My name is Max. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
theroadwarrior) wrote2016-10-07 12:29 pm
theroadwarrior) wrote2016-10-07 12:29 pm
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etraya
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(Good fuckin' luck.)
IC Contact for
Action | Video | Voice | Text | Etc.
(Good fuckin' luck.)
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Eh, too late. If she bleeds on it, it just means its hers. Those are the wasteland rules. ]
It's weird.
[ She admits, humming a soft agreement. The wound stings, but it's minor all things considered. But the way she flinches away from his touch isn't from the pain. She's rusty with this type of casual vulnerability. Can't imagine Max is used to playing nurse either. ]
Quiet. [ Even though there's tons of people (Max's major objection to the apartment building). These people are mostly quiet and polite, at least relative to what she's used to. ] Don't know how I'm supposed to sleep without a pack of warpups stomping past my head every hour.
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His hands are steady, and he tries not to flinch when she flinches. She'd be right in assuming he's so unbelievably skittish; it takes his focus to not feel like he's somewhere about to get a wrench smashed across the top of the head. Won't take too long, at least; he's more gentle as he carefully touches his fingertips to the skin beneath the wound, making sure the wound's edges stay together.]
Lot of healthy people here. No lumps and bumps.
[Max always wondered if he would end up sick. His father had died from cancer when he was terrible young — couldn't say if it was from how sick the planet was getting, or if it was from bombs he'd been too close to, or if maybe it was simply an older man getting sick, as some older men tended to do before the world fell in full.
He doesn't think too long about those things, though. Nothing's killed him yet.]
Never really slept in the company of other people.
[Not like that, anyway. He slept in the War Rig after struggling tooth and nail to pretend he doesn't require it like other people. But it was — soothing enough. For a while. The whir of an engine is a bit of a lullaby.]
cw reference to canon variety human trafficking
She slept best with Jack at her side, boots on and weapons tucked between them.
There is little else to do but wait for him to finish. He's careful. Reliable hands, stitching her as well as they kill.
There is one point she feels to counter this. Her head tips to the side, examining him, wondering if she should broach it. Hers said it too. Did he read it? ]
That thing said you were widowed.
cw: loss of a child and spouse
"He's been standing there like a zombie all day," he hears, crystal clear all these years later. It's a nurse in a perfectly clean uniform, unaware that the last few safe havens of society were about to burn with the rest of the them. DOA for one body. Brain-dead for the other. He stole their shells and buried them himself, just outside their home. What was left of an ocean would be bone-dry the year after. Recede so far away, that all you'd ever see was cracked, flat plains of salt. He left and never looked back. Or maybe he did visit that place again. Visited and never knew it, because nothing was left he would remember.
(Furiosa is lying in a car, dying as he gently cradles her neck, holds her head up for her. Does she know that the baby who had taught him how to speak so kindly and so softly has been dead for years and years now?)
Max doesn't realize he's been quiet for — too long.
Max does realize it's the first time someone has called him what he was.
Softly, firmly, as he steadies his hands again to finish his work:]
Don't.
[Not an angry sound. If anything, it almost sounds like a plea. Because if they don't amputate this conversation before it spreads, he will hear his wife and son crying out for him somewhere he wasn't fast enough to follow.]
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And then the winds calm, and you are still standing. Weathered and worn, but still standing.
Softly:] Okay.
[ Not 'sorry.' Because, while she is sorry for this misstep, an apology feels like it would belabor the point. This is the quicker course correction. And she doesn't make the same mistake twice.
The wasteland is littered with ghosts. Best to let them be. ]
You almost done?
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If anything, he feels a little mortified by how much such a simple thing had tail-spun him into memories that are likely older than even some of the Wives.]
Mm.
[He appreciates the quick bounce back. He can focus on fixing her like he would a car. Perhaps not quite so generous a thing to say — well, anyone who knows him knows that a particular car is more valuable to him than almost anything else in the world. Being compared to a car he's eager to work on, that's a compliment.
Breathing out, he clips the lingering suture thread.]
Not too tight?
[Can't be, or it'll risk infection. Wound dehiscence. He's seen it happen before, with unskilled organic mechanics. Ones that pretend they have some idea of what they're doing, anyway.]
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She presses her fingers softly to the flesh just below the wound, rolls her shoulder to feel the way it moves and stretches with her. He did good work. ]
Mm-hm. [ She shakes her head. It's good. She has to be gentler this time, she knows, but that's hard for her. ] Feels good.
[ And then wryly: ]
I'll try not to waste anymore of your blood.
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And of course, he still has a spare tube and needle strapped to his vest, too.
Just in case.
He's reminded of it all over again, and huffs a discontented breath that is all bark, no bite.]
