Theories on Cats [ @ruby ]

Cats. The more you know

Darn it she was annoying when she just denied everything. He gave her the look a parent gives their child when they know they are lying. How did he manage to start knowing her so well? And the worst was that he only believed he did. There was a whole other layer beyond the surface waiting to be dug out. She said her nose wasn't broken, but her face sure told otherwise. The ice should work helping the pain a bit until they got painkillers, and will also help her not having a huge bump on her nose in three hours. He chuckled and rolled his eyes as she spoke ridiculously, making him barely understand a word she said. "Stop talking, just point I'll figure it out." he said, trying to sound reassuring despite his worry. That was until she seemed to want to get up. Getting up as well he helped her, making sure she wasn't going to fall. He accompanied her to the bathroom and opened the cabinet, looking for the painkillers.

While he searched for them, Ruby was cleaning the blood, letting it all drip in the sink. Not a very nice sight, but a very familiar one to the cop. Searching through the cabinet he found the painkillers, but not without finding, something else. There was indeed a small container with a skeleton scribbled onto it, but that wasn't what stroke his attention. There was a container with PTSD treatment pills. He frowned slightly at their sight, wondering if it was for Ruby's personal treatment, or just to have them there. The thought that he might be responsible for her having to take those pills flashed through his mind. Could the experience at the tank scarred her that bad? He started to ask himself too many questions and if he didn't stop doing so now, worry will start to show on his face. He took out the painkillers from the cabinet and hastily closed it.

"Here, Lets start with just one. If you need more you can have another one in thirty minutes." Jeez Max, you shouldn't know so much about those things, knock it off. He took out a pill and gave it to Ruby. When he looked up at her without anything covering her face, it had already started to turn blue and he winced at the sight. "I'm so sorry. I think I'll never tackle anyone ever again." he wanted to loosen the tension before he wanted to ask the more serious questions. He couldn't hold back his curiosity regarding the PTSD pills. It wasn't usual for someone to have those. "Ruby tell me___why do you have PTSD pills in your cabinet?" he asked hesitantly, thinking it was a necessary question that needed to be answered.

TAG: Ruby Blackwood / NOTES: tba

Cats. The more you know

Yes Max, tackled people who are going to threaten you and not the ones threatening your phone. That sounded like a great advice for some technology crack, not Max Madden. But he'll take it, it didn't matter right now. He simply chuckled, letting the mood light up while it could, and hopefully he'll be able to get back to the PD in a few minutes without getting his ass kicked by his boss. In the meantime, Ruby seemed to be taking care of herself without his help. He couldn't imagine all the previous wounds she had to take care of by herself, some probably worse than this one. Like a cat being independent, Ruby was very much the same, able to take care of her own business without anyone's help. There was a sense of security around her, something she always had, at least around him. It felt like she never truly left her guard down, like she was ready to take arms if anyone came to be a threat in her midst.

Though something changed really quick when he asked about the PTSD pills. She fell quiet and defensive and she didn't answer anything for a while, only showing Max the face of someone's who's been asked the wrong question. Max froze, looking at her with a frown. Perhaps she really didn't want to talk about it, maybe she was afraid to say it was his fault that she was now considered sick by most doctors. He opened his mouth to say she didn't need to talk about it if she didn't want to, which was the best way in his mind to ease the suddenly and gradually tensing situation. Nothing came out of his mouth as she spoke in his place, saying she was sorry. Sorry for what? It wasn't her fault in any way she had to take PTSD pills, or was it? The situation was gradually confusing the cop as he closed his mouth, slowly raising his hands in a reflex to present his palms. It was often that he showed his palms to seem less of a threat, something he used a lot in interrogations, and right now, without wanting it, he was still doing his Detective job.

She moved away from him, searching the nearest furniture to get a first aid kit out of it. Max didn't move from where he was, listening to what she was saying. Handicapped puppy. He couldn't help but feel target by that one for some reason, but his mind didn't make a big deal out of it as the rest of the sentence followed. Was Ruby keeping some sort of big secret he wasn't allowed to know? Did she feel so guilty about being 'sick' that she was ready to push him and Jacob away? She obviously didn't mean what she was saying right? The cop looked at her, confused and frowning, one hand on the edge of the sink and the other in mid air, palm raised to the ceiling. "Ruby what are you talking about?" he wanted to tell her that he had tried getting 'normal' friends but it never worked. But this wasn't about him, it was about Ruby. She was the one needing help here, and obviously he had just stepped on a terrain he had never trailed upon before, nor has anyone else by the looks of it.

