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Chapter Text

The first thing he thinks is that Valhalla burns.

The second thing he thinks of is Capable. And the third, and the fourth, and--

Nux is in Valhalla and Valhalla is burning him. His leg aches all the way to the bone and the skin on his left side feels like it is being charred. Is this what Valhalla is? To be burned and burned until you are pure for the Immortan?

The Immortan. Capable. Immortan. Capable. Capable.

Nux is in Valhalla and he is opening his eyes. There is something near him--big, metal, smoking, (a car?) but his eyes are watering from the brightness of the sun on the sand and he can't see right, and he didn't think Valhalla would be a desert but all around him is sand, hot, burning, sand--

Something moves. It is coming out from around the smoking metal thing, moving, pale against the sand, pale and bright and red, so red, glory be, to think that Valhalla would have something in it the color of Capable. It hurts Nux to keep his eyes open. It hurts Nux to breathe, inoutinout. He makes a sound, meant to be a word or a prayer. It comes out as a moan.

The moving thing stops moving. Then it is moving quickly, towards him, fast now, and Nux tries to blink, tries, but he can't look he can't stop looking--

"Nux?" but it is Capable's voice and that's wrong, she isn't meant for Valhalla, already shiny, so chrome, she should be living at the Citadel, living and--

"NUX," her voice says again, louder, and he can see her perfect face now, pale and perfect and her red red curls.

"Capable," he tries to say, because if this is Valhalla then please, let him not wake.

"Nux, oh yes, Nux you're alive, I'm here, I'm---"

And then Nux is confused because Capable is screaming, screaming, "He's alive, it's Nux, help us, HE'S ALIVE, TOAST PLEASE..."

But the screaming is coming from a long way off, and the edges of Capable are fading, fraying, and he feels something falling on to his face, wet, wet and salt.

Nux tries to stay awake, tries to look at her, because she is asking him to--"Nux please, look at me, stay awake"--and he would do anything for her, but he is burning now, burning and things are getting dimmer and his head lolls to the side and he can see someone--slender, cropped hair, Toast?--running towards them, flying across the sand.

Capable's words are the last thing Nux hears, his name in her beautiful voice and his face is covered with wetness falling from her eyes and wet where his eyes are leaking as they fail and he turns to flame, to ashes, burning, the deep pain in his leg--

Valhalla is burning, he thinks, but Capable is there.

Capable, he thinks, as everything goes away.

Chapter Text

"Has he woken?"

The voice is soft. There are more voices then. Nux can hear.

"Shh, not so loud, you'll shake his dreaming. He needs to put himself back together."

Something shifts, soft, fabric, and Nux can hear it.

"WE put him back together."

Live. Die. His eyes will not open.

"Don't you remember all the thread?"

"I mean inside--"

"--broken inside more like, War Boys always are--"

"Don't you say that," and it's Capable's voice now, and Nux opens his eyes, because he would open his eyes for her forever and never blink again, cut off his own eyelids with the blade of a gearshift. It is Capable's voice. Is this Valhalla?

Capable is sitting beside him on a soft thing. She has one of his hands in both of hers, gentle, barely there. They seem small compared to his long fingers, still stained with oil and grease.

His leg aches. The burning on his left side pulses, pulses, beats with pain. He wants to turn to look at it but cannot, afraid, the burning.

"He's awake!" says a voice excitedly, flash of paleness, long and white. One of the Wives?

Capable's hands tighten on his and there is something being held to his mouth by the long white thing, her hair on his arm, her long white hair--The Dag?-- it must be The Dag because she is murmuring words he doesn't understand, words like "ocean" and "elixir" and "drink like seeds."

"Drink," at least, is a word he understands. His lips ache but it is water, water, and even though aqua cola makes War Boys weak--"Do not, my friends, become addicted to water," the Immortan booms in his head--Nux cannot stop drinking.

He drinks and drinks and looks at Capable's eyes, red-rimmed, tired, brimming with tears and he is swallowing and he tries so hard to move, to comfort her, and manages to tighten his fingers on hers.

"Capable," he says, and his voice sounds more like a voice.

"He's talking now," The Dag observes, moving away from him.

" 'S good. He was never quiet before." The voice he doesn't know. An older one. Vulvalini?

"Does he even know where we are? Who we are?" Cheedo asks.

"You think a good roasting cooked his brain? Of course he knows us."

The voices are too fast, too many, his vision smearing. He cannot follow.

"I only thought--"

"Think harder, then--"

A throat clears--Furiosa, Nux thinks, the Imperator is here--and there is silence. The Imperator came to see his injuries, as though he was important, more than a half-life. Strange thinking, new thinking. War Boys don't get ill or injured. War Boys get strong or they get dead. He opens his mouth to say something, anything, and moans instead as his leg twinges sharply.

"I'm here," says Capable, in the only voice that matters. Nux breathes and breathes and the Imperator says nothing, quiet, all quiet, just his breathing and the gentle swish of Capable's hair. She raises his hand to her lips.

"Stay?" Nux manages, and it is a question, but his fingers are at her lips now, soft and shiny and chrome, and he feels her words on his skin.

"Stay with me," she says.

Nux nods, and it hurts, and it pulls at something--a bandage?--around his head but he nods again and again.

"Valhalla," Nux says, "here."

Chapter Text

The time runs on and the Wives do not leave him, and Furiosa is there and gone, there and gone.

Without the sun to judge by, Nux can't count the days as they pass. Capable tells him the days. He forgets. She tells him again.

"Blood Bag?" Nux asks the Imperator once, the first day, when he is still half out of his mind from the burning and brought from the desert into the Vault where the Wives sleep and he cannot see and his leg, his leg, his leg. But he must know.

The Wives say nothing, but Furiosa answers. "Gone."

"Dead?" asks Nux, and to say the word, to think it, hurts.

"No," she says, and nearly smiles, face softening. "No."

"Who else?" asks Nux, and Furiosa lays a hand--her flesh hand--on the side of his neck, the side that doesn't burn, even though she must reach across Capable to do it. Her fingers are so light on his pulse it is like they are not there, and she answers him.

Immortan is dead. Rictus is dead, and the People Eater, and the Bullet Farmer, and the Organic Mechanic, and Slit, and so many other War Boys that he cannot begin to name them all. The Splendid Angharad is dead. Many of the Vulvalini are dead.

But not all. Some of the Many Mothers are safe in the Citadel. And now this news, that Blood Bag is alive. The Dag, Toast the Knowing, Cheedo the Fragile, Imperator Furiosa--they are alive.

And Nux is alive. And Capable, red red Capable, with her goggles on her head and a smear of his blood on her shoulder, Capable with liquid eyes that look bruised from lack of sleep, Capable who has not left him---

Capable is alive.

* * *

The Dag and a Many Mother give him water and something thick like broth. Nux asks who the Many Mother is, and Capable tells him, but he cannot remember. He remembers little, now, slowly, more each day, and the bandage on his head itches. When Nux calls the Vulvalini The Feeder she laughs at him, deep and smokey.

"As good as any," she answers, "Vulvalini have many names."

When Toast and even The Dag call her Feeder, it sticks.

* * *

When Cheedo is there, she moves things, sorts them, folds the blankets on the Wives' beds. She brings Nux things to hold in his good hand--a rusted wrench, a bent screw, a knotted rope--and Nux clutches them when he feels like one more day on his back will make him go mad, one more day without the Road will kill him.

He tries to get up every day, moving against the burns, the sharp pain in his bound leg, but gentle hands push him down, back to the bed.

"Need me on the Road. Protect us. You need me raiding," Nux pleads.

"There are others for that," Toast says sternly.

"We don't want your blood on our good rigs," adds The Dag. "And besides, we're not raiding any longer."

Capable promises him. "Soon, Nux, soon, I swear. After you're healed--"

And it is her voice more than anything that keep him down, laying next to where she sits, her fingers in his hands.

The Wives say "rest, rest," but when Nux sees Furiosa's face, he thinks she understands.

* * *

Toast is always at his bandages, picking at his left side with hands that mean to be gentle but hurt and hurt.

"Rictus fire," she murmurs under her breath as she peels up stained white cloth and blackened skin, spitting it out as though the words taste bad. It hurts so much. Sometimes it is so sudden.

Nux remembers the fire. His nights are filled with dreams of being inside the fire, becoming the fire.

But Capable is there with her long flames of hair, flames that do not burn him, and sometimes when Toast leaves and Cheedo has straightened his leg brace gently and they are alone, Capable will lean forward enough to touch her mouth to his cheek. He can feel her hair on his skin then, soft, soft, tickling.

Nux put his mouth to Capable's cheek once, on the Road, near the Tree-Thing, but this, her lips on him, this is new and wonderful and so chrome it makes his teeth ache.

* * *

"Shiny," he murmurs on the twenty-third day of healing, as Capable sits beside him, close. Nux is touching her curls, her shoulders, her hands, feather touches. "Too good for a half-life. Too beautiful."

"You are beautiful to me," says Capable, and his hands shake because he is not worthy, because she is light and flame and water and he is only oil and dust and burned burned skin and he is still laying there twenty-three days after he was found, useless.

Nux tries to tell her, as he twists around carefully to fix the bandage on his head. He cannot see her face like this, and it makes the words easier to say. "It's me. I'll infect you. Larry and Barry--"

Capable interrupts him. "We are looking for ways to stop them, to stop all the sickness. Cheedo has found books."

And this is a word Nux doesn't know, so he turns back around to ask Capable what it means, how a "books" can prevent sickness--is it a new kind of weapon?--and he doesn't see Capable leaning towards him, and their faces collide.

Her nose. His nose. Bump, sudden, touching--Capable makes a surprised sound--so close to his mouth that he can feel her breath.

"Oh," Capable says (sighs?) softly against him and Nux's throat goes drydrydry and he rolls his tongue out over his bottom lip to moisten it, to try and draw in air, to ask what--

--his tongue, Capable's full lower lip, trembling, he can taste her--

--ask what he--

--her breath, her mouth--

Capable's mouth is touching his, and Nux breathes and breathes and breathes her air and her mouth is like nothing he's ever felt, smooth as water, hot as sand, alive and alive.

It burns him everywhere, but not like Rictus fire, not like pain, so gentle. The inside of Nux feels like the top of a rig baking in the sun, warmth welling.

And when he tries to speak, to ask her permission, her forgiveness, anything, to ask what the word is for this feeling, her mouth moves with his.

Slow. Openclose. Soft, damp, sweet. Nux cannot believe he is so close to her, to this, to--shiny is not enough of a word, what word is this, not even chrome--Capable---

"And with that moment of passion our War Boy prince was healed," drawls The Dag from the doorway.

Capable jerks back from him, surprised, and Nux turns his head to look at the door, jumping to alert sharply after years of practice driving the Fury Road, he knows to look towards danger and stop it---

But The Dag is smiling, smug and calm, pale arms crossed over her swelling belly. "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth," she says.

Nux doesn't understand what she's saying--he rarely does, with The Dag--and this sounds beautiful, sounds like music, so he looks to Capable. She is--different, redder, flushing from her cheeks down her neck, spreading to her chest, making her skin blotchy.

"Are you--burning? Oh, did I hurt--" Nux stutters, reaching his good hand to the redness on her fair skin.

Capable doesn't move away, but she sighs out a laughing sound and weaves her fingers with his. "No, Nux, this is--"

"A blush," The Dag crosses the room, smiling and smiling, and she touches Capable's hair lightly for an instant as she passes. "Capable is blushing from your kiss, Nux." She grabs the extra bucket the Wives keep, cleaned now from the dirt of growing things the day before.

Nux mouths the word, kiss, and Capable's fingers tighten on his and she raises her other hand to her mouth, tracing her own lips with a bitten thumbnail. "Kiss," she explains.

"Oh--oh, Capable," Nux says, because the taste of her mouth, her air, the feeling of--oh. He says her name because it is the only word he remembers.

"Get better faster and see what other words you don't know," The Dag says under her breath as she turns to go.

Capable jerks out, swatting her on the arm, chasing her, turning redder, scolding, and they both flee the room. Nux can hear them echoing in the stone hallway.

"Dag, how dare you?"

"--looked like fun--"

"Don't you--"

"--War Boy of my own--"

The sounds of Capable berating The Dag over her laughter fades as they run, and Nux lays back, smiling.

The warmth in his chest is nothing like fire. His insides feel like a V8 engine after a glorious day's ride, lovely, better.

Chapter Text

Once, when Capable is away, Imperator Furiosa comes to his bed alone.

Capable is somewhere else, fixing something with Toast maybe, or growing something with The Dag, or with Cheedo, learning what "books" are, so she can explain it to him later. She is rarely gone for long and Nux feels pathetically grateful. Capable is a reminder that everything is real. Without her, alone in the Vault where the Wives still sleep, it is too easy to imagine the Immortan walking in.

On the day Furiosa comes to him, Nux is half asleep. It is not a sound that wakes him--the Imperator has silent feet, when she wishes, moves like oil on glass--but a touch.

Her fingertips are rough, and he opens his eyes. Furiousa, with her long legs and half-arm, squats beside his bed. She has two fingers on his right eyebrow, barely touching.

"Capable isn't here," Nux says. His voice is still rough in his throat, confused from sleep.

"I know," Furiosa nods. "She is with the War Boys."

Nux jerks fully awake, and his thinking stops, one thought, one only: no.

He tries to sit up, ignores the way his burns scrap and pull. "No. NO. Not Capable, not alone, not them--"

It only takes Furiosa's single flesh hand to subdue him, pressed in the middle of his chest. "Hush."

"But, Imperator, you don't understand--"

"I don't understand?" Furiosa asks, and she arches her eyebrow, and her voice is flat and calm and yet Nux knows disbelief, can hear it, and he stops fighting her.

"You know them," he breathes, agrees, remembers. "Of course. Imperator, you know the black thumbs. The pole cats, the drivers, the lancers, the Pups."

Furiosa doesn't need to nod, but she does, anyways.

"Then you know what they can do," says Nux, and he can feel the V8 scars on his chest pulse once, tighten.

Furiosa nods again.

"They sewed me shut," Nux adds, feverish with desire to make her see what he is seeing, the images behind his eyes of Capable, being held by her perfect hair, Capable and the weight of a wrench, Capable fighting even as six, ten, a score reach to touch and tear her.

Furiosa's eyes flick to his mouth.

"No," Nux says, tries to say, but he has never spoken of it, and trying to do so is enough to choke him. "Not just--they--I was stupid, I was wrong, bad, wrong Nux, I asked--they were right to--"

Her hand, calloused, is at his mouth to halt his words. "Nux, you don't have to tell me this," Furiosa says gently. And so of course he must, must try at least, to tell her, to make her see.

"I asked for water," he says, quickly, words aching, "and they sewed me shut everywhere."

Furiosa says nothing, and he cringes, waiting for her hand, her fist, waiting for her to recoil in disgust. A War Boy asking for water is unheard of in the Citadel.

Instead, her voice again, gentle, "How old were you?"

Nux has to think to answer, because time is hard. "Almost 3,000 days," he says. "I should've known better. I did know. I--"

"Nux, I have seen this," Furiosa interrupts. "I've seen mouths sewn shut. But I don't..." She trails off mercifully, just looking at him, at the scars near his lips, and around his eyes, and across his ears.

Nux opens his good hand convulsively, and the bad one too, which is getting stronger, and there are white marks criss-crossing his fingers.

"Nux," Furiosa says his name again, as though it explains anything.

"Everywhere," says Nux, softly, even as a shiver works down his spine before he can repress it. He cannot tell her the other places, cannot--

Furiosa nods, once. She scratches her half arm, looks away from him, up at the ceiling, with a deep breath. "Nux," she says his name as though he isn't there. "I am--that is--it is cruel. And I will not allow it now. Not in my Citadel."

Nux feels the knot of muscle in his gut ease slightly. "All right," he says, because the Imperator keeps her words true.

When she looks at Nux again, her voice is calm and even. "Capable is strong. She has a knife, and a gun, and she is there with Toast."

Jerking his head yes, Nux says, "But Imperator--"

"They worship the Wives," she speaks over his protest. "They can't draw close to Capable or the others, for fear of touching what the Immortan owned."

"Forbidden," Nux whispers and she nods.

"But I understand why you're worried, Nux. Let me ask you: what should I do?"

"Ask--ask me?" Nux answers, confused. He knows nothing, is nothing, just a half life.

"Yes," she says. "If I tell--if I command--that Capable not go to them, we have no one left to speak to the War Boys as I work on trade agreements."

Nux does not know what trade agreements are. He listens.

"We need someone there with them, helping them," Furiosa continues, "like she helped you. But we are so few. And to command Capable...that is something Immortan Joe did, and I won't do it."

It was hard, this many words, this thinking. "They are not things?" Nux guesses, questions, hoping he's understood her.

"Yes," Furiosa agrees. "They are not things. Would you go to Capable, now, and order her not to help the War Boys? Would you tell her what she can and can't do?" Furiosa's eyes are trained on his, unblinking, strong. She has a smudge of grease under one eye, as though she wiped sweat away from her face.

"No," Nux says, and he understands a little now, he thinks. "I am not, not an Immortan, I am--" he tries for the right words, clear words to explain, "--Capable is not a thing. She is a Capable, and she will do as she wants." Furiosa hums in agreement. "But--I wish--if I am, if I am allowed, if..."

Furiosa interrupts him. "Tell me," but it is not an order, it is kind.

"If I am allowed, I will go with her," Nux says. "I will be by her side. The Boys know me. And I will not--no one will hurt Capable, never, not ever again, or I will send them to the gates of Valhalla without witness, to waste. I will help protect her, so she can do what a Capable does, not what a breeder does."

Furiosa takes his good hand, grips it. She squeezes his fingers once. "That is good, Nux. That's good."

Nux shakes his head, because he isn't, he's wrong, he's disloyal, he--

"That's good," Furiosa murmurs to herself, "for Capable, you are good for her."

And Nux's thoughts calm. "I am not...good," he says, haltingly. "But I want to be, I will try, for her."

Furiosa places a hand on his head and leans in, what, Nux doesn't--but she presses her forehead against his, like he's seen her do with the Wives, with Vulvalini, with Blood Bag.

Then she stands, smiling softly, and turns to go. As she is leaving, she nearly runs into Capable returning, breathless, excited.

"Furiosa, the War Boys--I think Toast and I could do it, could teach them, I think with the rigs and the Road we could make trade easy for us--"

Furiosa shifts, leans in the frame of the Vault to listen, nods. "Good. I'm still talking to the new leaders of Gas Town and the Bullet Farm, but this could work. They are...they do not want things to be like they were, before." Furiosa pats her on the shoulder, once, then ducks down to leave.

Capable rushes to Nux, kneels by his head. "Nux! I've been to see the War Boys, I have plans, we can help them, we can!"

"Yes," Nux nods, smiles. "But--I help, too?"

Capable rolls her eyes. "What do you think I mean by 'we,' you strange boy? Of course I want your help."

"We'll help them. Together," Nux says. "And I will keep you safe."

Capable's face softens, and she traces her lips with her thumb. This makes Nux think of kissing her, and his chest is warm, his face. "We will keep each other safe," she says.

Nux reaches to her, runs a thumb along her face, tracing the bone of her cheek. She leans towards him, and her mouth comes close, and then she stops, confused. "Nux..." Capable murmurs. "I'm not sure how...last time..."

For the first time Nux can remember, Capable is uncertain, hesitant. He wants to calm her, to show her it is all right, so he begins talking as he would to his engine, easing a difficult rig, talking and talking.

"Capable," he murmurs, "so chrome, you shine, oh Capable, beautiful, smart, you with the War Boys, you help me," and as he speaks he leans closer, closer, until his mouth is moving against hers, moving, and she is moving back and Nux can feel the muscles in her neck ease, relax under his hand.

When Capable touches the tip of her tongue to his lip, he makes a sound at the tenderness of it, a moan, and she startles away a bit. "Was that--too much?"

"Brilliant," Nux answers, hoarsely. "So--the finest. I want--"

"What do you want," asks Capable, leaning back into his mouth, and Nux lets her taste him, and moves his tongue against hers, slowly, slowly, to taste back.

Capable is making soft, soft sounds in her throat, whimpers, but not from pain, he knows, because she runs her hand up his chest, across the scars, resting there.

And Nux too, Nux is moaning again, still speaking, as he trails his mouth across her cheek, to her ear. He whispers her name, and then Capable--she twists, somehow, smooth, and now she is kneeling on the bed beside him. Her hair is falling around his face, and her tongue is on his throat and her lips, her teeth, and Nux can't breathe for it, can't, the warmth is pulsing now and he can feel it down his chest, his waist, past his belt, lower.

"Capablecapablecapable," he sighs and Capable--he doesn't know how to say it, what it is called--she sucks his throat once, gentle pressure, and Nux can't keep his eyes open, moans, the world is just her and her red red hair and the softness of her skin and the way she smells of dust and sweat and sweetness, sweetness.

"Tomorrow," Capable says against his skin. "Tomorrow we will try to help you walk."

"Healed?" Nux asks her, and his voice sounds like gravel under wheels when she drags her hand off of his chest.

"Yes," Capable smiles, "yes, and if not, we will heal you again. I will heal you again."

And Nux cannot help it, when she looks at him with eyes like stars, and he has to, he must--he just runs the tip of his tongue up her throat, to see what she thinks, if she feels what he feels, and Capable--she shakes above him, trembles.

"Are you--" Nux starts to ask, concerned, but she nods and nods and moves her throat closer to him.

"Yes, Nux, oh, please--" and Nux licks her throat again, slowly, because she sounds like the trembling is a good feeling, says it, "so good," and here where her skin meets her shoulder she smells like something The Dag is growing, soft and sweet.

When they have kissed and kissed so that Nux's lips are tingling with it, Capable lays down beside him and talks about her plan, using words he doesn't know, a few he does, gentle words in her gentle voice, until they both fall asleep.

Chapter Text

Nux's first walk the next day is a short one, just up a few curves to the open air at the top of the Citadel, where The Dag has started her Garden-Thing. Even though it is a small distance--a healthy War Boy could dash it in under five minutes--Nux is streaming in sweat by the time they get there, and so is Capable, who is bracing his good side.

His leg hurts, a pulsing ache, but he cannot stop smiling, moving, happy to see things and sky and dirt again. The sunlight is so bright he squints, and it makes Capable's hair shine like copper from the insides of a shredded rig, cut down to parts.

"Your hair is like refurb wires," Nux tells her, barely brushing the tip of his nose at her temple.

Capable laughs him away. "I'm just a junk engine to you." She has his arm draped over her shoulders so Nux can lean on her a bit, compensate for the bones that, Toast tells him, take longer to heal. Nux opens his mouth to tell her she is no engine, but then her thumb moves over the soft side of his wrist, three long soft drags, and he knows without her speaking that she realizes she is more than parts to him.

When they find The Dag, she is kneeling among small green things, touching them softly. She rises when she spots them, smiling. The knees of her pants are stained with dirt.

"Welcome back to the living," The Dag says, and she throws her arms around Nux's neck. Nux doesn't know what to do. Her rounded stomach, where the Immortan's sprog grows inside her, makes her form strange, and he is not sure where he can touch her without hurting it. He settles for one gingerly placed pat on the top of her head.

"Yes," Nux smiles, "it is good to be--" in the sun, the heat, the breeze, and
the blue blue sky, "--good to be out," Nux concludes. His nose can detect the stink of motor oil from the garages below, and if he listens, the distant sounds of the Wretched at work can be heard.

"Tell him what you've done, Dag," Capable says eagerly, "Nux, you won't believe it."

And Nux doesn't believe it, as The Dag points to small green things poking tips out of the ground and says words he doesn't know, like "strawberry" or "zucchini" or "lettuce."

"They feed you," The Dag explains. "Stop even your ravenous rumblings."

Nux doesn't understand her, and glances are Capable."They feed you," she repeats.

"Some seeds grow things we do not eat, but might like to have anyways," The Dag continues, and shows him the "herb garden," the patch of soil that is much smaller, sparser.

"I used to have herbs in water," Capable says, touching one of the spiky leaves. "They can help heal many things, but Toast could tell you all of them. I don't remember."

"You had herbs with the Immo--with, um--before?" asks Nux.

And Capable's voice gets soft and far away and she looks past him, unseeing. "No...not since I came here. It was something from my home."

"Before we were taken, we all had homes," The Dag says, letting soil trickle through her fingers as she checks the herbs. "Angharad was here the longest, but then there was Capable. She was here when I came."

"My hair," says Capable, drags a lock of it in front of her, stretching it so the curl disappears, and that must hurt, and so Nux reaches out--

"My hair was why he saw me," Capable says, and Nux freezes where he's touching her, fingers above hers on the curl.

"Scarlet in the sunlight," The Dag intones under her breath. "Glory be, the schlanger is dead."

"I've thought about shaving it off," and Capable's eyes are far away still, "like Furiosa. So no one can--so I won't be seen, anymore."

Nux thinks of the Immortan, of his ruined hands in her perfect hair, of the mask on his face--maybe he never knew this kissing, then, maybe Capable's mouth was safe from his lips--thinks of the way Capable's hair drifts like fire, the way Nux could recognize her from far across the sand, like a sun calling him. Nux thinks of a small sprog Capable and Immortan and his chest aches more than his bad leg.

"I could help," he says, and takes her fingers out of her hair, so that it relaxes, springs back to curl, doesn't hurt her.

"But you like her hair, don't you, Nux?" asks The Dag, and she isn't looking at him, giving water to a green thing from a pouch at her waist. Capable's far-away eyes clear, and she stares at Nux.

She stares at Nux and he thinks of her head pillowed on his shoulder in the crow's nest the night they spent on the sand, of her soft hair falling over his skin, chrome.

"I like it," Nux tries, but it isn't right, that's not what he means, the Immortan's hands in her hair, pulling, always looking, seeingseeingseeingher--
"But I like--I like what she likes, what you like, Capable. Hair is just--I don't have any, but hair is just a thing."

And Capable smiles at him, beams really, it's so bright, and that's what Nux wants, all he wants, is Capable to be happy, to never stop looking at him like this.

"Good," says The Dag, as though he's passed a test. "Good. Now try this, War Boy." She offers Nux a small shoot to chew, and it is sharp and tart in his mouth.

"That's mint," explains Capable, "my favorite so far," and Nux thinks it is his favorite too.

The Dag tells Nux her plans, ideas Capable has heard thousands of times. Something about water trickling more easily, and what to grow where, and when, and something about fruits--plants that are sweet, Capable says, that's what the Vulvalini say--and Nux understands almost nothing but he likes it, like this in the air, likes the planning, but soon Capable helps him back down, when his leg begins shaking, to rest.

* * *
"And we will help the War Boys?" Nux asks Capable, as they walk. "With this--with the Trade-Thing?"

"Yes," Capable says. "We will bring our things to others, and take their things in trade. So no more raiding."

"Oh," Nux says, "oh, but--I am a War Boy. I raid."

Capable's hand brushes his burns as they turn, and he tenses but it is only for an instant, until she straightens her hold. "Maybe not any longer. Maybe you can be something new, Nux."

Nux tries to imagine a new thing, a thing that is not real yet.

"Or you could just be a boy," adds Capable. "Just one of our boys."

"Our Boys," tries Nux, and it is difficult to get into the Vault but Capable is there to steady him, to help, and they both sit down on the bed, breathing hard.

Capable lays down, so Nux lays beside her. He looks at her face, where a bead of sweat trickles down from her forehead. "I don't want that," Nux says, without meaning to, because it makes a small line appear between Capable's eyebrows, a look she makes when confused.

"You don't want to be Our Boy?" Capable asks, "but the Wives, we--"

"Not an Our Boy," Nux interrupts her, shocked at his own daring, and uses his hand to cup her cheek, her jaw. He ghosts his thumb over the line, wanting to smooth it out, to make Capable understand. "Your Boy. I want--just yours."

And Nux doesn't know what happens because it is a blur, but Capable is smiling against his mouth--

--she kneels over him, legs on both sides of his body, on top of him, using her hands to brace herself by his face, leaning down--

--her mouth, her lips, she says "just mine?" as though it is a question, as though Nux has ever been, ever, anything but hers--

--taste of mint on his tongue, her tongue--

--her skin so warm against his from the sun, impossibly soft--

--Capable's hand touches his, raises it, so it is buried in her hair, holding the back of her head, Nux doesn't want to hurt her, "don't let me," he tries, "no pulling," she murmurs, "only, your hands like this--

--warmth in his chest, his throat, down his body, like before, below his pants, she is so close to him--

--Capable leans down and the inside of her thigh brushes against something, something hard in his pants, the Thing, Nux doesn't know what to call to call it, a useless thing, but when she--

Capable moves away from him so suddenly that Nux doesn't see it, he blinks and she is across the bed. Her liquid eyes are large and panicked and Nux tries to calm his heart, looks at her.

"Capable," he says, because he has scared her somehow and he will break his own hands if he has hurt her, but before he can say more, he is interrupted.

"Going to rut already?" A Many Mother walks into the Vault, carrying stones that Cheedo asked for, for something, earlier that day. At her words, Capable recoils even further.

"Wh--" Capable swallows and swallows, "what are you talking about?"

"You look like I did, before I'd rut with a man," the old woman says, and she must not see Capable's distress, because her back is turned as she sets down the stones she was carrying in.

Capable's skin goes pale, paler than ever, white, and she is breathing hard, and when she looks up at Nux her eyes are far, far away and afraid. She moves off the bed quickly, and Nux doesn't know what to do.

"I--" she tries, and her hands are shaking, "I'll see you later."

"Capable--" Nux calls after her, but she is already leaving, and his chest aches, and he wants to tell her so many things, wants to chase after her, but his leg is a burst of pain when he tries to stand, to follow, and he is forced to fall back on the bed, useless. He wants to beat his head against the ground for scaring her, wants to take the old woman's tongue for her talk of--rutting, he doesn't know what it is--what was the word that it disturbed Capable so much, but the Vulvalini is leaving too and Nux sits up to ask her.

"What is rut?" He stumbles over the words quickly.

The woman turns around in surprise. "It's--it's rut, that's the word we used. Is it different here?"

"What--" Nux says again, because he doesn't understand.

"When you put your pole inside her body and thrust," the old woman explains, slowly, as though Nux is a child, but he still doesn't know these words.

"I don't know what you're saying."

"What's this?" Cheedo arrives, also carrying stones, but only small ones, followed by Furiosa, who has twice as many. "We saw Capable running out of here, but she didn't stop to talk."

"Boy doesn't know what rut is," the old woman says as she leaves, the old Vulvalini who scared Capable.

Cheedo drops her rocks in surprise, and Furiosa sets hers down, but looks at Nux the whole time, at his face, his eyes.

"What, you tried to rut with Capable?" Cheedo says in disbelief. Her dark hair is pulled back in a knot, and she looks scared, looks like Capable did when, when he--

"No," Nux says, frustrated, sitting up, "what--I don't know what it means, what the word is."

"What happened?" asks Furiosa, as calm as ever, and she moves closer to Nux, sits down.

"I was--Capable and I, we were--the kissing, she calls it kissing. I did something wrong, I must've, because she moved away from me, I--she was afraid." Nux beats his head with his palm, hard, twice, punishing, before Cheedo is there and catches his wrist.

"Stop," she gentles him. "Stop, Nux, it's--tell us more."

Nux leans his head forward on his knees so he doesn't have to see her eyes, or the blank calm of the Imperator. "And then the Vulvalini said the words, the rut words, that made Capable even more afraid, and she left."

Nux hears the bed creak under Furiosa when she moves. Cheedo's hands go soft, no longer gripping him, but she does not release his wrist. He does not raise his head.

"When you say you did something, Nux, what do you mean?" asks Furiosa, evenly. It is like they are back in a rig, and it slows his heart a little, her slow voice.

"We were kissing. Capable was kneeling over me, kissing, and she said it was good, before, but this time, she leaned forward toward me and--" Nux has to stop, to think of the words. "My body was hot, hot like an engine, burning, and I could feel it everywhere, but especially--" he doesn't know the word for it "--it, the thing, it was hot and hard and she leaned forward and her leg touched it, and she moved back."

"Oh Nux," Cheedo says, and her voice is so quiet and so kind that Nux lifts his head to look at her, her huge eyes. "That was your pole, that poked her, scared her."

"I'll chop it off," Nux says grimly, "whatever it is," and Cheedo stops him from moving away to do it, right now, again with a tug on his wrist.

"No, Nux, wait, listen. You just don't know," Cheedo soothes, and this is why they call her the Fragile, because she is so kind with him now, explaining. "Rut is--a man puts his pole inside a girl where she is open," she says.

Nux tries but doesn't understand and looks at Furiosa in frustration.

"The hard part, the burning, that's the pole. Men put it inside girls to breed." Furiosa says it all clearly, slowly.

"Capable thought I was trying to breed her? Like...Immortan?" Nux asks in disbelief. So the thing had a name; it was a pole. "I would never--Put it where--inside, where, doesn't that hurt?"

"Yes," Cheedo says, voice low. "When it was the Immortan it always hurt. Always."

"Not so with others," Furiosa says quickly. "It does not always hurt the girl. It can be different." Her cheeks flush, just a little, when Cheedo looks at her in surprise. "But Capable would not know, with just the Immortan."

Nux wants to scream in frustration, confusion. "I would--never hurt her, never hurt Capable, never, let me chop it off, this pole thing, not to scare her---"

"Listen," Cheedo interrupts him, and she sounds serious. "Listen to what I am going to tell you, Nux. Capable is afraid, but not of you. You do not need to chop anything. She is afraid of memories, the intrusion."

Nux doesn't understand, but he does not interrupt.

"They're like--memories. You know them?"

"Like thinking. Of what has passed," Nux replies with hesitation.

"Yes," says Cheedo, "and if all you remember is hurting, you might expect hurting again. Even if it doesn't make sense."

"What--" Nux starts to ask, and Cheedo turns to Furiosa, confused. Quickly, Furiosa raises her metal hand up and back, as though to swing, and Nux cringes and waits for the hit.

Instead, Furiosa drops her hand immediately. "It's all right Nux. I'm not going to hurt you."

"What scared you, just now?" asks Cheedo.

"It's--I thought I was going to be punished," Nux says, confused. "But the Imperator, she doesn't," because she had not, not ever, beaten him.

"That's right," Furiosa says gently. "I would never beat you, Nux. But others have. And so you are afraid."

"Others have hurt Capable. Immortan has hurt Capable, when he--with the rut, with his--pole." Just the thought of it makes Nux's stomach turn, makes him wish the Immortan was alive again so he could shred him slowly, piece by piece. "And so she is afraid of hurting again?" Nux asks.

"Yes," Furiosa says. "Yes, good."

Nux grabs his pants roughly with one hand, even though it hurts his--the word, what--his pole. "Then why won't you let me chop it?"

"It is just a thing," says Cheedo. "Not to hurt. Just a thing. Like Furiosa's arm, just now."

"But the pole would hurt Capable?"

"Would you use it to hurt Capable?" Cheedo says.

