It had been two years. Two years since Immortan Joe had had his face ripped off, two years since Furiosa and her allies had reclaimed the citadel, two years since the Imperator had been appointed leader. Two years since she had last seen Max, a man to whom she grudgingly owed her life. She walked through the looming rock structures like she owned them, which she theoretically did, but she knew better than to claim them as such. They were only hers as much as they were everyone else's, even if she did decide what happened within them. How much water and food was rationed, which seeds were planted, who to trade with and who to allow into the citadel itself. The last one was tricky, since the war boys, the Vuvalini and The Women especially (formerly known as The Wives) were not the most trusting.
But there was one they would welcome back without thinking, even if he had been gone for two years.
"Is it really him?" Toast asked, laying down whatever piece of junk she had been playing with to hurry after Furiosa.
"Apparently. Where's-" before she finished her sentence, a girl about the same age as The Women appeared, with the trademark swagger of someone who was good with guns and knew it. "You want to meet him too?" she asked, and the girl nodded.
The three women strode down to the widest entrance of the citadel, where a few of the war boys were swarming round a bulky figure with twitching fingers. As Furiosa and her companions approached they nodded their heads and ran away, showing her respect that, unlike Immortan Joe, she had earned.
Furiosa narrowed her eyes at the dust-stained man, who glowered back at her. "You're late," she said.
"Not late if I wasn't coming back in the first place," he replied gruffly, and Furiosa's face broke out into a rare smile.
"Fool," she muttered, and pulled him into a one-armed embrace.
"I didn't tell you my name for you to not use it," he said.
"Hi, Max."
"Toast." He nodded his head at the girl. "You look… bigger."
"Muscle and not baby, too." She grasped his arm in greeting. "The others are busy, but they want to see you tonight."
"Busy doing what?"
"Running the place," said Furiosa. "Could hardly do it on my own, could I?"
Max nodded, and followed the three women as they led him back inside one of the cliffs. Furiosa watched him in the reflections of the scrap metal they walked past; his eyes were fixed on the third girl, who had not yet been introduced.
"She won't talk," she informed him over her shoulder.
"Why?"
"No idea. She's the only one who can answer the question, and…"
The silent girl grinned at Furiosa, smug expression insinuating that the only reason she kept her mouth shut was to annoy her.
"She likes you," said the Imperator, as they entered a room with a large table made up of car bonnets. "She hasn't tried to shoot you yet."
She watched as the girl walked up to Max, poked him in the chest with one scarred and tattooed finger, and then twirled the same finger around near her temple. You're mad, the actions conveyed. Then, she thudded her own chest and did the same thing. Me too.
Max glanced over at Furiosa, who shrugged a leather-clad shoulder. "She's not lying," she said. "Ask her something."
Max turned back to the girl. "What's your name?"
She pouted her lips and pressed them to the tips of her fingers, then blew across them towards him.
"Kiss?"
Furiosa nodded. "She was an outlaw, I think. Turned up one day at a war boy's funeral, and outshot everyone else there." She didn't elaborate on the strange funereal traditions of the berserkers, and obviously, Max didn't ask. "She wasn't even invited."
Kiss was tall and lean, her hair a couple of inches longer than Furiosa's save for where scars ran through it. She was covered in scars, as a matter of fact, more than the rest of them and they looked deliberate, too- three on her face, with more of the ridged vertical lines covering her entire body, although currently they were hidden by her ragged clothing.
She certainly didn't look like a Kiss.
Kiss extended a hand to Max, who shook it after only a small moment of hesitation.
"You look awful," said Furiosa, "where have you been?"
"Around. You got food?"
"The girls want you to eat with us tonight. They've missed you, Max, so don't sneak off once you've taken advantage of our water supply."
"Wasn't going to," said Max, and Toast snorted.
"Kiss, show him somewhere he can wash."
She saluted, jerked her head at Max and sauntered out of the room.
%
Kiss kept one hand on the gun strapped to her thigh as she led Max along the rough stone corridors, counting each of his heavy footfalls. She stopped and pointed at a room with several water faucets mounted into the walls, and Max followed her finger inside, nodding mutely as he passed.
She watched him as he pulled off the colourless overcoat he wore and stood in the gushing water in his shirt and trousers and boots. Nobody in the citadel overused their words, which was why she liked it so much, but he was almost as quiet as her. If she were him, Kiss would have been asking all sorts of questions about what had happened since he left. She would have asked him things too, about what had happened to him in the last two years, if it hadn't meant talking herself.
"What happened to your voice?" he finally asked, switching off the water and dripping as he stepped out of the drain.
She shook her head and waggled her tongue as she handed him a towel, demonstrating that it was all in perfect working condition. That appeared to satisfy him and he dropped the unused towel to the floor before walking outside, seemingly preferring the sun to dry him. Kiss picked up his coat and followed him into the shack village that stood outside the cliff.
