to him help to keep his mind set in a calm motion, taking time to think and act rather than let his subconscious burst things out without his authorization.

He huffed, shaking his head in disbelief as she did not seem to wish to stop teasing him. He looked at her with a squint. "I wasn't the host myself. My stupid family dragged me to those fancy parties and I would always find a way to make them regret it." he had told a pretty similar thing to bunny. Now they both knew he came from a rich family background. Well, he didn't plain tell that to Ruby, but he guessed she could find out by herself. And if she wasn't sure, he knew she wouldn't hesitate to ask. "And I did not retreat to any royal chamber with a woman." he felt like he had to precise that for some reason, and almost wanted to see her reaction as he said he retreated to royal chambers with a man instead. But he decided to keep that one to himself, no use in making her pry in his private life so easily.<p>
"Oh right, lets buy a bunny to Jacob and he'll train it to become a murderous little critter he'll use to accomplish his darkest murdering fantasies." he raised his hands dramatically with a chuckle. Of course he was joking and he believed that if Jacob really wanted a pet at home, a rabbit would probably be a pretty good idea. "Maybe we should ask him about it first...I'd hate to burden him with the care of a cute fluff ball." He always thought it was a good idea to ask people before giving them something like a pet. It's like surprising your wife or girlfriend with a baby, or your husband for that matter. Maybe they aren't ready to take care of a kid, and you just happen to force them to be. Of course it's not exactly the same thing but it was fairly similar.<p>
He thought about Alice for a little while, letting Ruby's sentence unanswered for about a minute that felt forever. "Her name's Alice. I believe she's still in France, but I didn't get any news from her since....a long time." he didn't want to say since he spent a year in the streets slowly dying, it would have been too much of a mood killer. "One day maybe I should try to get back in contact with her. But I don't have the courage to do so right now..." he spoke calmly as Ruby lay next to him, resting an arm across his chest. He ran a hand into her hair, moving his fingers slowly, still not giving up on getting the most cat aspects of her out. He could have very much fallen asleep right now, but instead he tried to continue the conversation. "How about you? Where is your bro_" he got startled when he felt his pocket vibrate before he realized it was his phone ringing. He sighed, kicking his head back in exasperation as he struggled to take the device of out his pocket with his free hand. "Sorry" he said before bringing the phone to his ear. "Ello?" he fell silent, the sound of an urging voice on the other end of the line.<p>
He looked at the ceiling while listening and sighed before answering. "I'll be there as soon as possible." he hung up and shoved the phone right back into his pocket before letting his arm fall to the side of the couch. He was considering how much of a jerk he wanted to be right now, but didn't move and remained quiet.