"Never, never," Nux says flatly. "With nothing, ever. No one will hurt her ever again."

"Then it is not bad," Furiosa concludes. "Like my arm is not bad. Just is."

Nux understands a little now, and he lets his knees fall, relaxed, so he can see them, and Cheedo lets go of his wrist.

"You just need to listen to Capable," she says softly. "If Capable says to stop something--stop kissing, or stop--"

"I would stop," Nux interrupts her in his eagerness to explain. "Always. She is--she's in control, she drives, I am her lancer, it is Capable, always--I would do anything."

"Say those words to her," Cheedo says softly, and her dark eyes are wet. "Say those words exactly."

"I've upset you," Nux despairs.

Cheedo wipes her eyes quickly, sniffing. "No, Nux, no, it is only, it is just, your words are kind ones, and I have not heard them before."

Nux reaches out to touch her arm. "No one will hurt Capable again. Or her--Wives, her--"

"Sisters," Furiosa supplies a word when Nux stumbles, because no one is a Wife now, with Immortan dead.

"Yes," he says. "No one will hurt the Sisters again, Cheedo. I would do anything, you'll never, it will never hurt again."

"And me," Furiosa adds grimly and Cheedo is laughing now, through her tears.

"We will keep each other safe," says Furiosa, and pats Cheedo on the shoulder once, squeezes. Nux has heard these words before, from Capable, and he wonders a little where they come from, if Furiosa spoke them, or if Angharad said it, before.

"I will try to tell Capable," says Nux, and he lays his hand on Cheedo's head.

"Safe," he says, "safe."

Chapter Text

By the time night falls, Nux has bitten his nails to the quick until his fingertips are bleeding, and Capable still does not return.

Toast solves this by pushing Nux to the bed to change his burn bandages, while The Dag sits on his good leg to keep him from squirming. "We need these changed anyways, and if all you're going to do is ruin your hands--"

"Toast," cautions The Dag, "be kind to the boy. It's been a hard day."

Toast's hands are gentle with his back, no matter how harsh her words--these girls, these Wives, Sisters, he has seen them fight and ride the Fury Road like War Boys, harder, tougher, blazing, but they are all so gentle with him, gentlesoftgentle--Toast pauses in her work and lays her palm on the back of his head. "Sorry," she mutters, and returns to her work.

"Cheedo told us what happened," The Dag explains.

Nux grunts, grumbles. "They wouldn't let me chop it off."

"It's looking good here, Nux, healing well." There's the sound of something wet, as Toast pours the burn oil in her hand. It's something black thumbs keep in the garages for working with hot engines, soothes the bite so they can get rigs up and running fast even when they're still warm.

"What were you going to chop off, now?" The Dag uses a fingertip to trace shapes across Nux's pants above his knee. He cannot tell what they are, but it feels nice.

"My pole-thing," says Nux, "that scared Capable."

The Dag stutters in her tracing. "Oh Nux, you don't want to do that, mate."

"It would hurt worse than this burn, I'd guess," says Toast. She puts some burn oil on a sensitive part of his shoulder blade and Nux hisses.

"Wouldn't matter," he says. "Wouldn't hurt her. That's what matters."

Cheedo comes in then, yawning, and waves goodbye to a passing Furiosa, who sleeps in an old shop further up the hall. "How's the burn looking, Toast?"

"We might have the War Boy up and running again in a week or two," Toast says, and she pats his good arm. He hears her put down the jar, and begin shaking out fresh linen. "If it wasn't for that leg--"

"Will it work?" asks Nux anxiously. "Toast, will I be able to run?"

"Don't know," Toast says, Toast the Knowing, and Nux feels his stomach drop, useless, a War Boy who couldn't run, worthless, if even Toast doesn't know--

The Dag pinches his good leg, but not too hard. "Easy there. I can hear your thoughts buzzing. No need to panic yet."

"I wish Max was here," sighs Cheedo. "He knows about legs, and bracing them."

"Who?" Nux asks, turning his head so he can see her, shaking down her dark hair for sleeping.

"Max," Cheedo repeats, "that's what his name was the--what do you call it--Blood Bag. He told Furiosa when we all thought she was dying."

"Terribly romantic," The Dag murmurs.

Toast snorts, and begins laying linen strips across his back. "Terribly practical, running away when we need his help."

"He did all he could--"

"Come on now, Toast--"

Both Sisters try to interrupt her at once, but she talks over them. "All right, all right, I know I'm being stupid. It'd just be nice, you know, to have him here."

"You're not stupid," says Nux, because it is true, because he thinks Toast wishes Blood Bag was here more than anyone--except Furiosa, who has said nothing, but looks around often, as though expecting someone at her shoulder who isn't there--and because Toast wants Blood Bag there to help her with all the healing, to help Nux, to help, she must talk like this, because wanting things is dangerous, because wanting means someone can take the thing from you, can hurt you. "You're smart, Toast." Nux wishes Blood Bag was here to help, not with his blood, but his smart plans. Toast puts linen on his back, and her thumb touches his good skin for a moment, in thanks.

"Has anyone seen Capable?" Cheedo says, lowering her voice. She puts out two of the Sisters' candles, leaving one guttering by Nux's bed, and two on the other side, where Toast sleeps.

"No," says Toast, and Nux tenses. Has Capable gone away forever, hating him, afraid, is she--"hold still Nux, your bandages aren't done!"

"I haven't seen her," says The Dag, getting off of Nux's leg and heading to her bed by Cheedo. "Do you think she's locked herself away and eaten the key?"

"What--" Nux panics.

"Hold STILL, Nux, just one more--don't listen to Dag, she's joking," Toast pins him by his good arm to keep him from jumping up.

"But we might want to look for her," muses Cheedo. "Capable might be embarrassed, you know, for how she reacted to Nux."

"Can't blame her," mumbles Toast, as she leans forward to press the last piece of linen gingerly in place.

"No one blames anyone," agrees Cheedo, "but she might be concerned, to see Nux again, what he'so thinking."

"Or maybe she's scared," suggests The Dag, in a whisper to Cheedo she thinks Nux can't hear, but he does. Toast finally releases him and he rolls over to sit up, gets ready to stand.

"I have to find her, to tell her I'm sorry, I'm bad--" says Nux, lurching to his feet unsteadily, wildly, and it hurts, but he would walk the whole desert to get to her, if that's what it takes.

Reaching out with concern, Toast tries to take his arm, but he shakes her off. "Nux, you can barely stand on your own, don't..."

"Stay here," pleads The Dag. "Capable is fine, Capable is--"

"What am I?" Capable interrupts, and suddenly she is standing in the doorway to the Vault, head high, hair in the candlelight as golden as The Dag's.

Nux is so relieved he buckles, and Toast guides him so he falls back on the bed.

"Nothing," says Cheedo quickly, "just wondering where you were."

"I'm here," says Capable, crossing her arms, and she raises her chin stubbornly, as though to dare her Sisters to ask her more.

Toast looks at her, reads the room, then slides into her bed, reassuring through a yawn, " 's all right, Capable."

Capable looks at Nux, and Nux is caught staring at her, quickly scoots back, laying down, pretending he isn't there, trying to disappear, just so she feels safe, can stay, can--

Dousing the two candles near her, Toast rolls over and pulls up a blanket, so the only light left is by where Nux lays.

"You can sleep over here," murmurs The Dag, "in your old bed, with us, if you...if you like."

"Don't be silly," says Capable, fiercely, and she walks over, puts out the last candle. "Go to sleep." In the darkness, Nux can't tell if she's still there, if she's leaving, if---

There's a weight at the foot of the bed as Capable sits down. Nux doesn't move.

The other Sisters settle, rustling blankets. Minutes tick by, and Nux can hear the even, sleep-breathing of The Dag, the beating of his own heart in his ears.

More time.

Toast rolls over, mumbles, dreaming maybe, and Nux does not move and does not move and then, then Capable lies down next to him.

"Nux," she murmurs in the darkness. Her voice is timid now, not the fierce brave voice from before. She just sounds like a girl, now.

Nux opens his eyes. He can see her a little, so close to his face, the gleam of her eyes, her teeth, as his eyes adjust to the dark.

"You are awake, then," she whispers, and even if the others were awake, she is speaking so softly that they wouldn't hear her.

Nux hums in agreement, but doesn't speak, because having her here, near him, seems fragile, dangerous. He waits. Waits for her to talk, doesn't move, doesn't want to scare her.

"Earlier today..." Capable trails off, uncertain. "I--I'm sorry--"

And now he must interrupt her so Nux reaches out slowly, lays his fingertips on her lips, just as she had done the day they met on the floor of the War Rig, so soft, the way she touched his chromed face, the pulls where they'd sewn his mouth shut, the moment when Nux knew he would do anything, anything to keep her safe. "Shh," Nux says, "stop."

"It's not that I--"

"Capable," Nux says her name, and his voice is husky, full of the water he's holding in his eyes, refusing to shed. "Don't apologize. Not to me. I'm the one--"

Capable interrupts, "But I know you--"

"I'm sorry," says Nux quickly, "I'm sorry I scared you. I would never--I don't want to scare you, ever. You don't--you never have to, to apologize, to me."

"I know you don't want to scare me," murmurs Capable, and she brushes her lips over his knuckles so he shivers. "I know that."

When she moves to touch Nux it is slow, slow, just two fingers resting lightly on the outside of his thumb.

"They wouldn't let me chop it," Nux blurts, nonsensically, but he never thought he'd have this again, have her here, touching him, and he wants her to have the whole truth, all of it.

"Chop what?"

Nux hesitates, because he doesn't want the words to frighten her, can't bear for her to look at him again with far-away eyes and pale pale skin. "My...the pole-thing, that scared you."

Capable relaxes so suddenly Nux can feel it, muscles loosening, and he breathes for what feels like the first time since she entered the room. "Oh...oh Nux," Capable says, "I don't want you to hurt yourself, I'd never want that," and even though she's trembling a little, she scoots closer, puts her arm over his waist.

"Then how--how can I stop, how can I stop from scaring you?" Nux murmurs, gasps, she is so close now, and he thought she was gone, Capable, brave Capable, thought he'd never, never have this, not ever again, so he says wordswordswords---

"You--you're in control, Capable, you drive, I--I'll be your lancer, but--never, never force you, never scare you, I--safe," and he isn't making sense, he knows, but he must--"the pole-thing, you don't have to, anything, you say stop," Nux manages. "And we stop, always. You say slow, or wait, or say 'no, Nux, go away' and I will, I will, anything."

"Nux," Capable breathes and her voice is full of water, and drops from her eyes fall on to his chest as she buries her head against him, "hold me now, can you?"

He puts his arm gently, gently around her, pulls her closer to him, because Nux can't deny her anything, and he can feel her shaking but that's all right, that's all right because he is shaking too and there is water down his face, from his eyes.

They stay like that for a long, long time, until Capable stops shaking. She breathes and breathes against his skin, warm.

"Your pole is all right," she murmurs at last. "It's not bad, Nux, no part of you is bad. I was just--afraid--because I didn't know what you expected."

"Expected?" asks Nux, and he lets her go just a little, so he can pull back enough to see her eyes.

"What you said, with the stopping, I haven't--" Capable breaks off, and Nux waits. "I didn't know if men could," she says, and avoids his gaze, "if they could stop."

"I will," promises Nux fiercely. "Whatever others--it doesn't matter. I'll stop, Capable, I swear, anything you ask. If I'm kissing you or touching you or, or just troubling you, with a look or a smile or--say the word, and I'll stop."

Capable licks her lips, but she still won't look at him, and her words come out slowly. This close to her, Nux can feel how quickly her heart is beating, like a bird, and she only stutters a little as she says,"So you don't expect us to rut, then?"

"No," says Nux, "no, Capable, all I want is--" and he thinks of her laughing in the garden that morning, the sun in her hair, the way she leaned against him in the crow's nest, and the moment he thought was his last, watching her drive away, reaching out to him, as flamesflamesflames--

"I want what you want," Nux says, and hopes it means enough, hopes with the small strength of his half-life that she'll believe this.

When Capable leans towards him, Nux freezes, doesn't move, doesn't want to startle her, and in the first brush of her lips of on his, both of their eyes are open, staring. She draws back, but only a little, so he can feel her breath on his face, the warm length of her body as it presses against his, and his chest goes warm and--

"I want you" says Capable. She kisses him again, at the corner of his mouth, his chin, down to his neck, her mouth--

---she kisses Lary and Barry---

--and Nux can't, can't hold in the warmth in him, raises his hand to her face, soft, soft--

"You matter, Nux, you matter to me," Capable says, and Nux wants to say something but just manages a sound, a sort of choked moan, and Capable doesn't laugh at him, just murmurs back wordlessly, and gentles her kisses, slows, until they are just holding each other.

"Could you sleep like this? Holding me?" Capable asks.

"Yes," says Nux, once he can speak. "Yes."

She is yawning now, curling close to him, and Nux tugs the blanket higher, over her shoulders.

When her breathing slows all the way, when it sounds like she's sleeping, Nux comes up with the words, at last, that he was trying to say, and whispers, "Holding you is--is better than chrome."

Capable moves sleepily, kisses his chest, right above his heart, barely awake, and Nux holds her, and holds her, and holds her until his eyes close, too.

Chapter Text

"Now Nux," cautions Capable, "they only sent a few--the older ones, and the healthier ones, who've been organizing in the shops. It's just a few War Boys."

Nux grunts, leaning heavily against the wall outside this old room, and wonders how he let Capable talk him into this.

When she woke him earlier that morning, it seemed like a good idea, talk to War Boys, follow Capable's plan. Anything seemed like a good idea with a Capable in his arms, still sleepy, with her sweet-smelling hair in his face. But now--now he is standing outside the door and he is a War Boy with a useless leg, and why, why would they listen to him, useless, worthless, a broken thing--

Capable touches his arm, brings him out of his thoughts. "What is it?"

He wants to tell her he hasn't dusted himself, that the white powder is coming off now, it's been so long since he raided, but he knows he can't explain it in a way she'll understand, how the raids are important, that he will mean nothing to these boys, nothing, if they see his leg. "I won't," he tries "I may be slow, fighting, if it goes bad."

"No one is fighting anyone," says Capable, with her serious liquid eyes. "They will listen to us."

"If it goes bad," Nux repeats, and he takes her hand with one of his, so much larger than her small fingers. "I want to keep you safe."

"Of course," Capable agrees. "But they will listen to us. And if they don't, I want to keep you safe, too. That's why I have this."

She flips her hair over one shoulder, showing him the gun strapped to her back.

"And this," and she's tied a knife to her leg, her thigh, easy to reach in her soft linen skirt thing, but hard to see, and Nux stares at her, at her serious eyes, the way she holds her chin just so, when she is being brave, when she won't listen to an argument, Capable armed to the teeth--

Nux kisses her, gasps into her mouth, "A gun, you brilliant, you, Capable," and Capable is kissing him back just as hungrily, and then she's stepping back, away, but she's smiling.

"More of that after we do this," she says, even though they are both breathing hard. "Work, Nux, we have to--"

"All right," Nux agrees, almost panting, "but, Capable, a knife, glory be, you're--shine," and this time it is Capable who steps into him, kisses him hard, bruising, and he loves it, and then she forces herself to stop.

"You like me with weapons," she says, trying to calm herself, red flush on her cheeks, her neck.

"I like you all ways," Nux corrects.

The flush spreads to Capable's chest, and it is so beautiful, but she is opening the door and walking in, holding Nux's hand to balance him, so he can limp proudly the few steps to the seats waiting for them.

There are five War Boys. This is a number that makes Nux relax, a little, a one-hand count number, and that's good, because any one-hand count he can take with one hand, or one leg, if it comes to it.

Only two are sitting in chairs, calm War Boys, one with a misshapen shoulder, the other with one eye and a crude patch--a lancer, then, Nux thinks, and the other must be his driver.

A third, older, covered with bumps like Larry and Barry, seems to be unable to stand. His legs are swollen with the bumps, but his eyes look at Capable, at Nux.

Fourth War Boy is leaning against the wall, picking at his teeth, in a way that Nux knows is meant to be threatening, but this War Boy is still mostly Pup, small.

The last War Boy is the largest, Skag, someone Nux recognizes, and he nods, slowly, once. Not smart, not good at raids, but big, and that matters sometimes, after raiding is done, having the biggest fighters to end the job.

"Nux," rumbles Skag. "And the Red Wife."

"No," Capable says evenly. "I am no one's wife now. I am Capable."

Skag looks at Nux, who doesn't blink, until Skag nods.

"She's one of Immortan's though, isn't she?" asks the old one on the floor. "That boy, you, are you Immortan now?"

"No," says Nux.

"There is no Immortan," Capable adds, sternly. "But there is Furiosa."

At her name, the lancer bows his head, raises his fingers in the salute to the Immortan. It isn't right, thinks Nux, but he and Capable do nothing.

"Is she the way to Valhalla?" asks the driver.

And Capable looks at Nux, uncertain, because she doesn't really understand, and how could she, the feeling of chrome on your teeth and the smell, the inhale, sharp and sour, the thought of dying, but living again--

Nux looks at Capable, the way she sits beside him, relaxed, so close their arms brush. "There are many ways to Valhalla, now," he says. "And we will find one for you."

Skag grunts in assent, satisfied, and the driver doesn't protest.

"Fine, but when are we raiding?" asks the fourth one, the almost-Pup, sneering.

"We're not," Capable says, "that's why we wanted to talk to you. We're doing something different now."

The seated War Boys mumble to each other, but Skag doesn't blink, and the Pup only looks shocked.

"We're going to keep our land safe," Capable explains. "We will patrol."

The War Boys blink, and turn to Nux, all of them, and Nux tries. "Patrolling is...we go out on the rigs, and we circle our land. We circle what's ours, a big circle, and we make sure there's no enemies, or strangers, or scrap. We take what's on our land and we end what we don't want."

"Patrolling," muses the lancer. "Is...protecting, with rigs?"

"Yes," says Capable, and she smiles at him brilliantly, and the lancer seems to swallow his tongue.

"Go out often," rumbles Skag. "Lots of land."

"Right," Nux nods at him, relieved, because if Skag can understand it, he can explain it to anyone, simple. "Patrols four times a day, once at night."

"What about raids?" The old one on the floor asks, pushing himself up a little with one arm.

"When we go out, we will trade for the things we need," says Capable.

"How's that?" asks the lancer, looks at Nux, they all look at Nux again.

"It's taking and leaving," Nux answers, the best he can,"but we leave things they want, good things. Not bullets or bombs."

"We still take?" Skag rumbles.

"After we ask," says Capable.

"We make a deal," Nux corrects, because the boys understand deals, make them between themselves for a bite more food, a better sleeping place, the chance to ride. "We give them our stuff, we take theirs."

"But what'll we give?" asks the one on the floor, "we don't have anything..."

"Water," Capable says, "acqua cola." Those words are like magic to the War Boys, and Capable goes on, "And what we make, anything the black thumbs and polecats and Pups can make. That why we need you all, thinking of what we can do, what you can do, that we could trade."

The almost-Pup stops picking his teeth, steps out from the wall, and snarls. "Sounds soft, sounds like some soft thinking, up in the Citadel, eh Nux?" And he's moving towards them, but Capable lays a hand on Nux's wrist, warning him, so he doesn't move.

"Easy to get distracted, when you're breeding," the Pup continues. "Soft white Wife like this, bet she bruises so nice for you," and the Pup puts his dirty hand on Capable's arm--

--and Nux's hands are around his throat and he's slamming the Pup against the wall, lifting him, doesn't know when he moved, can't feel anything--

--not his leg or the burns--

---just the feel of this small throat, the fingers scrabbling against his hands, and Nux will end him, will shred him, this Pup who touched Capable, who thought, who dared--

--and he can hardly see, his vision is red with rage and he hears shouting from far off, before he realizes it is his own voice--

"DON'T YOU TOUCH HER, you NEVER touch her, never, SHE SAYS WHO TOUCHES HER, SHE SAYS WHEN, never--"

--and Nux is distantly aware of Capable next to him, her hands on his arm, trying to pull him away, but he can't stop, can't.

"I'll make you crawl, you'll WISH Immortan was still alive because he will look like mercy compared to how I'll shred you piecebypieceby--"

"NUX," Capable yells, "Nux, hold!"

And it is an old rig command, so Nux lets go automatically, lets the War Boy drop to the ground sniveling, and Nux is breathing so hard and blood is pounding in his ears and he turns and Capable is there and she looks--

Capable is not afraid, of him, of anything, she has her knife in her hand, and the other War Boys haven't moved, but Nux sees her watching them, eyes flicking, covering him.

After a long moment, she steps forward, puts her boot on the Pup's back. "What's your name?"

The Pup sniffles, "C-cutter, my name's Cutter."

"Cutter," says Capable, and Nux sees her thinking, tries to calm his heart, leans back, stumbling against the chair and leaning there, taking the weight off his leg. "Do you know what just happened?"

"I...We fought, Nux and I," Cutter says, and he sounds confused, voice scratchy from where Nux was at his throat.

"Because you touched me," says Capable, in that same flat voice. "But now, I'm going to touch you."

And Cutter cringes away but Capable grabs his arm, lifts him to his feet, lowering her knife. She touches his chin, turns his head, sees the mark of Nux's fingers, bright and red, then tears off a piece of her skirt and starts wiping Cutter's face clean of blood, and Cutter is shaking, and Skag and the driver and the lancer and the old one all look at Nux, confused, waiting for the hit that doesn't come.

When the blood is mostly gone, Capable steps back. "Now, do you have water?"

Cutter, terrified, shakes his head.

"I'm going to give you some," Capable says, "I'm going to give some to--" and she points.

Nux mumbles, "Skag," and Capable nods.

"You're going to stay here, all of you, and drink it all before you go back to the garages," says Capable, and she looks at each of them in turn, "and you will all drink your share--only your share--especially you, Cutter, to help your throat."

"You're..." Cutter manages to croak, "you're not going to shred me?"

"No," says Capable, and she walks back to Nux, lays her soft hand on his arm, with that hard blazing look in her eyes. "Because you will tell the other War Boys what happened, and you will tell them no one touches me, unless I say."

The War Boys all nod, understanding, and Skag rumbles a yes.

"Because if this happens again," Capable warns them, "I won't stop Nux. Do you hear me, Cutter?"

Cutter nods, trembling.

"We aren't here to hurt you," she adds, gently. "We're here to help."

"But I am here for Capable," says Nux, words returning to him, and his leg and his back are pulsing with pain and he feels so, so weary. "And no one will harm her."

"Yes," says the lancer, and "yes," says the driver, and the old man nods, and Skag nods, and Cutter, still shaking, his face still bloody where Capable missed spots, says "She says who touches her, yes."

Capable walks over to Nux, puts his arm around her shoulders. "We will speak again, maybe tomorrow, or the day after, about what plans you've come up with for trade," she says, and they are leaving, the door closing, in the hallway, gone.

"I'm sorry," Nux manages, once they are clear, and he is stumbling, because his leg aches, "Capable--"

"Stop," she says at once, "Nux, don't, it's all right. Let's just--lets both get back to the Vault, get you clean--"

And Nux notices the backs of his hands are bleeding from where Cutter scratched at him, and he is sweating, and the burn near his shoulder has cracked and bleeds through the bandage, down his arm, "Capable," he says again, like her name is an explanation.

"It's all right, Nux," she repeats. "I'm safe. We're safe."

Nux wants to answer her, he does, but he stumbles again and pain shoots up his leg and they're still moving, still, until they're finally in the Vault.

Capable helps him sit by the side of the pool of water in the center, before going to the Vault, swinging the door until it is almost shut, but not all the way, and she wedges the gap open with a piece of scrap.

"No one will lock me in here ever again," she swears, darkly, and then she is at Nux's side, and her hands are on his head, gentle, stroking, and he closes his eyes and calms his heart, breathes, breathes.

* * *

After he is calmer, not shaking, when he feels in his bones that they are both safe, he opens his eyes. Capable is trailing her foot in the pool, slowly, and steam rises from the water.

"It's always hot," she explains, without Nux having to ask. "Something about the rocks, or the flow--Toast would know."

"It's nice," Nux answers, because it is, watching her like this, while she holds him. He swallows. "I'm sorry I ruined today."

Capable takes his chin, moves his head, so he has to meet her eyes. Her skin is flushed a little, from the steam, and it makes her hair curl even more. "You didn't," she says seriously. "You kept us safe."

"YOU kept us safe," Nux manages, and can almost laugh, "glory be, with that knife, and the Pup--"

Capable smiles at him. "Poor Cutter," she says, and it takes Nux a moment but he understands then, she's joking. "Didn't know he was playing with fire, with you, Nux."

"I will," Nux starts, tries again. "I will try to stay calm."

"Don't try too hard," Capable is laughing, "they seem to like it, like you like that. You're so strong."

And Nux feels himself flush but then she is--what--sliding into the water in front of him, drenching the linen the Sisters prefer, wet to her waist, and she moves closer, to Nux's feet.

"What are you doing?" asks Nux, hoarsely.

"I'm going to help clean you off," Capable explains. "Do you want to take your pants off? They might get wet."

"Um," says Nux, and he can't think of what else to say, because Capable is tipping her head back, getting her hair wet, so it hangs dark and straight and long down her back.

"You don't have to," Capable murmurs, gently, and she steps forward again, and kisses him softly.

When she pulls back, Nux is tugging at his buckle, shucking his pants as quickly as he can with a bad leg, and Capable is looking at him, naked, and his face feels hot.

"Your body, Nux," she says as she stares, "it's..."

"Ugly?" Nux suggests, when she trails off.

"No, it's good," Capable says, "it's very good." And she shakes herself, visibly, before helping his guide his feet in the pool. "Give me your hands," she says.

Nux offers them to her, and she rinses his cuts with water, rinses, rinses, until they're no longer bleeding and the sting is gone. She uses her hands like cups, to gather the water and pour it over him, over his feet, careful of his bad leg where it is braced, and Nux is looking at her face, only her face, because Capable's clothes are white and wet and he doesn't, doesn't know--

She notices him watching, and slips her fingers in his. "How's that? Do your hands feel better?"

"You healed me," Nux says, dazed.

Then she is kissing him again, Capable standing between his knees, kissing him, her hands are on the back of his neck, soft, and he can feel her chest pressed to his, her heartbeat, her mouth--

--he traces a droplet of water to her ear, mumbles her name, and she moans softly, so quiet, so he says it again, and again, kissing her ear--

--watches goosebumps rise on her skin, put his hands on her arms to help rub them away--

---and she is kissing his throat again, his collarbones, working down to his V8 scar--

---and he strokes her back, pulls her closer to him--

---and then Nux freezes.

"Capable," he says, in between her kisses, "wait, hold on," and she moves back, and Nux tries to disappear, closes his eyes, because his pole-thing is hard again and he can't bear to see her afraid of him once more.

The soft touch on his knee startles him, and he opens his eyes, looks at her. She's sunken in the pool up to her neck, so all he can see is her head and the long locks of her wet hair, streaming behind her, and she doesn't move her hand.

"It okay, Nux," Capable says, a little breathlessly, and Nux can tell she's still afraid, but she stays like that, touching him. "It's just--I think your body gets like this when we're being close. I know it doesn't mean you'll do something I don't want."

"Never," Nux promises, and when he reaches for her it is slowly, with one hand, so she can see, and so she can tell him to stop. But she doesn't. He touches her hair, and it runs through his fingers as smoothly as the water.

"You're not--it isn't just you," says Capable, and she's flushing, all the way down her chest as she stands up, moves back towards him, and he can see the water drops streaming down her chest, where's she's pinker, but he looks up quickly, doesn't know if--

"You can look at me, Nux," says Capable gently. "My body gets different when we're close, too," she says so quietly, close to his face. "It's--hard to explain."

"Okay," croaks Nux, and he touches her waist, so his thumb can touch her stomach, rub there, soothing. He can feel her trembling slightly. "You don't have to tell me."

"No," says Capable, "I want to, but, I'm nervous," she stammers, and Nux does the only thing he can think of to do, and kisses her.

This time it is like it was in the hallway, fiercer, Capable bites his lip gently and he feels himself shiver, touches her tongue with his, her face is wet, her long hair dripping on his fingers at her waist--

When she pulls back to catch her breath, Nux leans to rest his forehead on hers, like Furiosa would do. It feels so right, more right than anything ever has, even riding in the sun that first day he was a driver.

"I get tingly, when we're like this," Capable murmurs near his mouth, so that he can hardly hear her, a secret. "It's like my insides shiver and I feel warm and--" She licks her lips, pauses.

Nux waits, breathes. He thinks of calm things, safe things, in case she is close enough to his thoughts now that she can hear them.

"I get wet," she says, all in a rush, "here," and she flutters a hand towards the join of her legs, and now all of her is shaking. "Not like with water, different."

"Oh," says Nux, and his mouth goes dry, because her words, those words, do something to him, low in his stomach, his pole, his heart, and he swallows. "Does it--hurt?"

"No, it's--" Capable pulls back so she can see his eyes. "It's nice, really nice.. .do you mind, is, is that okay, or---"

Nux leans forward and puts his mouth where her neck joins her shoulder, kisses her, sucks her skin like she does to his, worrying it a little with his teeth, just a little, and she's gasping and he can feel her nails gripping only the unburned side of his back.

"Yes," he says against her, growls, what is he--but it's all right, because Capable is shaking more at the roughness of his voice, moaning, holding him--"yes, it's okay, Capable, anything, your body, so good," Nux groans in her ear, and they're kissing again, kissing, and they are both shaking and Nux wants to put his hands everywhere, touch her soft skin, wants to carve out his heart and hand it to her, wants to be as close to her as he knows how.

"I want--I don't--" he gasps into her mouth, because he doesn't, doesn't know what he wants, but he does.

"Yes," says Capable, "me too," and her hand trails down his chest to his V8 scars and he can feel all five of her fingertips, like hot brands on his skin. "Maybe we should get out of the water."

"Okay," says Nux, and he shudders as she runs her thumbnail right above the divot in his stomach.

"Maybe we should move to the--to the bed," Capable stutters, and--

--wait, Nux can see her face change--

--can see it, moving towards fear--

--so Nux leans back, reaches, grabs the nearest blanket, because of the look in her eyes, her face, afraid.

He uses his good arm to pick her up at the waist, pull her up beside him out of the water, and she's shaking, she's quiet, she's gone, Capable is somewhere else.

Nux puts the blanket around her shoulders, wraps it gently, so she is warm next to him and he can't see any of her body, just her face and her legs below her knees, and then moves his hands off of her, immediately, places them on his legs, palms up, where she can see them.

He waits, and thinks of calm things again, of the Dag's hair in the sunlight, the way Furiosa's face relaxes when she's building something. He doesn't think of the Immortan, of the bed, of Capable pulled by her long red hair. He thinks of Blood Bag, and what he would do, and says nothing.

Then Capable's hand is on his, and she is shaking, but less now, calmer. "I didn't say stop," she manages, and Nux looks at her, her liquid eyes, the way she is still shaking a little, her lips and in her fingers. The wisps of hair at her temples are already drying, curling.

"You didn't have to," says Nux, because he knows, and when Capable kisses him it is fragile, softer, like she is trying to taste his words, and she's wrapping part of the blanket around him and he's holding her, and Nux knows, he knows.

Chapter Text

"I was thinking you could show me the garages today," says Toast to Nux over breakfast the next morning.

It takes Nux a moment to answer, because Capable is laying with her head in his lap and he is petting her hair gently, and she is making a delicious soft purring sound like a happy engine, and he'd woken up holding her in a bed and she hadn't been afraid, and this moment was one he didn't like to break.

The Dag is already in the garden with Cheedo and Furiosa, working on something she calls "the aqueduct." It isn't a word Nux knows, but he thinks it must be a good thing for growing, if it is something The Dag likes.

"I could," Nux says slowly, "yes," because he is trying to think of anyone who has ever wanted to see the garages, and all he can think of is how eager the War Boys are to be drivers or lancers, so they can finally leave.

"That's good, Toast, we need to talk to the War Boys again," Capable says, and she smiles up at Nux. "It might be good to see them on their own territory."

"Yeah, about that," says Toast. "Do you think you could maybe show me around a little, too, Nux? I need to see the space, not just the Boys. Something Cheedo said, maybe---" she trails off, thoughtful, and doesn't continue.

"Okay," says Nux. He thinks of the garages and the shops in their shadows, the layout near the War Boys' Tunnel and around the corner to--

--and then drops his piece of bread suddenly, thinks of the Organic Mechanic, thinks of the sound high-octane blood makes as it drips. "Toast--the blood bags, where--"

Nux can't breathe. Blood Bag, hung up in a cage, the reason he, they, anyone, is alive now, in the Citadel. Blood Bag, who made Furiosa whole when Nux was dead, who brought Capable home safely. Blood Bag, with a name he still can't say out loud because it tastes like ash and guilt and the times Nux used him--

--blood in his veins makes him feel alive, fresh, no more poison, alive, like huffing empty cans of chrome, like dust in the teeth after driving hard, sniffing, Valhalla just one good death away--

--of the times Nux used him, like a tank full of guzzoline without thought or feeling, and how could he have missed this, howhowhow--

--remembering, how could he sit here healing and not think, not once--

And then Capable is there, speaking, touching him.

"It's all right," says Capable, and she's up on her knees in front of him, resting her forehead on his, so she is all he can see, "we've got them, Nux, they're free, it's all right."

Nux looks at her and drinks her in, red red Capable, her mouth, soft, the words, the taste, and she has her hands on his hairless head and her eyes are unblinking and gentle, gentle, like she was last night in the pool, soft as water.

"That's the first thing Furiosa did, when we still thought you were gone," says Capable, and then Nux can feel himself breathing, breathing, calming, and Capable sinks down into his lap, in the circle of his arms, and Toast waits until she sees him release tension before she starts talking, cautiously, trying to calm him in her own strange way, by joking.

"It was glorious," Toast says, "She threw the guards out like bags of sand, and then helped pull every single cage down." And she smiles at the memory, and the knot in Nux's chest eases a little.

"There weren't as many as we thought," says Capable softly," only ten that were--that were still alive."

Nux swallows hard, thinking. "So four dead. And Blood Bag gone."

"Wh-oh, yes, Max wasn't there," says Capable, taking a sip of water, offering the water skin to Nux, who drinks and drinks.

"Though you would've thought Max was there, the way Furiosa tore the cages open," says Toast, under her breath, but when Capable glares at her she has the grace to look a little ashamed.

Nux doesn't understand all of these looks, but he does understand the way Blood Bag looked at the Imperator, like she was clean water--the way he imagines he looks at Capable.

Toast swallows her last bite and dusts her fingers off as she stands. "Shall we go, then?"

And she's looking at Nux like he should decide, so he stands with Capable's help and presses her to his side, as his support, warm, and he is walking and breathing and so they go.

* * *
"We need to know how many War Boys there are now, total," Capable muses as they walk. She holds Nux's arm across her shoulder, and Nux is happy that his leg holds up with only a few bursts of pain.
"And how many pups, we need to know that."