Better not. It's high octane — best you can get from a raging feral.
[He looks like a raging feral, huh? Clear-eyed, grumpily putting things back where they belong as he hobbles around a kitchen. Strip a man of all of the frantic energy near-death situation brings, and he's just a tired bastard like any other.
... One still in desperate need of a shower, but what wastelander isn't?]
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[ She means it in the way she would say she'd say fuel is a vehicles type, or the way she'd say she'd want nitro to top off her rig. Mostly guzz with a boost to keep her going, speed and power to keep her alive.
But, somewhere in between saying it and letting go of the amiable half-slap-half-squeeze she swats at Max's shoulder as she gets up off the couch Furiosa feels transported to how another man, maybe a year into their partnership stitching her up, wouldn't have let a comment like that slide so easily without needling at the double meaning.
Furiosa is far beyond feeling socially awkward, but maybe she brute forces herself brushing past it a little more quickly than she might have otherwise to fix them both some water. ]
Least I can do is feed you and let you clean up before you go back to your junkyard.
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Oh.
Reaching over, he picks up one of the dozen cans of Coca Cola, eyebrows raising.]
... You found this at the shop?
[Does she even realize what it is? Max barely remembers, and that was from the last standing bastion of society, when productions stopped and all that was left was expired cans that were usually more flat than not. He would see the old rusted shells used for different things — shrapnel in bombs, or filled with rocks to make an alarm system.]
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[ Furiosa was boggled by it. She has plenty of other things to taste, so she did not want to try her luck with the brown liquid. Usually things that color have gone rancid or belong in a vehicle. Plus something with acids in the ingredient list seem like they'd be better for removing rust or oil stains than fueling a person. ]
You seen it before?
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[He looks at it, studies the ingredients. You don't get things with ingredients like this anymore; a lot of it would sound fake to anyone out there. Just imagining a knobheaded war boy trying to translate...]
Water's nothing like it, though. Haven't tried it yet? [He pulls the tab; the hissing sound conjures a series of blurry memories. As he pushes it toward her, he speaks with a touch of amusement:] Not poisonous.
[He knows well enough what her thought process was.]
kombuchagirlmeme.jpeg
You want me to drink it?
[ Even if he affirms it's not poison. She opened one before. It hissed and fizzed. It was brown! It looks like water she's scooped out of the most rank mud puddle she could find on a good day.
She takes the can from him, fingers grasping around it while she lifts it to her nose. She sniffs at it suspiciously, the fizz hitting her nose strangely. Cautiously, she takes a sip, her mouth still pulled into a near grimace as she does. Taunting someone into eating or drinking something rancid is among the easiest and most popular entertainment available to the Black Thumbs and War Boys, so she's really trusting Max on this. ]
Mmn— [ she pulls away quickly with a mildly offended noise. Her face scrunches, considering, like she can't even really identify the flavor. Her tongue roves over her teeth, the odd flavor coming with a strange feeling. ]
It's so sweet. I feel like my teeth are gonna fall out.
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He takes the can and swallows down a few swigs, then hums.]
Mm. People used to like how it burned.
[Not unlike moonshine, but, well. Moonshine is harder to keep down.]
Any back home would be flat now. No bubbles. Tastes much worse then.
[Is this Max admitting he has drank really, really old sodapop?
Uh. Yeah.]
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And then she huffs. Old worlders, they didn't have enough adrenaline in their day to day they had to microdose drinking acid. She'd say she doesn't get it like the garage rats wouldn't get bored enough to try licking batteries or touching live wires just to feel the spark of something.
She takes the can back for a second. There's a whole pack of them, she realizes belatedly, that they could each have their own, but sharing a limited ration just feels so much more embedded into how she operates it doesn't even occur to her.
She takes a bigger drink this time, not as surprised by it. The carbonation makes her burp, which she does naturally and without concern or any concept of why it might be impolite as she passes the can back to him. ]
Yeah but when all you've got is dirty Aqua Cola and mother's milk that's turned rancid, can't say I'd turn it down.
no subject
Max will sign that decree, but that's probably not a surprise.
As he takes another swig, he toys with the can absently between his fingertips. The two healed fingers that the wheel of the war rig had crushed don't quite bend the same way the rest of them do, but that's to be expected. Parts of you stop working, and it's a sign that you're long-lasting, that you made it where you are with a lot of stubbornness and grit. It's easy to lose track of all the marks you get, the patches of hair you no longer have thanks to the scars ricochetting bullets leave.
But then suddenly, they're in a normal apartment kitchenette, drinking brand new cans of soda.
It's bizarre.]
Lot of different kinds, too. Rainbows of flavors.
Should see the long list of options at the diner.