Prompt: "Your OTP adopts a kitten. I don't care about anything, so long as the kitten(S) is cute and elicits some awww." I chose Nux/Capable for the OTP as asked for in the prompt, but there's something of an air of everybody/everybody in this inexcusable fluff that gets hilariously sad within like another hour of driving. There is discussion of the cat getting harmed but nothing happens to it. (I am mentally adding in an AU where a Green Place still exists after relocating upstream of the area where the water and soil turned sour, and the Vuvalini help to fight off Joe & Co.'s war parties once they start closing in. Happy end! Maybe later they all try and fix the Citadel. Or Corpus Colossus took over and decided to suck less than Dad.)

Grey-blue as the night in the quagmire, splay-footed, and enormously green-eyed, it crouched between a canister of mother's milk and the side of the War Rig. It was slower than Nux, and much weaker however it wriggled and bit, and the best big, plump surprise.

"Oh, don't eat it!"

But the Dag didn't appreciate it the same way he did. Nux looked from her to beastie, which was held as still as possible against his chest, and tugged its back legs to show off the outward curve of its belly.

"Why not-the meat on it! Look, look at it, this beastie's huge! As big as those rows!"

"It's got more meat on it than him," said Toast, and wagged the splinter she was chewing towards Nux. "Have a heart - let him do what he wants."

She looked pointedly to Capable instead of the Dag, and Nux's head whipped round to look at her too. Capable stood right beside him when everyone else had circled him to watch the giant beastie from a safe distance. Permission - right. All right. That made sense.

Nux turned to show beastie properly for Capable's inspection, and she lifted a hand - "Claws," said Cheedo in warning, and then, "It's a cat, after all," with wonder added in.

"Yeah, okay, a cat, and it bites too and spits. Don't think the spit does much, though," Nux rattled off right after her. The wives didn't have a scar between them anymore - the Splendid had been the only one to spit polish herself up that way. It would have to be a fine old fuss when Capable chose her first, he really hoped, so it couldn't be an accident from him letting his cat get at her when she wasn't even trying to take it down. He held it a little tighter to prevent all motion, one arm just under its front legs and his other hand holding its back legs together.

Its hair was getting dry, and puffed up bigger because of it. It was warm. Its spine pressed to him right through the ruff of all the hair, a row of really small knobs that made him think of when War Pups still got cold and pressed up to you. He made sure he wasn't getting it hurt either, as Capable's fingers stroked down its belly.

It made a little noise. Nux could sympathise.

"Don't you dare eat it, War Boy!" The Dag dashed up and nearly put her chin on his shoulder to look at beastie from a safe spot. She made noises back, and that got its ears swivelling her way. They turned right around! From flat against its head to upright and big! Capable let out a breathless laugh.

"It's hot out here," Nux said, breaking off staring at the cat and trying to be practical despite Capable's smile at the edge of his vision. "The produce we've got - that's not going to last for long-hauling. Neither's the cat, yeah, but it's something."

"I made sure the storage hatches are running extra cool before setting out." Furiosa patted the side of the War Rig. "It'll last."

"We made our plans, War Boy. Nobody's here on a whim, now are they?" Toast said - a pointed scoff to it that immediately had Capable's slipping hand onto his back pressing firmly.

He'd have welcomed yelling and punches to show support, but she wasn't the type, and ... her hand, her eyes meeting his, serious and waitful, ready to let him prove himself. It all felt so close to being like any of the kind punches that had been thrown on his behalf.

"Don't eat it," Toast added with an easing up in her voice, and rolled her eyes when he looked at her in surprise.

Cheedo squeaked, excited. "I vote for not eating it too! We should ... can we keep it?"

Furiosa patted the War Rig again, smiling. There was food...

"It's got nine lives," said blood bag, stepping up to the circle the others made, and Nux's mouth dropped open.

"The beastie?" he said, voice gone soft like old Larry and Barry had been giving him a hard time. "The cat?"

"Yeah. If they get a good start first. This one's young still."

Very warm against him. Fanged and clawed. Delicate and strong. Nine lives! Not the holy number, but with an extra miracle snatched out of impossibilities...

"Swaddle it. Then it's yours," said Furiosa. "Bathroom break's over - we're moving again now."

They only started to wrap beastie up once they'd piled into the War Rig and got driving, Capable and Toast handing over some of their cloths since they had more than the other two. "Swaddle it?" said blood bag, sounding sceptical as they wrestled gently with beastie, which was uncertainly wriggling and showing teeth.

Furiosa was smiling again. "It's a pet, isn't it? You have to take care of pets."

Blood bag frowned at her in place of a question and she shrugged. "I'll explain when we get there."

Once beastie was wrapped with its claws tucked away, Cheedo was willing to touch it. She'd filled a drinkup with mother's milk before climbing into the War Rig, and the cat calmed just about all the way down after she screwed off the nozzle and held the kup part to its nose, and it could drink with its long, narrow tongue. Capable leaned on Nux as she watched it where it lay in his lap, the Dag leaned on Capable, Toast sat back and eyed the rest of them, and Cheedo practically lay over all three of the other wives to get in touching distance, grinning unbelievingly at beastie.

"Now it's ours?" Nux asked Furiosa.

"Sure."

He sat back, breathing out as big a breath as he could without a risk of starting to cough. All right then. Yeah. He nudged Capable and held up the arm she'd been leaning against, pointing at it. What he'd tied to it, wrapped around his wrist. "I got some cloth from you before, when I ... uh, when I got in here the first time." Or it could have been from the Splendid, questioning and ferocious; he'd kind of like that, too. "But it would be different, if you'd give me some now..." and he brushed a finger over leftover cloth lying on the seat. Capable's eyes went almost as big as beastie's.

"Just make it a mini-swaddle," Toast said, and let out a laugh and wriggled back as the Dag plucked beastie from Nux's lap and set it on hers in playful punishment. "Please! Don't think he could pull off as much of it as this cat! Ugh, Dag, take it back-"

They watched as Capable tore some cloth, blood bag turning in his seat and even Imperator Furiosa's eyes flicking back, all solemn enough to show they knew he was sealing a betrayal as he let her tie it on. It was as big as the one Nux had grabbed before and had lifted to the Immortan's gaze. It was given now and he had been invited here, and he could barely believe how different it was, this same-looking strip of cloth.

"I bet you want something fancier," Capable said, fussing to make the tie of it neat around his upper arm. When she looked at him this time - eyes going to the precise beauty of the V8 on his chest - it was the first time he thought she was asking more than giving; wanting to hear if and hoping that this was enough, instead of knowing full sure that she knew better things than he was left alive to imagine.

"Shine's what you make of it. Symbols too."

The Dag took the cat gently from Cheedo, who'd been cradling it in her arms, and put it back on his lap. She ignored him otherwise and started making beastie noises to it, but it seemed like approval. Even more of it.

Nux didn't know what he made shine out of since yesterday, when everything he'd once used was denied as he brought his own self shamed to his knees. But Capable was here, ready every heartbeat to be right beside him. And there was a thing called a tree. Water-walkers that he'd seen with his own eyes, instead of stories brought back that hardly no one believed. Full-lives letting him rest and ride to his heart's content ... in the War Rig itself. And a cat's big, mobile ears that got the softest fluff bits at the bottom when its hair dried from the last of the quagmire air, and then when you touched those bits of its hair a certain way, it sounded motorised.

"Jaguar," he named it on the spot, seeing in a flash of inspiration the sleek leap of the logo before his eyes and in the silvery grey of the cat's hair, and grinned at the chorus of agreement as he smoothed the fluff some more.