Like many things in this new wasteland, things came in more than one. Not so much in pairs but there was always another scavenger, another raider- another crazy, mad soul ready to take you down and pillage your few remaining feelings of safety and humanity with your meager supplies- around the proverbial (and literal) corner.
Sandstorms were just another of those things that were no singular event. Where there was one that first day in the waste lands and away from Immortan Joe and his War Boys and whoever the fuck else, there were another three in the time that they managed to escape within the bog and to their destination of the Green Place. Whether the place really existed, or if it was a made up memory that Furiosa had created in her time under the false god- well, Max hoped it was real. For all of their sakes.
Two of the storms they had been able to skirt. With some smart maneuvering on Furiosa's part, they had dodged the monstrous mountains of sad. The swirling masses of black and grit and lightning. Max remembers what it was like inside that last one and he knows that they wont be able to make it through this new, bigger one the same way. This new one could easily take up to three days to pass, perhaps longer. And the bigger the storm, the more violent the twisters inside. If they made it out of this one alive, it would be through sheer, dumb luck.
Furiosa was an amazing driver, Max had come to find out. She had to be in order to drive the War Rig. Nux had explained that only the best and most daring of the Imperators were allowed to drive the rig since they showed the most loyalty and the least likely to fail. Immortan Joe had been right on one account: Furiosa did not fail. In everything she did, she did with a passion and determination that was steel forged in blood and sweat. She knew the means to getting what she needed done. And what she didn't know or couldn't do, she wasn't afraid to ask for help. She wasn't afraid to put her fragile trust in Max in order to get the Wives away from Joe and the War Boys. She wasn't afraid to let him take the wheel and she wasn't afraid to defer to his judgement or put her safety in his hands when it came to the Bog and the Bullet Farmer after them. She knew how to ensure her task was complete.
Which is why she was the one who was jamming the rig into a tripod of tightly jack-knifed trailers and wedged between the few crags of rock they could find in the dunes. They were pretty fragile and there really wasn't much to them, but they would hold enough to keep the rig from tipping over and getting smashed. With them inside it. It was fortunate that the canyon bikers hadn't managed to get the fuel pod because the Imperator was currently turning the pod so that it and the engines sat adjacent to the tanker and created a triangle. The tanker itself was propped against the outcropping and wouldn't fall over from the gale force winds hitting it. Unless they got caught in a tornado.
Once the rig was set up against the winds, they had locked up the wives tightly into the hold. Making sure that no sand could get in but that they still had enough air inside. As for the Imperator and the Fool?
They had a tarp.
A battered old thing that barely held its shape and probably wouldn't last more than a few hours against the coming tempest. But the grimy blue thing would have to do because there was not enough room in the hold for their stores of water, food, mother's milk, four Wives and a War Boy plus the two of them. So they were left out.
It was a good thing that Furiosa trusted Nux not to harm the girls. Actually, she was sure that he was more enamored with Capable than he ever was with Joe. Which made her glad the two were not alone in there.
The Fool had a bracelet that he tore apart and became a single length of sturdy rope. She'd never seen such stuff, but it was durable enough to last this long and had proven just tough enough not to be lost by this drifter. Though the tarp wasn't big enough to cover all the windows in the truck, it was plenty big enough to wrap tightly down around one of the lancer's perches and keep the worst of the storm out. The space inside wasn't very big and there weren't many blankets that the girls could spare for them. They had assured them that they would be fine up in the turret by themselves and with only a few days worth of water and food, but even they were having their doubts.
It was a good thing that they had Nux. Else it would have been one hell of a tight squeeze with a twitchy, trigger happy blood bag.
The Fool watches her brace the rig against the storm, but she doesn't care. He watches her at everything she does and if he could watch her sleep while he drives, he would probably do so. She's not sure if it is because he still doesn't trust her- not that he should. She would betray him if he ever came between her, the girls and the Green Place- or if it's because he finds something about her worth examining. She could guess what it might be, but decides not to. It's better not to know than to be wrong. Except she can feel herself thinking about it in the back of her mind and is pretty sure that he finds her prosthetic and efficiency with it beyond what he figured a woman capable. And that makes her burn. No matter how she tries to ignore thinking about it or believing him to not be like that, it irritates her. That is why she is far less than thrilled to be stuck outside of the hull with him in this sandstorm.
Though she supposes that it is better to be with the Silent Fool rather than with the Talkative Wives. That, and she's pretty sure that he would kill Nux. The War Boy could talk a lot and she needed him. And Capable wanted him around, so she guessed that it was a sort of win-win-win situation for the kid. Seeing as he doesn't have to go back to the scorn and battle fervor of the Immortan and his cohorts.
Still, his lingering gaze is hard to tolerate and she knows that if pity enters his expression in even the slightest, she's going to throw him out to the storm. Even if she thinks she may end up needing him in the near future.
The storm hits with all the fury of a god and his name is not Joe. The winds howl in agony and with the anger of the beaten and battered souls that have lost themselves to this wretched wasteland. Screaming a song that set their teeth on edge and hummed a painful whine in their ears. It started hot and humid, hard to breath beyond the sand and dust that seeped through the tarp despite the rope. It was thick and forced sweat to pour from their skin to make them feel like they were drowning.
Max knew how to deal with these sorts of storms. The last was not the first and he was aware of how easily it was to die in them. Now that the wind wasn't there to dry the perspiration and keep their cloths dry. But this was different. For both of them. Before, they would have stripped down and removed their heaviest and bulkiest layers to keep the damp out when the heat was gone.
