TM April Topic
Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us without words?
-Marcel Marceau.
It's kinda funny, a guy talks so much in his life.
People who know Max know him as particularly chatty, to say the least. 'Before everything,' they'd say a little sadly, thinking back to times that felt like a million years ago when Max never seemed to run out of words. Seemed like he always had something to say; some kind of anecdote about some old guy streaking in the park, some joke about people standing on their heads or whatever the hell he could think up for the day. He had biting sarcasm and flailing moments of excitement and even some mumbled words of advice given in a hushed corner of a room for whomever needed it at the time. Max was full of fucking words, seemed like they just kind of overflowed sometimes and fell out onto people, but nobody was ever complaining.
These days, when Max spends stretches of hours just sitting by the window, feet kicked up on the sill and staring out at the street, puffing idly on his cigarette, he doesn't give a peep. Maybe some half-hearted grunt of response when somebody asked him a question, but. He didn't talk much after he came home, not for a while. Something about some kind post-traumatic something or order they'd just cooked up for the veterans, he hadn't been paying too much attention to any of the psych crap.
Kind of uncanny, so much quiet, for a guy who used to have something to say about everything.
It was a little out of place, then, that weird kind of look on Jude's face once he set Max down outside the port, when all Max seemed to have to say was a whole lot of Jude's name and not much else. And it wasn't like he didn't have anything to say - shit, it was Jude, man - it was just like he'd... run out of words, after using so many of them. Like he'd used up a whole dictionary's worth and there was no other way to word things anymore than a giant hug and a few fond exchanges of glances. Max didn't mind so much, really; he just got tired, now, more often than he used to.
Just... a guy talks so much in his life and people kind of forget what silence feels like, how heavy and uncomfortable it can be. Awkward stares and people shuffling around questions about the war and 'what's it like?'s and bullet wounds. Even Lucy does a lot of shifting around that, Max's found, and it had a whole lot to do with her not wanting to spend all too much time in the vet hospital after Max got in there, and the two of them had always had something to talk about. They were brother and sister, right? It felt out of place.
Not too many people Max can think of that do away with the awkward silence, these days. He can count them on one finger.
Max sits and stares and smokes away, as Jude throws a haphazard blanket around his shoulders, ruffles his hair and grins like the hooligan he is, and Max actually cracks a smile back as the fucker sits down and steals a hit off his cigarette. And it's silent, without words, the way Max tends to hate it since he's gotten home, despite how often he seems to stay in quiet. Jude just kind of makes Max not mind quiet so much anymore. There's the silence, yeah, but it's not heavy.
It just is.
Muse: Max Carrigan
Fandom: Across the Universe
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