He walked closer, but kept a safe distance. In these moments some people do not wish to feel cornered, they prefer to breath. If Ruby wanted some physical comfort she'll come to him, not the other way around. "You can't push me away like this. It's not by simply telling me to leave that I'll walk through the door. We don't need to talk about this. But I think you really need to." he truly wanted to get onto his knees like a father to a daughter, talk to her with her hands in his, but the fear that he could be rejected and that she'll close up forever was too great for him to kneel to his first instinct. He looked at the floor for a second before adding, in the softest voice he could manage right now under his own confusion. "We're all mad here Ruby, but that's how we help each other." he looked at her, scouting her eyes, looking for a trace of something that could help him, them out of this.

TAG: Ruby Blackwood / NOTES: tba

Cats. The more you know

He waited quietly for her to take care of herself, feeling like he should be the one doing it since he was the man who caused all of that nose breaking. It didn't seem broken enough to have to take her to the hospital somehow, and Max was impressed that she wasn't whining like some poor girl waiting to be taken care of. Ruby wasn't the type of person to cry to the first thing, that was something Max new very well about her. In fact he was still impressed by her reaction to Shaun's shot in her shoulder. Any normal person would have been bawling on the floor, crying for help and being the biggest pain in the ass to aid. Ruby didn't remain completely emotionless, but she had shown a great strength few women can boast of having.



But now she was showing a weaker side of herself, one she probably didn't want to share with anyone, being the reason why she never told him or Jacob. And he could understand that. Quite honestly he could have told her the exact same thing about himself. Being a drug addict for a long time before getting completely cured from it had taught him that people could change. He hadn't been the only one. And medical problems don't always forbid you from changing and healing. And because of his own experience Max felt more confident in helping out Ruby. He knew PTSD was a mental illness that wasn't easily cured, but if someone with that disease could simply get enough attention, feel safe, then he was sure their condition could get much better, if not heal completely. Max was a dreamer most of the time. Perhaps he dreamed too much, but someone had to dream around here for everyone else at some point.



Perhaps being so nice was what will get him killed. But he wasn't always like that. He used to be ruthless, to never have pity for the drug dealers which brought him to get fired several times until he felt like the ruthless Max was not a good one.
When Ruby was finally done with her nose, she seemed willing to talk. But in code. Or was she copying the way he just spoke? It didn't matter, if it helped her through Max won't mind putting up with it. Why would he waste time with her? It was a very good question, a question Max wasn't sure he could answer despite the reason being rather clear in his mind. "Because he cares about her and that he went through some shit too. Also because he is stubborn and thinks highly enough of himself that he believes he can help." badmouth your own self Madden, it doesn't matter here and now. An idiot idealist.

He wanted to get closer, to comfort her, hold her face, brush her cheeks, wrap his arms around her to bring her into his own warmth, but she needed to talk this through first. He feared that simply comforting her will patch the wound for the next time, only waiting to fester. It needs to be cured first, disinfected. He really wanted to get Ruby's full trust on this one. "Do you know how many reasons he has to leave you? You and Jacob? Why do you think he hasn't done it yet and isn't thinking of doing it any time soon?" any friendship had to be sealed in trust, it was what Max wanted, a blind trust towards the two. Something he hasn't been able to ever accomplish yet.

TAG: Ruby Blackwood / NOTES: tba

Cats. The more you know

What kind of stuff. Ruby you already know most of it, just not in details. He left his family at almost 19 years old to get in a country he knew barely anything about except the language, survived a year on his own savings before sinking into the easiest of traps for the desperate ones. He then had to spend a long time healing the wounds of his mistakes. And he still was doing so, just without any help. He had been sick, and mostly healed over the years. What remained was the memory damage, some of his sanity was impaired, allowing 'this' to happen. It wasn't a bad thing to him. Yes danger wasn't so frightening to him as it used to be, but he still had the knowledge and good sense to know when to be careful or back away. Except with this peculiar situation maybe. Ruby won't get an answer for her question. He wasn't going to agree talking again about his own issues. He wasn't going to fall into the pit of his own therapy by crying on her lap and shivering in her arms. He fell in that trap once, he didn't want to do it again. And she was good with setting traps for him, Jacob too. "You already know what kind of stuff...." he answered simply, not giving her anything more on the subject, raising his head his eyes showing how badly he refused to talk about the subject. So closed about it, he talked about it once to her, he'll need more than a simple question to open up fully to anyone about it.