He led the way towards a quieter patch, slipping unnoticed through the crowds, until he came to a rocky outcrop on the edge of the citadel, where an old motorbike was parked- his, Kiss guessed. She handed him his jacket, held up one finger in a signal to wait there, then ran into the market in the shanty town. When she returned a few minutes later, she was hefting a large jerry can of fuel on one shoulder.
Max took the can from her with a nod of thanks and unscrewed the fuel cap on his bike. "Use sign language?" he asked her in his hoarse, gritty voice.
She wiggled her hand. Kind of. She knew there was a way to talk fluently using hand gestures, but to her that would defeat the point of not talking at all.
Max cast the empty jerry can aside and pulled on his coat again. "Why don't you talk?"
She tapped her nose, which made the corner of his lip twitch.
She rubbed her stomach, then pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. Food in there. Max gestured his hand in an indication for her to lead the way, and she felt the scars twist on her face as she smiled, turning around and leading him towards where Furiosa and The Women dined.
She had barely entered the room when a blur of white that was The Dag zoomed past her and wrapped her arms around Max, who blinked a couple of times before patting her on the back. The rest of The Women soon followed, and Kiss hung back with Furiosa.
"What d'you think of him?" her boss asked, and she shrugged. She pointed at the leader, then Max, then put her thumb up. You like him. She then rolled her hands around each other, a movement she used for so or therefore, pointed at herself, then Max, then gave another thumbs up. So I like him. Furiosa laughed softly.
Kiss had idolised the herself-quiet woman from the moment she set eyes on her- half a year after she had returned, blood still congealing on her side, and taken on the mantle of leading the citadel. But it wasn't because of that Kiss looked up to her; it was because of her suicide mission to rescue The Wives in the first place. Kiss had done whatever she could to gain Furiosa's attention, and when she had the woman put her in the all-female army led by the remaining Vuvalini and Toast, who defended the borders of the citadel. Discontent with that, Kiss had followed Furiosa around like a dog until the woman finally acquiesced and took her on as a sort of assistant. Kiss suspected the woman liked having someone who didn't nag at her all day, anyway.
The Women had been wary of Kiss at first, but now treated her as they did the Vuvalini- with respect. None of them, not even Furiosa, knew where she came from, where she had learned to fight and sustained her curious scars, and the air of mystery worked in her favour. It wasn't the main reason she didn't talk, but it was certainly one of them.
Max ate like a wild boy, a scavenger- he took whatever he could lay his hands on and practically inhaled it, bones and all. The one thing Kiss wasn't tough about was food. She would willingly eat insects, but drew the line at anything else alive, and preferred to be unable to identify the sort of animal she was eating once it was dead. That was another wonderful thing about the citadel; she could afford to be picky, to a certain extent. She probably would have been looked down on for it, if she hadn't tried to scratch out the eyeballs of the first and last person who tried to chastise her.
People had quickly learned after that- Kiss may have been silent, and happy to work, but she was also completely and utterly mad.
When she was done eating, she wandered over to the corner and starting picking away at the piano that used to be in The Wives' chambers. Capable had tried to show her how to play properly once, with chords, but Kiss preferred to hit keys in random patterns until she found a melody she liked. Unfortunately for others, these were often discordant and painful to listen to, and most evenings Furiosa- the one person unafraid of Kiss, the one person she would never attack- would end up, at the request of others, asking her to stop.
That evening, though, she joined Kiss on the wide, low bench away from the others, and silently watched her play for a while. "Kiss, have you ever seen Max before?"
Kiss stared at her.
"Before you came to the citadel?"
Kiss shook her head, pointed at Max and tapped her temple. Him I would remember.
Furiosa nodded. "I just wondered."
Kiss sucked in air through her teeth and went back to playing- for want of a better word- the piano.
"He likes you," Furiosa continued, and Kiss gave her a sceptical look. "If he talks first, that means a lot."
She knocked her wrists together, then drew a cross over her throat. Because I don't talk.
"Maybe."
She shook her head and drew a cross over her heart, then a couple more simple gestures. Doesn't not like me. Doesn't mean he likes me.
"Guess you're right." Furiosa grasped Kiss' shoulder with her good hand, and stood up. "Could you give the piano a rest for a while?"
Scowling, Kiss followed her back to the main table, where the only space was to the left of Max. She wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees, and noticed he was watching her out of the corner of her eye. She raised an eyebrow at him.
"Don't worry," he said, "I leave at sunrise."
She jabbed a finger at him, made a beaklike gesture with her hand, then pointed at herself. You talk to me. She then repeated the movements, except kept the "beak" shut and gestured to the rest of the table. You don't talk to everyone else. She cocked her head to one side. Why?
He didn't answer, and she glared at him for the rest of the evening.