"And the sick," interjects Toast, "we need to know the sickest ones, so Cheedo can see if her books will help them."

Nux swallows, trying to ignore the way Larry and Barry feel, close to his throat. "Patrols," he says.

"Yes, four a day, one at night, we said--maybe Skag has thought of something, or you could talk to Cutter, Nux..." Capable suggests.

Nux pulls her a little closer to his side, grunts. Cutter. The backs of his hands are still stinging. "Why?"

"Because," Capable explains, as she helps Nux hop down the largest section of stairs, "a lot of War Boys probably think and feel like he does, but if we can get him on our side, he can tell all of them that we're different."

"How're you going to win this one over, Capable?" Toast calls over her shoulder. "Because you've already got one War Boy in love with you--"

"TOAST," Capable hisses, and flushes, and Nux doesn't know what these words mean, "in love," these words that turn Capable pink, and Toast is laughing and Capable won't look at him, stares straight ahead, as though she thinks she can hide her blush, and he leans in and kisses her cheek until he can feel her smile.

* * *
The garages are almost exactly the way Nux remembers them, which is to say they are still there, and ugly, and falling apart.

It's an odd assortment of scrap metal and rocks and leaning poles, this garage neighborhood, and all it really comes down to is a scattering of rigs, organized into sections by the debris. Some War Boys have tried to protect their vehicles, balancing shredded rig doors over them, bracing with pipe or rock, but most are open to the air. They are called garages because that is the word for where rigs live, even though Rictus used to growl about garages being different, better.

The big tunnel at the base of the Citadel is where the valuable rigs are kept--the War Rig, the trucks, the Immortan's personal vehicles. Out here, it is scrap rigs made from scraps of shredded rigs, waiting for war or weather to erode them.

"Not much to say for the scenery," sighs Toast, looking out at the garages.

Nux makes a half-hearted sound of assent, because it is ugly, but it is where he comes from.

"I think it's good," says Capable, loyally, "they've done well with what they have."

As they walk closer to the tunnel, Nux sees a few heads pop out from under the rigs, or eyes peeking through windows, but they are mostly pups. It isn't until they are almost in the tunnel that someone breaks away from underneath a vehicle, comes over to them, and it is the one Nux hoped not to see--

"Cutter," says Capable, smiling, and Nux clenches his teeth so he won't growl, won't say a word, and Cutter stops almost a whole stride away from Capable, wiping grease on his pants and looking nervously at Nux.

"Capable," Cutter says, with his head lowered, and he nods, deeply. "Nux. And..."

"Toast the Knowing," says Toast, standing up a little taller. She barely reaches Cutter's collarbones.

"Also a Sister," Nux cautions, but Cutter just looks at her like a War Boy looks at a wheel, and nods again, before turning his eyes back to Nux, quivering.

"Your throat looks better," Capable observes.

It doesn't, not really, and Nux is absurdly glad.

"I was hoping to talk to you, and maybe Skag today. It'd be best to get the patrols running as soon as possible," Capable says, and she has that voice she gets sometimes, determined, blazing, the voice she has when making things better.

"Y-yes," stutters Cutter, "I can get them, or--"

"I'll come with you," says Capable easily, and she steps forward, with the the gun Nux insisted on strapped across her chest and a dagger peeking out of her boot. "Then Nux can show Toast around."

But she pauses and looks back at him and Nux realized he hasn't let go of her yet, hand clinging to hers.

"Stay safe," says Nux, and he tries to release her hand but he can't, and Cutter and Toast are looking at him like he's lost his mind, and the pairs of eyes seen and unseen watching from rigs and in the tunnel all look, and he can't let go, and--

---Capable moves back and kisses him, and the hand he isn't holding she rests on his chest over his scars, kissing him like there isn't anyone watching and Nux kisses her back, could kiss her forever, and then she pulls away.

"You stay safe too," Capable says evenly.

Nux's eyes flick to Cutter, who holds up both hands, looking scared, but Nux only says, "Keep her safe, or I will end you."

"You think he'll end you?" Toast says darkly. "You hurt Capable, and the other three Sisters will have your blood."

He always knew he liked Toast, Nux thinks, as she grabs his arm and pull him to towards the tunnel, but until she threatened Cutter, he hadn't realized just how much.

* * *
The smell of sparks, cooking metal, the sound of the saw, the steady bang of a hammer--it washes over them both like a physical thing, and Nux sees Toast relaxing, easing, and he understands. Here is a place where they both know how to be of use.

The lancer and the driver Nux remembers from the meeting have set up shop near the entrance. The hood of their old Chrysler is open and both are looking inside, touching things. Nux and Toast walk over. They introduce themselves to Toast as Trip and Tog--names to remember for Capable, he thinks--and Nux is pleased to see they don't once try to touch her.

"Welding, tires, guzzoline, engine troubles," Trip counts off on his fingers,"we do it all here."

"And enhancements," adds Tog, and Nux knows that word, like all War Boys do, because it means fire and guns with extra power and perches for lancers and more, all the things you'd want in war.

Toast talks shop with them for a few minutes, as Nux watches the others nearby, some sick and laying near the wall, others tinkering with pieces. It is familiar, but it is strange. No one he recognizes is there, but then, no one he'd known would've stayed home during a war party.

Nux wonders if he should miss them, like Slit, his lancer, but missing him would mean missing Immortan Joe and Rictus, too, and besides, Nux is not sure he ever felt anything before, at all, until Capable made him come alive.

"...but for living bodies," Toast says, and even though Nux has only caught the tail-end of the sentence he snaps to attention.

"You mean, like the Organic Mechanic?" asks Trip, hushed, and Nux moves to Toast, takes her arm, even though she looks at him in surprise. "If you were looking to work on bodies, you'd have to see what he left."

Nux doesn't need to look to know that Trip is pointing to a dark doorway carved out of the wall, a tunnel snaking inwards.

"Thank you," says Toast, and she lets Nux pull her away, deeper inside, away from that dark door, just far enough that others won't hear her. "Nux, what's wrong?"

"The Organic Mechanic," shudders Nux. "He was--more than bad, bad and wrong."

"Cheedo thinks he might've left something," Toast argues, "something that could help us heal others, like a book or some medicine, or--"

"He doesn't leave anything except broken War Boys," Nux says, and he can't stop curling and uncurling his hands--

"--can't be that bad--" says Toast, but--

--they sewed me shut everywhere--

Nux grinds his teeth, then breathes, breathes until he can speak. "You don't," he says, "understand."

"So tell me," challenges Toast, and Nux can't, he can't, he doesn't know how--"all right then," Toast says to his silence, and she steps past him, into the dark doorway.

And Nux doesn't want to, he doesn't, not there ever again, but Toast is small, so small, and he knows what she will find in there, nothing for Cheedo, nothing for the light, nothing good--

Nux follows her, quickly, trying not to think, follows her in so that she can follow him out.

* * *

The blood has dried on the floor, but the smell lingers, and Nux moves in the dark, moves on.

Then there is the rattle of the blood bags' cages as he hits them with his shoulders, his head, panting with the urgency of finding Toast, of getting her out.

The tunnel bends.

And that's the nightmare room, the room Nux remembers, he can't stop --

--steel table bolted to the ground, why, the table can't run--

--"don't, please," begs small Nux, in his head, "please..."---

--hooks in the wall, too, aprons hang there, but Nux thinks of meat hooks--

--cooked flesh after the branding, and Nux remembers watching the pups' mouths water when they caught the scent, and they don't know it's cooking War Boy, that the Immortan is burning the skin of half-lives with a skull head, and they don't know--

--the sutures on Slit's shoulder, the staples up the back of Coma the Doof's head, the way fingers and toes just disappeared--

--"come away easy," says the Organic Mechanic--

--pleasepleaseplease--

--"shut your stupid mouth," says the Organic Mechanic--

--and it goes dark, the world goes dark, because they are at his eyes, he can't breathe, his mouth, his lips--

"Nux?" Toast is moving towards him quickly, holding two books, and her face is pale and she looks like she might vomit.

--please, please, can't speak, thinks it, thinks it so hard--

--"Nux? Nux!" and Toast's voice is far away now, strange, strange faraway voice and everything is muffled--

--his ears--

--please, please--

And Nux is on his hands and knees on the ground, retching, bile, and he is out of the tunnel now because Toast is kneeling in front of him, shaking him, saying his name, screaming for Capable, but Nux can't hear her right now, can't see her, Nux is busy now, Nux is dark.

Chapter Text

"---sorry, I'm so sorry," Toast is saying hysterically, "I didn't--"

"--move him, we should--"

Nux wants to open his eyes, wants to, but they've taken him, with their needles, and he can't open his mouth, can't breathe, can't--

"I'm here," says Capable's voice shaking, and her hands are on his face, between his forehead and the ground. "Nux, Nux please--"

"--get Furiosa," Toast babbles.

"She's gone, she went on patrol with Skag, t-to make sure we're safe, she--"

"Then I'll find her--" and there's the sound of feet hitting dirt and Toast is running away--

And Nux realizes he's been pounding his head against the floor, and he tries to stop because Capable's hands, her hands, but he can't, her hands on his ruined face and she can see him like this, helpless, sewn--

And a voice he doesn't know says, "He's gone dark," and the voice is male and shaking.

"What does that mean?" cries Capable--

--worse than night sweats, worse than fever, being here, trapped--

"It's all right Nux, it's all right, I'm here," Capable's voice and her hair falling over his head, soft, and he doesn't deserve--

"Cutter, you have to do something--"

"Nux," says the man, the War Boy, it must be Cutter. "Nux mate, you're clear, the Mechanic's gone. We'll untie you."

And someone rolls Nux over, on to his back, puts fingers near his eyes, his ears, fingers that smell like guzzoline and oil, rough with work. "Easy, there you go," says Cutter and Nux opens his eyes, his mouth, gasping, sits up.

Cutter scrambles back in surprise, but Capable's arms are wrapping around Nux, she is pressed against his back, murmuring to him, and she holds him and her hair is soft and she is kissing his back softly, saying "it's all right Nux, you're safe, you're safe."

The backs of Capable's hands are bleeding, from where she intervened to prevent Nux from pounding his skull right out, he can see them, clasped around him and Nux can't stop shaking.

"What did you do?" She asks Cutter, as Cutter hasn't stopped staring at Nux's eyes, his face, and Nux thinks suddenly, Cutter knows, he knows.

"He thought he was back here, with the Mechanic," Cutter answers slowly. "He thought he was being sewn."

Nux can't bear it, hearing it, can't hear what Capable--

"The Mechanic sewed up War Boys who broke rules," Cutter manages, and he's gone pale under his white dust, "he takes a needle and--Nux's mouth, his eyes, see--"

--and she'll leave him now, like she always should have, leave him here in the dust, Capable, pure, beautiful, and Nux is ruined and Nux is wrong and Nux is bad, is bad, is bad--

"He's in shock, we need..."

--confused, they're moving--

"Find Toast, Cutter, she shouldn't be out there alone--"

--and Capable has her arms around him, helping him up the long stairs--

--and they're in the Vault, in bed, with Capable, blankets, Nux is covered with blankets and Capable is there, and--

Capable holds him and holds him, so close their noses are almost touching. She's pulled the blankets up over their heads, and only a little light shines through and it's warm and golden. She lays there for a long long time, breathing, and Nux can feel it on his face, warm and alive.

* * *

"You should," Nux croaks, when he can,"leave me."

Capable shakes her head.

"I am...ruined," Nux tries and it is so hard, because he thinks he will die if Capable leaves him, thinks he'll die if she doesn't.

"No," says Capable, gently. "You are--these things happened to you Nux, horrible things, but it doesn't ruin you." She licks her lips, goes on cautiously. "Do you think that I, that I'm ruined, because of Immortan--"

"No," Nux says immediately, horrified, "Never."

"So why are you ruined, Nux?" She asks gently, and her hand is tracing the scars on his ear, soft, soft.

"I-I don't," Nux stutters, because her hand is so gentle it is like being unthreaded, as though he was never sewn shut. "I, Capable, I wasn't strong enough...I couldn't stop them, couldn't, I--bad--"

"Why are you determined to think you're so bad," Capable murmurs, "when you are the best man I know?"

And the words break something in Nux and he feels water on his face, and Capable's fingers are gentle, tracing across his eyelids, his lips. "I'm not," he protests weakly.

"You are, Nux," Capable murmurs. "You went in after Toast, you wanted to save her..."

Nux nods, underneath her gentle hands, her hands he bruised between the ground and his skull, and to think that he couldn't even stop hurting her then...

"You shouldn't go alone into places like that," he says, because it is true, the darkness, the terror, the years of it drenching the place. "It was--Capable, it hurt so much, it--"

And Nux can't believe he's saying these things, and that she's looking at him, not running, that he's saying words he didn't know he was keeping inside---"they stitched me shut, sewed me everywhere, Capable, I couldn't see or hear or...my mouth, they ruined my mouth--"

--and Capable is kissing
his eyelids, his ears, everywhere he's scarred--

"They sewed my hands closed," Nux whimpers, "so I couldn't even reach out."

"I'm here," Capable says against his skin, "I'm here, and no one will hurt you, not ever again." She kisses and kisses his ruined mouth, raises his hands to her lips and she's kissing him there. "Like you always help me, Nux, I'm here..."

"You--Capable, you're everything," Nux gasps, and she's kissing his hands, the scars on his fingers, and her tongue is on him and his fingers are in her mouth and she sucks and--

"O-oh," Nux stutters, moans, and she looks at him with her gentle eyes, his fingers in her mouth, glory be--

"Capable, oh," Nux moans, and it's a different feeling now, the fear goes away, the memories, the pain of the past, none of it as real as now, here, with Capable.

Nux feels safe with her, always, but now he is safe and close and her mouth is hot and her hair is sticking to his skin where she is so close to him, and he's getting hard, his pole-thing---

"Is, is this all right," Capable pulls back, asks quietly, and her breath on his fingers where her mouth was makes goosebumps rise on his skin.

"Capable," Nux gasps, " 's good, it's so good..."

And his fingers are back in her mouth, and he is pulling her closer, closer to him, so he can feel the long lines of her legs against his, and Capable breathes in when she feels his pole, breathes in--

"Are you--" Nux starts.

"It's fine," gasps Capable, "it's fine, your body good like this, you like this, Nux, you do--" and she says it as if it is a wonder he likes this, her mouth, her.

And Nux moves his hand to the back of her head, pulls her close and he's kissing her, licking her mouth open, Capable, trails kisses down her neck, and she's breathing unsteadily, saying his name.

"Of course I like it," he croaks against her collarbone, her shoulders, "but Capable, you'll tell me--"

"I'll tell you," Capable stammers, "just, please, don't stop--"

And Nux is kissing her through her linen shift, kissing her, he can hear her heart, and he raises a hand to feel it beating, but her chest is soft and round where his is flat and his palm brushes her there, and she--shivers--all the way up her body, and Nux pulls back--

"Is--" he starts.

"Yes," Capable sighs, melts, deliciously close and Nux and feel her heartbeat with his fingers, and the points of her chest harden under his hand, and he moves his thumb there, brushes her, and she moans.

"You, you like this?" Nux asks, and Capable's hands are on his head, stroking.

"Y-yes," she sighs, "Nux, there, that feels so--"

And Nux does it again, and again, and she's shivering in his arms, and he wants to be closer to her, never close enough, so he kisses her there, softly, over the cloth, the tips of her--

--Capable's breath stutters, and he is so hard he thinks she must feel it but she's not afraid, soft whimpering sounds in her throat, she reaches down and her thumb traces his lips--

--Nux kisses her there again, her chest, open-mouthed, and feels the hard tip of her there with his tongue--

--"oh glory," Capable manages, "Nux, Nux," and she's saying his name like a chant and Nux feels the badness in his head go skittering away, because nothing could take this away from him, if they sewed his mouth shut again tomorrow he would still have this, the taste of linen and Capable pebbling on his tongue, and he thinks of her tongue on his fingers, and sucks the tip of her--

--her hips jerk up into his, and Nux feels it all the way to his toes, her against him--

"Capable," he says against the wet spot on her shirt, "Capable..."

And she pulls his head up and she's kissing him, kissing him, and Nux can't get enough of Capable's mouth, never, she's panting into him and Nux is breathing hard, like he's running, kissing her and--

"CAPABLE!" Cheedo yells, "Capable!" And they hear the sounds of her feet and Capable gentles the kiss, gentles it, gasps for air, but doesn't stop holding Nux--

"What?" She manages, and her eyes are dark, blown wide, staring into his--

"Capable!" And Cheedo slides into the Vault and pauses when she sees them, "oh, I--"

"What is it?" Capable asks, and her voice goes serious, and she's shifting, turning towards Cheedo, and Cheedo looks terrified and elated and she's dripping with sweat, and Capable is holding Nux's hand, hasn't let go--

"Furiosa is back, from patrol," Cheedo gasps. "She's back, and Max is with her."

Chapter Text

Even though he can't move quickly on his own, with the help of Cheedo and Capable, Nux is soon down the stairs, and they are racing out the side door to the open plain when Furiosa reaches them.

"Capable," she gasps, breathing hard, "Nux, are you--Toast said--"

"It's all right," says Capable, "it's all right, he just--"

Toast runs up after Furiosa, Cutter on her tail, and throws herself at him. Her embrace nearly knocks him over, and Nux puts his arms around her to keep himself standing, and her face is wet against his chest. "Nux, I'm sorry, I didn't know--"

Nux makes soft sounds in his throat to calm her, like Capable would, looking over her head at Cutter. He can still see the marks he left on the War Boy's throat, and Nux remembers groveling in the tunnels, Cutter's hands on his face, untying him from the memory of being sewn--

Nux nods at him, and Cutter's shoulders release tension, dropping, and he nods back, before slipping quietly back towards the War Boys' tunnel.

"You're safe," says Furiosa to Nux, and it is both a reassurance and a question. The Imperator reaches over Toast's head and clasps his shoulder and Nux is overwhelmed. Her concern for him, her relief, the sweat on her forehead from running here, to Capable, to him--

Cheedo is untangling Toast from him, and The Dag is suddenly there, breathless, hand on the bump of her stomach, and Capable is looking at him like he is someone who matters.

And it's these women, around him, Furiosa's hand on the back of his head, the places where Cheedo and Toast grip his arm, and The Dag, who goes up on her toes, kisses his cheek, Capable, Capable, and Nux can't breathe--

"So, you didn't die," says a rough voice, hoarse with disuse, and there is Max, looking at him.

Toast just sobs harder and Cheedo smiles brilliantly, and The Dag walks over to Max and touches his arm, slowly, telegraphing every move, and when he doesn't startle away from her, she looks up at him through her hair.

"What's a Road Warrior like you doing in a place like this?" she asks, and her voice is full of laughter.

And then Capable is there, close to Max but not touching, scanning him with her eyes, and he's real and Nux sees the muscles of her back relax, and she lays a hand on his chest and then Cheedo and Toast stumble over, and they're both crying and they touch Max's shoulder, his bicep, and Max is still looking at Nux, squinting in the sunlight, as though Nux can explain the press of the Sisters--

"No," manages Nux, "I didn't die."

And Max nods, and lets the women touch him, and Nux lets them touch him, and they look at one another, and Nux watches Max's eyes as they slide shut for a moment in calm, and neither of them are dead, and they are here.

* * *
Max is sitting on the ground in Furiosa's shop, gun resting in his lap, as he drinks deeply from the water skin the Sisters brought him.

Cheedo and The Dag are perched like birds on the edge of Furiosa's bed in the corner, while Toast sets down bread and broth in front of Max, before skittering away to join them.

Nux and Capable are sitting on Furiosa's bench, while Furiosa herself is behind Max, tugging off his shirt.

"You're bleeding through this," she says," and Nux can see the long shallow slash on his back.

Max makes a sound in his throat, an assenting sound, and she's tearing linen in her teeth to bandage a long shallow slash on his back.

Nux wants to touch it, suddenly, the torn skin where Max's high-octane blood is seeping out, not to take it, but in some sort of offering, like asking for forgiveness, like hope. Max, he thinks, but cannot say.

So instead he asks, "Where've you been, Blood Bag?"

Max grunts again, as Furiosa dabs something on his back and her hand looks cool and clinical and her face is emotionless, but she's taken off her metal arm, and it is resting by her side. "Out," says Max, but he looks at Nux, and his eyes aren't angry at the old name.

"Where?" asks Capable.

"Did you go to The Bullet Farm?" adds Toast.

"--or to Gastown, did you see--"

"--in the horrible place with the crows, did you--"

"Max--"

"Max--"

And as the Sisters talk over one another, Max closes his eyes again, but his right hand is twitching, just slightly, and--

"Hush," interrupts Furiosa, gentle but commanding, and they all fall silent.

She puts the last bandage on Max's back, and moves away from him just a little, sitting back against the wall.

Max reaches out and takes a chunk of bread, tears into it with his teeth, and the Sisters watch him like he is a creature they've never seen before, except Capable, who is tracing the lines on Nux's palm with her fingertip, and pretends not to spy on Max out of the corner of her eye.

When Max swallows, it seems loud, and he takes another long drink. "Tell me," he says, "about here, what--hm," and his words dissolve, as they usually do, into the gravel-grinding sounds of disuse and he grunts.

The Sisters tell him about the Citadel, Cheedo's books, The Dag's garden, and Capable talks about patrols and teaching War Boys, and Toast talks about Nux's leg and the shops--

Toast falters. "It wasn't a good place," she tries to say. "Nux sort of--got sick-"

"The Organic Mechanic," Nux says, by way of explanation, but mostly to Max. "He's dead. His shop..."

And Max only looks at him and nods, and nods, and of course he understands, of course, with those days and days hanging in a cage--

Nux wants to whimper an apology, but Furiosa is telling Max about the trading system they've been planning, in short sentences, bursts, that make it easy for Max to grunt or shake his head or interject.

When Furiosa goes quiet, Toast asks the dangerous question. "Max, why did you come back?"

And Max makes a sound and almost shrugs, almost, but it pulls the bandage on his back and he stops. "Seems like the place to be."

And it is Capable, brave Capable, who asks the most dangerous question of all, asks what they're all thinking, "Will you stay?"

The Sisters are watching Max as he shifts uncomfortably, but Nux watches Furiosa, tucked in against the wall, Furiosa stained with dust and Max's blood. The black grease she drew over her forehead, Imperator, is smearing a little in the heat.

Max licks his lips, like he'll answer, and then goes silent again.

Nux can see Furiosa thinking, he knows how her mind works in war and siege, but he's never seen her quite like this, quite so still, waiting--

--and she shakes it off like a physical thing and says, "leave him be," and Max looks at her and his eyes are unreadable--

"Too many moments in here for me," says The Dag, and she lurches to her feet.

"All right," agrees Toast, following her. "Dag, you want to see Max's car tomorrow? The axle might need to be replaced."

"If I can get away from the plants," The Dag says, and Cheedo is already looking nervous and saying something about meeting with the Milk Mothers.

Capable takes Nux's hand and they follow, ready to move away, but The Dag is slow in the hall. Capable sighs, but Nux still has the door balancing on his boney hip, and when he goes to pull it shut, he catches sight of Max and Furiosa for a second through the gap.

Max is kneeling in front of her, and both of her hands are holding his face and their foreheads are pressed together, and Nux can't see their faces but that's all right, because it seems wrong, somehow, to watch this, so private, and he closes the door as quietly as he can.

* * *
Nux and Max end up flat on their backs together, under his car the next day. The area Max has chosen is immediately in the mouth of the tunnel, close to tools but not right inside. It is still too close for Nux to stop thinking about the Organic Mechanic, but he tries, and tries.

They're already sweating after taking off the front tires and jacking the car up to get at the axle. It is punishingly hot out, the air practically shimmering out over the sand.

Toast fiddles with the broken mirrors above, trying to get the shards glued together without cutting herself. The Dag is sitting on the boot of the car and hops down now and then to hand them tools.

"What's Capable doing today?" asks Toast's voice from above.

"She's with the patrol groups," Nux explains, as he takes the wrench from Max's hands so Max can reach up to the rusted CV without having to hold it in his teeth.

"I thought she'd be here with you," he hears The Dag say, and she sounds almost--wistful? "You two are joined at the hip."

"Attached at the lips, more like," Toast murmurs, and Nux promptly drops the wrench on his face. The Dag and Toast laugh, while Nux grabs his nose in pain. Max does not laugh, but he makes a low sound in his throat and his mouth twitches.

"Toast," gasps Nux, blinking back against the pain, "you know--we, we--"

Nux can see The Dag's ankle dangling down from the trunk, swinging slowly back and forth. "She's just teasing you. I think we could all use a little more kissing."

And Toast laughs again, harder. Nux's face feels like it is on fire, and Max exhales next to him, an amused huff, and releases the CV, which won't budge, and rust comes away on his fingertips. He slides out from under the car, and Nux goes to follow when--

"You might try kissing one of us, Max" Toast suggest slyly, "or maybe you, Nux--"

And Nux tries to sit up, bangs his head on the underside of the car, and flops back, groaning.

The two Sisters can't breathe with laughter now, and Nux can see Max's boots pace towards them. "Go, get off." And their bare feet hit the ground, disappear with their laughter.

Max slides back under the car with oil and screwdriver in hand. Nux oils the joint while Max continues twisting, teeth clenched a little in effort. "Damn thing," he mutters, so softly it's almost not words, "damnit, car--"

The CV comes off, but in pieces, and Max brushes the old parts off of his chest. "You, Nux--"

Nux is already handing over the CV axle he found in a junk heap, and Max takes it carefully. He grunts in thanks, and Nux thinks of that soft sound, and the needle going into his skin, and the blood running down to him, into him, and Max with his muzzled metal face--"

"M--Blood Bag," Nux blurts, and Max grunts again, twisting the CV now so it aligns. "I," he starts, then stop, unsure how to begin.

"I'm--before, with the Immortan, when we--I shouldn't, I'm sorry for taking you, your blood, I'm-"

And Max glances at Nux as the CV finally slides into place, and his eyes are surprised and wary.

"I, just, with the Mechanic," Nux starts, and he wants to go on, he does, he's tried to plan this. "When I was, yesterday, I thought--"

"What?" Max interrupts him, still looking cautious, like Nux might decide to punch him, and it is so, so much harder to talk to this man than any of the Sisters, even The Dag, because Max is nearly as big as Rictus and Rictus held his legs while the Mechanic sewed--

"I would've gone mad, too," Nux manages, "I did, yesterday, I mean, for a moment and--it was so horrible there, and I took your blood, I did that, and I didn't--" and Nux grapples for the words, but Max relaxes minutely, and that must be a good sign--

"--didn't know it was hurting you, Blood Bag, didn't think, it was all s-so different then, and--"

--being sick all the time, all the time the night sweats, the fevers, half out of his mind and the leftover cans of chrome and the hit of new blood in his veins like a slap--

"Nux," Max says, and Nux snaps back into focus, looking at Max, with oil and rust on his hands, laying in the dirt, and Max looks like there's more he's going to say, but instead he clasps Nux's shoulder briefly.

"Call me Max," he says, as he slides out from under the car, tosses it back over his shoulder, as though it means nothing, but it does, he knows, it does.

Chapter Text

It's not a nightmare, so Nux doesn't know what to call it--Capable has a word, he's sure--but it isn't real, Nux knows, because the fifth Wife, Splendid Angharad, is there.

He is in the Vault, and Angharad is talking to Capable, and then she sees Nux and smiles over Capable's shoulder, and Capable turns and--

--there's no linen, suddenly, Capable's skin under his hands.

"Oh," breathes Nux, seeing, feeling--

--and there's sun in the room, somehow, this Vault without windows, because it lights Angharad's hair, warm on his skin, and Capable is kissing him hungrily, like she did before, like there was something inside him she needed.

He'd never heard Angharad's voice, but it sounds like Furiosa's when she speaks now, spare and kind. "We are not things," she says to Nux, and Capable is against him, kissing him, the soft give of her, and she's saying his name and her skin, warm against his pole and oh, he feels something build and build and break inside him--

"We are going to the Green Place," says Angharad, in Furiosa's voice--

--and Nux wakes up panting and alone and there's something sticky, wet, and he panics, shucks off his pants, certain he is bleeding, what, what--

It's not blood, but Nux doesn't know what it is, and he washes himself quickly in the pool before any of the Sisters come in, throwing his pants back on.

He can't seem to catch his breath, and his hands are trembling. Nux wonders if he's dying, and he raises his hand to touch Larry and Barry, but they are the same size, unmoving, and when he breathes it's no more difficult than usual.

Capable, Nux thinks immediately, she'll explain--but then he thinks of the not-nightmare, and he scratches his arms, hard, until he's drawing blood with his nails, trying to scratch away the memory. He can't tell her, Nux can't look at her and tell her he saw her naked and he touched her, thinks of Capable's face filled with fear as she recoils from him--

Nux was wrong. It was a nightmare. He puts his head down on his knees and tries to disappear.

* * *
Nux thinks of going to Cheedo, next, because she tried to explain rut, but it was only Furiosa who made him understand, clear, direct. Furiosa is Imperator, and she needs to know what bad wrong things are happening in Nux's head. It's the only way to keep Capable--to keep all the Sisters--safe.

And she will kill him quickly, Nux hopes.

He finds her in her outside underneath Max's car. Thankfully, the rest of the women aren't there. In the distance he can make out Capable, Skag and Cutter drawing in the dirt. Max is looking down at what they're doing, nodding.

"Imperator," Nux says, and Furiosa grunts in response.

"Hubcaps," she says, only, and Nux knows she must be clearing off the brake dust and buildup behind the wheels.

"Rust?" He asks, stalling.

"Not much. Not yet," Furiosa says. "Bigger screwdriver, can you--"

Nux squats down and hands it under to her. Then he sits, leans his back against the car. He doesn't want to see her eyes when he tells her.

"Imperator," he stumbles, "I've--I've failed you."

Furiosa hums in response, not really listening.

"I've got no honor," Nux tries again, tries to make her understand. "I think, Capable, I think I've hurt her."

The sound of Furiosa scrubbing and scraping stops. "Nux, what do you mean?"

"I've--I--" and Nux closes his eyes because he can't watch Capable, even from a distance, when he says it, and he wants her to be the last thing he sees before Furiosa kills him. "I've, last night, this nightmare thing--it wasn't bad, at first, it--"

"You had a dream," Furiosa supplies, voice flat, reasonable.

"Yes," says Nux, "and the dream-thing, it wasn't bad, not at first. Angharad was there. But then, Capable--" he swallows hard, "Capable was there and she wasn't wearing--she was--and I was touching her, and--"

Nux presses on his eyes with his first finger and thumb to push back the water in them. "It was so good," he murmurs, "I, I liked it. I liked what we did, I--"

He hears Furiosa slide out from underneath the car beside him, but he can't look, can't. Even just the screwdriver, driven right into the side of his neck...Nux knows it will take only a few minutes to bleed out from that. An easy death for a coward.

"Nux," Furiosa says, and her hand is on his arm and he can't help it, shuddering away from her, and she releases him. "Nux, look at me."

Nux, trembling, does as she asks. Furiosa is sweating and her eyes are serious. "Did you harm Capable while you were awake?"

"No," Nux answers immediately. "Just the nightm--the dream thing."

"And you hurt her how?"

Nux struggles for the words. "She had nothing on, and I touched her. I liked it."

Furiosa runs the back of her arm across her forehead. "Did you hit her, or shoot her, or--"

"No," breathes Nux, too sick to even imagine it. "No, it was, I touched her and she didn't say it was all right, and she--bare, in front of me, Imperator--"

And Furiosa raises a hand to stop him and Nux stops immediately. "You had a dream where Capable was naked and you touched her?"

"Yes," says Nux miserably, and Furiosa's eyes widen with understanding.

He waits for her to strike, but she just sits there for a moment, looking at him, as though she doesn't have enough words.

"You can kill--kill me now," Nux babbles, when the silence stretches, "you can, I understand, I--"

Furiosa interrupts him. "Are you thirsty?" She slides off of her rolling board and sits next to Nux, staring out at the open plain.

"What?" Nux is sure he misheard her.

Furiosa takes long swallow from a water skin, then hands it to Nux.

"I don't--"

"Drink," Furiosa says, and the cool wetness takes a little of the tremor out of his fingers. When she takes if back from him, she looks right into his eyes. "I am not going to kill you, Nux."

"But I--" Nux protests, but Furiosa shakes her head, and he falls silent.

"People have dreams," she says, and looks out again at the plain. Nux follows her eyes and sees Max in the dirt next to Cutter, bent over, drawing something. "It is a thing that happens."

"Never to me," says Nux, amending, "never before, not like...this."

Furiosa nods. "It sounds like a good dream."

"But she didn't say," Nux protests, desperate to make her understand, "Capable didn't say I could, could see her like that. And I woke up, and I was--on me, my, the pole-thing, I--"

When Nux loses the ability to find more words, Furiosa goes on instead. "It was only a dream, Nux. What would you have done, if it happened today, and Capable said no?"

"I'd stop," Nux says immediately. "I'd never hurt her, never, never make her."

Furiosa nods, as though that settles it. "That's all right, then."

"It's just, my body," says Nux, "wants--" and he stops because he doesn't know, doesn't know what it wants, but Capable's touch, her skin, her mouth, it--

A hand lays on top of his, gentle, thumb rubbing lightly. "Not all touching is bad," says Furiosa, and she's looking in his eyes again, and he doesn't look away, doesn't blink. "You and Capable--Nothing is bad, as long as you listen."

"Okay," says Nux, and he eases, just a little. "Okay."

Furiosa doesn't immediately move her hand, but she does look out, across the desert. "I wish--" but she breaks off, and starts a different thought. "Max. You should talk to him about things like this."

"He won't like that," Nux answers quickly, "he might shred me, he'll--"

"He won't," Furiosa says, with finality, the voice she uses when making orders, and it's almost a threat, and Nux believes her.

"All right," he says softly, and she squeezes his hand before letting go.

"There's a room, at the end of the hall. I think you should have it," adds Furiosa casually as she slides back under the car. "You and Capable, if you want it. It's not...it doesn't have the memories of Joe in it."

"A room?" Nux echoes, and he hands her a fresh rag without her asking. "An entire room?"

"The Citadel is full of rooms," says Furiosa. "Take it, or don't. Use it for sleeping, or as a shop, anything."

"Okay," says Nux, slowly, because it's a thing, and no one has ever given him a thing before.

Furiosa grunts an affirmative. "Now, hand me the oil there."

Nux reaches under to hand it off and thinks maybe, maybe he won't die today.

* * *
For most of the afternoon, Nux works the room Furiosa mentioned, cleaning out some of the old things like trash and rotten blankets. He wants it to be a surprise. In the evening he finds Capable.

She talks him through the patrol plan she finished with Skag and Cutter. It is almost the same as the plan Nux helped her build. They've made three patrol teams, who will switch off--one team patrolling, two at the Citadel, resting. The first team will go at sunrise, the second at quarter-high, the third at quarter-low, the first at sunset, the second at moonrise, and the third at moon set.