She was right, he was mad. Mad after the things he had done, mad of letting himself lose his family, mad that he was letting his emotions get the better of him to comfort a criminal and try to save another one. Or both. Mad in love with a life he shouldn't live, but keeps him alive every day a little more. And was it his fault? Hard to say. It was fate's fault, the fault of life who decided to set him on this course, this course that constantly tested him, trying to see how far he can go before breaking, falling on the floor, bones of dust and blood of rust. He was falling in that trap again, that so elegantly placed trap that will make him down his walls for her. He shook his head as he realized it, his jaw clenched into a light smile. "My fault or not, I'm Mad, but mostly Mad at myself. And it's only....partly your fault. When did Ruby become the pill to my own PTSD?" those two criminals, his dose of PTSD pills. It sounded too accurate coming from his mouth, saying it only added to his understanding of the word Mad in his case.


Despite his laws, his promise to let her come to him if she wanted, he was the one to cross the safety line, unable to not touch a person to feel closer to them. A look in the eyes wasn't enough apparently, he had to feel their warmth, their pulse, the life emanating from them to make sure they were there. He took one of her hands from her crossed arms and moved the back of that hand to his chest, right above the J&R. He gently pressed her wrist, keeping the distance of one small step between them. "Talk to me." he wanted her to talk, to stop turning his own words and questions against him. Stop taking down my walls, and don't try to climb them either, today I wish to gently take down your own, brick by brick. That was the way Max was thinking right now. Step by step he wanted to help Ruby open up to him by herself. The wars he used to have in his head for her had ceased for that moment, and it wasn't because her nose was stuffed with cotton balls.

TAG: Ruby Blackwood / Muse 

Cats. The more you know

She didn't insist on his past and that lifted a weight on Max. He didn't want to talk about it at all, it wasn't relevant information. It was the past that shaped him as who he was and she already knew about the guidelines. She didn't need to know more. There wasn't more to know! That what, he was miserable, suicidal and nearly died? She had her own problems to deal with now, she doesn't need to get one more reason to feel like the world was shit, that the light mood from earlier just went down because of one thing. In one way Max was disappointed in himself for bringing the pills up. He could have ignored it and Ruby and he could have been sitting on the couch talking about nicer things. But in a sense he could see she had to talk about it even if she didn't want to. That was something Max learned from his rehabilitation. Talking and doing things was the best way to get over a darker moment in his memory and history. For Max it was mostly watching movies and then talk to others about their own happy moments, like that nurse who took care of him while she was pregnant until the day she gave birth to a pretty little boy. Max wished he had been brave enough to keep contact with all the people who helped him. But each times he thought about them he couldn't help but remember how hard it was at first. The memories weren't all white, grey or black. Maybe one day he'll accept the past as it was and agree to walk back to it for the sake of thanking these people again.


Pills make matters worse. It depends what type of pills. The ones she was taking right now, maybe yes. But he believed Ruby was yet again trying to tell him to back away, to leave her on the side of the road and continue on his own trail without Ruby. When you think about it simply, it looks easy to do. But in the long run it wasn't worth it. She needed help and if everyone kept leaving her the way she was just asking Max to, simply because they feared what lays under her skin, then of course Ruby was going to be afraid to talk about it. He thought about Andrea, and wondered if she knew. She probably didn't and he was surprised that Ruby won't even tell her best friend about this, whatever it was. Was it that dark of a memory? And if so who was he to make her feel safe enough that she could talk about it to him, open up like a book and agree to tell what few people seemed to know. "Some pills are the only solution." he said, responding in an equally calm voice.


The man wanted to lean into her, to be able to see inside what was going on, to see what she saw, to feel what she felt for the better understanding. If he could he would get closer, let their bodies meet until there was no empty spaces left at any scale, that the emptiness composing them would be filled by each other. But he couldn't bring himself to get any closer than they already were. The touch of her hand on his felt warm despite her cold distance, there to protect herself. He didn't know how to make her understand that he wanted to help, that he wanted to be there so she could open up and let it all out. It sounded like the conflict he used to have about her was back again for her, but with different subjects. She probably believed that he didn't really want to hear what she had to say, or that it was too horrible to talk about. He gently pressed her hand in a reassuring way, looking into her blue eyes a moment, straightening his figure to look at her. "I can give you the promise that I will listen from start to finish without interrupting you. You need to talk about this Ruby. Silence only eats you from the inside, and that's why you're taking those pills. You don't have to live with the burden of a weight that makes no sense now." his hand tightened around hers, but careful not to hurt her. "It's easier to be two carrying something heavy." Jacob and Ruby were both carrying his own weight with him by knowing part of his past. He wished to carry theirs too, help them lift the weight above their heads to keep it from crushing them slowly. But Max did not cross that line he had traced between he and Ruby. There was still about a step between them, a step Ruby was the only one to decide if she wanted to cross it or not.