But he was with Furiosa. And while there was a certain amount of trust and camaraderie between them, he wasn't going to just take his cloths off. His armor. And it didn't look as though she was going to either. She had pulled the scarf from her neck and removed her weapons, but she didn't take the prosthetic off and she didn't move to take her boots off either. He in turn kept his own jacket on and only removed the holster and gun at his hip. The gritty leather of his pants and jacket weren't too hard to ignore- he had been doing it since... Well, since he could really remember- but the sweat and the stiff, crunchy feeling of his shirt was changing and becoming stuffy and claustrophobic.
"Talk," she rasped into the silence, suddenly. He almost jumped, but was having too hard a time to breath to pay that much attention to it. Was a bad storm they got stuck in.
"Hm," he simply grunted. His only reply to most things. She huffed in irritation, obviously wanting to have something to take their minds off the stifling heat. The bitter cold would come around soon enough and they would be lucky if they got a chance to dry off first.
"Should get out of these," he grumbled finally. Shifting, uncomfortable and almost hesitant. Her eyes were a brilliant green in the heat and her spine stiffened just marginally as she watched him pluck at his pants and point to her own to explain. Her lips twitched to a grimace before pursing and shuffling her long legs out of the way enough to play with the fastener to her trousers.
The Fool followed suit and kicked his boots off faster than she thought possible. It allowed a huff of laughter to escape her lips and she was rewarded with the tiniest of sheepish smiles. She liked it. The way his lips twitched upward and eased the wrinkles around his eyes.
Soon enough they were stripped down to the barest amount of clothing they dared to remove, the Fool down to just his pants and knee brace while Furiosa had taken her own pants and boots off and was now sitting in the long white shirt and belt that helped to support her arm. The prosthetic itself still firmly in place and the blankets they had managed to scrounge up resting beneath them and between their backs and the hot metal hull.
"Talk about what?" The Fool finally asked, now that their skin had as much room to breath as they would let it and the air had thinned enough to be comfortable, but still hot and thick.
"Anything," she panted, head lolling against the rig and eyes gazing up at the darkening tarp. A dingy brown and a dusty grey with the faded blue somewhere beneath it. It was a mottled sheet of colors that were as much of the desert as she could ever recall, but it was fading fast and soon they would be forced to light their little lamp in order to see beyond their own damned noses. The last storm they had been in had passed fast enough to still maintain the light of the sun within. If by the barest amount. This one, was too large for that and it had already been nearing sunset when it landed.
"War Parties shouldn't be able to withstand this for long," he murmured, watching her. But she could hear the question he was asking her.
"They would have enough time to get around it. But they won't be able to follow our tracks anymore. The storm will have erased them. If it doesn't take us with it," she trailed off ruefully. Bitterly and a bit morbidly curious. The look he gave her was curious and distasteful. Like he had swallowed a new berry that was turning out to be too tart.
She just shrugged and returned to looking at the tarp. The windows were all gone, the flag broken off to make room for the tarp and cover the spot fully. The darkness was settling in and the howling wind was getting worse. She could no longer hear the girls muttering and laughing. No doubt they were quivering and shaking as the storm got worse and the heat was getting to be too much inside the hold. But they should be better used to it after the last one. Only, There was no Angh- No Splendid to keep them safe. To tell them stories and to assure them that it will all be alright. That Furiosa knows what she is doing and the The Fool survived out in the desert on his own this long, so surely he knows what he doing too.
"Never been so defenseless in a storm before," She murmurs to him suddenly. He doesn't jump, doesn't startle and doesn't seem to have heard her. He is staring of into some unseen distance as he pants through the humidity. But his blue eyes flick back towards hers when she makes no more attempt to talk. He is watching her with that strange look and that unwavering stare that has her hair on end and shivering despite the heat and the sweat that travels down her spine.
"Always had a crew to get everything in place. Never done it with only one set of experienced hands on my side." She doesn't know how to continue, was just saying something to fill the space. He seems to get that so he doesn't push. Instead he adds to the conversation:
"Never had any help before. Was, nice…" he trailed off. Shook his head as if to dust off the sand or shake out another thought. Maybe think of something else to say. But he says nothing and Furiosa returns to staring at the tarp.
"How long have you been out here?" she asks after another long pause and howls. The Fool has the lantern going, putting it off as long as he could so as not to add to the stifling heat. But now it flickers in the middle of their space and adds a soft warmth that combats the harsh heat. His eyes are glittering in the light and she is sure that her own sparkle almost as much. She wonders if they are just as alluring because it is a much nicer thing to stare at than her prosthetic arm- in her opinion, that is.
He doesn't answer right away. Only stares at her and licks his lips.
"Don't know. Far back as there was the war. Maybe longer," his eyes cloud over again and his gaze has tracked back to that far off place that is somewhere between waking and dreaming and terror. A remembrance as much as a hindrance.
"So long," he grunted, clearing his throat. "Only have instinct now. Only know how to survive."
Furiosa only nods, because she gets it. She knows what it is like to choose to survive and to harden yourself against what will take you apart and kill you. She remembers what it is like to be a weak child, afraid and wanting only her mother to make things better. She remembers realizing what the only way to make sure she stays alive and gets back to the Green Place was. She remembers what it was like to find herself as nothing more than what she had been created- what she created herself to be. The monster who would be Imperator and the demon who would steal the Wives away.
It's a hard thing to see yourself as. To wake up and find that you're not who you thought you would be by this time in your life. She guesses that The Fool has found that out one or two times throughout his life.
