Chapter Text
“So what happened there?” Max looks up to see Furiosa nodding towards his knee brace that is currently resting in his lap.
“Mm, just cleaning,” he mumbles going back to his task even as the setting sun changes angles and starts to glare on the metal in his hands.
“I mean…” Furiosa hesitates, and Max sees her duck her head and start fiddling with the straps of her metal arm. “I don’t mean to pry. You don’t have to tell me, just wondered…”
“What I wear it for?” She nods, and they lapse into silence for a moment, broken only by the swish of cloth against metal and the distant bustle of the Citadel getting ready for nightfall. “Got shot in the knee. Long time ago. It, mm, never fully healed. This helps.”
“Hmm,” Furiosa nods again, then sits down beside Max and starts undoing the buckles on her arm in earnest. It’s brand new, all shine and cold metal. “I lost my arm in a rig accident. We rolled over, I got stuck.”
Max doesn’t say anything, just keeps rhythmically cleaning his brace. His gaze moves from the wasteland expanse that stretches out below them back to Furiosa’s metal arm that’s sitting in her own lap right now.
They sit in silence for a while, watching the sun get lower in the sky. Max finishes and hands the cloth over to Furiosa. She shakes her head.
“Doesn’t need to be cleaned now. I just… Sometimes it’s a lot to wear.”
“Phantom pain?”
“Yeah. You?”
He shakes his head. “Just the regular kind.”
She doesn’t ask if it hurts right now, which Max appreciates. He doesn’t want to tell her that the pain is constant, a persistent dull throb that only fades when something else overcomes his senses. That he welcomes it sometimes, the pain acting as a ready distraction from the visions of guilt and despair that can overwhelm him.
She doesn’t ask though, so Max just reassembles his brace in the fading light. He’s doesn’t need the light, could put together and strap on this extension of himself while blindfolded. But he doesn’t say that as he feels Furiosa’s eyes on his hands as they move. They don’t falter with the audience, for which Max is unbelievably grateful.
There’s a definite drop in the temperature now that the sun is setting and sending final flares of red and gold light into the azure sky. Max finishes strapping his brace on just as the sunlight shines a last beam onto Furiosa’s metal arm, the gleam catching his eye. For a split second her arm glows he thinks, blazing and radiant.
The moment passes as quietly as it came, leaving them in growing darkness. Their eyes meet, moving away from each other’s respective metal appendages. Furiosa stands, holding her unattached metal arm over her shoulder, waiting for him to heave himself to his feet.
She leaves then and he follows, his brace gliding noiselessly with the movement.