The change Capable's made is with the guidance of Max. Instead of just sending out a driver and a lancer, each team has two lancers--one to drive back-up, the other just for lancing--and a fourth War Boy.

"That's Cutter's idea," Capable explains, as they walk towards the Vault together. "He calls it Fetching. It's his job, really, but he said he can find two more War Boys like him. And they look out across the desert, decide what to bring back, what looks dangerous."

"They see what looks not right," says Nux.

Capable nods, "And then the tell the rest of the patrol."

"Are they generals?" Nux asks.

"No," says Capable, "no, what I want is all of the teams to make decisions together..."

"War Boys can do that," Nux agrees, "by fighting to see who is the strongest."

Capable laughs, and the sound is so gentle and beautiful Nux wants to learn how to make her do it all the time. "I hope they can this way, too!"

The old driver who cannot stand, Leech, is the Citadel point, managing patrol teams, and Nux is proud because this was his idea. Make War Boys useful, he thinks, instead of making them dead.

* * *

Everyone is inside the big Milk Mothers' room that night--the Milk Mothers, the Sisters, Furiosa, Max, and Nux.

"Here, Nux, eat this," The Dag says as they enter, and Capable gets pulled away by Cheedo.

The Dag hands him something small and red that bursts in his mouth like sweetness.

"What--" Nux starts to ask.

"A berry," says The Dag happily. "Do you like it?"

"It's shine," Nux says, "you--this comes from the garden?"

"Another good green thing," The Dag smiles, and Nux smiles back, and it feels strange on his face, because he didn't smile much, before the Sisters.

"So when are you bringing your War Boys around?" The Dag lowers her voice as she guides him over to a spot near the wall. "Toast already got to meet one."

"What are you saying about me?" sighs Toast behind Nux, but she looks happy, reaches over him to take a berry from The Dag.

"Just wondering when we get to meet the War Boys."

"I want to make sure they're safe," Nux says, but Toast looks at him like he's a crushed lizard and The Dag just laughs. "Or," Nux tries again, "I want to teach them to be safe, around you."

"Good luck," mutters Toast darkly.

The Dag elbows her. "Thought you said the Cutter one didn't touch you?"

"He didn't," snaps Toast,"I just don't want them everywhere."

Capable brings over a piece of bread and gives half of it to Nux. "Be kind," she says softly to Toast, and Nux can't help but hear.

Toast's face softens. "Sorry, Nux. I only meant--I just want it to stay like this, not like before..."

And she trails off and the Sisters fall quiet, until Cheedo comes over with water.

Nux mostly follows Capable around as she talks to the Milk Mothers--he's never met a Milk Mother, and they seem interesting--but he watches the others too, when he can.

Furiosa doesn't look any different. She talks to anyone who approaches her. But sometimes she turns over her right shoulder, and Max is there, just a little behind her. Sometimes, she doesn't say anything, and only looks, and Nux never realized before how often she did that, the looking, while Max was gone.

He loses Capable when Cheedo starts talking to him about the Wretched. Nux isn't much help--he hardly spent time with them, before--but Cheedo wants to see them, and Nux suggests taking him, and a patrol or maybe Max, just at first. By the time he looks up, Capable is gone.

He spins, searching the room, but she isn't there and--

--Max catches his eye, and nods towards the door. Nux nods back, almost a bow, too deep he knows, and goes to follow her.

* * *
His body is covered with oil and dirt from working with Furiosa, but Nux is glad. It feels good, so good to be dirty like this again, like he's useful. He heads towards the Vault first, because he doesn't know where else Capable would be, and he slides inside and it's dark but--

--Capable rises up out of the pool, and squeaks in surprise when she sees him. Nux wants to stop, to look away, but she is right there, her skin from her face down to her stomach, naked, the--

Nux slams his eyes shut and spins around, puts his back to her. "I'm sorry," he gasps. "I'm sorry, Capable, I'm sorry I'm--"

"Nux," says Capable's soft voice.

"ImsorryimsorryIm--"

"Nux," Capable says again, and then the rest all in a rush "you just, just surprised me, it's...I was waiting for you. Come here."

Nux lets his eyes open but he doesn't turn back around. "Is this a dream?" He croaks.

"No," she says, and Capable's voice changes, a little choked-- "C-come here, Nux, please," and Nux has to see her eyes and he turns and she is all pale muscle and soft pink and her long wet hair streams down her chest, better than any dream, better--

--her stomach, long rivulets of water running down her that make Nux want to, to--

--and he's over by the pool and Capable is flushing, flushing red down her chest--

--Nux is in the water with her, his pants dragging low on his hips from the tug of the slow swirl of the water as it flows and drains--

--and he can't stop talking, tries, cannot, "Capable, oh, glory, Capable, you're so wonderful, so brave, Capable--" and she's naked and shivering a little and Nux put his hands on her arms, warm, and--

--"beautiful," he breathes when she stops kissing him, "just, so, you, inside and out--"

--her mouth again--

"--the patrols, you did that, Capable, you made us safe--oh," Nux gasps because she's kissing his ear, moaning, glory--

--and the feeling of her chest against his, the skin-to-skin of it, Nux goes weak in the knees and sits down heavily on the concrete benches in the pool, and Capable follows him, and her skirt billows a little in the water as she puts her arms around him, holding him--

--Nux is kissing her neck and he has a hand in her wet hair and she's standing between his legs, glory, it's, it's too--

--"Nux," Capable gasps, "you're--there's oil on you and dirt and--oh--you're still wearing clothes--" but she shivers when she says it so Nux thinks she doesn't mind, and as he kisses her neck she shifts, moving with him, and he's so hard he can't--

--"Capable," says Nux, because he can only say her name--

"This, you, close," Capable stutters, "It's good, so good," and she bites his neck and Nux can't help his hips stuttering towards hers and Capable breathes and breathes while Nux freezes, before slowly, slowly moving again--

--following the trail of the water dripping across to her skin to her chest, kisses and kisses her while his hands find the soft pink points of her, his thumb, callused--

"I'm here," Nux gasps when Capable freezes to look at him, his hands on her chest. "I'm here, Capable, just you--you say--"

And he moves his thumb just a little and she--shudders--glory be--and she falls into his lap and she's pressed against him, warm, soft, hard, he, he, he--

"I feel," Nux manages, "what--"

"Me either," moans Capable, insensibly, into his mouth and they're kissing, she is shivering, pupils blown wide, and Nux puts a hand on her shoulder blades, pulls her up, higher against him, so he can take the tips of her in his mouth, sucking like before, the feel of her on his tongue--

--and she's shaking against him, all the places they touch, and all Nux wants to do is never, never stop--

--her hips grind down into his and his jerk up and it's like a bolt of lightening, building up in him--

--"Stop," Capable says suddenly, her voice changing and--

--and Nux stops and Capable is gripping his shoulders so hard that her nails are digging into him.

Nux raises his hands in the air, off of her, and Capable is panting, staring at him, and he looks at her and his skin is so tight it hurts, hard, but Nux doesn't care, doesn't--

"Did I hurt you," he gasps, "Capable, I--"

"Nux," she says, and her voice is full of water, "im sorry, I want, I--"

"It's all right," he says hoarsely, "it's all right, anything..."

"You make me feel so different," Capable says, "I get...afraid," and she sounds so small like this--

"I was afraid too," Nux says, and it's true, his hands are still shaking, "it's--the way I feel for you is so big, Capable."

"Nux," she says helplessly, like it is the only word she knows, "Nux, please don't leave me. I know I'm--I'm not--"

"You're everything. And I would never leave you," Nux swears, and he means it more deeply than he has ever meant anything, "never, never, never."

"Does it, does it hurt you, when we stop? Capable asks, and she won't look at him.

"What? No," says Nux, turns her face to his. "My skin is tight and I'm hard," he says, flushing, "but Capable nothing hurts me more than hurting you."

"Good," Capabale sighs against him, kissing him. "Could we just--could you hold me, in our bed, is--" and Nux kisses her but softly, softly, running his lips along hers, catching her breath with his.

"Yes," he says, and he gets out of the pool and finds them towels.

Capable wraps one around her entire body and slips off her wet skirt, and just the sight of it on the floor makes Nux close his eyes. She uses her other towel to start drying the ends of her hair.

"Nux," she smiles, "you're dripping."

And Nux throws his towel around his shoulders, starts to fumble with his buckles, and Capable makes a sound--

--he looks up and she is on the bed, frozen, staring, but it isn't like before, not afraid, her mouth is open just a little, so he can see her tongue--

"C-capable," Nux stutters and she looks up at him, flushing, and covers her eyes with her hands.

"Sorry, I'm sorry--" and Nux throws his pants and her skirt over a chair to dry, and keeps the towel around his waist as he slides in beside her, interrupts her apologizes with a kiss.

"You like," he asks, tripping over the words, overwhelmed at the thought of it, "you like to look at me?"

Capable has one hand on his chest, over his heart. "Yes," she says softly, so quiet he almost can't hear her. "I like to look at you."

Nux puts his head beside hers. She has the towel around her hair now, to dry it, and he looks at her looking at him.

"I like you looking," Nux whispers, this close to her. "I like that you, that you think I'm--" he doesn't have the words--"I like that you want to look at me, like that."

"Only you," Capable says, "only--I never saw much, before with--with Joe," and she stutters the name and Nux puts his arm around her, holds her, safe, because she's never talked like this before, with him. "He didn't let us see, he pulled my hair or--or he was behind me. I would close my eyes because it was so horrible."

Nux holds her and holds her and tries to think of words to say. "Nothing about you is horrible," he tries, and she relaxes against him.

"Or you," Capable says, and Nux holds her as she falls asleep and thinks that it isn't true, that he is horrible, but if any part of him is good, it is the part that Capable is in, and maybe, maybe that's enough.

Chapter Text

"The sickness is inside you," the Immortan had said. "Your life is short, stunted by the poison of the world, but this world is not for you."

"Follow me, and live again in Valhalla," the Immortan had said, "for in this world there is only death."

Nux tried not to think about this, now, the sickness, the empty promises, but when he wakes in the night soaked with sweat, shivering, he knows. The sickness is inside of him, and it will not leave.

He slips out of the bed quietly so he won't wake Capable or the other Sisters, and heads out of the Vault, thinking of nothing but getting away, keeping the sickness away from them. When you're moving, it is harder to die.

There's a sudden shadow in the window cut out of the stairs, and Nux freezes.

The shadow looks at him, grunts, and goes back to staring out. Nux draws a little closer, because he recognizes the sounds Max makes.

Max isn't holding a gun or a knife, not that Nux can see, so he looks out the window too. The east has a faint flush of light rising, sunrise still a distance alway.

The air is cold on Nux's wet skin, and he tries not to shiver. "Why're you awake?" Nux asks, softly.

Max inhales, and exhales slowly, but doesn't answer. Nux is fine with quiet.

A hand ghosts over his back, his shoulder, and Nux looks up in surprise. Max has stopped touching him, but he looks at his hand, at Nux.

"Night sweats," he says, and it isn't a question, but Nux nods anyways.

"Mmm," Max says, and he slowly takes Nux's arm, pulls him until he's turning towards him. Max's hand can circle his forearm completely, and Nux tries to slow his breathing, not a threat, he thinks, not a threat, but it's a man moving on him, stronger than him, and--

"Shh," Max hushes, glancing up at Nux with his pale eyes. And he reaches out, to Larry and Barry, as though to touch them, and Nux shudders--

Max's hand never falls. He looks, carefully, but holds there, waiting for Nux to meet his eyes.

"Not unless you say," Max rumbles, and his hand loosens on Nux's arm.

"Yes," says Nux immediately, because no one ever asked, not the Organic Mechanic with his sharp tools, not the War Boys who would squeeze him there to see if he'd squeal, not--

--Max's hand is rough, callused like Furiosa's, but his touch is as gentle as Capable's.

"Those the only ones?" Max asks and Nux nods. Max lets him go, lets both hands fall. Nux sinks down into the window beside him.

"Not the worst," Max says at last, and he hasn't stopped looking at Nux. "Not growing."

"It feels like, near my windpipe, here--" says Nux, pointing, but Max is shaking is head.

"Only felt the two, no more."

"Am I dying?" asks Nux, before he can help himself, because it is a weak question, a pup's question, of course, every day he's dying, it's silly to think, to hope--

Max shakes his head again. "You're living, today," He says, and his voice is quiet.

Nux opens his mouth, closes it. Doesn't know what to say.

Max stands up, stretching, and claps Nux's shoulder, and Nux follows him back the stairs, back towards the Vault.

He pauses by Furiosa's door, and Nux stops, and then Max is looking at him, one eyebrow raised.

"Sorry," stammers Nux, realizing he's staring, and he continues walking.

He hears a door open and shut, but he doesn't look back, heading for the room Furiosa gave him, to work on Capable's surprise.

* * *
"Take the War Rig," says Furiosa suddenly to Nux, later, as they sit eating with the Sisters.

"What?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why--"

"Nux," Furiosa says over the Sisters' questions, "take the War Rig and teach Capable to drive."

Nux is so surprised he nearly chokes, and looks up, and Capable is beaming, at Furiosa, at him.

"You don't know how?" says Nux, when he can finally swallow.

"Most of us don't," says The Dag, "except Toast."

"I got taken older," Toast adds, gloomily.

Max, who is sitting next to Furiosa like usual, just behind her right shoulder, shifts. "Wait," he says, and the girls fall silent.

Nux thinks that today he's heard more words from Max than ever before.

Max digs in his pocket, and tosses his keys to Nux, who catches them on reflex. He looks at Capable, who looks at him, then Furiosa. The Sisters look at her too, confused.

"I don't--" Furiosa starts, and Max reaches up and lays his hand along the back of her neck, and Furiosa goes still, completely, still like she's watching prey with the rig, quiet.

Max leans in. "It's all right," he rumbles in a voice they can all hear.

Furiosa says nothing, and Nux can't breathe, but it isn't like a threat, it isn't frightening, the way Max is sitting, it's close and private and something he cannot name, and Max and Furiosa are looking at each other, saying things to one another with eyes that Nux can't read--

"Take Max's car," says Furiosa at last, and her shoulders relax, and Max rubs his thumb once on the side of her neck, so quick Nux almost can't see it, before his hand falls. "It'll be easier. But be careful, both of you. Take guns."

Capable stands quickly, and moves, grabbing two of the guns by the door and Nux scrambles to his feet to follow her.

* * *
Capable doesn't speak until they're in the car, and Nux is driving them out a little distance from the Citadel, to the route patrols take.

"What was that, with Max?" she asks, and she still sounds shocked.

Nux shrugs helplessly.

"Why do you think Max wanted us to take his car, anyway?" She asks.

"Easier to learn," Nux answers quickly. "Easier to handle."

"But the rig--" Capable starts.

"Safe," Nux says, when she doesn't go on. "The safest. But it's big, and it handles different."

"Handles," repeats Capable, and she's grinning at him, and Nux suddenly finds it difficult to keep his eyes on the road. "Is this car talk? Sounds like the War Boys."

"Yeah," says Nux, tearing his eyes away from her, swallowing against the dryness in his throat. "Yeah."

"I like it," says Capable gently, and Nux swallows again.

They come to a halt on a flat space of the road, a short distance from the Citadel, close enough that Nux could drive them back in minutes, if some wanderer or Bullet Farmer comes along unexpectedly. He and Capable switch places.

She looks good behind the wheel, Nux thinks, but then she looks good always, and she's sitting like she knows what she's doing, chin raised, that blazing look he can recognize.

"What?" Capable asks, when she sees him watching.

"Nothing," Nux answers, smiling. "Now, gas."

The car jerks forward suddenly, and Nux flies forward and hits the glove compartment with his body. "Brake," he says, scrambling back up, "Capable, brake--"

Capable hits the brake suddenly, and they slam to a stop that sends Nux to the floor again.

"I'm sorry," she gasps, and her grip on the wheel is white-knuckled, staring out at the road, "I'm--"

"It's all right," Nux says, climbing carefully back by her, "it happens. Your first time."

They try again, and again, but it's still jerky, sudden, and Capable is getting worried, flush rising in her cheeks.

"There's so many things to think about," she says to Nux, "I get confused. But I can do this, I can," and she still looks like Capable always does, determined.

Nux reaches out, and uncurls her fingers from the wheel. "You can," he agrees softly, "but it takes time, it's, when I learned--"

"How did you learn?" asks Capable, and Nux rubs her fingers with his palms, straightening them carefully from her claw-like grip.

"They take pups out on their laps, the War Boys, until they can steer."

"That seems--kind," says Capable quietly.

Nux shrugs. "If a pup can do it all at once, he might get cocky. Got to wait until his feet are big enough for the pedals."

Capable laughs at him, with him, and she gets out of the car. "Teach me, then."

"What do you--" Nux says, startled.

"Let's start with steering, like you learned," Capable explains, pointing at the driver's seat.

It takes only a few minutes of having Capable on his lap for Nux to realize this is a problem. She's doing shine, taking to it now without both feet and hands to worry about, but she's soft and warm and moving on top of him in her linen, her long hair near his face, sweet, and Nux keeps his hands frozen on her waist but the touch of her skin, he can't, he doesn't--he can't stop from--

"Brake," says Capable, and they halt.

Nux reaches out, throws the car into park, and rests his forehead on Capable's back, breathing.

"Nux," Capable says softly, without turning around.

"I'm sorry," Nux murmurs against her back. "Ignore it, it's, I'm sorry--"

"It's all right," Capable interrupts in that same low voice, and she turns and she's on top of him, legs on either side of his, kneeling, and Nux looks up and she's kissing him, slow and unhurried, relaxed.

"You don't have to be sorry for how you feel," Capable says as she kisses down his throat, his chest.

"Oh," Nux manages, throatily.

Capable stops, breathing, and she licks one of the pink spots on Nux's chest and he can feel it all the way to his toes.

"Oh," he breathes, "Capable, that's--"

And she does it again, softly, to the other side, and Nux's mind seems to be stuck in the mud, slow, and Capable shoves him gently backwards, so he's leaning back in the seat as she sits on top of him, and Capable is right there, so close, so much better than in the pool, warm skin, kissing him, glory be--

He kisses the place where her jaw meets her neck and Capable moans, her back arching towards him, hair falling over the steering wheel, her hands gripping his shoulders.

"Nux," she gasps into his mouth, "can I just, just look at you, I want to, please--"

Nux pulls her mouth back to his, kissing her and kissing her. "Yes," he sighs against her perfect throat. "Yes, of course, what--"

--Capable's hand down his chest, she paused at the places that make him shiver, the pink spots, his stomach, fumbling with his buckle, what--

--"Wait," he gasps as she works the buckle open, "wait, I don't want to, to scare you--"

"You won't," Capable says, even though her breathing is too fast. "I just want to look at you again, Nux, like in the pool, please I've been--been thinking about it--"

Nux groans and his head falls back against the headrest because Capable is begging to see him, his ruined worthless half-life body. "Anything," he says--

"--might stop there," Capable is saying "if, if that's--"

"Anything," Nux says again, and Capable's hands are on his zipper, opening it, tugging--

--Nux feels air, there, and opens his eyes quickly, looking at Capable, who is looking down, and he's hard, so hard, and Capable is staring, isn't moving--

--reaching out, he touches her hand, laces his fingers with hers--

--fumbling for words, "is this all right?" he asks, "you've, you're quiet--"

"I've never see one," Capable confesses, and she's looking up at him and he doesn't blink, doesn't look away. "Just yours, I mean. I've never--I didn't look. I know that's, silly, or--"

"It's not," says Nux immediately, "why would--"

"J-Joe, he'd laugh at me, but I didn't want to look, didn't--" Capable is shaking now, curling her head towards his, "but with you, I, I wanted to see."

Nux kisses her temple, her eyebrow, anything he can reach. "It doesn't--" he starts, stumbles, trying to remember her words "I'm not expecting--"

"I know," says Capable, and she kisses him hard, until he can't breathe or think, doing things with her tongue, her lips on his, and then she's reaching down--

--"Don't move," she says seriously, her liquid eyes dark as they stare into his. "I want to touch you but don't, don't--"

"I won't," promises Nux, and he reaches up, clings to the headrest, so his arms are out of reach. "I promise."

Capable leans up, kisses both his wrists. "I drive," she says, and her hard blazing look is back--

--"always," Nux says, "you did today, you--" Nux tries to say, but then her hand is on him, and--

--"ah," gasps Nux, stuttering, because this is, this, her skin, on his, there, it--

--Capable exhales, long and slow, "is this--"

--"yes," groans Nux, "it--"

Her fingers are gentle on him, gentle, and they graze the soft parts below and that feels, Nux doesn't know, a shivery feeling like want, and then Capable wraps her fingers around him and Nux has to look, has to see her pale hand wrapped around him at the base, the top part sticking out from her fingers, and she runs a thumb there and Nux feels a tremor all the way down his spine and--

--her grip slides down, back up, and his vision whites out at the edges--

--"Capable," he says, tries to say, but that slide--

--"do you like that?" Asks Capable, watching him.

"Yes," Nux pants, "yes, and your voice, it's--keep talking to me, can you, I want to know it's you..."

And Capable leans forward kisses his ear, then murmurs into it as she strokes again, "You're hard, here, but your skin is so soft, Nux," Capable's voice with these close soft secret words hits something inside him and it's coiling something hot, low in his stomach, tightening--

--"I'm," Nux gasps into her mouth as she's kissing him, stroking him, kissing him, "what, I--"

--"I'm here," Capable murmurs, "I'm here--"

--"don't know what happening," Nux says and his voice sounds panicked in his own ears--

--"bad?" Asks Capable, starts to move--

--"no," Nux says, "no, it's, it's so good, you--"

"--don't know what I'm doing," Capable laughs, "but I'm here, Nux, won't let you go, d-don't be scared," she says and her voice is shaking, but her hand still slides, up and down and up--

--"the way you feel," Nux says and she twists her wrist just a little--

--and Nux's eyes slam closed and he's, the building up, it's sweet, like acqua cola, like the sight of Capable, all blazing hair and kind eyes on the floor of the War Rig when Nux thought his life was over, like the first drive out on the Fury Road when he'd finally, finally gotten big enough, and he thinks maybe he's dying, maybe, but it's not like the crash was, the burning isn't like fire, it's warmth, it's like he's falling to pieces under her, glory be, it's--

--blinding, white-hot--

--Nux gasps, desperate for air, and it crests and--

-"C-capable," he stutters and it breaks, glory be, breaks in him and he can't see, can't hear, the only real thing is her hand on him, her mouth on his cheek, and he gasps and gasps--

--and it eases, and there's something wet on him, and Capable's pressed her face into his neck, shaking--

--"can I move," Nux manages, "Capable, can I--"

"Yes," she sighs, and he puts both arms around her, holding her, stroking her hair, his heart won't slow down--

"--you all right?" Nux manages, panting, and Capable raises her head and she's looking into his eyes and she's shaking--

--"you're shaking," he says--

--"so are you," says Capable, and she's smiling, and Nux is shaking, shivering, he can't help it--

"Did you," she asks, "was, was that, was it--"and

"Amazing," Nux says immediately, "shine, I've never--Capable--"

"You liked it?" says Capable shyly, incredulously, "but I just, just was touching you."

"I liked it," said Nux, "of course, I--I've never--best thing, but did," and he holds her face between his hands, "did you, Capable was it--"

"Yes," says Capable, flushing, "yes, I--it was like I had you, powerful, like--"

"You always have me," Nux interrupts, and suddenly his eyes are wet, "always," and Capable's eyes are wet, too.

"Driving you is better than any car," Capable laughs, through the drops falling from her eyes, and Nux kisses them away, kisses them.

"What happened here?" Capable asks, when they're both calm, breathing, foreheads pressed together. She touches him, lightly, and her finger is wet.

"Oh," says Nux, and runs his hand over his pole and it's sticky, clear. "This happened the other morning, I woke up and--is it bad, do you think?"

"I think it is the thing that makes sprogs," says Capable, slowly, and Nux goes rigid, until she lays her hand on his chest, soothes him. "Not right now, just, just inside a Wife, if it's in there."

"So you're not--it's all right?" Nux asks. "I'm not, not dying?"

"No," says Capable, but then her eyes go far away. "If you were, the Immortan would've died long ago, curse his bones--"

Nux kisses her. "Never again," says Nux, "you choose, always." And they both tumble out of the car so Nux can rub the stickiness off with sand, and he slides back in the passenger seat.

"You drive," says Nux, gamely, but he pulls the seatbelt across his body, just in case.

"What--you mean drive us back?" Capable asks, disbelieving.

"Straight shot," Nux points. "Just add gas, and brake, if you need."

Capable breathes in, and Nux reaches out, lays his hand over hers on the steering wheel.

"Capable," he says softly, "you can do it. I trust you."

And Capable presses the gas and they go forward, fast then faster, and the wind is whipping her hair and she's laughing, perfect, hands loose and right on the wheel, and it's better than anything Nux has ever known, the loveliest day, and Nux shouts with joy as they head towards home.

Chapter Text

"Can't wait much longer," Max says suddenly the next morning, as Cheedo is telling The Dag about some of the books she's found on plants.

It's not really surprising, not to Nux anyway, who expects Max to talk or not talk whenever and however he pleases.

The War Boy generals used to do that down in the garages during meals, screaming orders or insults to random War Boys, keeping them shivering with fear as they scrounged the meager scraps of food.

But Max never shouts, so it's all right.

Furiosa doesn't seem surprised either, but the rest of the Sisters look at Max in confusion.

"Wait for what?" asks Toast bluntly, when Max doesn't go on.

"He's talking about trading," says Furiosa, and she sets down her mug. "With Bullet Farm and Gastown."

"I thought we had bullets," says Cheedo, confused.

"Not enough," says Max, shaking his head.

Nux could've told her that. There's never enough bullets unless all your enemies are dead.

"We do need to think about keeping the Citadel safe," says Capable, calmly, laying a hand on Cheedo's arm to head off the panic in her eyes. "We don't know how much of the old order survived, angry and waiting in those towns."

"And we're low on gas," Nux adds."Patrols especially."

Furiosa doesn't sigh or change her face in any way, but her eyes close. "And so we need to trade."

Max says nothing, and the Sisters look at her, waiting.

Furiosa opens her eyes, breathes in. "Look, I know it's difficult. I don't like it, either--my best War Rig went down to end our last chase." She licks her lips, then looks at Nux until he meets her eyes. "Which was worth giving up, for you."

Nux flushes, and Capable's hand finds his under the table.

"But the truth is, we do need to go out," Furiosa says, and she's looking at each of the Sisters, one by one. "I need to go out."

"No," says Toast immediately.

"What would we do without you?"

"If something happens--"

Max leans forward, interrupts them, gravelly and low. "This is the Imperator doing a trade run."

And even Toast has no argument for that.

"I'll need help," Furiosa says, after a long moment. "At least one black thumb, and another driver good with a gun."

The Dag raises an eyebrow. "Why not Max?"

"Because he'll stay here," Furiosa says, and Max nods in time with her words, as though he is an extension of her, a spare wheel. "You'll need a warrior if anything happens while I'm away."

"We can defend ourselves," says Toast, indignantly.

"I know you can," Furiosa says, "but it's not just about that. It's about defending this--the Citadel."

"It'll be good to have you here, Max," says Cheedo softly, and Max doesn't smile, but he nods at her, and as far as Nux can figure, it means about the same thing.

"You'll need me here with the plants, I expect," says The Dag. "I'll look into the seeds of time."¹

Nux looks at Capable, who is smiling down at her plate, and decides whatever The Dag is talking about, it's enough that he understands that she's staying.

"Don't take the Vulvalini," Cheedo says, "they're so few, and they're helping me with the books."

Capable's eyes dart towards Furiosa, but Furiosa says nothing about how few her Many Mothers are, just nods at Cheedo.

"That leaves me and Capable," Toast says cheerily. "I can be your black thumb."

"No," Max rumbles.

"What do you mean--"

Furiosa talks over Toast's protests. "You know everything, Toast, but not on a War Rig."

"Need you here," adds Max, and Toast's whole face softens.

"All right," she concedes softly.

"I'm good with a gun, and I can drive a bit, now," Capable offers, and Furiosa is nodding and Max is nodding--

"Wait," Nux interrupts quickly, "wait, I--don't, Capable, please, not without me--"

"I've always wanted you to come, Nux," says Furiosa, and she isn't smiling, not quite, but her face is gentler, somehow. "You're the best black thumb we have, and good in combat."

When no one, not Toast, not Max, no one disagrees, Nux knows he's flushing. Capable's hand tightens on his.

"It's true," she murmurs, but everyone is quiet, and they must hear her. "You are, Nux."

And Nux is flushing so deeply now his skin feels warm, and he hides his face against her neck. "You," he says against her skin, because he doesn't know how else to say it, how much he needs her.

"Settled," Furiosa nods, and stands. "I'll tell the Vulvalini, and the Milk Mothers. We need waterskins, Capable, if you could. And Nux, you get the rig out, and we'll meet you on the plain."

Max stands when Nux does, moves over to him. "I'll help," he rumbles, so soft it almost isn't words, but Nux hears him.

"Be careful," says Toast seriously to Nux. "Bring yourself back in one piece, because that leg is still iffy."

Nux smiles at her. "Try not to kill any War Boys while I'm gone."

"Tell us what you see," The Dag is ordering Capable, and Cheedo takes Furiosa's hand for a moment before she's gone.

Nux releases Capable's fingers and moves to the door with Max, but Cheedo stops them.

"Be safe, Nux," she says earnestly "and--"

But The Dag interrupts her, throwing her arms around Nux in the disarming way she does, and Nux's hands go to her back, her hair.

"Keep her safe," The Dag murmurs fiercely. "And come back to us."

Nux is struck speechless, so he just nods, with Cheedo's gentle eyes, Toast's glare, The Dag wrapped around him--

--Max tugs him free gently, and as they leave Nux catches a glimpse of the Sisters around Capable, holding her.

* * *
This other War Rig, the one Furiosa doesn't like as much, is much the same as her old one, but without the kill switch specialties. Nux suspects there might be a few less guns hidden inside, but you never know. Max tops the gas off, and guides Nux out of the tunnel carefully, walking backwards, making sure everyone is out of the way.

"Hey, Nux!" hollers a War Boy--Trip--perched on top of Skag's shoulders to repair a garage's fragile roofing. "You going hunting?"

"No," Nux shouts back, "trading."

"Don't lose your head," Trip grins.

"Or other pieces," adds Skag, seriously.

There's a soft thump on the side, and Cutter is there, clinging to the driver's side door. "What's happening, Nux?"

"A few of us are going to Gastown to trade," Nux explains quickly. "Acqua cola for guzzoline."

"Smart," Cutter nods, "you need a lancer?" And he sounds so hopeful Nux thinks for a minute before he answers.

"I need you here," he says at last, as Max signals Nux to halt. "You keep the patrols running, keep it shine, and if the Sisters need anything--"

"I'll do it," says Cutter immediately, and he jumps down from the door so Nux can slide out. "Listen, before you go..."

And then Cutter's pulled out a rag, and he's running his fingers gently around Nux's eyes.

"Just a trade run," says Nux softly.

"Right," says Cutter, "right," and he thrusts the rag into Nux's hands before stalking away towards a vehicle nearby, shoulders back as though to make sure Nux knows everything is all right.

Nux looks down, and the rag is smeared with grease, black, for his eyes like any War Boy, and he doesn't know what to do, almost calls Cutter back, almost, because this was something War Boys did on themselves or their generals and Nux wasn't--

"Can I have some?" Max interrupts Nux's thoughts, and scoops two fingers off of the grease. Nux nods, late, then stuffs the rag in his pocket to help Furiosa roll two barrels of water into the back cargo hold.

Capable climbs in the front seat, and Nux scrambles up after her. In the passenger's side mirror, Nux can see Furiosa and Max at the side of the rig.

Max is mumbling something, something Nux can't hear, and he's standing too close to Furiosa, and then he smears the grease across her forehead, black, Imperator. And Furiosa reaches up, fists a hand in his shirt as he works, and--

--Nux looks away, quickly, private.

"We'll be back before sunset," Furiosa calls to Max, as she hoists herself up behind the wheel.

Max nods, from where he stands to the side, watching.

And with a kick of the engine and the sound of wheels churning in sand, they're moving, and it is loud and perfect and everything Nux missed without knowing it, alive, belching smoke curling out on to the road so smoothly under Furiosa's hands--

--Capable is grinning ear to ear, even as she clutches a gun in her lap--

--and Nux notices Furiosa check the rearview mirror twice, so he looks back, and there's Max getting smaller and smaller in the distance, and a few War Boy have moved up beside him, whooping, and the pups jump like they're trying to see--

"Trading," Furiosa sighs, under her breath, then, "fang it."

She slams the gas as the War Rig pulls on to the Fury Road, full force, and then they're speeding down towards Gastown, a dark smear in the distance.

Chapter Text

The sun is hot, and the speed of the War Rig creates wind that licks at the sweat on Nux's skin. The sound of the tires hissing against the road, the clatter---it's like something deep down inside him has settled, calmed, and he feels quiet in his head, clearer.

He looks at Furiosa, at the way she's sitting, holding the wheel, and every piece of her is long lines and silence, silence, and he knows she feels it too, the road, deep in her bones.

"It's strange," Capable leans over the seat, from where she's been sitting in the back cleaning guns, "I never thought it'd be good to be back here, on the road."

"That's true of most places," says Furiosa.

Nux only leans over and kisses Capable's cheek, because every place he'd ever been was a terrible place, before her.

"This trade run," Furiosa says, her eyes flicking to the rearview mirror warily, then back to the road, "it's going to be different. Joe had a system of deals set up, and those are now expired."

Nux nodded. "Maybe that means there will be less shooting."

"That is why I only brought you two," Furiosa responds. "We need to show we're not a threat."

"But we are a threat," Capable protests.

"Yes," and Furiosa is smiling wolfishly now, "yes we are," but she doesn't say any more.

They're close enough to Gastown that they can start picking out the lights from the fires burning high and hot into the sky.

Nux scrambles up the back of the rig to work on a chain that's come unlatched, connecting the cargo hold. There's plenty of chains left, but he isn't taking any chances when dealing with Gastown. One trading trip was enough to teach him that the way they preferred to offer guzzoline was with heavy gunfire and a sneer.

It takes him longer than he expected, and as he climbs back up, Capable is sitting perched in the lookout seat, staring out across the desert.

Nux slides in across from her, and she glances at him before looking back at the fires and smoke. She looks older, somehow, sad, and her hair billows out behind her. Capable's eyes are far away, somewhere in her head where Nux can't follow so he waits, and waits.

"Being out like this makes me think of Angharad," she says at last.

Nux nods, unsure of what to say. It makes him think of Angharad too, her beautiful body as it fell, and how he couldn't stop, couldn't save her--

"She was there when I arrived, you know," Capable went on. "Joe took her first. And then me. It was just the two of us, for a long time."