"How long-" he pauses to clear his throat, then begins again in a stronger voice. "How long has it been since you saw it? This Green Place."
"Longer than I probably can remember," Furiosa replied succinctly. It makes him hum with some emotion she doesn't care to put a name too. But it isn't pitying and it doesn't make her hackles raise so it doesn't bother her.
They are silent again and it feels like the silence will stretch on for the rest of the night. They share a meal of dried plant gruel and some sort of bean paste that tastes like dirt and something earthy. A few mouthfuls of water held long over their tongues to trick their bodies to thinking they weren't as dehydrated as they surely were. It wasn't that they didn't have enough, it was that they weren't used to much more and they weren't sure how long they would be stuck up in this turret. Wrapped up in a tarp of dingy, dirty blue that crinkles and snaps in the wind. Furiosa has taken to drawing maps of a her mind against her skin while she stares unseeingly at their shelter wall. The Fool is breathing softly and slowly as he keeps his glazed eyes averted from her still form. The air is beginning to cool and the sweat has long since dried from their skin, leaving it stiff and salty. Nothing they aren't used to.
Furiosa is just beginning to doze off when she hears him shifting around. Hears the sound of his shirt being pulled over his head and the zipper of his jacket jangling uselessly at his side. The rig jerks with a violent gale of wind and something screeches up front. The suspension is squeaking and she knows that something on the pod has jangled itself loose by the staccato of metal on metal. She opens her eyes to watch him lacing up his boots in the fragile lamp light. She shifts her own feet to alert him.
She wouldn't want someone startling her either.
"Getting cold. Should get dressed." He gestures at her pile of leathers and belt and boots. She offers the articles a distasteful wrinkle of her nose when she looks at it. The Fool surprises her by huffing a laugh. She hadn't thought he'd be watching. Apparently he had.
"Fine."
Furiosa had spent a long time figuring out how to best put on such tightly fitting pants with only one hand. It had taken many failed attempts and it had been even longer before she was comfortable enough to be able to so without the help of The Ace. A painful twinge hit her chest when she thought about him and the crew. Granted, only a couple of them had been with her for any long period of time and with the way that War Boys were constantly 'Dying Historic' it was surprising she knew more than three or four on her crew. The Ace was different. They had been together since before they had left the pits and before she had become an imperator instead of him. It hadn't rubbed him wrong, he promised, but they had changed just enough to make her betrayal that much easier.
The pants were easier to get on with only one hand, but she did so with her back to the Fool. His eyes were on her and she could feel his stare raising the hair on the back of her neck. She did her best to ignore him. But, in the end, she left her belt (the one with the Immortan's seal and chains) on the ground next to her boots. Using the blankets they had salvaged from the girls to keep her feet and shoulders warm. She didn't have a jacket like he did. His gaze was still on her when she finally settled and her glare did nothing to dissuade his continued gaze.
So she blew the lantern out and settled in for a long night of listening to howling winds and warding off the cold that was too bitter to sleep through.
"So, hm, what are your- uh, your names?" He asked through the darkness. Voice rough and vaguely stilted. Maybe a bit hesitant, like he was worried she would react badly or ignore him.
Furiosa for the most part was a little shocked. It seemed like such a personal thing and such a silly thing. He had refused to give his name, but she had never offered her own or introduced the girls to him either. It was stupid of her to just assume that he knew what they were. Just because the War Boys knew her name, didn't mean this blood bag did. Nor did it mean that anyone else but Joe and his sons knew the girl's names. She felt foolish, but it was funny. Almost. Kinda, no- yeah, a lot funny. It was funny that she hadn't thought of it and that he would even want to ask. Something so mundane. So incredibly normal that it never even crossed her mind.
So she laughed. Loud and a little bit harsh. Her throat was parched and she was angry with herself for just assuming something so stupid. The Fool must have thought she was laughing at him because he relit the lantern to gaze critically over her. But she kept laughing, slowly dying down to a giggle, yet going strong.
V8, it was so fucking normal and she didn't even remember what that was like.
"Furi- Furiosa," she finally gasped. Her laughter and her giggling had calmed down some but she would still burst into a bout of little chuckles that were kinda high pitched and far too girly and childish to believe they had come from her mouth. Fuck, what was wrong with her?
But the Fool has this little smile on his face and there is something glittering in his eyes that she really, really likes. The corners have softened and his lips are twitching wider and wider with each little giggle that escapes her.
"And?" He urges, hand waving in a rolling motion that might mean to keep going. It's goofy and she has to bite her lips to keep from giggling again.
It doesn't work. His smile widens a fraction more.
"Capable- the redhead. And then there is Toast and The Dag. They're about the same age and both tough as nails if you ask me." She paused to giggle again. "Toast has dark skin and Dag is as fair as you could get."
"And the little one?"
"Cheedo." His smile is gone after that and his eyes are drawn into confusion but it comes back after a second. Something else that he thinks is funny. But he doesn't tell her what it is and only hums to himself.
"And the War Boy? One who calls me, uh, Blood Bag."
"Nux," she explains, calmed enough to stop giggling and examine his expression. He is contemplative and his eyes only glaze over enough to show he is thinking through a recent memory and not something... Else. It's funny to watch him, but not enough to laugh anymore. She can't remember the last time she had laughed, but it felt good. As silly and dumb as she felt, it was nice. To feel that sort of pressure lift off her chest and see some of the Fool's fade a bit as well.
"You don't pay much attention, do you?" She asks him, snuggling deeper into the thin blankets. Burying her nose into where it wraps over her front.
