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The Captain of Security is on the way back to Prosperity with the Judge in tow. They're curled up in the passenger seat, feet on the cushion and knees drawn up to their chest, mask planted at the window to watch the full-bloom Montana summer whisk them by. They're not the chattiest of companions in the world. The Captain knew that already, but they seem to... Act like they're not even in the same room, the same world as him.
They're odd.
He's learning that. Everyone else seems to act like they're not there, and they themselves carry an air of nonexistence unless they're directly being commanded to do something. It's... Disconcerting to say the least. He's tried to talk; he got it fast that the Judge doesn't talk, but the Captain knows makeshift ASL, and there's still other forms of communication, but... Nothing. Nada. Just a head tilt here and there, or a grunt, or a growl and a return to the strangest passivity that the Captain has ever encountered.
They're still a ways out from Prosperity, and the Judge isn't great conversation, so he turns the radio on to some Oldies channel, just to have something to give his brain attention.
The Judge leans forward briskly, still looking out the window and not giving Cap even the vaguest notion of what they’re thinking, and turns the radio off with a solid finger pressed firmly to the button. It wasn’t even playing anything too loud, obnoxious, just a soft, crooning folksy song from decades ago.
“What was that for?” Cap asks in the now-silent car, and gets not response. So he turns the radio back on, and even opts to change the channel to a different station; the Judge has been difficult to read at the best of times so far, and he’s largely had to guess at the majority of their (lack of) communicative attempts.
The Judge turns the channel off again when some bubbly pop crap comes on. The Captain turns it back on, changes the channel again , and finally gets some level of acknowledgement from the Judge, a slight intake of breath that sounds more like a hiss than a human should be able to muster. Every noise they make, the Captain has realized, sounds like it’s just on the barely-there ice-thin edge of becoming a hollowed out scream that has no control. A Barn Owl watching from the shadows with shaded eyes.
The Captain does it once more; this time, the radio changes to something religious. The radio towers aren’t all the way back to perfect, yet, not in the aftermath of the apocalypse, so there’s less options than before, but trying to play normal is at least one way to get through the collective trauma of all the survivors, so there’s more than one might expect.
A woman’s voice sings about God and Christ, and-- really the Captain isn’t paying attention to what she’s singing about. His eyes aren’t on the road; they’re locked onto the mask of the Judge, who has finally turned to look down at the radio. Though their expression is blank, the Captain can feel the frown etched into a face that hasn’t seen the sunlight in fuck knows how many years.
Their hand hesitates this time, slowly than the other channels, as though they’re listening to the song. But their shoulders tense slightly, and they follow through with the action, shutting it off with a solid growl from a ruined throat.
Cap huffs, and returns his eyes to the road. The brim of his hat cuts out the harsh sunrise rays from blinding him too much. He holds out a hand in the air in a mockery of a shrug. “Fine. Suit yourself. No music. What about a podcast? You into those? True Crime? Any of that?”
The Judge returns their gaze to the window, but not before boring a judgemental hole into the side of Cap’s face. They make a grunting noise, the kind that Cap has taken to mean an acknowledgement has been made, but they don’t have any opinions on the matter.
It’s not a lot, but it’s more than Cap has gotten in the week they’ve been travelling together, and maybe that’s why it bolsters him into speaking more, rather than just dropping it and sitting in the strange silence that the Judge carries about them like a penance.
He doesn’t speak for a few minutes, though, long enough for the Judge to have begun to press a gloved finger to the window, idly shaping what seems to be spring flowers into the glass that they have blown hot on through the mask to produce condensation. They jump, their finger jagging down into the corner of the window and ruining the childlike picture when the Captain speaks again.
“You’re a good shot, I mean-- I mean, it’s like you’re some fucking ranger from a novel or like, Skyrim, man.”
The Judge doesn’t respond, though their shoulders go tense again, and the Cap has a distinct impression that it’s because of the praise.
So he continues. “I mean. I don’t know if you were military, or-- or what but-- Jesus. Look, I know it’s gotten pretty weird and militarized out here in the past-- you know. You know. But it’s insane .”
The Judge turns to face him, and the placid mask hides… It hides everything. They tilt their head slowly, the hood falling just slightly to give the hind of matted, dark brown hair beneath the shadows.
“I mean, I can’t pretend to know what’s up with all-- You know. Eden’s Gate and all that--” The Judge makes a disapproving sound deep in their throat, “--But most of those people didn’t seem-- your type.”
The Judge seems to deliberate on something for a long, long moment, before they turn back to the window and make several intricate gestures that take the Captain way too long to realize is haphazardly conducted ASL. He doesn’t know much, barely a couple semesters in college, but he knows enough to know that the Judge, too, is about as rusty as he is. The most he gets is, is that things were different, before the bombs. That Eden’s Gate is full of lambs now. That the Judge is, by that extension, not a lamb to be shepherded.
Their hands pull back to their lap when they finish, as though even that was exhausting. Honestly, Cap can’t blame them. If this is the most he’s gotten out of them in a week… He can’t imagine they’re used to speaking. He’s not exactly the most impersistant fuck out there.
The mountains in front of them are in the full bloom of summer. Once, the sight would have nauseated the cap; the colors and the terrain and the strangely timed-bloom… It isn’t seasonal, not in the slightest. But it’s more than any of them have gotten in years . And now it just looks… beautiful .
“Okay. A wolf then? Is that your dumb metaphor?”
There’s a huff behind that mask, one deeply cynical but not in disagreement.
“It’s a little pretentious.” The Captain waggles his fingers in the air as they make the final turn into Prosperity. He needs a shower, and a breakfast, and a cigarette. In that order. “Ooooh, the big bad wolf that judges everyone.”
The Judge looks back at him, and there’s a low growl in the back of their throat that amplifies once Cap draws the shitty car to a stop just outside the limits of Prosperity.
Cap raises his hands and laughs. “Just fucking with you. It’s a cool name. Everyone calls me The Captain around here. Way stupider. Half of them don’t even know my name .”
That earns him a curious head tilt, and then they open the car door, slipping out with a soft grunt onto the long grass below. They’re decently short, and look entirely wrong standing next to a car; everything about them screams that they’ve never been in a modern society.
“But I guess complaining makes me a hypocrite, right? I don’t even know your name. What is it?”
The Judge shakes their head slowly, and when the Captain scrunches up his face in confusion, they sign simply, Nothing, and then they turn to walk through the gates of Prosperity.