Nux waits.

She runs her fingers through her hair, flicking a piece of it back, out of her eyes. "She taught me--taught us--how to, to survive it, him."

Nux wants to hold her. He wants to find the pieces of Joe that the Wretched didn't tear apart, and grind them into nothing with his fists. Instead he waits.

"I would've been lost without her," Capable adds, after a long moment. "It gets so easy to disappear, in your head, with--with that. You forget how to come out."

He knows what she means, this disappearing. So many pieces of Nux are sealed off in his head, bolted, burned, doors he never wants opened.

"I wish it hadn't been her," Capable says fiercely, and she looks at Nux then, her eyes burning with water and anger. "I know I shouldn't, I---but I would've traded anyone, anyone else--"

Then Nux reaches for her, and she collapses against his chest, and there's water on his skin, hot, from her eyes.

"I think that makes me a monster, Nux," Capable shudders through the water.

"No," says Nux immediately, and he runs one hand slowly down her back, up, down--

"What kind of person would think that, except a monster?"

Nux thinks, because it is a question, and Capable only asks him things when she wants answers. "I would trade anyone for you," he says at last. "I'd trade me, even--you know I tried to--"

And Capable's hands dig against his ribs and she pulls herself closer, closer to him, as though any space between them is too much.

"Maybe I'm a monster too," Nux murmurs into her hair.

Capable sniffles, shakes her head against him. "No," she says. Nux can feel her licking her lips, swallowing. "Nux, I wouldn't trade you for anything."

And Nux ducks down, finds her mouth, kisses and kisses her, smoothing away the water from her face, and somehow they always seem to be doing this, getting water on one another--

--and Nux couldn't have imagined this, the last time he sat on the top of a War Rig and bashed his head against the floor, when she found him--

---all pale and fire and eyes that looked into him, through him, when she touched his ruined chrome-soaked mouth--

---couldn't have imagined being here, holding her, couldn't imagine being here and alive at all, and feeling this, this need for her, her smile, her voice, Capable, who has words for everything and touches him like he's more than the broken pieces of a War Boy half-life.

Two sharp clangs come from under their feet, Furiosa knocking, and both Nux and Capable move back into the cabin.

"Getting close now," says Furiosa, over her shoulder. "Nux, I'll need you in the front with me, to help with the barrels and keep us ready to go. If I signal to drive, you drive. Got it?"

"But what if you're not in the rig?" Capable interrupts.

"I will be," Furiosa responds shortly, "or I'll be getting to it."

Nux nods. He knows the Imperator too well to doubt her.

"And Capable, you stay high and stay hidden, like you were just now."

Capable breathes in, breathes out. Then she nods.

"Need eyes up high," says Nux, reassuring her. "Good vantage."

"If I ask either of you to do something--" Furiosa starts.

"We'll do it, Imperator," Nux says, when she doesn't go on.

"Yes," says Capable, and she's got that hard blazing look Nux loves.

"Up top then," Furiosa reaches up and yanks the horn, once, long and loud. The smoke-stained metal fence draws closer as Furiosa shifts.

"Nux," says Capable, and then her mouth presses against his and she's gone, disappearing back up before Nux can say anything.

Guards are popping out over the wall, looking out, just dark shapes in the smoke, and the gatekeeper signals a halt.

Furiosa brakes.

The smoke gets in Nux's eyes, and he has to keep blinking.

The gatekeeper shouts down, "Identify yourself."

"I am from the Citadel," she shouts up at him. "I bring acqua cola for trade."

The gatekeeper is silent, and Nux can't make out his face or his hands, just the voice when it finally comes. "Show proof."

Furiosa seizes one of their waterskins and tosses it upwards. Nux hears it slosh as the gatekeeper catches it.

There is silence.

Then, when Nux has reached to undo the safety on his gun, the gates make an aching creak and open inwards, so brittle and old that Nux can hear the metal moving all the way down into his teeth.

Slowly, Furiosa nudges the War Rig into the gate. The smoke is thicker in here, darker, so many dark shapes moving--people?--and the looming buildings--

The buildings snake around in long tunnels, tubes, connecting scrap metal pounded and faded with age, and there are big pole things that dig into the earth, click bang, up and down, and the whole thing is belching fire and smoke and heat, hotter than the desert was on the road, and he'd never gotten this close, before, to all of it, close enough to see where metal burns into metal, the darkness of the guzzoline as it drips--

Furiosa drives further in, until the War Rig reaches the yawning opening of the building, before she throws it into park.

It's full of activity, people and carts and movement, and there are people from inside the building shouting to those outside, and inside comes the clang of machines and the hiss of steam. Nux tracks drums full of guzzoline with his eyes as they roll out the window and into a holding pen.

Suddenly, Furiosa is staring at Nux, and he's so surprised he meets her eyes, blue fire out from under the grease on her forehead, dripping down her temples. "No matter what happens," she says, "you stay in the War Rig."

And she's sliding out the door and slamming it, taking long, slow steps, pausing a car's length from the rig, so she's closer to the gathering crowd.

Furiosa's back is straight and she holds a gun loosely in her flesh hand, relaxed by her side. Nux can see the scar on the back of her neck from the raid that made her name famous, back when he was still a pup, the dirt on the hem of her shirt, and he feels the power of her eyes even when she is looking away from him--

Imperator, he thinks; Furiosa, he thinks.

And he knows he would follow her anywhere.

"Gastown!" She shouts, "I am Furiosa. I bring you acqua cola from the Citadel, and the greetings of the new management."

Chapter Text

The crowd is strange, even to Nux, and he saw his share of strange on raids with the War Boys.

Every person is wearing--Nux doesn't know how to say it--wearing too much, layers, skirts over skirts and shirts and jackets and pants and clothes Nux can't even name, all stained with smoke and soot.

It's hot in Gastown, in the desert, and the tall fires burning only make it hotter. There's no reason Nux can see for wearing all this--this cloth--at once.

"I want to trade my acqua cola for your guzzoline," Furiosa says bluntly, because the first time she spoke no one answered, just babbled to one another. They aren't moving, staring with dim eyes at Furiosa.

"I'm here to trade," she says again, and they stare. It's a look Nux knows--thirsty, sore, exhausted, without any room left in the body for thought or pain.

The only sounds are the fires and the clack bang of the long pumping things and the wet sloshing of drums of guzzoline, rolling out into the pen.

"All right," Furiosa goes on after a long moment. "I'm going to show you the acqua cola."

She walks slowly to the rear of the War Rig, where Nux can't see her, and he leans forward, outside the window, bristling, gun in hand.

But the people don't move, not as Furiosa opens the hold and rolls the barrels out, not as she stands them upright, leans against them.

She isn't breathing hard but she's holding her gun more closely now and the set of her shoulders is wrong.

"Is anyone in charge here?" she asks, and she moves closer to the ring of people.

They cower away from her, most looking down at their feet, and they don't have boots, Nux realizes, none of them, and isn't that strange, when they have more clothes than he's ever seen, these silent Gastown people with dirty feet exposed in this place with metal and fire and the clack bang of the pumping things and--

Someone is shoving through the crowd, pushing people aside, hard, shouting. "Move on, move on, let me through, you dumb excuses for--wait. Nux, is that you?"

It's Slit.

It couldn't be anyone but Slit, because Nux recognizes the scars on his face, the metal bolts on his cheek, the way he stapled himself back together when they were just pups, but he asks anyway, has to--"Slit?"

When Slit smiles, it's a crooked thing. "It is you, you filthy slager." Then he looks at the War Rig, at Furiosa. "What is this, mate? You're a full-time traitor now?"

"Yes," says Nux, but he can't help smiling, because it's Slit, his lancer, the only pup from his litter that grew to be as old as he was. "Yes, I am."

"You survived," Furiosa says to Slit, "how? Who else?"

"I don't have to answer to you," Slit says, and spits in the dirt at her feet. "I'm Immortan here now, understand?"

"And I control the Citadel," Furiosa answers levelly.

"We all remember your little joyride in the desert," sneers Slit. "But that doesn't make you ruler of the Citadel. Not for long," and he pulls out a knife so quickly Nux can only see the flash of it, the way it slices through the air and Furiosa lunges aside--too late? He can't tell--

--and before he can think he's out of the rig and in the dust, wrestling Slit to the ground--

--they did this as pups, wrestling, while older War Boys bet on who would win--

--banging and banging Slit's hand against the ground--

--and Slit never let Nux win, not once--

--and he's scoring deep scratches on Nux's face, because he's finally dropped the knife---

--"Don't," comes Capable's voice, and she's standing on top of the rig with a gun leveled at the three other War Boys rushing towards Slit, big hulking ones Nux only knows by sight--

"Stop it, Slit," gasps Nux, as his lancer claws at his face, his throat. "SLIT!"

Furiosa presses the cold barrel of her gun to Slit's heavy forehead. "Stop," she repeats, and Slit goes still. "Now tell your men to stand down."

Nux perches on his chest with Slit's wrists in each hand. It's the first time he's ever pinned the lancer. Slit bares his teeth at Nux, at Furiosa, growling.

"All right," Furiosa says calmly, and shoots one of the barrels of water. It starts streaming out slowly into the sand with a hiss, and the terrified crowd moans, rushing for it, crushing to the barrels, desperate to reach it, tonguing the ground where it fell.

"I can shoot the other one and leave you to enjoy the riot," says Furiosa, "or you can tell your men to stand down."

"Okay, stand down, stand down," says Slit quickly, as Furiosa aims at the last barrel. "They've got guns up top and on the ground."

"Now," says Furiosa, as she moves the gun back to Slit's head, "how many of Joe's War Boys survived? When? How?"

Slit glares up at her. "Our whole rig, that's all I know for sure. Five of us, including me."

"How?"

"We were at the back when the War Rig exploded," says Slit, and his eyes flit to Nux, "thought you'd all gone up."

Nux shakes his head, "nearly," he says.

"Pity," says Slit, and he lets his head fall back to the ground. "Better die historic than live a traitor, eh, Nux? But you always were a spineless sack of spare parts."

"Slit," says Nux, because he is alive and his lancer is alive, and they are laying here in the sand and dirt. "We're just here to trade, mate. That's it."

"You'll have to kill me before you take anything of mine," Slit spits, and he's twisting again, shaking one hand free, and he punches Nux in the nose before Nux can get him down again, the taste of coppery blood running into his mouth--

--"don't shoot," Nux begs, as he tries to catch Slit's fists, "please, Furiosa---please--"

--and he's thinking of the day he became a driver, of Slit on the back of the car, cheering, the way the desert opened before them--

--more punching, and Slit is screaming in his face traitor, traitor, TRAITOR--

--the day they sewed him shut and Slit sat for hours and picked out all thread, everywhere, without saying a word--

--Nux hears his own voice from far away, "Furiosa, don't shoot--Slit--I'm sorry, I'm--

--the way it felt to see Slit falling off into the dust storm, his body arching off of the car and down--

--"I TRUSTED YOU!" Slit bellows, inches from Nux's bloody face, "we all did, and you, you left us--"

--"IM SORRY," Nux yells back, "IM SORRY, BUT ITS DIFFERENT, SLIT, IT CAN BE--"

And suddenly Slit goes limp under him, and he's got water all over his face, streaming from his eyes, and he looks even more angry as Nux watches this, watches water pour out from inside--

"You were dead," Slit gasps, even as he glares and the wetness on his face, "and it's never different, Nux, it's not--"

And Nux's face is wet too, with blood and sweat, and his eyes are wet, because he remembers this, this cycling, the feeling of something inside clawing to get out, to fight, to run, to be anything but alive, and trapped, and here.

A gentle hand on his back startles Nux, and he turns, blinking through his watering eyes, and it's Capable, down from the War Rig. He can see Furiosa at the barrels, opening the second one, fighting against the crowd.

"Your mouth," she says gently to to Slit, "what happened?"

Slit blinks up at her, and breathes, and breathes, and Nux breathes with him.

The look on his face is one Nux knows, because he remembers looking at Capable like that the first time, how she spoke of things he'd never considered, like the past and the future.

"Wh--you're one of the Wives," Slit manages, and he wipes an arm over his face.

"They're safe," says Nux urgently, "all but one. They're safe."

"And none of us are Wives now," says Capable, and she's ripping at her skirt, going to her knees at Nux's side to mop up the blood from his face. "Nux, are you all right?"

Nux tries to gather himself, to see if pieces of his mind are running back to the past again. "You're here now," he says, and it means yes.

"She's so--" Slit says to Nux suddenly, and his guards are staring at her, and they're all just War Boys again, looking at Capable. "Chrome."

"Your mouth," Capable prompts Slit gently, as she finishes with Nux's face, "your lips are cracking."

And it's true, the corners of Slit's mouth are cracked and scabbed where they run into the scars on his cheeks, but then his mouth was always like that, thinks Nux--

"Here," says Capable, when Slit fails to answer, and she offers him her water skin.

Nux eases back off of Slit, releases his arms so he can sit up, take the skin.

"What is this?" Slit asks suspiciously.

Capable lifts her hair off the back of her neck with one hand, sweating. "Acqua cola," she says.

"What do you want for it?" says Slit.

"Nothing," Capable answers, "nothing, just a sample of what we're trading."

And Slit drinks and drinks, until it drips down his face, and only then does he come up for air. Nux watches Capable, brave and gentle, Capable, who could speak to Slit like a human, instead of an enemy.

"Not a wife?" Slit asks her, breathlessly. "She doesn't belong to you, Nux?"

"Capable belongs only to herself," says Nux, because it is true, and Capable kisses his temple as she stands.

"If you put four drums of guzzoline in our cargo hold," Capable says, raising her voice to address the three guards, "this acqua cola is yours."

The former War Boys muscle their way out towards the holding pen immediately, and the crowd starts to disperse, some scurrying away, others cupping hands under the small trickle from the shot barrel of water, sucking it down greedily.

"I'm sorry," says Nux again, when Slit is looking away from him, after his guards. "Slit."

Slit slaps Nux's cheek, a little too hard, but that's gentle, for Slit. "Yes," he says under his breath, "Nux."

Furiosa comes over by them, guns still in hand, and she lets the lid to the second barrel fall into the sand besides her.

"You know me," she says to Slit, "you know Nux. You know we're good for a deal. Double guzzoline for each barrel of acqua cola. Agreed?"

Slit runs a hand over his face, "And if I don't agree?"

"We can find guzzoline," says Capable. "If we need to, we'll go through the Bullet Farm. But there's nowhere else that has acqua cola."

Slit thinks, so long that the guards have loaded the War Rig. "All right," he says at last, "we have a deal."

Capable reaches out a hand to help him to his feet, and he looks at her fingers like they're foreign things, before he takes it.

"Our guzzoline trading will be with you, then, Immortan Slit," Capable says to him, looking in his eye, and Nux can't quite swallow his grin at the look on Slit's face, disbelieving and confused.

"And it will be peaceful trading," Furiosa says, in the voice she uses for giving orders. She waves the guards out of the cargo hold and slams the doors shut, locks them.

Capable nods to Slit, and follows Furiosa after squeezing Nux's hand.

Slit and Nux stand beside each other, staring at the crowd rejoicing with the acqua cola. Click bang go the pump things, and the fires burn tall.

"Ride victorious," says Nux, old War Boy speak, because he doesn't know what to say, and when Slit grunts he starts walking to the rig...

"Nux," Slit calls suddenly, and he looks torn, but he goes on in a rush, "don't know who else survived, so ride heavy."

Nux nods, "All right." He watches Slit swallow.

"Witness?" Slit says at last, so softly Nux almost can't hear him.

That question, Nux wants to--he doesn't know, doesn't know with Slit, who won't accept softness, who beat Nux to a pulp whenever he was gentle, because soft War Boys die, Slit, alive--

He takes two strides back over to Slit, and puts a hand on the back of his hairless head, pulls it down so Slit's forehead touches his for an instant. "Witness," he agrees.

Then he goes to the War Rig without looking back, because he can feel Slit's eyes on him, and the Immortan of Gastown watches them as drive away until the smoke obscures him.

Chapter Text

Max says nothing while Furiosa summarizes the events in Gastown, but the Sisters don't stop talking.

"Why were they wearing so many clothes?"

"What do you mean, some of the War Boys survived?"

"--trading bullets, more like, the schlangers--"

"--not injured--"

"What do you MEAN some of the War Boys survived?"

"The People Eater," says Max, and his quiet voice silences them. "Liked taking bites. They're covering up scars, with clothes."

"You don't mean--he actually ate--" Cheedo stutters, and Max doesn't nod, but the way he looks at her is enough.

"And only five War Boys lived that we can confirm," Furiosa says.

"How do we know they won't try to take on the Citadel?" asks Toast. "Five of them plus the People Eater's minions--"

The Dag shakes her head, "Not enough to threaten us, surely?"

"They could hurt us, though---" Toast starts to argue.

"No," says Nux, without thinking, and the Sisters stare at him.

Capable, who has been dozing against his shoulder as the night gets later and later, shakes her head, yawning.

"Patrols would spot any more," she says, "and besides, their leader is Nux's friend."

"I didn't know War Boys had friends," says Cheedo softly.

"It's not--he was my lancer," Nux says, helplessly, because he doesn't know how to explain it, to make her understand--Slit, who slammed his hand in a rig's door once in anger, but also insisted Nux visit the blood bags when he was doing poorly, Slit, who never had kind words for anyone, never, but who picked at the threads on Nux's eyes so carefully that he could open them.

Furiosa says nothing, but looks at him, and the weight of her gaze and Max's makes his chest feel heavy.

"Can we trust Slit?" asks The Dag, cautiously. "Has he changed his stripes, or is he still Joe's?"

"I know him," Nux says, because this at least is true. "He isn't good, but he won't pick a fight he can't win."

Furiosa nods, slowly. "We'll still add two more patrols," she says, and Capable agrees, even as she laces her fingers with his."Better to be careful."

"Just more patrols?" says Toast incredulously. "That's it?"

Furiosa's expression doesn't change, but she leans forward on her elbows, closer. "What would you have me do?" she asks, and even Nux can hear the challenge in her voice.

"I don't know--something!" Toast snaps. "I mean--is this the way it's going to be? Formerly dead War Boys showing up everywhere?"

"Toast," Max rumbles warningly, but Toast goes on like she doesn't hear him.

"First Nux, now this? Is the whole army going to come back?"Her face is flushed, and Nux doesn't understand this anger, sharp and sudden, and her words cut him.

"Are you saying you wish Nux hadn't survived?" asks Capable, and her voice has gone all flat, and she doesn't look sleepy at all any longer, just serious.

"That's not what I said," Toast growls, "but be reasonable--the dead should stay dead."

"You wish he'd died?" Capable says, and she's getting to her feet, angry, and she's flushed too.

"Capable," Nux says, and he tugs her arm, trying to pull her back down, but she doesn't even notice, and The Dag and Cheedo stare at both of them, eyes flicking back and forth.

Toast leans across the table to sneer at her. "Honestly, Capable, don't be stupid. But you know what War Boys do--what Rictus did to us?"

"This isn't like that," Capable argues, shocked. "Slit isn't like that, they won't--"

"No?" says Toast, and her voice is mean now, in a way Nux doesn't recognize, and Cheedo has started crying, silently, and--

--"Slit the Immortan?" Toast goes on, "What's next, you'll fall in love with him, too?"

The Dag inhales sharply.

"Don't you dare," Capable says to Toast, face going white.

--"Toast, that's enough," orders Furiosa, and now she's standing too.

"Why?" Toast spits out. "She could just become an Immortan's Wife, again--"

The movement is so quick that Nux almost misses it as Capable reaches across the table and slaps Toast's face, hard.

Then Furiosa is on her feet and grabbing Toast's arms, pulling her backwards, even as they scream at one another, and Nux takes Capable by the shoulders, her knees are shaking, he's worried she might collapse--

---"Toast," says The Dag lowly, "what have you done?" She is holding Cheedo, who is sobbing now--

--Max by Furiosa, saying something, Nux can't--

--wet, on his chest, Capable, shaking--

--and he can see the red mark of her hand on Toast's face, Toast, who saved his leg, Toast, who looks half-mad now, eyes wild--

--"anywhere else you can go?" Max is asking--

--"I don't understand," Nux manages, "I don't--what?"

--"Please," Capable murmurs into him, "please--"

And Nux is leading her out the door, where, he doesn't know, loses time, his movements mechanical and thoughtless and he doesn't realize he's taken her to the garden until they're sitting near some of the green things and Capable is crying into him, crying, crying.

He doesn't know what to do. "Capable," he soothes her, hand in her hair. "It's all right."

"What Toast said--" Capable weeps, "what--"

"She didn't mean it," Nux murmurs, because whatever else he knows, this is one thing he's sure about. "She didn't."

"She said it because of Rictus," Capable says, and her muffled voice sounds angry again.

Nux doesn't know what to do, so he pets her, whispering nonsense soft sounds, rocking her.

"Rictus," says Capable at last, when her tears have eased a little. "Why would she--You don't know the terrible things Rictus did."

Nux smoothes his fingers across her cheek, wiping away the water. "No," he says.

"He would--especially Toast, he'd hurt her, f-force her, but I didn't think--" more water leaks down from her eyes.

"She didn't mean it," says Nux gently, because he remembers Toast's hands on his burned back, so gentle.

"I understand she's scared," Capable breathes, "we're all scared, but--" and Nux kisses the water off of her cheeks, and holds her, and she's shaking a little less now.

"I won't," Capable says fiercely, "I won't be a Wife, never again."

"I know," Nux says immediately, "I know that."

She's staring in his eyes with her sad ones, and Nux can see how tired she is, how sad.

"Toast cares for you," he says, because it is another true thing. "Sometimes being scared can make you--make you not think."

Capable laughs, weakly, at this, nodding. "I'm sorry," she says, "I'm so sorry, that you heard--that--"

Nux rests his forehead against hers. "It's all right, Capable. It's all right."

They breathe and breathe. The stars overhead are scattered like grains of sand, the moon almost full.

"Toast doesn't trust easily," Capable whispers to him. "None of us do, but--Cutter chasing her, the day she went after Furiosa--he was trying to help, I know, but now this--think it's too much. We were locked up for so long, and now there's so many people in the world all the time."

Nux is used to being among all the people, scores of War Boys, and feels like his life is different now. "Not for me," he says "there's less, now, but it means more."

Capable kisses him, softly, softly, and she's so gentle with her mouth, and Nux can taste salt and the desert on her lips.

"Can I show you something?" Nux asks, when the feeling gets too big to fit into his chest. "I want to show you something."

* * *

He shows her the room Furiosa gave him.

It's nothing special, Nux knows, with a small window, but it is his, and he wants her to have it. When they're inside, and the door is closed, he tells her to look.

Capable opens her eyes and stares. She takes a few steps into the room, so Nux can only see her back, and when she says nothing, he starts talking nervously.

"It's a nest," Nux says, pointing to the pile of blankets and pillows he's piled on top of empty drums of guzzoline. "It's instead of a bed, so that you don't have to be scared, so that there's no, no bad memories. Not that you have to sleep here--you can stay with the Sisters--I just thought--" Nux stops, swallows. "Just thought you should have a place, just for you."

Capable doesn't say anything, doesn't move.

"The Dag gave me the plant thing," Nux adds. "It's green, and alive." Too many words, he thinks, but he can't stop his mouth. "I just thought, and the rocks, here, they're bright, so, to keep the plant safe--and--" Nux trails off.

Capable still hasn't said anything.

"Do you--do you like it?" Nux asks uncertainly, and Capable turns around.

"This is for me?" She asks, and her voice is shaky.

"Yes" says Nux quietly. "Yes."

And Capable's eyes are wet again and she is suddenly in Nux's arms, kissing him and kissing him, fiercely, all there is in the world is her mouth and his tongue and the way she moves and her teeth catch his lip, and he moans, helplessly.

"I love it," she says when she comes up for air, "Nux's, it's--ah," she sighs as Nux nibbles her ear.

"It's for you," he breathes, so close that she has to hear it, "like me, just for you."

And Capable steps back from him and shoves his chest and he falls into the nest and she's on top of him, kissing him, and she runs her hands down his chest, his stomach, and she reaches up and--

--linen off over her head, rising, she throws it--

--and Capable is sitting on him, naked, and Nux feels his head drop back, because this, oh--

"You," he manages, "Capable, please--" and he rolls, so she's underneath him, but Nux moves quickly, quickly beside her, doesn't want to trap her, just needs to see--

"This, you," he tries, but there are no words, for her pale skin, the freckles on her arms, the length of her, and Capable pulls his face down to hers, kisses him, and he's running his fingers lightly, lightly down her side, warm skin, so, so good--

--and he follows down the curve of her neck, licks at her collarbones, lower, and he can't stop talking around every kiss--

"Capable," he says, "Capable, Capable," and "beautiful" and "oh..."

And he's sucking her chest into his mouth, and he flicks his tongue and she--moans, arching into him, his name like a sigh, "Nux..."

Nux looks up at her as he's kissing down her stomach, desperate to know all the tastes of her skin, and she nods, it's all right, it's--

--she trembles--

--and Nux stops, breathing hard, leans up on his elbows, because he's at the join of her legs now, and he's never seen--

"Capable," he croaks, "you're all soft here," and he pets the fur of her softly, with one finger and she's shaking--

--"Nux," Capable says and he looks at her, her wide liquid eyes and the way her chest risesfallsrisesfalls with her too-fast breath--

--"can I kiss you?" Nux breathes, "here? can I, just, everywhere I want--"

"Will it hurt?" asks Capable and Nux reaches out and clasps her hand with his, breathes.

"No," he says, "no, just my mouth, so soft, a kiss, Capable, I swear, but we can stop--"

"Keep holding on to my hand," says Capable "and--and go slow..."

And Nux nods as he kisses the points of her hips, murmuring words against her skin, and Capable's fingers in his tighten as he cautiously presses a kiss to the soft hair of her, there, and she inhales, but when he looks up her face isn't afraid, so he does it again and again and--

--legs falling open around him, what--

"Oh," says Nux, "oh--Capable, you're all pink here, and--and wet..."

"I'm, it feels good--" Capable whimpers, "it feels so good, Nux--"

And Nux learns forward and just breathes over the soft pinkness, and her hips jerk minutely towards him, just his breath, just slow, warm--

"--shine," says Nux, "beautiful, so chrome, Capable, I've never--"

And Capable squeezes his hand and so Nux leans in and slowly puts his lips on her because he has to, has to taste--

--and he feel the shudder going up her body--

"Oh--glory be, that's good," Capable manages, stuttering, "doesn't hurt, it's--"

"I'd never hurt you," Nux says into her skin, "never, never, do you need me to--"

"Don't stop," says Capable, and she lays the hand that isn't gripping his on his head, gentle.

So Nux kiss her again and again, and opens his mouth, slowly, to lick at her, just to see--

"Oh," Capable groans "oh that, what's--"

It's like a small, small stone on top of her opening, a small hard bit of pink skin, and Nux kisses it again and Capable moans and Nux traces it with his tongue, swirls it, kissing her and kissing her, and Capable's legs are shaking around him and Nux leans in and licks and licks and licks, the rhythm of it--

"Nux," Capable is panting "I don't--something, good so good, there's this--edge--I'm--"

"It's all right," Nux raises his lips, breathes on her, "I'm here, Capable, I've got you--"

And he licks in again and Capable's hips move, arching towards him, and she's shaking and moaning and she quivers under him, so wet, glory--

"Nux," she breathes and goes still and her back arches up into him and she's squeezing and squeezing his hand and her exhale is just one long cry of his name--

She slows, so Nux slows, as her hips fall back, she's shaking, and Nux crawls up by her face and her eyes are wet.

"Was that--I'm sorry--" Nux gasps, reaching for the droplets on her cheeks.

"No," Capable gasps, "no, Nux, it was perfect--it was just--nothing, I've never--never felt like--"

"I know," Nux is breathing hard, kissing the water away on her cheeks and he pets her long hair softly. "I know, I haven't either--glory, Capable, I could taste you for days--" and she's kissing him and he holds her and holds her, curled in their nest, in the place that's just hers.

"Nux," she murmurs softly as he's falling asleep. "Nux," and it's only his name, and it means everything.

Chapter Text

Nux wakes up to the feeling of Capable. Her finger is lightly tracing the scars on his chest, and he knows this without opening his eyes, the touch of her skin, the smell of her hair--it makes his throat ache with the nearness of it. He doesn't want the moment to end, so he doesn't say anything, but he does open his eyes.

She's so beautiful. Nux is still surprised by this every day, that a creature could live in the dead and dusty world and be--this, just so--and she hasn't put on her clothes and there's so much of her pale warm skin against his.

"Tell me about this," Capable murmurs.

"It's a V8," Nux says, and he keeps his voice soft because this morning, this moment alone, is so precious.

"Who did this to you?" Capable asks.

Nux licks his lips. He raises one hand to touch her curls, admiring the way they catch the light as they spill over his fingers. "I did it to myself."

"Angharad made the scars on her face herself," Capable says, tipping her head back a little into his hand. "She said that it was her body, not Joe's."

Nux hums in his throat, to show her that he's listening.

"One scar for every daughter she lost," Capable has gone far away, and Nux tries to keep his breathing even. "Joe killed the baby girls, all of them, but she had one son who lived."

"Where is he now?" Nux asks.

"He's one of the War Pups, but even she couldn't figure out which," Capable says.

Nux thinks of the pups. "Is that where they come from? They always just--were there."

"Lots come from the Wretched, sick ones they take." Capable is tracing his scar again. "Angharad wasn't the only one. Dag had a son, and Cheedo, but she lost it when--when Joe was, he would get angry, and--when he was done there was just blood."

When Capable doesn't go on, Nux raises her hand to his mouth, kisses her fingers.

Capable licks her lips. "Toast never had any sprogs. And I...I had one girl."

"Oh," says Nux, and it hurts his chest, "oh."

"It wasn't--Angharad helped me," Capable went on quickly. "I was so--it wasn't easy and I was bleeding, everywhere, and so hot, and I thought--it seemed like the end." Her voice is low and flat and Nux is frozen because this, this...

"I don't remember what happened. I might've been asleep, or--well. What I remember was Angharad putting the baby on my chest. And so I got to touch her little head. It was probably a dream--we never got to--to touch--but when I woke up--"

And this is worse than when Capable gets water in her eyes, because it is slow and toneless and not like Capable, nothing like her---

"And then she was gone," Capable finishes, and her voice--

Nux brings her hand to his lips, kisses it, want to kiss her everywhere, kiss away the sadness, the tightness in her jaw.

"If you don't--want me, like this, ruined, I--"

"Stop," says Nux softly into her hair. "Stop, Capable. Always, I want you. I'm here," he says. "I'm here, Capable."

She breathes, and breathes, and traces his lips with her finger. "Why did you make the V8 scars?" Capable asks at last.

"I thought it would bring me closer to Valhalla, closer to the V8," Nux says slowly. "And our--the War Boys' bodies, most of us are all so sick, and these things happen," and he taps Larry and Barry. "But this didn't happen--I did this to me, chose it, nothing else."

"You wanted your body to be yours," Capable says.

Nux sits up a little, grabs her thigh, swinging it gently so she's seated on top of him, instead of leaning over. He makes every move slow, so that she can see it.

"I want my body to be yours, now," Nux says against the soft skin of her throat. He can feel her breath catch under his lips.

"I could borrow it," Capable teases back. "For a short time."

"Days," Nux says, voice muffled as he licks across her collarbone, sucks on the hinge of her jaw.

"Weeks," Capable's hands are on his back now, and she's arching towards him. "We're never coming out of this room."

Nux laughs, and the rumble of it makes Capable shiver. He runs his rough, black thumb hands up to her waist, and she leans back into them, so the tips of her hair tickle his hands.

He can see her chest so well like this, the pricking of it, the goosebumps on her arms. "Perfect," he murmurs--"you're--curved to me, like this--"

"I love it when you talk to me," Capable sighs, and Nux tips his head forward so he can kiss her chest, softly. He keeps it feather-light, trailing his lips against the swells of her skin.

"Is this all right?" Nux asks, as he pulls her up a little higher, to make the reach easier, but--

--her weight like that makes him realize that he's, he's so--

"Can you keep your pants on?" Capable asks, and she won't meet his eyes, so he kisses across her face, each eyelid.

"Capable," he says, and then she looks at him. "Yes. Anything you want. I just needed you--nearer, I want, if I can--"

"What do you want?" asks Capable, and she runs her hand gently around the back of his head, pulling him closer.

"C-can I--here--" Nux stammers, and he licks the pink tip of her, and Capable moans.

"Yes," she says, "yes, Nux."

"Tell me how it feels," Nux nuzzles at her. "What feels the best?" He feels so relaxed he might float away, so focused on Capable, the feel of this. He sucks lightly at her chest.

"Oh," Capable moans, "oh--Nux, that, I like that."

Nux sits back and blows a little on her chest and it--more goosebumps, so nice--

And Capable's hand is moving, just the smallest amount of pressure, pulling his face to--

--she moans again, and Nux sucks and runs his thumb across the other, quick little rubs over the pinkest part--

"Nux," Capable says, "this--you're making me--"

Yes, Nux thinks, but cannot say because his mouth is busy, yes, whatever this is, yes.

And he rolls Capable over, so she's on her back and he can look at all of her again.

"Freckles," Nux says, and he splays his hand across her stomach. "The Dag taught me the word."

"I know," Capable sighs regretfully, "I have too many."

Nux shakes his head quickly. "They're--you're lovely, it's like the sky at night, or--lovely."

And this time it is Capable kissing his neck, pulling herself up to latch on the sweet place near his ear--

--the knock on the door startles them so much that Nux actually whirls around, teeth bared--

"Are you alive in there?" calls The Dag. "I don't want to interrupt, it's only--it's Toast," and her muffled voice sounds helpless, and Capable is already winding her linen around herself, and Nux goes to open the door.

The Dag looks tired, her eyes all bruised underneath, like she hasn't slept. "We can't find her," she says, the minute she sees Nux's face.

"What do you mean?" Capable gasps, and she's still half-tangled in her skirt but she's at the door with Nux.

"After she woke up, she must've just--gone--and we don't know--" The Dag tries to explain, tries, and her face...

"The War Boys," says Nux immediately, "they can help search, and the patrols, I'll go--"

Capable kisses his cheek. "Be careful," She says, and she's already taking The Dag's hand, moving up towards the garden levels and Nux is running, running, running.

* * *

He finds Max first, perched on the trunk of a shredded rig at the farthest garage. He's squinting into the distance, and the only things that move are his fingers, drumming on the barrels of his gun, and his eyes.

Nux goes to him, but before he can speak, Max nods out into the junk piles and heaps of scrap. "There."

Nux listens, and listens, and then he hears it, sounds of glass breaking, a voice, female and angry and--

"You found her," Nux's knees go weak with relief and the sinks on to the back bumper with Max.

Max grunts in affirmation.

"Is she--what's going on?" Nux asks, when the moment stretches on.