"Names don't matter. Not out here," he grumbles and she can almost feel the air darken with his mood. But Furiosa doesn't want that. She doesn't need to be feeling that sort of gloom inside this little tent and especially not right after she had lifted that weight so infinitesimally from their shoulders. There is nowhere to run from it in this place. So she scoots herself closer to his side and bumps his shoulder with her own.
He arches his brow at her but has his arm around her before she can react. Their shoulders stiffen of their own accord and the light and the warmth of their previous situation is banished with just that one tiny motion. Except that he does nothing more than turn his face to the tarp and rub his thumb over the bone that protrudes from her shoulder. There is nothing hostile in his gesture, in his embrace, and she realizes that he simply did it just to do it. A Habbit, maybe? It was... odd to have someone embrace her because they wanted to. Just cause. Yet, it was nice. Because it was like when her mother had held her and kept her warm and whispered stories of Before or to tell her to be strong. That she was a strong person and that she would survive.
Furiosa forced herself to relax and seek out that light atmosphere that they had found themselves in just seconds before. Because it was better for the both of them and it wasn't as though it would do any harm, they were trapped in a sandstorm for Joe's sake and there would be no repercussions of trusting wrong in this place. She still had her arm on and they were pretty evenly matched. Even if he got the jump on her. Except that he was far more honorable than that.
She watched the Fool's face in the flickering light, realizing she had not asked his name again and that honorable was not a term used often in this new world. This After. She doesn't remember the last time she could describe anyone as honorable, let alone meet anyone who knew what is was to be such. If they knew what it was to begin with. Furiosa had only ever expressed this thought to The Ace and he had been the last person she had used to describe like that. He had been there for her because he wanted to and, even though he felt spurned for her being promoted over him, he had remained with her. Stuck to her like glue and kept her balanced when the Green Place was too far a memory to keep going. He was just too fanatic and dependent on the dream that Immortan Joe had used to brainwash them to be trusted.
But the Fool was different. He was an outlier; an individual entity that was nothing like what she had known back at the Citadel. He operated under a more basic and completely different form of thought and ways of processing that were foreign to her. Alien and strange. He had ghosts who haunted him and still he fought for something that others would never have cared about. He drifted on his own and never had any sort of company (that she knew of) but he was ready to risk life and limb for the girls and their mission. No matter how out of his way it might be.
Not that he had one, he was was just as stranded in this wasteland as they were and the Rig was the only transport for them to get out of it.
He continued to ignore her, but the way his eyes flickered toward her and back and forth on the wall indicated that he knew she was staring. The light cast a warm, yellow glow over his jaw and the stubble that resided there. It pronounced the strong shape and the sharp end where his chin was. The glittering color of his blue eyes she could barely see and the hard lines of his cheeks and brows. His forehead had permanent wrinkles from squinting into the sunlight and bright desert. Gray littered the temples and creeped into the top of his hairline and his beard. His neck was tough, leathery from the sunburns he had surely earned in the waste, but the brown color was soothing. He was overall a very good looking man and some part of Furiosa wished that their situations were different. That the world was different.
He caught her eyes finally, giving up on the pretense that he didn't notice her gaze and watched her. Always watching her with those eyes and that odd emotion that was buried underneath haggard years upon skin and constant fights for survival. Something soft and... and- she didn't know. But she liked it and she wanted more of it.
So she's on him faster than he can react, but his reaction is to grab her about the waist and pull. Pull her in tight and keep her body pressed against his. With hands that are big and rough and peel apart at fingernails that are dirty and chipped. His stubble is glorious against her chin and she feels a rush of adrenaline that she didn't think she could feel anymore filling her veins. He's the blood bag but she feels like she has too much inside her. Like she is going to burst in a coalescence of heat and blood and nerves that twitch and jerk from his touch alone. He's got his eyes closed and he isn't saying anything though she can hear the sounds he is always making in the very back of his throat and in her mouth.
His lips are tender, chapped and he groans in a way she has never heard when she grazes her teeth against them. She runs her hand over his arm and squeezes the shoulder when his tongue invades her mouth to taste her teeth. He is like sand and water. Warmth and heat and pressure. She can feel his fingers digging into the leather covered angles of her hips and pulling her thighs further apart and closer to him. His own bucking and digging deeper into her pelvis. Into a core of heat she has known about and felt her whole adult life but never been able to really understand. War Boys had tried to take her (accomplished it a few times) but they had never been like this with her. It had been brutal and harsh. Full of biting and screaming and blood. There was no heat; there was only pressure that tore her apart and a stretching that seemed to go on forever. That awful ripping feeling that made her stomach turn. But his hands are softer against her hips and her lower back than they were.
What this is, is heated and mutual. It's primal and she feels like if she doesn't do something she is going to catch on fire, but it will be glorious all the same. He grunts deep in his chest and flips her to be on her back. Hovering above her and leaving her lips swollen to take her neck in searing, trailing kisses. Hands trailing as much as his lips that aren't so dried and cracked anymore. She feels her own burn and pulse. She's sure that he split them with his teeth.
She tugs on his cropped hair and he growls. It makes her laugh, a huff that is more a desperate plea than of mirth. But he does it again and she feels that heat pool deeper and stronger within her. Arms starting to shake and legs aching to squeeze together. His hips are in the way, but the pressure of it is even better than she thought it would be. He breaths hot air onto her chilled skin and licks a trail of words he will never say into the flesh below her ear. Furiosa wants to do the same but he is stronger than her. It's surprising how much so.