The cop knew he had difficulties creating sentences that were correct or truly reflected what he wanted to say. His french raised mind probably got in the way most of the time, but he was proud that he was doing better every year. His french accent was noticeable, mostly when he was drunk or really tired, but otherwise when he could concentrate correctly it could go invisible. However right now he was not using the best combinations of words to paint the image of Jacob's murder fantasies to Ruby. She was probably imagining something kinky because of the word 'fantasy', and really he couldn't blame her for that. He laughed with a bright smile and shook his head. "Buy the man a rabbit if you want, but in all honesty I'm too afraid to do it." he had no idea how Jacob would react to receiving a critter. Max, if he received a small rabbit, would probably be disappointed, believing it was just a useless mouth to feed off of his wallet. He had nothing against rabbits, and their soft furs were a source of relaxation most people who never petted one would never comprehend. He was surprised he never ended up getting a white rabbit for Alice. He remembered he had thought about it a few times, but there was always the fear of what would happen to the poor little animal if his father found out. As a child he was convinced his father would give it to the cook and serve it for dinner without second thought. Max realized now it was probably a ridiculous thought, but he didn't doubt his father could have served rabbit just to give them a lesson, even if it wasn't 'the' rabbit.<p>
Ruby was very right about Alice and contacting her. He should have done it ages ago, and now with the PD's source of information there was no doubt he would be able to find her. He was terrified about the idea however. What if she rejected him? Blamed him for leaving in the first place, for never calling her? The truth was that he did call on his parent's phone to talk to her and only to her. But no one ever picked up for him but the maids, and even them never talked to him. And after that he was in the streets, he had no phone, no money to use one. Following that, he was in rehab and had forgotten a lot about his past life. And then he simply didn't have the will to search anymore. Ruby was listening to him and giving him...human advice. No one had done that in years besides her and Jacob. Bunny had kept the teasing up and their talks had felt more like a rendezvous at a therapist than a talk from man to man yet, except a few times when Max really felt glad to talk with the man. He felt genuinely touched by the attention the blond woman was giving him. It was the only thing he had truly been wanting, but he only realized now that it was care and attention he truly wanted, something he had lacked his entire life. Now with both Ruby and Jacob, it felt like he was getting such care daily. It was strange to think that it was care the two gave him when they were mostly being overly protective like two predators over a prey.<p>
He closed his eyes a moment, turning his head towards Ruby's own, letting the bridge of his nose hide between the blond locks of hair while his forehead rested near the top of her scalp. He moved a hand to the one on his chest, not answering her question at all but instead giving her his gratitude through actions rather than words. When you are bad with words, find a different way to express yourself. It was a pain to have to stop it all when the phone rang and he answered it before Ruby could answer his own question about her brother. After staying immobile on the couch, staring at the ceiling while wondering how he was going to get up and push Ruby away from the embrace to leave, the silence got broken by the woman's words.<p>
She sounded angry, defiant and rebellious. Her sudden determination woke Madden up, but perhaps a little too late. He had watched her while she spoke with a surprised and confused look, understanding she didn't want him to go back to the PD but his mind wasn't calculating fast enough to understand that she was actually going to do something about it. She reached into his pocket before he could react and at first Max thought she was just putting it on silent mode. He wasn't quick enough to stop her from taking his device away. If this wasn't serious he might have done a cat joke on how fast and swift her action had been. "Ruby give me the phone." he raised himself from the couch, his hair slightly messy from being too comfortable and his cloths already wrinkled. She didn't seem ready to do give up just yet, and seemed to have another idea in mind. She quickly moved to the window and Max bolted up from the couch to catch up with her. He now saw exactly what she was hoping to accomplish. There came the long awaited retaliation from that day at the hospital where he had tossed her phone out the window.<p>
He wasn't going to let her do that however and tried to catch her by the shirt. He succeeded in a few strides, but when he pulled her to get closer he tripped and fell, taking her down with him unfortunately. He did his possible to land his arms on either side of her frame and not on her. "This is mine, thank you very much." much like he would do to someone he just arrested, he put a knee in the middle of her back and reached out for the phone in her hand, trying to get it out as best as he can. "I need that Ruby, just give it back. You can't keep me locked here for the day because you don't want me to go back to work!" his tone was solid and firm but it was all betrayed by the smile on his face. Ruby's reaction was too funny for him to be truly mad at her, even if she did manage in the end to destroy his phone. Also destroying his phone wouldn't stop him from going to work.

And here he was with a clumsy action he decided to accomplish on the spot without thinking of it twice. Sometimes he wished he could slow time down to give himself more time to think about his plans and avoid having them turn against him. They both fell with a thud and as Max kept a knee on her back, bidding her to give him back his belongings, he didn't notice at first what had happened to the woman's nose. Taking a break from work. With all the time he had spent locked up in his home because he was scared of going out, or the days he had spent at the hospital, it wasn't a very serious attitude to just call the PD and tell them he wasn't coming back for today because....because what? Because he wanted to spend some time with a friend? It was ridiculous and Max couldn't bring himself to think that was a valid option. If the PD bid him to come back, then he was to obey. They were the ones paying for his current life anyway.<p>
However now, with his shitty plans Ruby seemed to be hurt. He heard her swear and bring a hand to her nose where he saw a glimpse of crimson staining it. Did she really land that bad? Now he felt terrible and quickly moved away from her, sitting on the floor next to the woman. A part of him was filled with pride and refused to apologize or show care for what had just happened, but his more dominant side cared a little too much to let his actions unanswered for. He brought one of his knees up to his chest and rested an elbow on it to hold his forehead as he watched her with slightly worried eyes. "Are you okay?" he asked, a hint of care in his otherwise blunt question. He took out a clean piece of paper tissue from his pocket and gave it to her, hoping she would just take it to keep her nose from bleeding on the floor as it seemed to be the case right now. He could be wrong however, and he hoped he was.<p>
He felt terrible for his actions right now and waited for Ruby's reactions to further decide how much guilt he should feel right now. He hated to hurt people by accident, and sadly it was something that did happen from time to time. He didn't want to see the peaceful mood of the day vanish just because of one misplaced step and a clumsy cop. He needed to get some of that clumsiness fixed somehow. It had proven to be a burden from time to time or a perfect alibi to being someone else or creating a problem to solve another. Speaking of problems to solve others he was still rowing in the wrong direction for Enigma, the current always going against him. And he was now known by the Bianchi to be a nuisance and so: disposable. Attacking one meant attacking the other anyway, and Max had found himself to grow weary of the case. Enigma may have fallen silent, it was probably not just taking a winter nap.