"Scared," says Max, nodding in Toast's direction. "Angry. So many bad memories."

Nux understands that, the difficulty--of course he does, when so many of his memories are being hungry, thirsty, hurt and alone.

"How do you make it so someone isn't afraid anymore?" Nux asks, and he thinks of Capable, recoiling from him, thinks of Toast's wild eyes, of the people in Gastown that were hardly people.

The sounds of Toast destroying scrap are quiet, now, and Nux thinks he can see her, walking back towards them, but she's still too far to make out. It could just be a trick of the sun.

"You give them something different," says Max, suddenly, and Nux listens, because Max says so few things.

Max chews the side of his cheek for a minute, then he waves a hand at the Citadel. "This, all this, it's because she gave them something different, isn't it?"

Nux knows Max means Furiosa, because of the way he's looking, his squint towards the top of the Citadel, his eyes far away but not pained.

"Hope," says Nux, and Max nods.

"That's how."

Nux has a thousand things he wants to say, but he doesn't want to break it, the fragile weight of the peace between them. It is Toast, he can see now, and she doesn't look up but she's walking towards them, getting closer.

It's Max who speaks, again.

"Or," he murmurs, "you teach them how to beat you, hm?"

Nux thinks and thinks. "So they're--stronger than you?" He asks uncertainly.

Max nods. "So they're the winners."

And then Toast is there, Toast who will not look at him, Toast who tries to hide the water on her face, Toast, who doesn't move when Max gets to his feet, and slowly begins walking back to the Citadel.

"Toast," says Nux, because her name is a good thing, and he's never seen her look so small.

"I'm sorry," Toast murmurs. "Nux--"

He raises a hand, slowly, stretches it towards her, until his fingers are resting lightly on her shoulder. "You saved me," Nux says. "My back, my leg. You are brave."

And Toast snorts at this, and there's more water on her face now, and her hand is over his, pressing it into her skin--

"I'm going to teach you to beat me," Nux says, and he understands what Max meant, now. "How to beat any War Boy, you and Capable and anyone, anyone who wants to know."

"What?" Toast gasps, wetly, and she scrubs her arm across her face.

Nux stands, and his voice is shaking but this is good, he thinks, a good thing he can do, and maybe Cutter and the other War Boys will help, and even if they don't, the Sisters will be--not safe, never safe, really--but they'll be ready, like Furiosa, like Max--

"Nux?" Toast asks uncertainly.

Nux looks at Toast, into her dark, red-rimmed eyes. "I'm going to teach you how to fight."

Chapter Text

All the Sisters are waiting inside the Vault when Nux and Toast return--

--The Dag pacing, rubbing her rounded stomach--

--Cheedo has water coming down her face from her eyes, but softly, shuddery--

--and Capable looks ready to kill the world, jaw clenched, she's blazing--

--and Furiosa is standing against the wall, arms crossed, looking at her boots. Max is leaning into her, just enough that Nux can tell she needs it, just enough that his forehead touches her temple.

When Toast says nothing, and no one notices them, Nux says, "Capable," and even though he keeps his voice gentle, they all jump, look at him, at Toast--

--the world is noise.

"What were you--"

"Where--"

"Were you thinking, at all, about--"

"--and if you'd--"

Capable moves towards Toast, and they all go quiet, except Furiosa and Max, who haven't said anything at all yet.

Toast takes a step back into Nux as Capable comes closer. "Capable--" she starts to say.

"Thank you," Capable interrupts her, staring past her, into Nux's eyes with the way she has, like she sees the insides of him and doesn't think he's only scrap, broken, like he matters. Then she looks at Toast.

"I'm sorry," Toast says, suddenly, and then the words come pouring out. "I didn't mean it, Capable, you know I didn't--that I couldn't--I was just so--"

And then Toast can't speak any longer because Capable flings her arms around her, holds her, holds her, until Toast's hands come up and rest against her back, slowly.

There's a stifled cry, which might still be Cheedo, but could be Toast, could be any of them, really. It could be him, Nux thinks, and lays a hand on Capable's arm, so he can feel her, feel Toast, and it's so chrome, just then, right there.

* * *

"We need to talk about this," Furiosa says, gently, when all the Sisters have composed themselves a little.

Nux is dabbing water on Capable's flushed cheeks, erasing the salt from the water in her eyes, but she blinks them open now, looks at Furiosa.

Furiosa runs her flesh hand over her shorn head, and steps away from the wall, leaving Max where he is.
"It's hard here, I know. Even after Joe, it's still hard."

"No," The Dag murmurs, but Furiosa goes on.

"It's easy to be angry," she says. "But--we're all we have, now." Furiosa looks older then, older and tired, and Nux can see the red patch on her shoulder where her metal arm strap rubs.

"I shouldn't have said it, any of it--" Toast starts, but Furiosa quells her with one look.

"It's done," she says, "and passed now. But the next time, I need to know where you are, all of you."

Cheedo starts to say something, but Max is moving, shifting his weight, and Nux watches that instead, the uneasiness--

"--can't just go running away," Furiosa concludes. She looks each of the Sisters in the eye, then pauses at Nux. "Are we clear?"

Nux nods, and feels the others around him agreeing, and Max is--

--Max is on his knees at Furiosa's feet, suddenly, and Nux almost moves--is he injured?--but--

"Furiosa," Max rumbles, and he looks up at her, and Furiosa goes still, all the way still, like she does on a raid, out hunting.

Toast moves first, to the door of the Vault. "Come hear Nux's idea."

The other Sisters follow, because this is private, they can tell, Max on his knees like this. The Dag glances back surreptitiously, and Capable takes Nux's hand as she passes.

When he goes to edge the Vault door closed a little more, Nux sees Furiosa breathe for the first time since Max came to her like this, on his knees, a deep in-out, and Max breathes back, and she's reaching out to--

Nux turns from the door and follows the pressure of Capable's hand as Toast leads them all down to the plains, talking about fighting the whole way.

* * *

It isn't until they're standing in the sun, looking at him, that Nux realizes he has no idea how to do this.

"Get started, then," demands Toast.

"I don't know how to teach you, except the way I learned," says Nux slowly. The War Boy way--

--the first broken nose came while he was sleeping, sudden and sharp and horrible--

--can still taste it, bitter and metal in his mouth--

---Slit howling in pain, his arm wrenched up behind his back by a big dark shape, a War Boy, grown, and Nux didn't think, launched himself at him, clawing for his eyes--

--soft part of his stomach, and he hears something crack, and he dimly realizes they're trying to kill them, all the pups, and Nux thinks they'll never stop, never--

"Nux," Capable calls him again, and he shakes away the memory, her gentle fingers trailing down his arm, soothing. "Where did you go?"

"No," Nux manages. "I-I won't teach you like that, I can't."

"We're tough," Toast begins to argue.

"I know," Nux says quickly, "and you're strong. But I won't--I want you all to be here, to fight another day, and the way I learned--not, not all of us made it out."

Even Toast doesn't protest, after that.

"Just teach us what you can," says Capable, reasonably, gently, "and even if it takes us a long time to learn, it'll be better than knowing nothing."

Nux nods. "It'll take time. We might have to--to practice, every day. And I'm going to teach you how to hurt me."

"No--" Capable starts to interrupt.

"I'll stop you, before you can," Nux reassures her, "but I need all of you to try to hurt me, because you'll need to know how, when--if anything--"

The Dag speaks up. "Watch for the sprog, can you? No stomach hits."

"Of course," says Nux, "of course," though he's never even fought a woman and he's not sure if he--

--Capable's hand on him still, looking at his face closely, ready to let him escape this, even though they need it, even though they need--to learn, to (they need him? He can't even think it)--learn protect themselves.

"All right," he swallows. "So, each of you, go one at a time--punch me."

Unsurprisingly, Toast moves at him first, raw energy, swinging towards his face. Nux dodges her easily, and taps the back of her head with his hand, not hard, but enough that it gets her attention.

"Hey!" Toast growls, "you can't--"

"First lesson," says Nux, "Anyone can, and they will."

Toast sighs, but she nods, and The Dag comes towards him, swinging low, and he has to remember to tell her to aim higher, she's so tall--

Nux catches her fist with his hand and steps into her, so he's too close, and she falters. "That's good," he says, "but--you're tall, so use that. You can reach me."

She does a thing where she just blinks one eye at him, and it feels like a secret. "Higher. Got it."

"I can't," says Cheedo, when the Sisters turn to look at her. "I just can't, Nux, I can't."

Capable lifts her chin, stares at Cheedo. "You crossed two rigs to save us. You even tricked Rictus. You can do this, Cheedo."

The first move she makes is too tentative, and Nux ducks it, tapping her stomach. "Gotcha."

Cheedo tries again, a little bolder, but he stops her fist quickly. "What is it?" she asks nervously as Nux unrolls her fingers.

"Your thumb," he explains, and this is a marvel, because even the smallest pups know this, "it has to stay outside. If your fingers are around it, you could hurt it."

"Oh," says Cheedo softly, and corrects her fist, looking at him.

Nux wants to make her feel safe. "That's right," he says, "just like that."

And then there's Capable.

Capable is the hardest for so many reasons, and that's before she even moves. She's so lovely, so perfect, and the thought of bruising her, hurting her, even accidentally, makes him sick. Her eyes are serious, blazing.

"Nux," she says, "I can do this. I want to do this. Will you help me?"

And Nux knows she must understand what she does to him, because anything she asks, he'll give her gladly. "Okay," he croaks. "When you're ready."

Her approach is different--quick, sudden, running at him--and Nux freezes for a second, because it's Capable, and--

--her fist by his face as he dodges, she whirls, lashing out, he blocks her with his arm, dives in, palm at her stomach, and she's close now, like this, he can see every color in her liquid eyes, her skin under his hand--

"Are you going to kiss her, or teach her how to kill you?" asks Toast loudly, and the moment breaks.

Nux steps backwards, flushing. "Sorry, I'm..."

"I'm not sorry," Capable murmurs, low, and her eyes are laughing.

He can't watch her walk back to stand with the Sisters, because if he does, he thinks he'll forget fighting entirely. Nux closes his eyes, breathes.

"That was--yes," he says, "that's a start. So. How did you decide to come at me?"

The Dag raises an eyebrow. "First I consulted the oracle."

"What?" Nux asks, and he looks at Capable in confusion.

"Never mind that," says Toast hurriedly, "she just means she didn't think about it."

Nux rubs the back of his neck. "That's bad. Um. To not think before you attack, I mean."

"I was trying for your stomach," Cheedo offers, quietly.

He seizes on that. "Good, why?"

She hesitates. "Because you're--it's softer there, so--"

"Yes, softer and easier for a kill," Nux agrees, "your insides can spill out of there--" and he stops because he sees the look on her face. "It's easier to hurt someone there."

"I was aiming for your face," says Toast.

"That's good too," Nux nods. "Face, stomach--where else would you pick?"

"Throat," Capable says, and he nods again.

"Your--legs?" asks The Dag.

"Face, throat, eyes, ears, nose, stomach, soft bits," Nux recites, "and knees."

"So all the places where we don't want them to hit us?" says Cheedo, and her voice is tight.

"And the places you want to hit them," Capable adds.

"Good," says Nux, because he likes the way the Sisters look when he says this word, "good. Let's go again."

And again, and again. By the time the sun is high, they have to turn back into the Citadel, all dripping and exhausted.

As they climb, Nux rubs sweat out of his eyes, and he can see it coming off of the Sisters, in The Dag's long white hair, on Toast's back, and they're all breathing hard, even he is, and he can't help but smile.

No one landed a hit--or even come close--but they are working themselves into it, and he can see that, the same way a pup gets ready, teeth bared.

"The good news is, if anyone attacks us, we'll die," says The Dag, but her voice is teasing.

"That's why we have guns," Nux grins, "and War Boys."

"Were you even trying, Nux?" Toast complains. "At all? Were we just easy?"

Capable's hand brushes his, and her skin feels hot to the touch, flushed pink in places from the sun.

"Yes," Nux answers truthfully, because he owes the Sisters this. "Yes, it was easy. But you are just starting. I've had a whole half-life to become...this."

"I'm glad you're here," Cheedo mumbles, as they enter the coolness of the Vault, "even if we're not good, you're a good teacher, Nux."

He flushes, and it isn't just from the sun, and he doesn't know what to say.

Toast is already starting to unwind her linen and make for the pool. Nux quickly looks at the ground, and his hands are shaking, because he can see the movement of Cheedo's arms out of the corner of his eye. going to strip off her skirt, and--

"Are you coming in, Nux?" The Dag calls, playfully.

He can't speak, when he opens his mouth, just no words--

--"here," says Capable, and she's handing him a deep bowl full of water, "it's all right, we'll go back to the room."

Nux breathes again, in relief, as they leave, but he doesn't miss Capable's rising voice.

"You need to show some respect, honestly, wait until--"

"Come on, it was just a joke--" The Dag giggles, and the other Sisters laugh and Capable is with him, rolling her eyes, and they go to their room, where they can shut the door.

* * *

"I'm sorry," Capable says immediately, as she sets down the bowl, turns to him. "They were just joking, about you coming in, I don't know what they were thinking--"

Capable is still talking, and Nux is trying to listen, trying, but she's struggling to undo the knot of linen she's tied around her neck to keep herself covered, and Nux moves to help--

--fumbling, it is such fine material, like spiderwebs--

It loosens, falls, and Capable's hair is down her back and she turns her head, looks over her shoulder at him, still talking--

--"oh," she stops, and Nux quickly pulls his eyes to her face.

"Sorry," he says quickly, "I'm sorry."

But then Capable is turning all the way around, and he can see her chest, and she's taking his hands, bringing them to her skirt thing--

"Help me take this off," Capable says, low, in her throat.

Nux nods, because he can't speak, but he can't move his hands where they are on her hips, he's frozen, so she slips her own thumbs under his fingers, pulls the skirt down, off--

--his hands on her bare skin, Capable, naked before him--

"Is this all right?" She asks uncertainly.

"Yes," Nux says quickly, "yes, glory be, Capable--"

"If I take off your pants," Capable says, and she licks her lips, looks at him, swallows, "does it mean we--we have to--to rut or---?"

Nux shakes his head quickly. "No," he says, "never anything, Capable, it never means--just what you tell me, you don't have to do anything--"

--and then he can't talk because she's kissing him, and he can feel her hands at his belt, his pants--

--her fingers at his skin, he sucks at her tongue--

--bare, both of them, and Nux is so hard it pokes out between them, the pole thing, and he freezes--

"Capable," Nux says, and his voice is hoarse. "I'm sorry, I can't--it does this, when--"

She kisses him again, hands on his shoulders shaking a little. "It's all right. It's--I like th-that you want me, it's just--"

Nux strokes her hair back out of her face, lowers his own face so he's level with her eyes. "Nothing you don't want."

Capable nods, and he can feel her relax a little under his hands. "Do you think you could help me get clean?"

Nux reaches towards the bowl, and she's put more linen there, scraps, and he takes one, dips it in the water, and then slowly, slowly brings it to the side of her neck.

"Oh," she sighs, and the warm water drops slide from the scrap and down her body and Nux's hands are shaking, now.

He pulls it gently across her neck, her collarbones, wipes at her face, tracing her perfect mouth, down her arms, mapping her, Nux is making a map of her in his mind and every piece is just perfect, perfect, hollows under her arms--

--there's a scrap on him too, warm and wet and Capable glides it across his muscles and the feeling is so sweet his knees get weak, her soft hands, the linen--

--across her chest, slowly, and the scrap brushes against the pink parts and she moans--

--"Cheedo is right," Capable says, "you are a good teacher, Nux, watching you move when you fought us, I, I wanted you so badly--

--on his back, she's rubbing him, and water drips all the way down to the back of his legs--

--Capable's curves, her waist, her long legs--

--Capable finds a ticklish spot on him and teases it, but moves on, Capable, the lines of the V8 scar--

--and Nux is kneeling at her feet now, washing them, and the scent of her, here, like this, that part of her right at the level of his eyes--

--"Capable," he croaks--

--"please," is all she says, soft, desperate, "please--"

--runs his nose there, licks at the line of her, soft, wet, right here--

--falling into the nest, he's falling with her, hands under Capable's knees, he's looking up at her but her eyes are closed and she's got one hand in her long flame-colored hair--

--Nux can see her like this, finally, not like the night before, but in the sun, the softness of her--

--finds the small bud of her, licks it, Capable arching into him--

--pink, wet, glory--

--pole-thing trapped between his stomach and the nest and when he moves to lick at her, oh, that--

--"Nux," Capable says, "ah, Nux, can you--please, please--"

--so he keeps moving, his tongue, and his hips move with it, the drag of it, so sweet, right where he needs it most, and his tongue stroking at Capable, stroking--

--"oh," she gasps--

--rhythm of it, his mouth, his hips moving--

--Capable arching towards him, Nux puts one hand under the bow of her back to hold her there, at his mouth, close, like this--

--and she shatters, moaning, the taste of her--

--he's, the feeling, it's slamming up his spine to his head, hot, hot, like it was in Max's car in the desert--

--"Nux," Capable's hands on his head--

--so good, he can't see, so good--

--"Nux," and he hears her heart as he manages to move up a bit, rest his head on her chest, still shaking from it, the feeling--

--"Capable," and her arms are holding him and they're both shaking, but that's all right, because they're together, that's all right--

"Stay here," she mumbles, "please, Nux, I'm so tired, stay here until I wake up."

Nux's eyes are already closed, breathing with Capable.

"Yes," he manages, "with you, stay, yes."

Chapter Text

The thing about Max, Nux thinks, is that you never know he's there until he wants you to know.

That's why Nux isn't surprised when he spots Max out of the corner of his eye, sitting on a discarded tire and watching as the Sisters spar with one another.

Max doesn't wave or shout or signal in any way, but Nux wasn't expecting him to do that, really--the fact that he can see Max watching at all is good, like another person's greeting.

Nux walks over to Capable and The Dag, who are taking a break in sparring to drink from waterskins.

"That's really good," Nux says, because both of them are breathing hard and sweating.

The Dag sort of--she dips down, like she's bowing to him. "Thank you, oh ferocious one."

Capable winks at him. "Tell us what you're not telling us," she says. "We can take it."

He grins at her, can't help it. "You'll hit harder if you--if you drop your, your shoulders, and--tighten up."

The Dag offers him her waterskin and Nux takes a sip. "What do you mean, tighten up?"

He doesn't know how to answer her, doesn't have words for things like this. "When I was learning, they--the War Boys--used to hit us when we were expecting it, so we'd tense."

"Let's skip that today, shall we?" Toast calls over and she catches one of Cheedo's half-hearted punches. "Come on, Cheedo, remember, I'm an enemy!"

"No, I wouldn't do that," Nux answers quickly. "I wouldn't hit--that's--no." He licks his lips, thinking, before turning to Capable. "I think I could show you what I mean, if--can I touch you?"

The Dag mumbles under her breath, "I'd imagine you can touch her any time."

But Capable's eyes go soft, the way she's looking at him, like Nux has asked something special.

"Yes," she says.

"All right, so--stand like you two are sparring," Nux says, trying not to flush at the look Capable is giving him, or the way The Dag rolls her eyes.

The two Sisters shift positions, fists raised like he taught them. Nux walks around them once, checking angles. "That's good, so--now, just--"

"Nux," The Dag sighs, "just show us, before we are as old as the Vulvalini."

Nux moves up behind Capable and puts one hand on her hip, so he won't startle her. "First, drop your shoulders."

Capable shifts a little, but the lines of her back aren't quite right, and Nux isn't sure--

--he swallows, moves both hands to her shoulders. "Here, shrug up to your ears."

Capable's shoulders rise under his hands. "Good," Nux murmurs, and being close to her, close enough to feel her hair on his skin, he wants, he tries not to, but he wants--

"--is that right?" Capable asks.

Nux nods, realizes she can't see him, and goes on, "Yes, now roll them back and--and relax."

"I hate when people tell me to relax," The Dag says. "Giving me orders. It vexes me."

Capable rolls her shoulders back and down, exhaling--

"--what does she mean?" Nux murmurs into her ear.

"Nothing," Capable smiles, "don't worry"--

--and as she exhales again Nux slides his hands down her shoulder blades, until he feels the tension leave her.

"Like this," he says, "you keep your chest up, and your shoulders like this, so you can move easy, change your fists and arms."

The Dag mimics Capable. "Wouldn't we want our fists up by our faces, Nux?"

Nux nods at her. "Yes, but they don't always aim for your face."

"Pity," Capable teases, "if that was all enemies did, Dag, you'd be safe. You're too tall."

"So now you tighten your stomach muscles," says Nux, and he steps in a little bit, so he can lay a hand on her stomach.

Capable's chin starts to drop, looking down, and Nux puts his other hand softly on her neck. "Don't look down--you need to look up, at--at whoever is attacking."

"I don't even think I have stomach muscles any longer," sighs The Dag, rubbing at the bump in her belly that is the sprog.

"Breathe," Nux reminds Capable gently, who has gone tense and still, and she does, laughing softly.

Toast tosses Cheedo a waterskin, and strolls over to The Dag, talking about something, the garden, maybe, but Nux isn't paying attention.

He can feel his hand rise and fall with Capable's breath where he's touching her stomach, rise and fall.

"Sorry," Capable murmurs to him, "they get distracted."

From where he's standing, Nux can see every freckle on her left shoulder--

--should be thinking of fighting, footwork, the Sisters all need it, ducking and moving--

--wants to know how each of Capable's freckles tastes, wonders if she'd let him--

"--Yes," he says, hoarsely, because now he's thinking of yesterday, the taste of her, "distracted."

* * *

This is one thing Nux never expected with training--the touching.

War Boys didn't touch, not like this, not softly--their only touching was fighting, and for that you never needed words--

--and the only gentleness Nux can remember is Slit, pulling away stitches, Slit, who had only ever wanted to drive but didn't leave him like that, speechless, sightless, soundless and alone--

-- no, War Boys fought or War Boys died and that was all. So now Nux doesn't have the words for the Sisters, the sense of it, the feel of fighting.

Nux doesn't think he can teach the feeling of dread, constant, bitter, stealing sleep, being pitted against his litter for bets because pups were easy targets, doesn't think he can tell them what it meant to have to kill, and it never stopped--not even when he was grown, never--just the long hot days of sweating, sickness, passing time between raids by tearing at one another, and Nux knows he can't teach that to anyone, least of all the Sisters.

"You're doing fine," a voice rumbles behind Nux, much later in the day, when the Sisters have switched sparring partners and he's drinking water.

Nux turns, and it's Max, and he takes the waterskin from Nux's hands to drink, too.

Max squints into the sun with piercing blue eyes, doesn't look at him at all, following the movements of the Sisters out on the sand.

"I don't know what I'm doing," Nux says, watching Max as he watches the Sisters, and the only reason he can say the words is because the man is silent and still and not looking at him.

Max licks his lips.

"I don't know how to do this, teach people to fight," Nux goes on. "I only--I learned by hurting, and I don't want to hurt them, I can't, but someone will, eventually, someone--"

When Nux trails off, wordless, Max hands him the waterskin. He drinks again, before setting it down.

"They trust you," Max says at last. "That's no small thing."

Nux doesn't know what to say, so he waits until Max goes on.

"Someone will hurt them," Max says, "someday. But it won't be you, War Boy."

And the feeling of these words in his chest, his head, lighten Nux somehow.

"The touching," Nux confesses. "It's--it's big."

And he wants to say more, wants to talk to Max about many things, about the way Cheedo shivers away from his fingers, Toast tenses in his hands, the beautiful sounds Capable makes under his lips, The Dag, hands full of dirt, but he doesn't have the words, never does--

--Max lays his hand on Nux's shoulder for a moment.

His hand is heavy, but it is also safe, and Nux breathes, and breathes, and breathes.

Chapter Text

When Nux wakes in the blue-gray of the early morning and finds Capable gone, he goes searching.

She isn't in the Vault, and neither are any of the other Sisters. Nux turns to go up the stairs to check the garden, but then he hears a soft, low whistle. It's Max, standing in front of Furiosa's door. Nux goes over, opening his mouth to ask where--

--Max holds two fingers to his lips to quiet him, then tips his head towards the door. There's voices coming from inside--the Sisters.

"What's it like, Capable?" murmurs Cheedo's voice.

"It's..." Capable trails off, "it's hard to describe, it's wonderful."

"Can you feel his scars when he kisses you?" asks Toast, and Nux listens a little harder because--

"Not really, mostly his lips. But when I do it's not--it's all part of Nux, so it's good," Capable says, and now he knows they're talking about him.

Nux looks up at Max quickly, goes to step back--

--Max shakes his head, and anchors Nux with his hand.

"We shouldn't--" Nux starts, but Max doesn't move.

Then The Dag is talking.
"Have you seen his pole?" She asks, and her voice is hushed, hesitant.

Capable doesn't answer, but maybe she nods, because there's a quick intake of breath. "It's not...it's not like it was, before, with--it's all right."

"Does it--hurt?"

"No hair pulling?"

"Does he just hold you, then?"

"Do you just kiss, or--"

Capable laughs softly, and it's a beautiful sound. "No hair pulling. And yes, he holds me and we kiss or..." And Nux can tell even behind the door that she's flushing, just from the sound of her voice.

He wants to turn back, to flee and not listen, it's not fair, but every time he moves, another Sister starts to--

"Has he touched you down there yet?" Toast asks, bluntly.

"Um," says Capable softly. "Not--with his hands."

"The Vulvalini say it can be nice. Feeder told me," Cheedo says.

Toast's voice again, correcting, "They said if you touched yourself it would be nice, they didn't say anything about men."

"Well, it'd be the same, wouldn't it?"

"I don't know if--"

"I've tried it," Toast says, almost a challenge, as though she's waiting for someone to prove it isn't true.

"And?" asks Cheedo.

"I stopped," says Toast, a little ashamed. "It started all these good feelings, but it built up and, and I didn't know--"

"You were scared," says The Dag, softly, kindly, and for once Toast doesn't fight her on it, so Nux knows she must be frightened.

"Maybe it's less frightening, with another person," Capable says, "with Nux, it's not scary. Sometimes I think of--before--but with him nothing is like that."

"It can be different," says Furiosa, and her voice is so quiet Nux isn't sure it is really her until Max's hand trembles on his shoulder, clenches again. "If it's with the right person."

"Do you mean with M--" Toast starts to ask incredulously, but then Max throws open the door, stumbles in, towing Nux with him.

"Training," Max says, as though in explanation, as all the women stare at him in surprise.

Furiosa is the only one stone-faced, the hint of a smile in her eyes so faint that Nux wouldn't have seen it before he knew her like he does now.

Capable flushes immediately, can't meet Nux's eyes--

--"Training. Now!" Max barks and Toast, Cheedo and The Dag scramble over one another in their haste to follow him--

--"Capable," Nux tries, falling to his knees at her side --

--"Capable, I'll see you out there," Furiosa says as she follows the Sisters out, and it's not quite an order, but it is, all at once.

"Are you angry?" Nux babbles, the moment they are gone, "I'm sorry--Max called me over and--I knew we shouldn't, I, I'm sorry, Capable--"

Capable puts her hand on his arm and he melts closer to her. "Nux."

"I'm sorry," he says again, desperately. "Please, please don't s-send me away or--"

"Send you away?" Capable says, eyes widening in shock, "Nux, I'd never send you away, not even if I was angry--"

"You can--if you want--you can punish me," Nux gasps, thinking of ropes, of pain, the needle--

--Capable reaches up, a hand on each side of his face, but gentle, gentle, pulls his forehead down to hers--

"Nux," Capable says right near his mouth. "Breathe now, all right? I'm here. I'm not leaving you, I'm--oh," and Nux's face is wet with relief. "Oh, Nux, it's all right."

"I'm sorry," Nux says again.

She pulls back a little so she can see his eyes. "I'll never send you away. I need you to hear this. Never, never, never."

"C-capable," Nux stutters, because the words are unbelievable but sweet, sweet, the best words he's heard in his half-life.

Capable kisses him, softly, and leans back. "And I'm not angry. I was--Max wanted you to hear, I think, because Toast told him--" and she's flushing again.

He strokes back her hair, doesn't interrupt. Waits.

"Toast mentioned that Miss Giddy--she was our teacher, an old woman, a History Woman--"

Nux nods, because he's heard about history people, even if he's never seen one.

"She was supposed to take care of us, and teach us things--things men want, that Joe wanted--" Capable licks her lips, swallows before going on. "But Angharad wouldn't let her, and Toast told Max. Angharad--she said we didn't need to know all the ways he could hurt us."

Nux has to put his arms around her then, pull her close to him, close, and he's still shaking because she isn't sending him away, and she feels like glass in his arms, like she might shatter.

"I wasn't angry," Capable murmurs against his skin, "I was embarrassed because--I might not know how to, to please you, and I thought if I asked Furiosa, but before I really could, the Sisters came, and they all had questions--"

Nub kisses the top of her head, her temple, anywhere he can reach. "You always please me, Capable, you always do, you make me feel so--glory," and he strokes back her hair, gentle, gentle--

"I don't know anything either," he confesses "never heard of any of this, before you."

"Really?" Capable asks, and she's looking at him now--

"Really," Nux manages, because it's hard to speak of this, with her perfect eyes looking into him, hard to speak of any of it at all. "War Boys didn't--"

--didn't have space, time, solitude, food, nothing, and Nux didn't know his body could feel like it does with Capable, hard and strong and weak all at once, because before he was always sick and hurting and hot and there was never enough sleep, never, so hungry--

"War Boys didn't get to touch," Nux says, because it's the closest he can get to explaining, the way his life before dried him up and tore him open and left him empty, no space for anything to stay.

"You can touch me," Capable says, and she traces her fingers lightly on the lines of his palm, "you're my War Boy now."

And this makes Nux's hips stutter up into her, and she grips his shoulders, moans, doesn't recoil from him, arches into him, and her chest is at the level of his eyes, and he--

"Nux," The Dag's voice calls, "we're ready to train, come on."

Capable sighs heavily, squeezes his fingers. She kisses him once, lightly, and then gets to her feet. "We're needed," she says, and her lips are swollen from kisses, and it's only when she offers him a hand up that Nux realizes his own hands are shaking.

"I don't know if I can do this," Nux murmurs helplessly, as he staggers to the doorway.

"Maybe I'll let you win the first fight," Capable says over her shoulder, and her smile makes his knees weak all over again.

* * *

Furiosa is talking to Toast and Cheedo out on the sand, shading her eyes with one hand, and as Capable jogs over to The Dag, Max pulls Nux aside.

"All right?" He rumbles.

"Oh--yes," says Nux, confused. "What--"

"I'm--Furiosa said--" Max tries, and he gestures between them, and he licks his lips, goes quiet. "The listening," he says at last.

And as Nux watches him, the way he's trying his best to look at him, quick sharp blue glances then away, and back--

He's apologizing, Nux realizes, and he reaches out and touches Max's arm lightly, only two fingers.

"Blood Bag," Nux says, because he doesn't know how else to tell Max that it's all right.

Max opens his mouth, then nods, nods again.

"Max!" Furiosa calls, and it breaks the moment. "Attack me."

"What--" Nux starts to ask.

"We want to see how they spar," Toast grins. "How two people who can actually fight do it."

Max doesn't move. All of his body goes still, still next to Nux.

"Max," Furiosa calls again, and then Max is running at her--

--and his fist connects with air because she is moving, and she twists and hits out--

--Max grabs her arm and she buries her metal one in his hair, pulls--

--and he doesn't yell, not really, but he grunts and then he's falling, slamming Furiosa into the ground--

--Furiosa's heel in Max's stomach--

--sand, dust, and Furiosa is yelling and Nux can hear his own heartbeat in his ears, and Capable is suddenly clinging to his arm--

"Nux," she says, but--

--Furiosa bites at Max's hand and he releases her, hissing, and then she has her arm locked around his neck--

--Max's fingers scrabbling at her, and he kicks back, sweeps her leg out and she falls to her knees--

--and Max is on her, holding her, but she rolls him, kneels on him, hands at his throat--

"Yield," Furiosa growls, and Max falls back, and--

--and then it's over, and they are just two people on the sand again.

"Glory," Cheedo manages, because Toast is speechless, jaw dropped, and The Dag is laughing.

"That," Capable breathes, "Nux, like that, can you teach us--"

"Yes," says Nux, slowly, "but it--it'll be rough, at first."

"We can do it," says Toast excitedly, "we can, Furiosa--"

"It'll be hard," Furiosa says, evenly. "And Nux is better at pulling punches than Max or me."

"You're not staying?" asks Cheedo in surprise.

"Do this with Nux," Max rumbles, "first. Later--" and he trails off.

Furiosa nods. "Max and I are needed on patrol--one of the War Boys spotted something we should see."

"Cutter," Capable offers, "he knows what to show you."

"What is it?" Nux murmurs to her, as Max and Furiosa turn and move away.

"I don't know," says Capable, "but Cutter said it was strange."

"Smart," Nux says, and she looks up at him, smiling. "You are smart, sending them."

They watch the silhouettes of the Immortan and Max get smaller for a moment.
Max he doesn't lean into Furiosa, doesn't even touch her, but his head is tipped to her, and she's looking up at him, and it seems as intimate as a touch.

"Toast," says Nux, clearing his throat when it feels too close, to watch this, to have Capable beside him. "You first."

"Wh-what?" Toast asks, blinking.

Nux shakes out his arms, then crouches a little. "Attack me. I won't--I won't hurt you, and just say yield if you need me to stop."

Toast stares and then she runs at Nux, right at him, so it's only the work of a moment to catch her over his shoulder, lifting her feet off the ground, then spinning quickly to drop her, pinning her down with one hand. Nux can feel her collarbones under his palm, the beat-beat of her heart.

Toast stares at him, wide-eyed, says nothing, but she's still like that and he lifts his hand quickly, falls back.

"That," Toast stammers, "was amazing, that was--how did you--?"

After helping her to her feet, Nux shows her the span of their height distance. "You came at me straight," he explains, "and you're smaller and lighter than me, so tossing you was the easiest way."

"Oh," says Toast, and Nux can see that's she's thinking careful, looking at him.

"Again?" He asks, and she nods, so they go again and again and again, until Nux cannot pin her that way, not anymore.

* * *

After working with each of the Sisters on their weaker points--Cheedo's willowy frame, The Dag's need to protect her stomach, Toast's size and Capable's distinctive long hair--Nux sets them up to spar one another again, a little harder than the day before.

But Cheedo is the first to get hurt.

Nux is watching the Sisters from a few strides away when it happens. He'a looking for flaws he can train away or weaknesses he can turn into asserts for them. It looks like a simple mistake at first. Instead of raising her arm to block The Dag's punch, like the drills they've been practicing, Cheedo shudders away, and into The Dag's other blow before either girl can stop.

Nux isn't sure who gets there first, Toast maybe, but all the Sisters are on the ground and he's there, too, but he doesn't remember moving. There's blood welling from Cheedo's bottom lip, split, but her eyes are open and she sits up even as she's shaking.