And she suddenly feels unsure. Should she be doing this? This man is a feral wanderer that the boys captured back before she had run way. Before Corpus had agreed to her plan and she knew she could get the Wives out. He is a blood bag and a drifter. A ghost that wanders around the desert and seeks only for food, water and guzz.
So maybe that could be the reason she could do this, right? He had nothing and he sure as hell didn't want anything more than to get away from his captors. So maybe she could just fuck him and leave him later. He was a drifter and if she got pregnant than all the more power to herself. He didn't need to be a part of that; of them. He was a fool who sought nothing more than to survive.
Except that wasn't true. If it had been, he would have left them all to die and wouldn't have worked so hard to get the rig out of the bog. He wouldn't have gone off to kill the Bullet Farmer and come back. He would have taken the man's car and high tailed it out of there. He wouldn't have come back. He wouldn't have brought them guns and bullets or a boot (of all things) for Nux. He would have kicked her and the girls out of the rig after he was told the kill switches and saved himself the trouble they had caused him since the death of Ang- Of Splendid and since they had their head start in the mud.
He wouldn't be able to just leave if he found out. If it even happened, of course.
There was no telling if Furiosa could have children. What with the repeated blows to the stomach in the pits and the rape and the miscarriages she had already suffered through. If she could carry a child through to term, it would be a miracle she privately thought might be her own little redemption. At least proof that she could be worthy of it. That she was worthy of living on in this land beyond the constant fighting and the terrible turmoil that had forged her into the weapon she had become.
But that is baggage she doesn't need and those are thoughts she isn't going into right now because his lips are hot and his hands are rough. Not in the way the War Boys had been, but in a calloused way that told the story of a hard life lived. Earned and fought for. With stubble caressing her cheeks as his lips trail paths from her jaw to her collarbone. She can feel the muscles in his shoulder as she presses the fingers of her hand into the back of his neck. She is searching for purchase against the feelings he is infusing in her skin down to her bones.
Teeth nip and nails bite as they each pulled the other free of the binding cloths. In the real world, beyond the tiny haven that is their shelter from a deadly storm, sex is not possible. Not without a death wish or serious issues. Rape is one thing: it implies power and any scavenger out there witnessing a woman screaming and crying as a man takes her knows to stay away because that man is strong enough to take what he wants and probably kill what gets in his way. But sex, real and mutual sex is as rare as making love and that never happens anymore. It involves removing cloths and letting your guard down to pleasure yourself as much as your partner. And that is tantamount to taking your armor off and pointing a gun to your head in this wasteland.
Because sex means giving enough of yourself to that other person to let them kill you.
And they could kill each other. Easily, if one isn't paying attention or too trusting. Not so much if they are both prepared and fighting- they had proved it.
But this is not the real world. This is not their world. Where there are scavengers and men who would sooner tear your throat out than help you. Where sand is more common than people and you were luckier than fucking hell to find water, let alone if it were clean or not. This is not where Immortan Joe holds power over their fate or their ghosts are there to pull them into waking terrors. This, with the other as the storm rages on and the warmth of their bodies is stolen if they stray too far, is not their world.
It is a fragment, a shadow of one that had once existed. Long before they can remember and longer before they may have been born. They may have met and known people in their pasts who loved them dearly and who they loved right back, but it is not what they have here. In this turret, with a tarp shaking rapidly against it's bindings, they have a small piece of each other they can explore in safety. They have the chance to unbuckle leather gently and peel fabric back slowly. They have the opportunity to run fingers and lips and teeth along every inch of the other's skin and through their shorn hair while igniting embers long left to burn out. Stoking life into the fires within their chest. Sighing and gasping with their want and their pleasure. Screaming and moaning as they ride the waves of ecstasy higher and grunt in pain while ignoring the demons beyond their sanctuary.
This is where they can be something that was once lost to them and it is where they can give that piece to the other for safekeeping.
This is where Furiosa and Max loose themselves in waves of heady sweat and husky moans as fingers slip over flesh and lips meet more often than they promised themselves. Where they wear no masks and no metal. No armor, no brace and no prosthetic. In this place where they are safe from crazy men and cruel hearts too hungry for power. Where the storm will keep their soft sighs and silent declarations of trust to itself and whisk them away from unwanted ears.
So no, Furiosa would not fuck him and leave him. This drifter, her Fool. She would let him sleep with his heavy lids upon her breast and arms that were too gentle to be a cage around her waist. She would run her fingers through his crooked hair and trace scars until he was breathing deep and grunting soft snores. She would allow him to coax her back to that shaking and fragile- vulnerable- state of adrenaline that only he could take her to. Let him breath a strange sort of hope and lust into her bones and feed that hunger with his own.
She would stay with him as long as she could.
And regret that it was only until the sands calmed.
She was surprised. Nothing really changed after the winds had died. They replaced their cloths by themselves; put back the articles that had been removed so carefully by the other with their own hands. Furiosa's arm and the Fool's knee brace. They hardly even looked at one another beyond the offering of dried plant gruel and the passing of the water canteen. Saying just as little. But it was comfortable, in the way it had been that first day when they had shared their meals together.
They were warm within that place that was still coated in faint sheets of white. The sun would melt the rest off, but what was left out now would be a sight to see.
None of the Wives seemed to notice any change within their demeanor and Nux only had a tiny quirk to his eyebrow when The Fool offered his hand to the kid to help him up from the ground. The odd gesture was forgotten at the sight of what lay before them. He was a War Boy, but he did not go out on raids like Furiosa did and he did not live in the deserts and the wastelands like the Blood Bag did, so he had never seen the likes of white sand before. Didn't even know what to call it. So different from the regular light brown and rust that normally colored their world. Cold to the touch and turned liquid against his painted skin. The white of his pale flesh was fading slowly, but enough to be noticeable. To be darker than the sand that turned to Aqua-Cola. Turned to water.