TAG: Ruby Blackwood / Muse 

Cats. The more you know

Taking PTSD for longer than 6 years didn't sound like a great way of living. He knew people who took PTSD could be prey to panic attacks. Come to think of it, he didn't witness any from Ruby yet. Of course she had been terrorized at the shark tank, and it probably didn't help her with her already stressed mind. Only now did Max understand the full weight of his actions then. How could she want to stick around him? How could she even accept any of his apology? Why was she giving him the impression that perhaps there could be more between them every time they spent time together. And here they were, the wars in his head, back for more to debate about. Of love and war, his mind was made. He hushed those wars quickly however, unwilling to debate on any of his personal problems today. Don't make this more complicated Madden.


Ruby then started to speak about an episode of her past. It sounded far away by the way she spoke about it, like a distant memory that still felt like a freshly engraved wound in her mind. Her state of being was so changing. At one point she seemed alright, like she was able to talk about it without too much trouble, but the next moment she was evasive, seemingly fearing something, wishing to escape the man's gaze. Was he being too insisting? On cases where he had to interrogate people, he could play both the good and bad cop, but he could also become extremely insisting, forcing people to speak until he was satisfied with their answers. Fortunately it wasn't always the case, he didn't always have to do so. Right now he was being the good cop, but he was afraid of pushing Ruby beyond the line, beyond the cliff of no return and he would have to watch her fall without being able to catch her. It would be a terrible thing if he had to watch her leave, get away from him because of this discussion. But if he had to see it happen to permit her to have a better life, to allow her to move on knowing she left her story with someone who will never talk about it to anyone, then he would accept to stay behind without a doubt.


Her words rang familiar in her mind. I wanted to die. He heard that before, and they were his own words. He realizes today that they are foolish words, words of a coward who is afraid of what life may give in the future. Too afraid to get up and try to move on because the world is so big and full of choices. But he made his, good and bad and moved on. Apparently Ruby did the same thing eventually, but she still drags a heavy boulder behind her, a weight of scars and memories that no one helped her wash off. It was probably eating at her, stinging her memory every now and then. He had no words for what she said, and fear grasped his mind as she put both of her hands on his chest to push him away from her. The fear faded away as she spoke again, only stating that the bathroom wasn't the best of places to talk about all of this. Max could only agree, and right now he was being the silent one, there to listen until he could get back to life, talk again and hopefully tell her what she wishes to hear, and hopefully make things better.


He followed her to the living room and sat down on the couch, thinking she'll join his there, but noticing she wanted to stay standing. Was this something that made her feel more confident in talking? Empowered by looking down at him instead of up like some little girl. As said before, Max was the ears, eyes and body in this situation, but not the mouth. He stated no complaint, no suggestions as to how to go about this. He let Ruby come out raw to him, without distracting her words or accidentally switching subjects. She spoke more, unraveling before his eyes stories of her past. Despite her will to seem so strong, Max could see beyond the acting, the wounded woman fighting every day to keep the little girl inside of her, to protect her and seal her away from the world's eyes. Her brother seemed like the good person in the story, while her father seemed to be one of the elements that forced her into being..this way. So afraid to show emotions. He saw her move her hands behind her back. At first he thought it was a way of shielding herself, before she spoke again and her action became more meaningful. He remembered the first time he saw that tattoo at the Masquerade. Then he didn't see that it was hiding a scar, only thinking it was the woman's way of embellishing her skin like many others before her. Later he had found his hands wandering on that back in a more personal way, the night after the shark incident. But yet again he didn't notice it was hiding a scar. She got shot in the back and survived. A dream-catcher to harness her nightmares, keep the memories of her dark past away from coming back. He had no idea, that touching her back could be bringing out memories every time his fingers accidentally trailed on that scar he never felt before. He felt ashamed and guilty in a way. But he didn't feel like he could have been able to ever know about Ruby's past earlier.


When she was done speaking, Max was still watching her, a protective gaze laid upon her, and an understanding one, more prominent. Again, he wanted to hold her close, but for a different reason. Even the strongest people on earth need comfort at some point in their lives, and people tend to forget that, even those strong people. He wanted to speak, to find the right words for her. He just wanted to tell her that he understood her pain, that he had felt the same before, but he couldn't bring himself to do so. He couldn't even bring himself to move. Though his eyes did not look away from Ruby for second, as if he was afraid that if he did she would disappear, fall like dust and get blown away by his sole movement. He could remain quiet, let her continue, but the fear that with no push she would stop and lock herself away was looming over his head. He overcame that fear, and remained quiet, his eyes speaking for him for once.

TAG: Ruby Blackwood / Muse