"I'm sorry," The Dag gasps, "I'm sorry--"

"She's all right," says Nux, because it looks like just the lip, but for a moment--

"I'm okay," Cheedo parrots weakly.

Capable has her hand on Cheedo's back, rubbing against her. "This will happen," she says calmly, even as Toast looks ready to attack The Dag. "We're learning how to fight, it's--it's bound to happen--"

"No one has hit us since Joe," Toast snarls, "and now we--"

"--we are learning how not to get hit, ever again," Capable says seriously, and she looks at Nux, and she is so strong, and he thinks of her beside him, sleepy-eyed and loose-limbed, before he can help it, thinks of her driving Max's car and reloading a gun and very softly stroking the back of his neck as she kissed and kissed him that morning in Furiosa's room.

He thinks of her, and he tries to be the teacher she says he is. "Can we--can we have some space, Cheedo and me?" Nux asks.

For a moment it seems like the Sisters might refuse, except Capable, who is already moving back a little, followed by The Dag, who still looks shaken. Toast just glares at him, hard, unblinking.

"Please," Nux says and she steps back, not far, but back.

Cheedo looks at Nux and she's still stunned, he can tell, the surprise of it, because he's seen that look on too many pups, too many men, for too long. "I'm sorry," she says, again, "the girls just--I'm Cheedo the Fragile, and clumsy, and..."

When she trails off, Nux speaks. "Can I touch you?"

"Wh-what?" Cheedo stutters in surprise.

"I just want to look at your face," Nux explains, and he keeps his voice even and calm, the way he does when Capable freezes under his hands, when Cutter cringes. He tries to speak the way Max always does, unhurried and slow. "Can I? You can say no, or stop, but I won't hurt you. I just want to see, that's all."

Cheedo nods jerkily after a moment and Nux reaches for her chin--

--talking to her all the while, wants her to know it is only him--

--"that's right, just want to see--"

--tips her head back and into a better angle--

--"lip looks good, Cheedo, it's just split, we can fix that, that'll heal--"

--moving slow, so slow, doesn't want to scare her.

Cheedo is quivering under his fingers like a motorcycle kicking to life, or an old rig on its last run. Nux can see Capable out of the corner of his eye, arms around The Dag, and her eyes are soft.

"I won't hurt you," he says to Cheedo, who is still staring at him with wide, dark eyes. He moves his thumb, just one quick slide across her chin, affectionate, and then Nux stands and offers her a hand.

"Live to fight another day," he says, and Cheedo takes it, stands, and he can't help but grin at her, because she's not shaking so much, not any longer.

"Is that what War Boys say?" Cheedo asks, and the hint of a smile is on her face.

"No," says Nux, because it is true, "no, but that's what you say. Because you are not the fragile, Cheedo."

She doesn't believe him, not yet, Nux knows, but the Sisters are all relaxing around him, breathing again, ready to get back to drills, and that's something that he helped happen, an ease in their tension, and Nux doesn't know what it means but his chest feels looser and lighter too.

* * *
It's a special case, fighting with The Dag, because of the sprog inside her. She's always been easy with her touches on him, relaxed, and so Nux doesn't expect it when she pauses suddenly in learning a chokehold, letting his neck drop.

"Glory," she murmurs and Nux is standing, looking at her, but the Sisters seem calm--

"Did it happen again?" asks Toast excitedly.

The Dag is smiling now, wonderingly, and she nods. "Little sprog is doing a jig in here I think."

"What does that mean?" Nux asks, panicked, because her hand is on her stomach and the sprog, what does she--"It's still in you, isn't it--sleeping, or--it's not--"

"Here, this happens," The Dag says and takes his wrist and brings his hand to press against her belly. "It's not bad."

Nux can feel the warmth of her skin through the thin linen and he glances at Capable, but she's already started sparring with Cheedo again, so it must be all right.

Then it happens. It feels like a little heartbeat under his hand, quick, jolting out, and Nux moves away as quick as he can. "What, is it, dead, isn't, I don't," he says nonsensically, babbling.

The Dag just laughs at him, but her smile is gentle. "No, no, little thing is just tipping his hat."

That makes as much sense as anything The Dag ever says--very little--so Nux lets her take his hand back, press it against her again.

"It is the sprog, moving inside," The Dag explains.

"Is that--bad?" Nux says cautiously.

"No," she answers, "no, the only thing bad about the sprog is his schlanger of a father," and The Dag's eyes go far away then, until Nux gently trails his fingers across her stomach, feeling another jolt under her skin.

"Guess he's all right, though," The Dag sighs, "He's here, and he's not disappearing," and she pats Nux's hand before moving away.

* * *

The sun gets too hot before Nux has a chance to spar with Capable--that's the excuse he uses, anyway. But he can't lie, not even to himself--he is grateful for this, grateful for one more day where he doesn't have to cause her pain.

Capable wants to go meet with the returning patrol, and Nux plans to speak with Cutter the next day. This is Capable's plan: see what the War Boys tell each of them, what they struggle to tell to her. It's a good plan, because the War Boys seem half-terrified of Capable, half in awe of her.

When the Sisters follow Capable, Nux seizes the chance to spend time alone in the Vault. He washes himself thoroughly in the pool, marveling at the feel of the water all over again. It laps gently at his ruined scarred skin.

He turns his hands over and over, looks carefully at his arms. Without the War Boys' white paint and powder each day, his skin is getting a little darker. He looks more like Max now, less like Cutter. Slit, with his soot-stained face, the oil on his clothes, might be this shade too, Nux thinks. But who could tell under all of that--or under the Gastown people's clothes--

--Nux dries himself off, wrapping the scrap of fabric around his waist to walk to Capable's room--

--why so many clothes in Gastown, Nux wonders absently, and are scars reason enough to wear so much in the desert--could Slit have answers now, maybe---

--Nux opens the door and something pounces at him, all arms and legs, out of nowhere, why--

--he dodges a punch and the thing is clawing its way on to his back and it was in Capable's room, Capable--

--her hair sticks to his lips--

--"Capable?" Nux asks in disbelief--

--she laughs as tries a chokehold on his neck as she's climbing his back, legs wrapped around his hips, "Nux," she says, "fight me, I can do it--"

--and Nux slips his hand under her arms, and he can feel her laughing against him, and he can't help his smile, holds her arms back so he can breathe, and his skin is still wet from the pool and he isn't thinking right, he's sure--

"--is this--are you attacking me?" He asks, and he can feel her nod, and it makes him smile wider but--

"--wait," he manages, "don't want to hurt you--"

"Then teach me how to protect myself," Capable pants, and he finds her foot, starts to pull her off of his back--

"--this isn't--" Nux starts, even as she lands a punch on his arm--

"--just as tough as Toast, I am,"--

--but the punch isn't hard, she's protecting him, she isn't trying to hurt him--

"I know that--" and Nux has his arms up over his face to block her hits--mostly slaps now, what is she--

"--just us here, Nux, you can--" she stops, licks her lips. "Nux," Capable says, and she's smiling at him, radiant, and she pauses for a moment and she's breathing hard, chest heaving, and so is he and the cloth he has around his waist has slipped lower now--

"--don't want to hurt you," Nux breathes--

"You won't, I, I trust you," Capable groans, and she lunges back at him, back at his throat, and she does something with her legs, what--

--and Nux is on his back on the ground, she's on top of him, and her teeth are in his neck and--

"Yield," Capable growls, and she has both hands pushed down flat on his chest and she's sitting astride him and--

"Yield to me," she says against his throat, and she looks beautiful and dangerous and fiery and all the things Capable is, perfect, and something breaks in Nux--

--he arches up towards her, needs her closer, now, and she grinds down into his hips and Nux falls back, helpless--

--perfect pressure where he needs it, feels it all the way to the top of his skull--

"I yield," Nux manages and she's laughing, and he's laughing, and then he has his mouth at her chest, dying for a taste of her through the linen, and the pink parts of her are swollen against his lips--

--Capable, moaning her hands on his face, and glory she is--

--"so strong," Nux gasps into her mouth, "you--gentle, but--glory--" he bites out, because she rolls her hips against his again--

"I won't break," Capable breathes against his ear, and even through the towel he can feel her, and he's so hard, so--

"Watching you fight with them, the Sisters but not me--the way you move, Nux," and Capable says against his skin, says it with teeth against his collarbone--

"--only you," Nux answers, "always you, Capable, the way you move--"

--and she does it again, grinds down, and this time they both breathe in--

"--all right?" Nux stutters out, "is--"

"--yes," Capable pants, "Nux the way you feel--just, just don't--not in me--"

"I promise," Nux says, and his hands are shaking as he brushes back her hair, finds her eyes. "I have the--the cloth thing--"

"The towel," Capable says, "okay, can that--stay? I--your pole, not in me, but, I want to--" and she rubs herself against the cloth, against him--"can I--?"

"Yes," Nux kisses her, "yes," can't stop saying it, because anything she wants, anything, "you just, just tell me if I should stop--"

--and she grinds and this time he jerks up against her and even through the towel he can feel her--

"Oh," Nux moans, "you like this, you're--wet--"

"You're my lancer," Capable says, and it's a question and a promise, and she's moving back against him, and it's like they are one body--

"--the way you--d-drive me Capable--" Nux gasps and she arches and the rhythm of it, the moving, moving--

--Capable breathes in, sharp, high, sound of his name on her exhale, and she's shuddering and Nux is coming apart underneath her, pulsing, vision white at the edges--

"I never thought you'd break, Capable," he murmurs into her hair when he has his breath again, when she falls back, shaking against him.

"You keep me--" Capable breathes, and breathes--

Nux waits.

"You keep me from breaking," she says, and her eyes are dark and liquid and beautiful, looking into his like his face means something, like he has answers.

"Yes," Nux breathes, traces her bottom lip with her thumb. "And--and you--you make me, better, Capable, you make me--"

"Yes," she says against his lips. "Mine," she says, and when she kisses him, Nux feels water in his eyes but he's not sad, not at all, no--

He's whole.

Chapter Text

What Cutter found in the desert was a field of bones, and he gently, apologetically, hesitantly insists on taking Nux there.

It's the first time Nux has ever been alone with Cutter--the first time, maybe, he's been alone with anyone, except Capable and Max and Slit and The Dag and--but then he stops, because Nux realizes there are many people on the list now.

But this is maybe a good thing, and Cutter hands him the keys to the rig without speaking and then they're moving and the Road is familiar under the wheels and it's good, it's good, it's good.

Nux drives until Cutter tells him to stop, turns off the road into one of the endless desert stretches near a half-crumpled dune.

The Citadel is only a looming shape in the distance, and Gastown and The Bullet Farm aren't even visible.

The field of bones isn't particularly large--not as big as the Wretched's town, but bigger than The Dag's garden--and it seems built into the dune itself, or underneath it.

"See?" Cutter says, once they've gotten out of the rig. He reaches down and holds up most of a bleached skull. "Lots of bones here."

The skull feels powdery in Nux's hands, delicate. "These are old bones, though? Not--nothing died here lately, did it?"

"It's all like this," Cutter says. "All old. And there's more--some rocks, but strange ones, strange--like this one."

So Nux follows Cutter down the gentle slope of the dune until they see a small bit of rock peeking above the sand. Cutter runs one of his hands--too small, Nux thinks, almost the hands of a pup--over it, and then blows softly.

"It's got--scars," Nux realizes, and he drags a finger in one of the short, deep grooves.

Cutter nods. "There's more, too."

"Broken like this?" Nux asks, and Cutter nods again. Nux continues to brush away the sand, thinking. "Bones here, right, that's---but where did the stones come from?"

Realizing what Nux is doing, Cutter chips into the grooves too. His smallest finger can reach the places Nux's bigger hands can't. "Could the people have carried them, before they became bones?"

His voice is hesitant, uncertain. Nux thinks of Rictus asking questions with his fists, pounding into his stomach or his pole or his throat if Nux got it wrong, and maybe sometimes a War Boy got the question right, and he hit anyways, that's what Nux thinks now--

He raises a hand to wipe sweat from his face and Cutter cringes back.

Nux drops his hand instantly, and he waits until Cutter has opened his eyes before he answers.

"That's good," Nux says, like he does when he's teaching the Sisters how to fight, because these words work so well and make even Toast smile. "That's really good, Cutter."

The tension drains from Cutter's shoulders, and he almost--but doesn't quite--smiles. "Dumb thing to do though, carrying rocks."

"The bones could be very old," Nux says, slowly. "Old as the Vulvalini. Maybe they used to be important, like the--what's the word--the shows."

"The shows?" Cutter asks, and he pulls out a waterskin and offers it to Nux.

Nux takes a sip before he answers. "When I was on the Road--before, when I was--with Furiosa, we spent the night near the salt with the Vulvalini. They said--something about the sky, and shows, and everyone got one back then."

"Everyone got a show?" asks Cutter, incredulously. "Even--even half-lives?"

"I don't know," says Nux, because it is the truth. "I don't know what half-lives did then."

"I hope they got shows," Cutter says softly, and he sounds like hope.

Nux clasps him on the shoulder for a second, then picks up the scarred rock piece. "Let's get this in the rig--I want to show Capable. Did Max or the Imperator say--"

"Not a word," Cutter answers quickly, scrambling up the dune after Nux. "They just looked and looked and then we came back."

The piece of stone is about the size of a plate. Nux puts it carefully on the floor of the rig, where it won't slide too much.

"What is a show, anyway, Nux?" Cutter asks quietly, as Nux gets the rig started.

Nux raises his eyes from the kill switches.

Cutter looks like a pup like this, in a big seat on the rig, with the paint and powder fading on his face from the sweat and the heat. Cutter looks at Nux, again, like he is Rictus, like he is someone who might hurt might strike him, but his face also looks the way Nux imagines he looks at Capable--hungry, needing, gentle.

"You drive," says Nux, sliding to the floor of the rig to let Cutter slide over.

"Wh-what?" Cutter stutters in disbelief.

"You drive this time," Nux says, because Max taught him this, that you can answer questions with an action as well as with words, and better, and because Cutter has proven over and over that he isn't a pup at all.

His hands shake on the wheel, but once they are moving Cutter cuts his eyes to the side at Nux, beaming.

Nux thinks this may be a show.

* * *

The bone place scares people, Nux learns. When he returns from the War Boys' tunnel carrying the stone he nearly runs into
Furiosa, who clenches her teeth so hard that her lips go white--but he doesn't know why she is afraid, or what is inside the bone place that is dangerous.

"It's not alive," Cutter told Nux as they parted, the same thing he told Capable, and he looked at Nux like he would have all the answers. "It is just a place. If it's not alive and it's not a weapon, it can't hurt us. Right?"

But Nux knows many things can hurt now, and not all of them are things he can see and touch, or things that breathe and move.

So he decides to do what he always does, when he is unsure: he looks for Capable.

She's inside the Vault in the pool, and her long dark curtain of red hair is the first thing he sees, wet and dangling over the edge.

"Hello, Nux," Capable says, without turning to look, and the way she's able to do this now, able to know who he is without looking by just his steps or his breathing--it makes something go warm in Nux's chest. She has her hands in her hair, rubbing a bar of soap into her head.

"I talked to Cutter," Nux says. He sets the stone down on the floor outside the door, where it won't get stepped on or knocked aside, and then he walks over to sit beside her. The warm water feels good on his feet.

"And he told you the same thing he told me," Capable asks, "about the graveyard?"

"Can--can I try that?" Nux touches her hair hesitantly, distracted by the bubbles.

Capable hands him the bar of soap, and even when he asks things like this, close things, touching things, she never makes him feel like he is bad for asking.

He rubs the soap between his hands, then buries his fingers in her long hair. "The graveyard...is that the name for the bone place?"

She leans back into his hands, and her breath stutters out and relaxes. "That feels so nice."

"Am I doing it right?" Nux asks uncertainly, because if he ever had hair in his life, it was before he was a pup, before he can remember, and even then, he thinks he was hairless. Half-lives didn't get to grow anything; half-lives burned themselves out.

"Everything you do is right," Capable murmurs, and he has to stop to kiss her then.

Capable answers when she lets him go to draw in a breath, and her eyes have gone all dark and gentle. "Yes, a graveyard is a name for the bone place."

"He took me to it," says Nux. "The bone place or--the graveyard thing--and sand was covering it. And there were stones and bones."

"He took you? That's good, Nux, that's really good," Capable says, smiling, and Nux feels the words all the way to his spine, and wonders if that's what people feel, when he says those words to them.

"Furiosa hates it," Capable goes on. "And Max...the look on his face..."

Nux combs his fingers through her hair, and she tilts her head back further, baring the long line of her throat. "Why would anyone hate bones and stones?"

"Don't dead things make you uncomfortable? Or sad?" Capable's hair slips through his fingers, and she starts to rinse.

"No," says Nux, which is the truth. "We--the War Boys, we were always dying."

Capable looks at him for a long moment. "Nux--come in with me, if you want--"

He tears off his pants as quickly as he can, slides in with her. "If I--of course I want to, Capable, I--"

She stops his mouth with a kiss, then another, and---"I just needed you closer."

"Is this close enough?" Nux murmurs, nuzzling her ear.

"No," Capable breathes, "no, Nux, never close enough."

Nux pulls her into his chest, stroking the long line of her spine. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, I just--I don't like to think of before, when you--when so many died, and--" Capable kisses his chest, lightly, lightly, just over his heart.

"I am not dead," says Nux as gently as he can, "I'm here. I'm right here, Capable, and I won't leave you."

"We can talk more about the graveyard later," Capable says against his mouth. "But first--I have something I want to try. You'll like it."

"Anything you do I like," Nux answers as she walks him backwards, pressing him against the side of the pool. "Do I get to kiss you?"

"Not with this," Capable says, and her eyes are dark and soft. "I kiss you instead, somewhere that--I kiss you, this time."

Chapter Text

At first, Nux can't tell what's happening.

Capable's mouth is on his, pushing at him, hot, heavy, and she's pushing him and suddenly he's out of the pool, sitting on the edge and she's balancing with her hands on his legs, craning up to reach his mouth, kissing him, Capable---

"Nux," she says and her mouth is hard but her hands are soft, soft as she drops down again, back in the water, and he leans forwards to follow her--

"Nux," Capable says again, and she put her hand on his chest to stop him. "Can I--will you let me try something?"

There's a droplet of water on her lower lip, and Nux smooths it away with one of his rough black thumb fingers, and he can't breathe for a minute, the deep of her eyes, the softness.

"Always," Nux manages, "anything--"

Capable sinks and a little deeper down, kneeling on the seat inside the pool, and she's kissing his stomach--

"That's--" Nux starts, "oh--

--her tongue, tracing the muscles--

"You're so--the lines of you, Nux--" Capable's mouth has found the channels between the muscles of his stomach, and it almost tickles but it also feels hot, and something heavy is growing in him--

"Do you like that?" Nux manages, because he hasn't ever thought about it, his stomach is just a muscle, a hungry one, and if he keeps it tight like this punches won't hurt so badly--

"Yes." Capable's mouth on his scars, the smoke of the V8, lower--

"I'm sorry," Nux gasps, because her face is at the hollows of his hips, lips trailing down, and he--the pole-thing--so hard, scared it will poke her, hurt her face like this--

"No, stop," Capable pants into his skin, "don't apologize, don't, not for wanting me--"

Nux groans, because her wet hair is trailing on his legs and her mouth--"never sorry for that," he moans, "always want you--"

Capable stops for a second and she looks up at him, dark huge eyes, "you are," she says, "the only one I've ever wanted to feel like that, about me."

"Can I kiss you?" Nux begs, because he leans forward to do so but her hands grip on his hips like iron and his skin feels hot and tight everywhere because she is strong like this, can hold him, control him, but he isn't afraid, not of this, not of her.

"I'm going to kiss you instead," Capable murmurs and her eyes never leave his as she moves and--

Oh.

OH.

"C-capable," Nux groans so loudly he can feel it in his chest because she pressed a kiss--there--tip of the--kiss--wet, her mouth--

--on his pole-thing--

"Is that all right?" She asks softly, hot breath where he's hardest--

"Oh," Nux manages, "yes, yes, oh, Capable, you don't have to--don't if you--"

She does it again and that moan come out again and his eyes actual close for a second because watching Capable's mouth on--on him, like--

"I want to," she says, and her voice is hard, that blazing look, but it falters and for a moment Capable looks at him like he's someone else, "just--don't, don't move, don't ch-choke me--"

"Never," Nux gasps, "I won't move, I promise, never hurt you--"

"And could you--could you talk to me, while I--while I do this, I want to know you're with me--"

Nux leans forward, laces his fingers with hers--

"I'm here," he says--

--thinks of the Immortan, of his bloated body and his hands harsh in her perfect hair, thinks of gutting him, thinks of--

"Just your Nux here," he says, "just me, you can stop, you don't--anything--"

"I drive," Capable smiles and the lines drop from her face, the worry, and she leans forward and--

--kisses, along his length, soft, then a little harder, tongue, Capable, her mouth, kissing him there, the place Nux thought was bad but under her, like this--

--making sounds he doesn't recognize, wrung out of his throat--

"--glory, Capable, I don't--this, I, this, I didn't know--" and Nux is moaning so loudly it sounds like he's someone else--

--and her mouth closes over the tip of him and she sucks, softly.

Nux shudders, feels it all the way to his spine, Capable, one hand wrapped around the base him, and he has to have her closer, hands in her long hair, stroking, so gentle, won't hurt, never hurting, and she moans a little and that--the hum of her mouth, onhimonhimonhim--

"I--" Nux gasps, because this is so--he's close to--something, and suddenly he's afraid, "I might, I don't, so good, Capable, so good, I am, I can't, I'm--"

"It's all right," Capable murmurs, "I'm here Nux..."

And the hot white heat of her mouth, her hand, his insides pulsing like this and he never, never knew--

"Nux," Capable says again and her eyes are staring into his and Nux wants to close his eyes because it's so much, too much, but he can't because he needs her and--

"Let me taste you, Nux, please," Capable murmurs and then her mouth is on him, eyes on him, down up, downupdownup, fast--

--Nux is shouting and it sounds far away even in his own ears and the flash of heat of tension up his spine down, out, that feeling only Capable gives him, pulsing, letting gogogo--

--he cries out as it spills out of him and her mouth is there and her hands over his in her hair, gripping him, and Nux thinks he might die from this, from this much feeling, and her mouth, her eyes--

"Capable, Capable, Capable," Nux chants, shivers, moans, and his vision goes white at the edges and he falls back, limp, with only her hands and her mouth keeping him there--

"Capable," he breathes, and breathes.

Her hand stroking his cheek is what brings Nux back. He opens his eyes to see Capable staring at him, gentle, so soft--

"Did I hurt you?" she asks, "Nux, you're crying--"

And Nux reaches up and guides her face to his, kisses her, the wetness of her mouth, salt of her tongue, is it--it's his taste inside her and he shivers so hard because he's been in her like that--

"You didn't hurt me," Nux murmurs, "glory be--Capable, what was--I--"

"You liked it," Capable says and she's smiling at him now, gentle, so, like he's worth the kindness.

"Everything," Nux says, because nothing is a big enough answer, no words the right size for this feeling. "Everything, with you, I--Capable, anything with you."

And perfect Capable--glory be, she starts singing, but in her throat, a hum, and Nux feels his face get wetter, water leaking from his eyes, but he's not sad, not like this, not at all.

Chapter Text

Furiosa calls them all to a meeting the way Max calls anyone: by saying nothing.

She walks into the room with the Sisters after they've eaten and Nux can see that she's holding the rock thing he and Cutter brought back. She is holding it so tightly that the bones in her fingers look white through her skin. It makes Nux think of all the bones in the bone place. It wasn't a sad place before, not in the way Capable seemed to think, but seeing this, now, makes the bone place feel different. Nux thinks of the bones inside Furiosa and how they'd look in the sand and it makes the space behind his ribs ache.

"Nux and Cutter have found a graveyard," Furiosa says, putting the rock with the scars on Toast's bed.

"A bone place," Nux adds, when the Sisters do not say anything, but look at Furiosa, look at him, at Furiosa. Capable's hand rests lightly on his back.

"...so, what does that mean?" Toast says. "Lots of places have bones."

Furiosa looks at her. "This is different."

"Old," Max grunts. He's behind Furiosa and his face is in the shadows.

"From before," Furiosa says.

The Sisters erupt at this, Toast with questions, Cheedo with tears, and The Dag begins whistling. Capable says nothing but her hand on his back twitches.

"Before?" Nux asks.

The Dag says, "Before the world was the world."

He nods at her, because even though The Dag is hard to understand, this sounds like something true.

Toast isn't so patient. "From when? What?"

"Before the war." Max's voice seems far away.

Nux doesn't understand. "Before...war? But before that there was nothing. Just the road."

"You're too young to remember. You're all too young," Furiosa says, when Toast rolls her eyes. "Even I only remember pieces of it. But it wasn't always like this; it wasn't always desert and blood."

"One of the books I found says something about this," Cheedo says. "Something about the way the world died."

"Didn't die. We killed it." Max paces behind Furiosa, turns as if to leave, then turns back. He looks lost. "The bombs. And. The war. Was us that did it."

"I thought The Immortan killed the world," Capable says softly. The name makes her hand shake, so Nux covers it with his own, to protect it, to keep her close.

Toast spits in the dirt. "And we killed him."

"There were many things that made the world die," Furiosa says. She is looking at the Sisters, only the Sisters, though Nux knows she must hear Max pacing behind her. "The bombs were bad."

The Dag makes the sound of an explosion, and drums her fingers out around her face. "Raining fire and brimstone like the end of days."

"Raining poison," Furiosa says.

"Death," Max grunts.

Capable's hand trembles under Nux's fingers and he is talking before he knows what he's saying. "But we are alive now. That's--it's shine, us being here. Not with the bombs."

There is a look on Furiosa's face and Nux doesn't know what it means. It's the way she used to look when she came back from a raid and got out of the Rig and stood alone for a long time. "The bombs made the world sick for a long time, and still, now."

Toast draws in a breath, and reaches for Nux so suddenly he almost flinches back. "These." She's pointing to Larry and Barry.

Furiosa doesn't nod, but she doesn't need to for Nux to know that it's true.

"I'm...a bomb?" Nux asks. He thinks if he's a bomb he should let go of Capable. He thinks if he's a bomb he'd rather be burning still in the wreck of the cars.

"No," and Capable's voice is certain. "You are not a bomb. Never."

"But the bombs are what do it, what makes the--" Cheedo gestures to her neck.

"Larry and Barry," Nux says.

"What's left of the bombs could make Larry and Barry," Furiosa nods. "They could make lots of War Boys sick. They killed a lot of people, before."

"And that's why there's a graveyard," says Toast, and she nods.

War Boys getting sick. Nux tries to think of it. War Boys are always sick, Larry and Barry and all of their mates under skin growing, hungry and searching. Hungry and tired. Hungry and hot. No aqua cola, no sleep, just theroadtheroadtheroad. Not chrome, never chrome, not the War Boys.

"What does the rock mean?" Cheedo asks, but she sounds far away.

"This shape means danger," Furiousa touches the scars on the rock with her metal hand. "But it might also mean answers."

"The word says 'test site,' here," Cheedo says. "What's the test?"

"See how quick we can blow ourselves to hell," Max spits, and he's moving then, to the door, he's leaving, Max is gone.

Furiousa does not turn around. "He saw it, before. The way the world was."

"Green and growing," The Dag says and the words are like a song. "Poor Max."

Bloodbag, Nux thinks, and he touches Larry and Barry.

"If we go to the test site, we might learn things. How to help the War Boys," Furiosa says. "How to stop the sickness."

Nux doesn't know what stopping the sickness means, except going to Valhalla, or just being dead, like all the sick ones, dead and bones in a pile or victorious on the Fury Road, live and die and live again, the sick ones, dead and dead and bones. He presses on Larry and Barry until he can feel them on his windpipe, pressing in, until it hurts and hurts, and then he cannot stop pressing.

"Off," he hears a voice say, "get them off. Bombs."

"You're sick, Nux," says Cheedo quickly, "It's not like that."

"That's all it is, Nux, you're--"

"It's not like it--"

But the Sisters voices are very quiet and the other voice is very loud.

"Off, get them off, get them, my mates, sick, not chrome, bad, bad, dangerous," and Nux's throat hurts and Max is back in the room, back with his eyes seeing everything and his hands on a gun and the voice won't stop talking, won't stop, and it's Nux's voice--

"--sick and dead and sick and bones and sick and dead and--"

Hands are touching him and moving his fingers from Larry and Barry and he tries to fight back, he tries to stop it, so that he can go on pressing until they disappear inside him and they won't hurt anyone not ever again but the hands are strong and there's talking and talking and---

Nux doesn't realize Capable is holding him until he hears her heart under his ear. He would know her heart out of any others, he thinks, like one of his engines. He'd know the sound.

"Nux," Capable is saying. "It's all right. I'm here, you're all right. I'm here with you. It's safe."

Her red red hair falls into his face like copper wires or the sun off of chrome in his eyes.

"Not safe," Nux says, "not like this, with these on me."

"That's why we're going back to the test site," Furiosa says, and her hand is on his arm, until he looks up at her and sees her eyes. "Nux, we are going to make everyone safe, not sick."

Nux wants to tell her that this is too much, that War Boys are never safe, that bombs are inside his body and he knows they'll come out one day.

Nux wants to tell Furiousa a lot of things.

Instead he says, "Not like this."

Beatbeat. Beatbeat. Capable's heart. "Like this," she says, "with me."

Chapter Text

Max doesn't say much. He looks at things, and he thinks about things, and he does things, but he doesn't often use words.

Sometimes Nux wishes he was like this, because he thinks sometimes he says too much, like after Larry and Barry and the crying in the Sisters' room. There are no good words to say after crying.

Nux is in their nest with Capable and she is holding him. The Sisters went to sleep a long time ago, and Furiosa came with them to their room and said words to Capable and then she left.

He feels like he is empty inside and hollowed out. Capable's hair smells like the sunshine.

"I'm sorry," Nux says.

"There's nothing to be sorry for," says Capable. She is tracing the V8 scars on his chest very lightly with her thumb.

There are no words for this, but Nux tries. "I--it's that I get broken, like that, sometimes, in front of all of them, and I--I want to be fixed. I'm sorry. I'll fix it. I will."

Her hand stops moving and presses hard over where his heart is. "You don't need to be fixed, Nux."

"My eyes get wet and everything is loud and I can't--"

"Me too, don't you remember? I cry all the time." Capable's voice is soft and she shifts so her lips are close to his ear. "Crying doesn't mean broken."

Nux turns so he can see her perfect eyes. "Not for you," he says,"you're never broken but I'm, I'm a half-life."

"You are my whole life," Capable says. "My whole life, Nux, is you."

There are no words for this feeling either, the way she looks at him like he is all things chrome, the way she looked at him before the fire ate him up, the way Capable always looks at him as though she was seeing Nux for the first time and he was a good thing to see.

"You are mine," he says, "Capable--before you, I was so, so alone, but I didn't--and then there was the Road and--" Nux puts his hand over hers where it is on his chest. He can feel the bones of her hands but they are not sad, not like the bone place. They are part of Capable and they are alive.

***
The next morning they go back to the bone place--Nux and Cutter with Furiosa and Max and Capable.

"You don't have to go," Nux tries to tell her, as they climb into the rig. "I won't get like I was before, last night, I don't think."

Capable slides across his lap so she is between him and Cutter in the back. "I want to go. I can be helpful."

"You are always helpful," says Cutter, softly, and then he looks surprised, like the words didn't mean to come out.

Capable smiles at him and squeezes his hand. "Thank you, Cutter. But you're the helpful one; you found the graveyard."

Max climbs in the front and glances back at them, fast flash of his blue eyes and away, flash and away. He looks like he is scanning for enemies.

"All right, Max?" Capable asks, but Max only makes a sound in his throat, and Nux figures that means yes.

After giving last-minute instructions to Toast, Furiosa climbs beside him, hits the kill switches, and they go roaring away from the Citadel.

The bone place looks the way Nux remembers it--small and scattered. But the way Max and Furiosa look at it makes him worry it is dangerous, makes him think about the bombs and Larry and Barry and the sickness and the War Boys and--

--Capable's hands are on his face. "Nux," she is saying, "come back."

"I'm here," Nux says, swallowing. He swallows again then so he can feel the place where Larry and Barry press on his windpipe. Cutter, who has walked a little ahead to show Max the spot where they found the scarred stone, whistles to them, and they climb up the dune.

On his knees in the sand is Max, poking at something. He does not look up at them.

Furiosa is already talking to Cutter. "This is the spot? You're sure?"

"Yes, Imperator," Cutter nods. "Me 'n Nux were right here when we found the rock thing."

"There's lots of rock things," Furiosa sighs, looking out across the dune.

"It was right here, I'd stake my rig on it--" Cutter starts to protest, but Furiosa interrupts him.

"I believe you Cutter. I only meant this place is--I don't like it."

Max grunts, to himself or no one, and Nux kneels down beside him to try and find out what he's looking for.

"We need to set up a perimeter," Furiosa is saying. "Capable, you and Cutter walk as far to the east as the bones go, and tell me when they stop."

"Not far, probably," says Capable. She runs her hand over Nux's head lightly and starts walking. Nux pretends not to watch her leaving, but he does anyway. He thinks he is very secret until he notices Max looking at him.

"I can help," Nux says quickly. "I wasn't--I mean, tell me what to do."

In his throat, Max makes the sound that is not quite a laugh, but close. "Dig."

They scoop sand away with their hands like shovels, and it's hard because it keeps rushing back into the spaces they empty. Nux thinks maybe they are looking for more bones. Maybe they aren't looking for anything. Sometimes, Rictus would have the War Boys dig when they had done something bad or wrong or slow, but he was never looking for anything. Or if he was, he didn't tell them what it was.

"Here," Capable calls. She's close enough that Nux can see her still, but far enough away that it would take him three minutes to run to her. Furiosa is to the west, marking lines in the sand, and she waves further south.

"Hey," says Max, so Nux goes back to digging. He seems like he's far away, like there's something in the dune that he forgot and needs to find.

"What do you think is under the sand?" Nux asks.

Max widens the edge of the hole so he can dig down deeper without the wall collapsing. "Dunno. Something, maybe."

"How will we know when we've found it?"

"It'll look different than all this," Max says, and he jerks his chin to the side, to the dune, the rig, the desert.

They keep digging until the hole is deep enough for them to stand in side by side. This takes a long time, so long that Cutter and Capable come back and start to help.

Furiosa shades her eyes with her flesh hand, looks down at them in the sand. "Max, it's bigger than it should be."

He doesn't look up, but Nux knows he's heard her, because Max's muscles tighten. It's something he wouldn't have noticed before he spent so much time with Max, but now he can see it, because it's one of the ways Max talks without talking.

"This is too big to be a graveyard."

Pulling a water skin off of her belt, Capable takes a long drink and hands it to Nux. "Maybe it's for a lot of people."