The Blood Bag was watching him with an amused tilt to his lips and brows. A light twinkling in his eyes that was foreign and home that Nux was almost as speechless by it as he was by the Cola-Sand.
"Snow," he offered in his casual, grunting way. For a man who did not speak of himself or offer information beyond the landscape or their route, he made a lot of noise. Spoke a lot of words and repeated noises to himself as he looked at you and the people around him.
"Nux!" crowed a sweet voice of magic and water. That was shiny and chrome in a way that was different from what Immortan Joe had described and told them stories about.
She was running through the fields of snow with the rest of her sisters; arms spread wide as she twirled and kicked it up and around. Laughter from her and the others was echoing around and it made even Furiosa smile. However faintly it was.
It was still a smile and it was warm and special as she traced a buckle on her waist.
"Have you ever seen such a thing?" The Dag was asking, digging fingertips into the shallow depth. Fingers returning wet and brown from the real sand beneath.
"It happens from the sever pressure of the storm brining cold from the sky down. The tornadoes act like funnels and pull the water in the air down while cooling it off," Toast was telling them. She had a pile of it in her palms and was looking to be debating on the merits of tasting it.
"I wouldn't, if I were you," the Imperator murmured, knocking the white from her hands with a gentle shove. "It's poison and only the truly desperate drink that after a storm."
They each dropped the white sand and pressed their lips together in earnest. To prove they had not let a drop touch their lips. They didn't laugh, but the two warriors looked highly amused. There was something to say about their naïvety and their childish antics that was… calming. Peaceful.
Welcomed, perhaps. Maybe even wanted in this place of harsh actions and broken souls. They were two such people who had lost more than they deserved to and hardened themselves against anymore such loss. Their minds included. There were things that they saw in these kids that made all of this worth it. Seeing them happy as they discovered something that should have been well known among children of old was something strange. Something warm and good.
Of hope.
Their eyes met and what had happened between them in those two and a half days in that storm shifted something within them. Something that wasn't primal and wasn't just an effect of two incredibly deprived souls thirsting for comfort and sex like water in an enclosed space for several days on end. Alone. This was different and the full effects of the storm had yet to pass, but it was enough to make it easier to linger. Not enough to press the urgency of move and run onto their shoulders again. Not yet. The memories were warm and hazy. And they would stay that way.
Memories.
He holds her tightly after she comes back. They are hidden in the safety of the War Rig hold. She is not crying and she doesn't shake anymore, but it's obvious she is still upset. The sun is setting and it will be dark soon. The others are getting their camp ready, but they get that the two aren't going to be helping. There are some things that you just don't get over in a few hours.
No matter how much screaming and crying you do. There would never be enough to heal the jagged wound that was the hole in your soul. Never enough to fill in the gaps and tears that are created when you find that the one thing you were clinging to is gone. Ripped away without you ever even knowing it.
The Fool remembers what this was like. When the woman had died and the baby was gone before he had managed to get there. His baby, he remembers with a vague whispered reminder. The little girl that the woman takes shape as because he can't bear to remember her as she was when she died tells him. The dead are easier to live with if you don't see their broken bodies and their beaten down eyes.
She breaths ragged and harsh in his embrace and she only allows one of his arms to wrap around her shoulders. She holds herself taught and straight despite the strength he imbues in her spine through his grasp. He knows how much she appreciates it because of the way she leans a little closer to him as the minutes fade into hours and the sun goes down behind the ruddy dunes. He doesn't look at her or watch her face as he holds her. Her elbow is on her knee and she needs the support of his body because she refuses to put the metal contraption of her old life back on, but he is ok with that. Sometimes his brace is too much a reminder of what he lost and he just wants to tear it off. There is no laughter or song of the people beyond the rig and he doesn't remember why that feels wrong.
All he can remember is the look he had seen as she stumbled off. Like her balance had been stripped off her and the world ripped out from beneath her feet in a visceral way. How he yearned to grab hold of her and give her a steady hand that she could brace herself with. That is why he went out there to wrap a blanket around her shoulders and pull her arm out of the sand it was being buried in. Why he almost threw her into the rig before the girls could bombard her and why he was now clutching tightly to her. There were some things in this world that you couldn't just walk away from and shake off like sand and dust.
"Thanks," she finally whispers through hoarse breath and tender throat. She had been screaming and it was distance and wind that kept most of it out of earshot. But he just grunts and shakes his head. He knows she is a mess and that this is about all she'll take of this.
"Don't- don't dwell," he tells her. Her shoulders shrug in his grasp and he tightens the grip he has on her. She won't run away from this. She can't, else she end up like him. And that is no good for any of them.
"Gotta accept it. Hurts- I know- but running makes it worse." There is something tight in his throat that isn't dehydration or the jumbled mass of words he can never spit out anymore. She doesn't turn to look at him, but her shoulder presses a little more firmly into his side. The blanket is scratchy against the skin on her neck and he can feel the fibers through the thick callouses he's collected over the years. It's a decent anchor into this moment and a way to keep themselves grounded.
"Gotta keep living. Find a reason." His explanation is becoming more stilted, and the words are loosing their meaning to the press of leather jacket against wool blanket and heat throughout. The hold is ground enough to get it across and she has her head on his shoulder now as the tension winds down into something soft and fragile and vulnerable. A place similar and wholly different from that other state he had taken her too. It seemed he was the one she took her defenses down for. Let keep her back watched as she broke.