%
The nightmares woke Max up that night, like every night, and the screams followed him as he staggered down deserted corridors, blindly headed for water. Water, to try and wash them away, seemed like a good idea. Water fixed things, even if it couldn't fix him properly.
He went for the showers the girl Kiss had shown him, and as he drew closer to them he heard a woman singing, voice amplified by the metal plating around the room she was in. It was a hoarse voice, but not unpleasant to listen to despite the fact the song itself had no words he understood. Part of Max wanted to turn around and run for the outdoors, but the rest prevailed and carried him onwards. Partly because he wanted water, partly because he was intrigued by the voice.
It was Kiss; he recognised her by the finger-width scars, half a dozen of them, running in uniform lines down her back. Instinctively he took a step back, meaning to leave without being noticed, but back would be back to the darkness, to the kids asking why he could not save them- here, the singing drowned their voices out, so with guilt dripping down him the way the water dripped down her, he stayed.
He noticed the scars weren't quite vertical, but instead followed the inwards curve of her waist before branching back out again at her hips, where they stopped an inch above the two that covered the backs of her legs. He had seen people in the desert with similar scars, cult-like gangs who treated women like slaves; when they were too old to bear children, the vertical lines would be broken through with horizontal ones and they would be cast out to die. But hers were all smooth and parallel, so Max guessed she must have escaped herself and come here, to Furiosa, to the liberated wives. Furiosa herself had mentioned the girl didn't like being told what to do, and her background must have been why.
Everyone had a reason for being mad, after all, and Max knew that better than most.
As she finished the song, Max turned to leave, and the metal on his boot caught a pipe on the wall- donggg. He froze, grimacing, as he heard Kiss shriek behind him and scramble for a towel.
"About five minutes," he said, answering her silent question and turning around now that she had covered herself. "I only stayed for the singing." There was a thud of clothes hitting the floor, and he stiffened as he felt the nuzzle of a gun press against his neck. "Not gonna tell."
A couple more seconds, then- "hmm," from Kiss, and the pressure of the gun was removed.
Part of him was surprised that she didn't talk now he had heard her voice, but then the rest pointed out she was hardly a reasonable person. She gave him a disgusted look as she grabbed her bundle of clothes, and he turned around to let her change.
"I know your scars," he said quietly, over the rustle of fabric. "Your people wanted women to perform for them, right?"
That was when she spoke; her voice was strong, like her singing. "We were only allowed to talk or sing to entertain them. When we were alone, we had to keep our mouths shut."
So she got free, Max thought, and turned the tables.
"Why are you here, Max?"
"Nightmares." A partially dressed Kiss walked into view.
"They say you're mad," she said, with a small smile. Her eyes were brown beneath the scars, he noticed. Unlike Furiosa's blue ones, they didn't stand out of her heavily-tanned face.
"They're not wrong."
"Say it about me, too."
"I can't answer for that," he said, and her smile grew.
"You really leaving at sunrise?" she asked, and he nodded. "I'll miss you."
"You don't know me, Kiss."
"I talk to you. It's nice to talk, now and again."
He didn't look at her. "Talk to the others, then."
"If I still have the choice to stay the silent one around them, then I will. They haven't heard me sing, so they never will."
"Talk to Furiosa," he said. "Two more years, and I'll come back again. If you're still silent, that'll be the last time you see me."
"You making a deal with me, Max?"
"Hm," he grunted.
The name Kiss was all wrong for her- nothing about her was soft like a kiss, she was all sharpness and hard lines. "Why Kiss?"
"What, why did I choose it?" she pulled on her overshirt. "Because it was the least right name to choose. When I was… before I ran, they called me Flint. It suited me perfectly, and I hated it because they gave it to me."
That made sense- at least it did to him, and he was as mad as her.
%
Furiosa woke up before dawn to see Max off, and since Kiss was always glued to her side anyway she came with her. "You sure you won't stay?" she asked her old friend, strapping a couple extra cans of fuel to his bike.
He shook his head. "Not my style."
"Fair enough. Stay off the main roads, Max."
He grasped her hand in a gesture of farewell, then turned to her assistant. "Got anything you want to say, Kiss?"
Furiosa sighed at the tasteless joke. "Goodby, Ma-"
"Actually," said Kiss, "yeah. You talk too much."
Furiosa stared at the girl, and to one side of her Max began to laugh.
"You know it." And with that, with a roar of diesel engine and a billowing cloud of dust, he was gone.
Kiss finally noticed Furiosa again, and shrugged. "He seemed nice," she said, and Furiosa shook her head.
"Get back to work, Kiss."
"Yes, Imperator."
A/N [sees Fury Road] "I need to show my love for this by immediately creating an OC." It's definitely not the best thing I've ever written and I reckon this will stay a oneshot, but who knows? Please leave a review!