"It's bigger than the War Boy pit," says Cutter, as he takes the water from Nux. "There's no more people anywhere than War Boys." Then he stops suddenly, cursing. "FANG it!"

Nux slides over to him. "What?"

"Hit my hand. Something hard," Cutter says, sucking at his bleeding knuckles.

"Stop a minute. Let me clean that off--" Capable starts to say, but then Max is in the center of them, digging where Cutter dug, fastfastfast--

There's a clanging sound when Max hits his hands but he doesn't stop, he doesn't stop, and as he flings sand out of the way Nux can see something start to come up, some metal thing. Then they are all digging, even Cutter, Furiosa on her hands and knees besides Max, and the metal thing gets bigger and bigger and it's scarred, too---

"This," Furiosa says, and they all stop. "It's the same." It looks like the scars on the rock.

"Toxic," says Max.

Furiosa traces the shape with her finger. "You don't know that. This could be a bunker." Max snorts at her, but Furiosa doesn't look away from him. "Why not?"

"No time," Max says shortly, "not at the end, for bunkers."

'Bunker' is a word that Nux doesn't know. He looks at Capable, but she doesn't seem to know either, shakes her head at him.

"What's a bunker?" she asks Furiosa.

"The rock Cutter and Nux brought back said 'test site' on it," Furiosa explains. "If they were testing bombs here, they might've had a safe room to watch from. A bunker."

"Or they had a giant waste bin where they chucked all their chemicals," Max spits. His hands are twitching, and he keeps making fists and letting them fall, making fists and letting them fall.

"Look at this," says Cutter, and he's found the edge of the metal thing, found bolts that look like--

"Hinges," Capable says.

Max pulls himself out of the hole so quickly that Nux almost can't follow the movement. He's over the edge and panting like he's been running. He looks like he's been cornered. He looks like he did as a Bloodbag.

"Max," Furiosa says.
She says his name like it's an order, but she only says it once. Slowly Max tears his eyes from the metal thing and looks at her. "You don't have to open it."

"It's a door. Why not open it?" asks Capable. "What's inside?"

Furiosa kicks some sand away from the hinges with a boot. "It could be where the scientists kept their information, information about the bombs. It might help stop making War Boys sick."

"Or it's nuclear poison," says Max.

Nux doesn't understand, but he knows what poison is, and it is not a good thing. "It'll make us sicker?"

"It'll kill you," says Max.

Capable steps back quickly from the metal thing, to the edge of the hole. "How do we know which one it is?"

"We don't know," says Furiosa. "Unless we open it."

Max shakes his head. He reaches down towards Capable, stretches out a hand. "C'mon. Out."

"What do you--"

"If anyone's going in there, it's not you," Max says.

Capable steps back from the edge, closer to Furiosa. "Why not me?"

"You're not sick," says Furiosa. "Not at all."

"I won't let you go in there," says Max. But this is the wrong thing to say, Nux knows, even before Capable starts shouting.

"You won't let me? Who says you control what I do? What I decide?"

"Capable." Nux goes to her, tries to catch her arm, but she's yelling up at Max, at Furiosa.

"I am not perfect," she spits. "I wasn't perfect for Joe, and I won't be perfect for you--for any of you." Her eyes are full of tears and she looks at Nux like he's a stranger, like he's a War Boy and she is still a Wife.

"Capable," Nux tries again.

"NO! I decide what I do!" she yells up at Max, and for a minute it looks like she will climb out of the hole and fight him. "I will go through the door if I want to, I will stay here if I want to, I will--"

"CAPABLE," Nux yells back at her, and when she turns he does the only thing he thinks will work, the only thing that works when someone is angry, is yelling, Rictus in his face, Slit, Immortan--

Nux drops to his knees in front of her, both hands out. "Capable, please," he says. "You decide what you do, always you, just you. Not Max. Not anyone."

She blinks and tears trace marks in the dust and sand on her beautiful face, and then just like that she is Capable again, she is going to Nux and she is in his arms, and he can feel her shaking under his hands.

"It's all right," Furiosa says softly. "Capable, he didn't mean it like that."

From over Capable's shoulder, Nux can see Max at the edge of the hole, frozen, still reaching out. He looks at Nux with eyes that are the color of the sky, with his old eyes.

"Do you want that for her?" Max asks, and he nods towards Nux's neck. "Do you want her to get sick?"

Capable pulls back from him, and Nux isn't looking at Max any longer because Capable is all he can see, Capable, with her hair in her face, sticking to her mouth, Capable who is crying--

"I want what you want," Nux says, moving her hair gently from her lip. "Whatever you want, Capable. You decide, always. You drive."

Cutter, who has been quiet through all the yelling and the crying, makes a soft noise, and they all turn to him. He's found the handle of the door, a big bolt poking out from under his hands. "Found it."

Capable breathes in and out against Nux's chest, in and out. Furiosa looks at her, then looks up at Max. She does not say anything, but the way she is looking up at Max, it's a look Nux doesn't know, it's the way they talk with their eyes, the two of them--

--Max slides back into the hole and walks to Nux and Capable. He does not say anything. He just breathes, and Nux breathes, until Capable has stopped crying, until she is able to step back.

Slowly, so that she can see him doing it, Max reaches out and touches Capable's arm with two fingers. He looks up at her, quick, back at the ground.

"I--" he says. "I'm--" and Max licks his lips, but there are no more words that come out.

On Capable's face is the blazing look that Nux loves, the way she looks when she is brighter than the sun. "I decide what I do," she says.

Max nods, twice, then lets his hand fall away from her.

"All right," says Capable, because she knows what Max can and cannot say, and Nux can see Furiosa's shoulder release, drop behind him, where she was coiled ready to fight, to talk, to do something, and it makes Nux relax a little to know that she was going to let Capable do what a Capable does, no matter what, even if Max said no. Furiosa is for the Sisters first, Nux knows.

"All right," says Furiosa. "So we'll all open it."

Cutter already has a piece of wire in between the door and the frame, jiggling the lock, a black thumb like Nux, and with a click the lock releases.

"Chrome," Nux tells him, and Cutter almost smiles.

They look at the door. From beside Nux, Capable takes his hand.

"It won't hurt us," Furiosa says, "it's a bunker. I am sure."

Max doesn't say anything, but he walks forward and he and Cutter and Furiosa yank at the door, and Capable is helping to lift a corner as Nux scrambles underneath to prop it open and--

--the door falls back with thump, it's--

Nux is standing on stairs. The stairs go down. The light from the door shows a small room, with things in it, things like crates and barrels, like what holds guzzoline or bullets.

"It doesn't smell like poison," murmurs Cutter and Nux knows what he means, he talking about the way a rig smelled before it blew, the place too deep in the Citadel where you should stop even if you were hiding, a dead smell.

Furiosa goes down first, and looks in a barrel. "Nothing," she says, glancing up at them, "empty." The other barrels are empty, too.

"What was in them before?" asks Nux, as he looks in the last one, throws the lid aside. "Was there anything?"

Max runs a finger on the inside of the barrel, holds it to his nose. He shrugs.

"Maybe nothing," says Capable. "Maybe the people, the test site, they wanted to put things inside but they couldn't."

"Something happened. A surprise, and they died," suggests Nux.

"Wait..." Furiosa walks towards them with something in her arms, a bundle in a corner that looks like rags.

Nux can hear Max swallow next to him, Capable's quick breath, can see that Cutter is unsure whether to move forward or back, it could be a dead thing, a poison thing, it could be--

--taking off the wrapping, Furiosa opens it, she opens--

"Oh," Capable breathes, and it's a book, like the kind Cheedo has, but this one doesn't look nice, there are no pictures Nux can see, just scratches across the page, words he doesn't know.

"This is what we need," Furiosa says calmly. "This is a notebook. A notebook of a scientist."

She turns the first page towards them, taps the words there as Capable says them:

"ON THE TREATMENT OF RADIATION VICTIMS."

It's the book that will save the War Boys.

Chapter Text

“Like this,” Capable tells Nux, as she finishes drawing a final line in the sand with a long piece of pipe.

Nearby, Max is laying underneath a rusted rig, tinkering, while Toast hands him parts. Cheedo is sitting in the small shade of the rig, the book from the graveyard splayed open carefully in her lap. Since they brought the book back a few days ago, Cheedo has barely put it down, looking for ways to heal the War Boys inside it. If there is a way inside, she has not found it yet, but Nux feels a warmth in his chest every time he sees her reading it, like it is something very important, like it is something worth reading. If there were words written about War Boys before—and there probably weren’t, he thinks—then it must be true no one bothered to read them. Even the War Boys themselves would not have been able to, which is why he and Capable are doing what they are doing today, spelling in the dirt.

Nux looks at the lines in the dirt outside the garages and tries to follow Capable’s drawing.

“You try, now,” she says, and hands him the pipe.

Nux draws a slow line in the dirt, looking at her lines, trying to copy them. “What does this one mean?”

“Nothing, yet,” Capable explains. “You have to draw all the lines connected to it before it becomes a letter. So draw down from the top, then up again.”

Nux’s hand isn’t as steady as hers was, but he does as she says.

She walks over to stand behind him. “That’s great, Nux! That’s the first letter, N.”

“The first letter of my name,” Nux says.

Capable squats in the dirt beside him. “Can you try the next letter? This one is called a U, and it’s easier—like half of a wheel.”

“If a wheel looked like this, you’d be mad to drive with it,” Nux tells her as he draws the curve. “Looks like the top got blown off.” When she giggles, he smiles at her. Nux knows he is not good at jokes, not like The Dag, but he loves when what he says makes Capable happy.

“Do you remember what the full wheel letter is called? It’s not in your name.”

“O.” When Nux says it, he exaggerates the shape of his mouth so it is also round like a wheel. That one’s easy to remember, shaped like it is said.

Capable’s thumb ghosts gently over the curve of his lip, laughing again. “That’s right. Now the last letter, X. The same as Max’s name.”

“Max. Nux. X,” Nux says. This is maybe his favorite letter, because it’s one he’s used before, to mark a weak spot in an engine, in a wall, to mark his own chest with scars. Two lines that meet and cross.

“That’s it!” Capable pulls him to his feet excitedly. “See, look, the same as the way I wrote it up above. That says your name.”

Nux’ lines are a little less straight than Capable’s, less well-drawn, but he can see that the shapes are about the same. “Not bad,” he allows, then smiles when Capable tugs his arm.

“It’s better than not bad, Nux, it’s good. I can read it.” She cups a hand by her mouth and shouts, “Toast! Come here!”

Toast’s head whips around, and she leans down to Max’s outstretched feet, says something to him where he lays under the car, then jogs over. “How’s the lesson?”

“Capable,” Nux whines, shyly, tugging at her skirt, but she waves him off.

“See if you can read this word, Toast. Nux wrote it all himself.”

Toast bites her lower lip, and her eyes are laughing, but not like she is mean or thinks Nux is stupid. It is more like she thinks Capable is silly for her excitement, that she and Nux are silly together. Nux can’t remember now when he learned to tell the difference, but he knows no one ever looked at him this way in his life before the Sisters, the way where he was the one making them smile without having to do anything, not even take a punch.

“Nux,” Toast reads,”it’s your name.”

Capable whoops in excitement.

“You didn’t tell her?” Nux asks rubbing the back of his neck. Hesitantly, he adds, “Capable’s word is just above, you probably read that one, it’s better.”

Toast crosses her arms stubbornly. “I did not, I read the one you wrote. And even if I’d read both, they say the same thing: NUX.”

Nux laughs despite himself, relieved, and Capable wraps an arm around his waist, pulls him into the soft curves of her body.

“See,” she says, soft against his sun-naked skin, “I told you that you were getting it.”

The sound of an engine makes them all look up. It’s Skag, driving a patrol rig out around Max with Cutter already perched in the watch tower
Cutter waves, then leans down to shout something to Skag, who heads towards them, before halting a little ways off, engine idling.

“I told them I’d ride along for this one,” Capable says, kissing Nux on the cheek. “Midday patrol is supposed to go up by the Bullet Farm and it’s been too quiet over there. I want to scope it out before we try offering trade.”

“Don’t get too close,” Nux says into her sweet-smelling hair before letting her go.

She runs to the rig and pulls herself inside, tapping Cutter’s overhanging leg from the watch tower as she gets in, a touch that says hello. Cutter says something to her that Nux can’t hear, but he can see she is still smiling. Skag throws the kill switches off and they rumble away.

“She’ll be fine,” Toast says, and Nux watches the rig turn into a cloud of dust in the distance.

“Yeah.”

“She’s always fine.”

“Yeah,” Nux says again, but thinks, better than fine. The best thing, the most chrome, that is Capable.

Toast tugs his arm to get his attention. “Come on, she’ll be gone for an hour or so. Let me teach you something to surprise her when she comes back.”

This is enough to tear Nux’s eyes away from the road. Toast picks up the piece of pipe he and Capable had been using, and scrawls something else into the dirt, 7 shapes—letters, Capable calls them—Nux can see, but none he recognizes.

“This is Capable’s name,” Toast says. “Learn to write that.”

“It’s long,” Nux tells her, and she laughs. A whistle through the air grabs their attention—Max, sitting up outside the rig, waving a wrench at them.Toast shoots Nux a grin before jogging back to Max’s side.

Nux has only had the chance to try the first two shapes—letters whose names he does not know—before a small shadow falls over him. When he looks up, it’s Cheedo, cradling the book from the big graveyard carefully to her chest.

Unlike Nux, all of the Sisters can read, but Cheedo is the one who loves it the most. For Cheedo books are like the road is to a War Boy: a way out, free and unchained. She has many memories of stories too, things the Vulvalini said, or Miss Giddy, the Sisters’ History Woman under the Immortan. Sometimes Cheedo will tell a story so exactly that it sounds like an old woman’s voice is coming out of her body, like she is a History Woman herself, missing only the tattoos. Nux thinks Cheedo would be a good History Woman, but he doesn’t like to think of the harsh marks on her skin, the tallies, the bite of needle and ink. Maybe in this new world they are building she can be a different kind of History Woman. And since their return to the Citadel from the graveyard, Cheedo has done nothing except read the book they brought back.

“I have to go ask the Vulvalini some questions about a section of the book,” Cheedo explains. “Something I don’t understand. But I thought since I was going up you might want to come.”

Nux looks at Capable’s name in the dirt. “I could get some food and acqua cola to bring down to Toast and Max.”

Cheedo offers him a hand to pull him to his feet, since his bad leg can still get stiff at times. She lowers her voice. “I’ll draw Capable’s name for you again up there if you’d like, to practice.” Sometimes Nux forgets this about Cheedo: that she can see all the things he feels as easily as she sees words in books. It seems strange, both having feelings and having them seen, and nothing hurting. Her face is gentle in the same way Toast’s was.

“It’s a deal,” Nux says, and starts walking alongside her. As they climb back inside, towards the higher rooms where the Sisters and the Vulvalini live, Nux bites his lip, tries to keep from talking too much. He has been trying not to ask about the book—he knows if she’d found something she would tell him, tell all of them, at the very least tell Capable—but it’s hard not to, to see her staring at pages of shapes he can’t understand and not want to say tell me, tell me, tell me.

Maybe his silence is louder than he thinks, because suddenly a Cheedo says, “This book is really difficult to understand.” She bites her lip looking at him, like a confession, like she’s saying sorry. “It’s a notebook, so it’s not really finished.”

Nux doesn’t know what a notebook is. “A notebook is...not a book, then?”

“No, it is, but one someone was still writing. See?” Cheedo pauses for a second to turn the pages. Inside instead of neat lines of shapes marching like ants on the page, the shapes are all squiggled, and there’s some drawings too, a circle with parts shaded in, the outline of head.

“They lost the book while they were writing it?” Nux asks. “Wouldn’t that make them very clumsy?”

Cheedo’s laugh is quiet, and she let him touch the cover of the book before they begin to climb the stairs. “Yes, it should be hard to lose one like that. I think maybe the person was writing and got interrupted, like if Max got called away from the rig he’s working on now.”

“But they never came back to finish it?” Nux asks.

Cheedo shakes her head. “Not properly, at least. Not like a book that was printed.”

Printed—that’s when machines make books, is what Capable told him, why the books’ insides are as neat as marching ants on the shelves. What would make a person not come back for something as rare as a book, as valuable as a rig? Nux doesn’t know, but he thinks it can only be a bad thing. The notebook pages are yellowed with age, stained in some spots. He can’t tell what caused the stains, age, or acqua cola, or something worse.

Nux says hesitantly, “If it isn’t finished, can it help at all? Can it fix the War Boys?”

A Milk Mother squeezes past them on the stairs, heading down. Cheedo says hello, and Nux nods at her, trying to be nice and not threatening, but he’s thinking, waiting for Cheedo’s answer.

“I don’t know yet,” Cheedo tells him, “but I hope so. I think it will—that’s what the person writing it was working on, anyway, helping people heal.”

Nux drums his fingertips lightly against Larry and Barry on his neck, enough to feel them there, extra and hurting. He walks Cheedo to the stairway up to the Dag’s garden, where the Vulvalini tend to be, before fetching food and a water-skin for Max and Toast.

It’s still a surprise to see how much food there can be in one place, on shelves the Sisters call a pantry, baked bread and dried meat and a few of the things the Dag has grown, green and fresh like she picked them this morning. Nux still doesn’t understand exactly where it comes from—Furiosa had mentioned the Immortan giving acqua cola in exchange for things he wanted, before, so maybe that’s what she is still doing. The only places Nux knows of are the Bullet Farm, Gastown and the Citadel, and as far as he rode with Capable during their escape. This makes Nux think there might be other places where there are people who have things to exchange, but thinking of a world that large makes his hands shake, so he tries not to, not too often. There is more than enough world here, right in front of him.

He tries not to take too long packing up the food for them, and hurries back down to the garages. The sun is past its highest point by now, and Nux knows that it is thirsty work laying in the sand under a rig, black thumbing. He’s nearly there, close enough to Toast and Max that he can see their outlines clearly, the words he was drawing before with Capable smeared by his feet by the hot breeze, when a dark shape comes barreling out of the distance.

It is moving quickly, towards them.

“Max!” Nux calls, shading his eyes with a hand, trying to see through the baking air. He can see Max coming out from under the rig, seizing Toast’s leg as she goes to run towards Nux.

Nux squints against the sun, and—it seems like—it’s too early, too early for this but here it is, a patrol rig returning, going full throttle towards the Citadel.

“Max!” Nux calls more urgently. “Toast! It’s the patrol rig!” He turns to see them both heading towards him, Max holding a gun in each hand. Nux means to wait for him, but as the patrol rig draws closer, he remembers that there is only one midday patrol, recognizes the markings on the side of the rig, the silhouette of the War Boy clinging to the watch tower. It’s the rig Capable took.

Nux is running before he realizes he is, dropping the food and the water skin to the dirt and running, as fast as he can, towards the rig, towards Skag and Cutter and Capable, only a routine patrol, midday—

—Bullet Farm has been quiet, Capable told him, less than an hour before, wanting to see—

—his heartbeat so loud in his ears he barely hears Toast yelling for him, Max shouting—

—Capable, drawing the shapes of his name at his feet, Capable waking in the morning in their nest, the shade of red her hair turns when it is soaking wet and floating around him, redder than blood, red—

—a gun, he should’ve brought a gun, or asked her to take more, why, why didn’t he, why didn’t he think—

—can smell the rubber from the tires now, closer, on the road and running towards the rig now, nothing but the sound of his own harsh breathing—

—the Immortan’s voice in his head, “do not, my friends, become addicted to water”—

—the water skin falling to the dirt, splashing his feet as he ran, all the water in the world meaning nothing, nothing to him if he gets to the rig and she isn’t inside it—

—War Boys go soft when they aren’t punished, how many times has Nux heard Rictus say it, addicted to water and not thinking, not careful not safe Capable Capable—

—the rig screeches to a halt just a few hundred yards from the garages, stopping so hard Nux can see Cutter clinging to the roof to keep from getting thrown, but Nux doesn’t stop running, doesn’t stop, doesn’t—

—as the passenger door swings open and a shape of pale white and bright red falls out, into the dirt—

—and then Nux is there, hands on her, Capable and her sweat-matted hair covering her face, he has to see her face, he has to, Nux pulls her up from ground and sees red on her throat, smeared on her skin, her clothes, red, wetter than her hair, and he can only hear screaming, someone is screaming, but he thinks it must be him inside his head, and—

“Nux,” Capable gasps and she grabs his face between both her hands, forces him to look at her, as though he could look anywhere else, as though there was anything else worth seeing, “it’s not my blood, Nux, I’m all right,” and Nux hears her words but doesn’t understand them, running his hands over her body, her arms, her legs, looking for the hole letting out all the red.

“Capable!” Cutter shouts from the rig, and he and Skag are pulling something else out of the passenger door, a crumple of whiteness and grease and a stained pair of pants, someone, who, who else—

“Nux, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Capable is saying against his throat where he has her in his arms now, holding her close, still running fingers down her back, where, where is she hurt? Why can’t he find it?

“We found him like this,” Cutter is saying, as Skag lays the thing on the ground, big arms bulging—

“Nux, I’m sorry, but it isn’t too late, not yet, we might be able to—“ Capable pulling at his arm, pulling him towards the thing and he follows, though he can’t feel his legs, would follow her anywhere—

Toast and Max run up, panting, and Toast throws herself down beside the thing immediately, the thing where all the red is coming from, Nux can see now, and Max is saying something and Capable is answering but it’s all from far off, so far off.

The thing on the ground tips its head towards Nux, and Nux sees the staples, the scarring around his ruined mouth, red again now, like it was when they first cut open his cheek. His eyes are open, too, looking at Nux, dark and wide, staring, a face Nux knew before he knew his own.

“Nux,” he sees the lips forming the letters, the N, the U, the X, already faded by the desert wind, sees the shape of his name even if he can’t hear it—

It’s Slit.

Slit’s body shakes, and his eyes roll back, and he stops moving, and then Nux is in the sand beside him, covered in red.

Chapter Text

Everything happens so fast.

Slit’s head is in his lap, holding it, trying to stop the leaking, Toast’s hands at his sides, before they lift him up and then Slit is in Skag and Cutter’s arms and they are carrying him, inside, Nux’s hands on the wound at his head, Toast is saying something to Capable, Max running ahead, in front of them—

—up the stairs, so many stairs, stairs that must have multiplied since Nux climbed up them with Cheedo just a little while before, just a little while, Slit’s breathing is shallow under the palm of Nux’s hand, the rough outline of the scars on his chest, risefallrise—

—a bed, who does the bed belong to, he doesn’t know, he’s been in this room a thousand times and he doesn’t know where he is, The Dag’s white blonde hair, Cheedo bringing water, hot water, Furiosa with a knife in her hand—

—“no!” someone is screaming, “no, don’t, he’s fine, he’s fine, I’ll make him fine, you’ll see,” and Furiosa is looking at him like she doesn’t recognize him, and he can feel Slit’s chest under his own where he is perched on top of him, over his heart, no knife, not for Slit, die victorious, not like this—

—“not for him, Nux, just for his pants, we have to get to the wounds”—

—the wounds? more than one, there must be, Slit is covered in blood, so much blood in one body, not high-octane like Max, just War Boy blood, worthless like this out of a rig on too-pale linen sheets—

—the knife is in Capable’s hand now, and her hands are on his arms, he only realizes he’s shaking because she’s touching him, and she’s holding a knife but Capable wouldn’t hurt him, wouldn’t hurt Slit, so he doesn’t understand—

—“Nux, it’s all right, we want to help him. Can you let us help him? We need to get his pants off, we need him naked to clean the wounds. Here, take the knife, you can do it, just take these off for us, Nux, you can”—

—he nearly drops the knife, his hands are so slippery on the handle, and Capable’s hands are red when she touches his, already stained, but she said, not hers, not her blood, then is it all Slit—

—“please Nux,” Capable says, her lips soft against his temple—

—clambers down Slit’s body, his hands are shaking but he needs to be steady, steady for this, knife under belt and canvas and fiber and the pants are peeling off with his hands, with the knife, and Nux can see now the wound in Slit’s side, dark dark blood—

—“Cheedo,” Toast says but Cheedo is already there, with one of her books, flipping past pages, “what does it say, what do we do?” and she’s washed her arms in the hot water up to her elbows, and Cheedo is saying something about what to do, but she’s using words Nux doesn’t know, or maybe he’s not understanding, maybe, he’s washing his arms too, water hot enough that it should hurt but he can’t feel it, can’t feel it—

—back at Slit’s head, where the bleeding is the most, and Toast is handing him clean hot rags and his hands are around the injured place, like a crack in dry dirt up the back of Slit’s head, curving over and down towards his eyebrow, blood drips there so near to his eye—

—“pressure” someone—Furiosa? Max?—is saying and Nux wants to say he knows, he feels the pressure like a rig parked on top of his chest, holding Slit’s head together—

—things in Toast’s hands, leaning over the book with Cheedo, “if there’s an internal hemorrhage, do we close it, or leave it open?” drops of water stained pink from blood, “doesn’t smell like it hit his bowels,” Furiosa with candles in her hands getting closer to the wound at Slit’s side, “not deep,” she says, but how, how—

—cold and clammy skin under Nux’s hand, he’s cold, Slit is, cold, not dead, he isn’t, can’t be growing cold already—

—Capable wraps a blanket around Slit, where it won’t interfere with the other Sisters, “it’s shock,” she says in her softest voice but Nux was already shocked, he knows, it’s shocking, he—

—“his head,” Nux says, and Toast’s hands are on—in?—Slit’s side, and Cheedo is handing her things, he can hear Max pacing behind him, “head wounds bleed a lot but that one doesn’t look too bad,” Furiosa says, gently, doesn’t look too bad, the Dag agrees from where she’s soaking rags with the hot water and handing them to Cheedo as fast as she can, but it feels like Nux’s hands are the only thing holding Slit’s skull together, sound of Max’s boots as he paces behind him, and Nux’s hands are shaking, they won’t stop shaking, why—

—pale soft skin over his, Capable’s hands over his hands, she’s curled up behind him with her head on his shoulder, front pressed all along his naked back, her sweet-smelling hair like its own blanket wrapped around him, together maybe they can hold Slit together until Toast and Cheedo can take their hands out of him—

Nux closes his eyes.

He loses time.

***

When he opens his eyes again, his hands feel numb under Slit’s skull. It’s darker in the room, candles guttering low, and he can still feel the warm weight of Capable against his back. She’s breathing easily, rhythmically, the way she does when asleep, and Nux thinks she probably is, doesn’t know how much time has passed, can only tell that it is night now. Nux moves slowly to not wake her, turns his head, and Slit is still asleep, or passed out, but he can see the rise and fall of his chest, barely, this close nearly feel his exhales, the way the breath sounds when he it releases from his badly stapled cheek, a sound Nux grew up knowing.

“Everyone else is asleep,” a soft voice says, and even before she steps more fully into the candlelight, Nux knows it is Furiosa, by the sound of her voice, the blurred shape of her shoulders.

When he speaks his voice sounds hoarse. “How’s Slit?”

Furiosa holds a waterskin to Nux’s mouth, so he doesn’t have to move his hands, and he manages a few sips, trying to keep from moving too much and disturbing Slit or Capable. The acqua cola is shockingly cool on his throat as he swallows, as though he has hurt his voice, like he’d been screaming.

“He’s resting, like you can see. He hasn’t woken up yet,” Furiosa says. “Toast, Cheedo and the Dag were able to clean and close the wound in his side, and I sewed the cut on his head shut, while you and Capable held it .”

Nux feels cautiously with the tips of his finger until he touches thread running up the top of Slit’s head, curving forward over the top, stopping a few inches above his eyebrows. Nux breathes in and for a moment the room around Furiosa goes bright white. “Like the Organic Mechanic?”

Furiosa shakes her head. She doesn’t move apart from that, doesn’t look away from Nux’s eyes. “Not like that. Just to close his wounds, so they can heal. I promise.”

He has never been good at telling when people are being honest with him, but Nux knows that Furiosa is always honest, knows it to the heart of him, so he nods. “And will he—is he going to die?”

“We don’t know, but Toast doesn’t think so, and she and Cheedo have read every medical book we have.” Furiosa points to the other beds in the room, and Nux can see the outline of the other three Sisters, all sleeping.

Nux remembers this, remembers how careful Toast tended to his burned up back, his useless leg. He tries to look around Slit’s shoulder, but the rest of his body is still wrapped in a blanket, for the thing Capable called shock. “His side?”

Furiosa raises the edge of the blanket a little, so he can see the start of more thread running down. “His side wound was deep but didn’t hit anything major, and the head wound was mostly on the surface, though it will be sore. He may have a concussion.”

“A concussion?” Nux asks.

“Sometimes when you hit your head too hard, it bruises the brain. It doesn’t feel good, and it can make you dizzy and nauseous and confused, but it does heal by resting. It doesn’t hurt the brain forever.”

Nux’s nods must nudge Capable in some way, because she yawns against his shoulder blade, then sits up behind him. “Is everything all right? Nux, I’m sorry I fell asleep—“

“It’s all right, Capable,” Nux says, and when she raises a hand to touch his face he kisses her palm. “I was asleep too. Or...I don’t know. I went away, inside my head.”

“It’s all right,” Capable says back to him, her hands warm on his bare arms. “I’m here.”

She is and it is still the best thing Nux has ever known.

“We were just talking about Slit,” Furiosa tells her. “But Capable, you haven’t told us about the patrol. What happened? How did you find him?”

“I thought he was going to stay in Gastown,” Nux says, asks, tries to say. Where it would be safe, he does not say, but he thinks it, thinks of Slit up on a pole, ready to lance, the shadow of his body down on Nux often the only coolness Nux would feel all day.

“We went out towards the Bullet Farm first, because it’s been so quiet,” Capable explains. She takes the waterskin from Furiosa to take a quick drink. “I wanted to make sure it looked all right, so we might consider opening trade to them. We were a little more than halfway to the Bullet Farm when we found Slit in a wrecked rig.”

“Something is going on,” Furiosa says. “Who would be raiding, now? Max killed the Bullet Farmer with his own hands.”

“It was bad. The engine was gutted and everything. Not even a black thumb could’ve saved it, Cutter told me.” Capable shifts a little, reaching out so she can rest her hand on Slit’s unmoving one. “At first...at first we thought it was a corpse, that raiders left behind to scare people away from approaching. He was so white and still. But when I got close he sort of jerked to life, and as soon as I saw his face I recognized it was Slit. We got him free and came back as fast as we could—I was holding the wound in his side, trying to stop the bleeding, but it seemed like there was so much.”

Her eyes fill with tears, and she closes them for a minute. Nux moves his hands out from under Slit’s skull carefully, slowly, so not to disturb him, but now Capable is crying and he needs to have her in his arms. When he reaches for her, she comes to him easy.

“Did Slit say anything?” Furiosa asks gently. “About what happened to him, or what he was doing out there?”

“No,” Capable says. “Nothing I could understand, really—he kept saying it was trouble, that the vultures could come back, telling us to leave him.” Nux can feel where her face is wet against his chest. “He told us to to fang it, to get away, like he was scared the raiders would come back. He even said to shoot him, and go. But we couldn’t just leave him there.”

Nux thinks of wounded War Boys of the past, ones with wrecked rigs or wrecked legs or wrecked heads, thinks of blood in sand, the salt-sweet of it, stinking rubber and gun smoke, thinks of bodies falling under wheels and the leaving, leaving, leaving. He thinks of bullets.
“He probably didn’t understand what you were doing,” Nux says. “Didn’t know why you were helping him.”

“Why wouldn’t we?” Capable asks, like the idea of doing anything else is something she has never even considered. She probably hasn’t. Nux holds her closer.

Furiosa catches his eyes over the top of her head, and her mouth is grim. “He said the vultures could come back? Like, birds?”

“Maybe they were circling him? Looking for a meal?” Capable suggests.

But that isn’t right, Nux knows it isn’t, but he can’t quite figure out why this seems wrong to him, something about Slit asking to be shot, the wound in his side, why would he—

Suddenly, Slit jerks upright so quickly that Furiosa falls off the bed, Nux scrambles backwards, dragging Capable with him, and his chest is heaving, Slit’s is, like he’s been running hard and can’t get a breath. Nux is by his side but he can’t remember moving, Slit’s eyes wide, his hands scrabbling for a weapon.

“Slit, mate, you’re all right, it’s me, it’s Nux, you’re here with us, back at the Citadel,” Nux babbles, taking Slit’s wrists in his hands to stop him moving, from hurting himself, and it’s easy, so easy, big strong Slit weak as a pup like this.

“Nux?” It takes a second for Slit’s eyes to focus on him, and when they do, Nux can see the haze of pain in them.

Somewhere across the room, Nux can hear Toast’s voice, the sound of blankets moving, the other Sisters waking, but he doesn’t look away from the lancer. “Just me,” Nux nods.

A warm hand on his shoulder—Capable. “Slit, it’s all right, we brought you home like I said, do you remember?”

Slit’s eyes go to Capable’s hair first, red and easy to remember, then dart around the room, as though trying to understand where he is. “Not the garages?”

“No, we’re in our room, the Wives’ room,” Capable says.

“You’ve got to lay down or you’ll open up your side,” Toast says, nudging Capable aside. Furiosa tries to pull her back, but Toast insists. “We just got you sewed up, you have to rest.”

“Sew...?” Slit’s eyes dart to his side, the long gash closed shut with thread. “What in the—“

Nux drops Slit’s wrist to grab his face, turns Slit’s eyes back to him. “It’s all right, mate, it’s not like that, not like the Organic—trying to keep your insides in, is all, let the skin close and heal.”

“Sewn up,” Slit murmurs, and his eyes aren’t focusing again, though he’s trying. “Nux, will you bury me?”

“No,” Nux says, and he tastes salt. “You aren’t going to die.”

Capable and Toast have Slit’s shoulders as he starts to fall back, easing him down.

“Nux—“ Slit says.

Nux smooths a hand over the scars on Slit’s chest, trying, not used to touching him without hurting, but wanting to, wanting—“sleep,” Nux says, “rest now.”

“ ‘m sorry about the Buzzards.” Slit’s eyes are closed now, this words hard to understand. “I told the girl, I told her, leave me there, but she—they’ll be coming.”

Buzzards, Slit says, not vultures, as his body goes limp under Nux’s hands, falling back into sleep or shock or both, but still breathing, Toast with a cool rag for his head, Capable talking, saying something but—

—Nux finds Furiosa’s eyes and he can tell she knows already, the Buzzards, wandering scavengers with their armored cars and spikes, scrap metal merchants who tried to bring down the War Rig in their big escape, like a bunch of animals roving unless they found a new place, unless the Bullet Farm—

—Max bursts into the room, panting, and he’s got a gun slung over his back and another in his arms and as he speaks he’s already reloading it, The Dag’s voice, Cheedo’s, spent shells on the ground, Slit’s chest risefallrising under Nux’s hand—

“Invaders,” Max spits. “Front of the Citadel.”

The Buzzards followed Slit home.