Her tears are silent as they crawl across the planes of her sun soaked cheeks. Staining her dirt marred skin with streaks of pain. The Fool (his name is slithering on his tongue and he wishes he had told her when she asked because now is not the time) holds his other hand against the back of her head and hides her face with his arm. Her shoulders don't shake and sobs do not escape her lips. But she is crying and she is safe here in his arms and he is glad she knows it.
As strange as it is to have this, it isn't something they are willing to let go of. Not yet.
But she will. Furiosa will pull away (not as gentle as she wants to and his expression will cut deep) and she will ignore the way that the others watch her. Thank the Valkyrie for the mostly dry washcloth to erase the tear tracks without comment and pretend that it never happened. She is a warrior and her weakness is not to be shown like this.
She is the protector and she doesn't need some damned Fool to take care of her.
But his blue eyes watch her and she nods to show that she is glad he was there anyway.
She's disappointed, but she knew he wouldn't say yes. She knew he wouldn't come with them. That he was too uncomfortable with being with other people. He wasn't used to being around others and he didn't know how to be close to them without thinking of how to escape them or how to survive if they attacked. How to run or hide or fight if the need arises. She hates that he is like that, but the world is dead and the people from Before had no care about the future when they began their wars. Their squabbles that were as foolish as Immortan Joe sending out three war parties after them for five women who hated him.
And she, in her own way, is just like him. And nothing like him. She actively seeks for redemption and he never even thinks of it.
She suddenly hopes she isn't with child, because if he has no knowledge of it, then what sort of redemption is that?
He came back. He came back with a plan. One hell of a plan that was most assuredly going to get them killed.
"We could start over," one said, happy and almost hopeful.
"Come on!" The Keeper cries. She's far too old for games and if this is her last shot, then she's going to do everything she can to take it. She's going to help bring this world back from the fiery, radiation depths of hell that mankind created.
The Fool points at her, waggling his finger with a smile on his face and eyebrows raised in amusement. But it's there: the hope and excitement of doing something good. Of a righteous cause that might help ease the ghosts. He's far more understandable than he thinks he is and she supposes it might be the way she was raised and the things she did through her life. She would have to say that there are definite factors that make him the way he was.
Furiosa pretends that she doesn't see what he is thinking. She is trying to convince herself that the best thing is to get the girls and what is left of the Vuvalini away from this place and to try and find something else in this wasteland. She stays quiet and isn't looking at him as he begins again. How could she leave these girls? Lead them into a war that the young ones are not prepared for? What sort of guardian would she be?
"Look," he continues, fiddling with his map and talking a little softer, a little more privately. She hears the soft murmur of fondness that had filled his words in that sandstorm, color his voice now in soft shades. If she weren't to know him like that, she wouldn't know what it was behind that gentle prodding.
"It'll be a hard day, but I guarantee you that a hundred and sixty days ride that way- there's nothing but salt." He looks away and watches his fingers with the scrap of fabric. "Perhaps, together, we might come across some kind of redemption," he finishes. The fondness is mingled in with uncertainty and he isn't looking at her. It makes his already garbled words come out even more halting.
She's already looked away when he looks back at her. His hand out in front of her without the hesitation in his voice and something of hope sparking in his expression. It's a nice sight, to see him so hopeful but she can't just accept this. Not without really thinking it over and examining all the aspects. It's a hell of a plan and she is sure that many of them will die through its execution.
His eyes end up sealing it for her. Because she may not have faith in this plan working, but The Fool has more than enough for them both and he's a wary enough soul to know that even if he wants it to work, it's gonna take a lot more than wishful thinking and faith. He believes he can make this plan work and that what will come of it in the end will be worth the sacrifice, so Furiosa can believe- if not in the plan or that it'll work- that he will do everything in his power to ensure that it does. That it's worth blood and sweat to do what is right. And not just for them, but for everyone under Immortan Joe in that citadel.
She takes his hand and accepts the plan for what it is.
His sparkling eyes are worth it.
"Engine one's good. For now," Nux explains. And then he sees it: the blood. He knows it's bad by the expression she gives him and the way she says nothing in front of the girls. It's just hard to really accept. Because Furiosa is an Imperator. She's a powerful figure within the War Boys and she's so much more capable of anything than anyone he has met. She is an Imperator and therefore, she is invincible and she cannot get hurt like any old human- any half-life. But she is stabbed and bleeding out like anybody else.
It's all too real for the situation and Nux has to remind himself to breath.
He remembers Furiosa when he had first been brought into the War Boy fold and learning the ways of the pups. The Pack. He knew her before she was an Imperator, all those who could fight now, do. She had been one of the few females allowed to be among the War Parties and who had survived the pits. Spent most of her teen and young adult life fighting higher and higher within their ranks. Older Boys who were long dead had tried to tame her in the normal way: the way you always took a female in these wretched wastelands. But she had risen above it and Immortan Joe had been impressed with the sheer brutality of some of her kills that he had made her Imperator.
And despite it, she had pulled pups out of the pits before they got killed and taught them a better way to survive in those places. Nux had been one of them; as had Slit. She had held the healing close and the dying closer. Never showing to older Boys how she showed kindness. Immortan Joe said kindness was weakness and most believed it. Most were dead.
But she wasn't. She had lived through so much, the taking of her arm included. And now she was hurt.
