"We are expediters of the apocalypse.
There is nothing left to save, if there ever was anything...
If there ever could be.
All we desire, is to go to our ruin in our own way-
with a little style and a lot of noise"
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"We have water, a little food to"
Eyes, hard and cold and blue cut the warrior woman with irritation. He thinks her naive to hand out information just because the person they had come across is a woman to. Furiosa's soft spot, but he knows. He knows, woman or not, weak or not, she can't be trusted. Humans can't be trusted, and recent events aside, strangers are nothing but trouble.
He had told her to keep going. That they should just keep going, ignore the little house and press on. Sooner or later they'd come across, something. But Furiosa had argued back.
Running low on food, tired. The sun is just too hot, they'll die if they don't stop. He says they'll die if they do. But she is adamant, so are the others, they need to rest and he ignores the fact that he does to.
He relents in the end simply because he is outnumbered. Women, he grunts, a rumble deep in his throat, nothing but trouble. And this girl, this frightened little waif. Starving, a dead weight bag of bones. A stranger.
She's to pale, he noticed when he steps out into the beating rays and sees her up close. Her eyes, the flash of her face or what he can see from behind her robes is to pale. Her eyes to big.
Sheltered; she doesn't know this land; a liability... She'll get them killed.
Innocent
A whisper in his mind and he pushes against it.
Max?
...No
He twitches, a flash of something dark and young and dead from behind the strange girl and he blinks hard against it and in the next moment Furiosa is walking away, trailing behind the girl and he has no choice but to follow. The sound of dirt and rock beneath the leather soles of his boots is to loud but at least it drowns out the crack of his own heart beat.
Stepping over the threshold and the white hot light of day is plunged into shadowed darkness, a click and the door shuts behind him. He looks around fast, eyes memorizing the four front windows, all nailed shut, a kitchen... Sparse, things covered in rotting sheets. So much dust and sand and darkness but the shade feels cool and when his pulse begins to calm he can't help but be relieved.
Furiosa is talking to the girl, the other woman are standing sentries in the living room, their own hoods and scarves pulled down, their dirt and sweat stained faces bare and he can't move from where he stands by the front door.
"How long have you been here?" he here's the older woman ask as he spots a chair by the eastern window,. The dust is disturbed, finger prints on the nailed boards, a forgotten plate of something that looks like shriveled weeds and he knows this is where the girl sits and he knows this is where her hope rests, or her ill will.
This is where she watches, where she waits.
" A while" comes her meek reply a few moments later, and the silence that hangs in in its wake is as suffocating as the air around them.
He doesn't hear her foot falls till furiosa is beside him, a hard flint to her black smudged eyes; she's speaking to the crazy blond, something about water and he frowns.
"We should go"
His voice is low. A rasping, rolling growl. Furiosa's eyes snap to him at once and she shakes her head, lips tight.
No, they're staying.
"She wont hurt us Max, look at her" and he does, catching her as moves from the room, the blade at her hip flashes in broken rays of sunlight. He frowns, dragging his eyes back to the former Imperator, and the scowl deepens. He can see what she's thinking; she wants to bring the girl with them in the morning when they leave.
We've done enough, he thinks but can't bring himself to say, a grinning skull and wild yellow eyes stab at his mind; echoes of blood splatter and screams.
I've done enough... Can't save them all.
But Furiosa is determined, something about this girl has captured her attention. Maybe its just the fact that she is a she, its enough in this world now. To just survive as a woman, he knows this, despite the apprehension, despite the nagging in his gut and the aching exhaustion in his bones that makes him just want to leave. To walk out the door, leave them here. The women can defend themselves, he can make his own way.
The shreds of his life were easier to manage when all he had was himself and the miles and miles of endless burning dunes. But here he is because apparently there is still pieces of humanity left, even if its hidden in the ruins of a black and gutted heart.
The crazy blond is back, the door slamming shut a little to hard jars him from his thoughts and he sees a large steal pot in her hands, a dull grey slowly consumed by rusting orange. Water, murky and cool, sloshing back and forth as she waddles to a table that doesn't look like it could hold the weight.
"T-Thank you" the unnamed girl is back, and his eyes narrowed on her now uncovered face. The dirty, moth eaten cloth from before is pulled back and all he can do is stare at her.
Even in sickness and starvation she is beautiful. Frail and soft; wide eyes look from one to the next before landing on himself and this is where they narrow. Full, cracked lips tighten and he knows she thinks less of him then he does her.
She blinks once and looks away, a breath escapes like she'd been holding it to long. The girl runs a hand over the tangled dark locks of her hair, braided and knotted over one shoulder as she looks around at them all.
"Uh, well, make um... Yourselves at home" she stutters this out more like a question and he can tell she doesn't want them here, she doesn't want him here at all and he grunts back at her in return, trying to keep himself calm, his face calm.
Don't scare her, something in him says but that word she used keeps pulsing back at him like a poisoned sliver.
Home.
He wants to tell her that home doesn't exist, not here, not anymore. Doesn't she know this? Can't she see her house is a prison? Its walls, bleached and brittle by the sun offer nothing but a grave. Anger, sharp and hot coils in his gut and he wants to drag her outside and show her that this desert is a prison, that the sky is prison, that her own god damned heart is a prison. That the hope she clings to, peeking out her window is nothing but a prison. You can't escape it; hope is dead and throwing words like home around will do nothing but hammer down the coffin nails.
"Max"
He twitches, forcing his gaze not to seek out the dead things that follow him.
Can you see...
Please Max...
"Max"
Furiosa is walking over the next time he blinks. The roaring in his ears is gone as he looks to her, trying to keep his breathing calm. Trying to keep the dark, pulsing beneath his skin from showing.
"Go sit down, Abbey's taking me to her food storage, Ill get you something to eat"
Abbey? Who's, oh... Abbey, the stranger.
A name doesn't make her any more human. It doesn't change the fact that she'll get them killed the first chance she gets and it doesn't change the fact that she says home like they still have a chance of having one.
He blinks and tries to shake the memories and ghosts clinging to his skin; he seeks the girl out and his eye twitches; she's standing off to the side, wringing her hands as Furiosa stalks over to her. They are turning away and the girl casts a last glance over her shoulder. Her eyes, an electric hazel, lock into his own and his breath catches in his throat. She is condemning him, he can see it. The fear held tight in her muscles as her lips tighten, and he thinks she's weak, and coming here was a mistake.
Abbey.
A voice whispers, not his own; he closes his eyes to it, inhales. Exhales, but the face, the dead thing is there, branded to the back of his eye lids. Pale skin, blue eyes, faded screams echo. I'm sorry... I'm so sor-
His jaw clenches and pops. Teeth grinding together hard and even with his eyes open that beautiful dead thing is there, flickering in and out like bad reception.
No! This is about the girl, this is about the girl.
He moans, pain like slabs of concrete crush his shoulder blades; his ribs feel to tight, he's so full, and so empty and its like he's imploding or rotting from the inside out. The flesh and sinew and blood turning into ash and death. He can feel it, he swears he can feel it, something beyond pain.
Max, MAX! Don't look away...
Stop... This, this is about the girl.
Its about the girl, the girl is the problem.
Never, we never should have come here... The girl will kill, will get them killed.
He has to get Furiosa, the others out. He has to, this is about the girl... Abbey, Abbey can't be trusted.
He's crushing the heals of his hands into his eye sockets, grinding dirt and motor oil with something wet and his head hurts, his throat is raw and swollen and the more he swallows the tighter the vice around his rib cage gets and the harder it is to breath.
"Leave" its barely a whisper, a choked out growl said to an empty room. The other two women are gone and for a second panic seizes in his chest. His feet are moving before he realizes it, he needs to find them. No one else can die, not here, not them. From the living room and through the kitchen, eyes darting from side to side and the fear surges but he can't hear past the thunder in his ears and when he turns the next corner into some other room he stops dead in his tracks, eyes narrowing as his hands crack into fists. Clenching and unclenching, trying to calm himself down, he needs to calm down but he isn't really sure what's happening.
He can never remember their names, the two women, crazy blond and the red head; they're sitting down with Abbey at a table. Normal, its a normal thing to do, but it raises the hair on the back of his neck. The world feels off kilter, and he can't say anything.
He never will. So silence surrounds him, heavy and scorched. The women are quiet, even Furiosa, who he trusts alone in this world, is standing casually against the nearby wall like nothing is wrong. Like she knows the girl... Abbey, like she knows her.
They're not doing anything bad, the women. From what he can see by the doorway, there's food on the table and the three sitting down are simply dividing it up amongst five plates.
Normal.
But normal is home and home doesn't exist anymore. Abbey isn't normal, what's happening isn't normal and no one simply gives out food because their nice.
"Hey, Max" Someone calls to him but he can't be sure who it is, their voices all sound the same behind the fog in his head and all he can see is the bright pale side of Abbey's face. All he can see is her hair and her eye lashes, the faint freckles like pepper on her cheeks. He can see her, he can see fear. Can practically smell it, even as they sit there. She isn't calm, he can see it in her hands, in the way they shake as she tears up the green stuff. Her back is to stiff, she's holding her breath again. Waiting.
For what?
...for us to kill her.
No, for you to rape her, to eat her...
He shakes his head, eyes flashing from Abbey to Furiosa as she passes him and he frowns, trying to convey what's wrong, trying to ignore the whispering ghost beside the girl with the pale skin and the freckles.
The ghost, her eyes, two agonizing deep blue pools, stair at him from just behind Abbey's back now, on small finger pointed at the back of her head .
Leave me alone, he begs and the child screams again, nothing but silence and the echo in his head.
MAX! Please Max, you need to see...
Its to much, he doesn't understand and then he's turning, the room spinning with him as he stomps away, footfalls heavy and the old wood floor groans under the weight of him and all that he carries.
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And another one bites the dust;)
Ok, I hope it was a good read, obviously the bold italic is Max's thoughts, the normal italics is his halucinations. That aside, this is gonna be a slow burn, with losta angst and action and all that yummy good stuff. Just thought Id put that out there, until next time!