She's hurt real bad, Cheedo tells the Blood Bag and it's just too simple to really explain it that way. But it's the truth. Nux wants to explain further to the Drifter because he has the same surprised and incredulous look on his face that he does. He wants to tell the man how the Imperator had been stabbed and how the knife is lying in the dust next to her feet. But the Immortan is in front of them and slams on the breaks. They run into him at full speed and the impact hurts.
"You hear that?" He asks, knowing that their belts have fallen off one of the engines and now they are in deep. Dying Historic may be closer around than they think.
"I'm gonna need you to drive," she mutters. She looks so weak now, so frail. She's not shiny and chrome like she had always been. She's not the same steel of her rig or the sweat-iron that kept the pups alive until they were old enough to get into the garages.
But he has to drive, so he picks the bone knife up and ignores the metallic red. Puts it back in the gear shift and hopes that Furiosa will make it. He doesn't think that any of them will make it without her.
It's a bit like redemption, his car being gone, and he doesn't even mind that it was her who destroyed it. Because she is waking up and gaining some color back to her still too pale skin. She's not cold anymore nor do her eyes stay put instead of lifting with the lids. Granted, it was his car and he had paid hell and high water to keep it running and safe since he first got it. It was home and it's all he had left of Before. But it's gone now, with the bastard "Decapito" with it. Nux is gone too, but the kid died more than historic today. He died with purpose and that is so much better than riding through the gates of some psycho's Valhalla. Max doesn't remember much about Before, but he remembers a place that is good and warm. A place with white clouds and pearly gates that lead to an eternal happiness and soft caresses of love that good souls go to when they die.
He likes to think that the Vuvalini's Green Place and this are one in the same and together and better. A place for Nux to go and stay and be happy until, someday, the red head- Capable- can join him.
That place that he took Furiosa from. She had sought her own redemption, but he couldn't find his unless he saved her. And if he got to hear her voice and feel her graceful fingers through his hair one more time, then he was ok with that. She was not going to end up as one of his ghosts if he could help it and he sure as hell could.
"Max," she breaths. They are as alone as they can get in the Gigahorse, with the Wives up front and the Vuvalini woman not driving keeping watch out the back. The others are not looking and they are not paying much attention. He thinks that they would ignore the two anyway, to give them privacy.
"Hm," he hums softly to her. She sighs into his hand, the one that holds her cheek and keeps her face towards his. The faintest of smiles is on her lips and he knows that she is ok with still being alive.
"How long-?"
"A few more hours," he assured her. They wouldn't make it back to the Citadel until an hour or so before sunset, so she had plenty of time to regain her strength. And her equilibrium.
There is a twitch of her head that is like a nod and she is closing her eyes once more.
"Hey, hey!" he calls to her so that she will stay awake. She is still bleeding and he had to quit donating or else end up in the same state. So if she is awake then she is still alive and she is not dying. She is not turning into a ghost and she is not screaming at him for his whereabouts when she died. She is still with him and she is not going to go to that Green Place without him.
Furiosa's brow furrows and she opens her eyes enough to glare at him. It almost makes him laugh as he runs his thumb over the little line. She allows it to soften, whether from exhaustion or something gentler, he really doesn't care.
"Don't go to sleep. Have to stay awake." She grunts in annoyance at him; tucking her face closer to his hand, thumb still petting her eyebrow. His other hand is on her waist, pressing the wound in her ribs. The one he gave her to save her life because it will heal faster than the jagged wound on her other side. The one that had been inflicted upon by the man from Gas Town or the Bullet Farm- whatever- is stretched and long, being stopped from going any further up on her side by her rib as her arm was almost ripped off while catching him. That wound is wrapped tightly in bandages and spare cloth they found that was clean. Kept tight against her side by the leather corset that keeps her shirt held to her torso.
That wound never should have happened and if Max had been around, it wouldn't have. Then again, at least it isn't the one that's killing her. And a stab wound on each side of her body and broken ribs is better than a place in the darkest corners of his brain. He doesn't want to admit that she just might be a bigger part of his visions than most of the others.
"I know," he huffs instead of dwelling. He's just glad that he managed to save her. At least someone is still alive.
Her green eyes are watching him and the expression there is far too soft for the normally hard-as-fucking-steel woman. Her one remaining hand is on his forearm and the fingers are splayed in a tight grip. It's nice, comforting, and they are each loath to let go. But this moment can't last forever and Max knows that the others will notice that she is awake and this… this affection between them will vanish.
"Max," She breaths again, the sound of his name like something sticky and sweet that he has no name for but a memory of it anyway when she says it.
"Hm?"
"Thank you." He wants to tell her that it was nothing, to say 'You're welcome' but the words stick in his throat and he feels this weird prickle behind his eyes and a strange pressure behind his nose. It's tears and he knows that they are as unnecessary as they are unwanted. So he blinks a few times and nods the best he can.
The moment passes shortly thereafter, but the touches and the caress of his thumb over her brow does not cease.
And things are ok. For just this one moment, things are ok.
He watches the happenings around him and realizes that he is witnessing the redemption of this strong woman. He can see the people rejoice and there is hope again.
Maybe he can have that too. But, looking at her now, he knows that it isn't in this place. Not yet.
They watch him go. Like a ghost and a shadow they see him fade into the crowd and disappear from sight. They wonder if he will ever come back, but they are too smart for their own good and know that he won't. Not for a very, very long time.
If ever.
But they send him off with watchful stares and whispers of his name on their lips and it feels like a prayer and a promise wrapped in one. That he'd come back someday and that he would return to them and see what he helped to create. He would return to them. Their Fool.
Max.