Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The roaring of the Wretched is deafening.

It rises up, swelling and spilling over the edge of the platform as their group climbs higher in the sky. Some have scrambled up with the help of the wives who don’t hesitate for a second to extend their shiny, perfect arms into the mire to grasp filthy hands and pull. Capable, the one with the hair like licks of flame, steadies an old woman beside her. The woman paws at her wonderingly, gazing with milky eyes into her face. Nux imagines that she must be thinking she’s in a dream, because what else could explain this sudden vision of beauty in the midst of so much ugliness?

The creaking of the chains is loud as they ascend. Max stands bracing Furiosa against his side and Nux stares at the blood and the swelling of her eye. She’s breathing heavy but she’ll be ok, he thinks. The Imperator is tough, tougher than Nux ever thought she was - ace enough to keep driving the War Rig with a knife embedded in her side. Chrome enough to kill the Immortan. He shakes his head, something in his brain short circuiting at this thought - The Immortan, dead. Done. Gone. Nux never thought a lowly half life would outlive a God.

Nux never thought a lot of things would happen, until today.

The platform shudders to a halt beneath their feet and stops. They’re at the top, safe. Nux sees throngs of war pups clambering about them, little white bodies shouting questions and exclamations. They all want to see the wives, these flawless shiny things before them. Some of the shy pups hang back while the brazen ones push forward and touch, stand on tip toes, grab with tiny hands at the white fabric. Nux watches The Dag make a mock biting motion at a pup who has overstepped and he shrieks playfully, only a little scared as he snatches his hand back with wide eyes.

“Nux.” he feels a hand on his arm.

It’s Capable. He would know her touch anywhere, now. Today has been a day full of touches, and he wonders if she realizes that she has put her hands on him more than almost anyone else in his half life. The only other pair of hands he knows as well as his own, the only other scent of skin that he could follow blind through the dark is gone, now. She wordlessly grips his hand and squeezes it, and he wonders if she knows that no amount of comforting can stop the dying feeling in his chest.

He knows she will try, though.

For the better part of an hour, Nux has been operating on cruise control. In only two days, his brain has been completely rewired. He is exhausted. He leans on Capable now as the group files off the platform, their feet shuffling onto the hard stone of Citadel. The wives move together as a unit, with Max and Furiosa behind them, but Capable walks with him. Her presence at his side has become such a constant that he doesn’t bat an eye when she slides her arm around his waist to support him. He feels foolish and weak about it, tries to straighten, to show her. She gives him a gentle shake and turns her face to his. “Hush.”

He hushes.

War pups and boys left behind follow them in a throng, some hesitant and hanging back in the shadows. The wives are peering around at the great room, the space, the sheer openness that has been denied them for so many years. Nux recognizes faces and looks through others, his eyes drifting over a sea of white bodies, their questioning voices sounding like gibberish to his ears. He is tired, so very tired. Just when he thinks he’s going to embarrass himself by passing out, he hears Furiosa’s voice ringing out over the crowd.

“Stop.” she is standing beside Max, a little straighter now. He still supports a good deal of her weight but Nux is glad to see the bleeding has stopped completely. She looks around at their rag tag group with her good eye and sighs.

“There is so much to be done.” she starts, having to catch her breath for a moment. Around them the people have fallen silent, eager to hear the words of the Imperator. “so many things to be said. We need to organize. Establish order. But for now…” and her eyes catch Nux’s and he sees something like understanding pass through them. “for now we all need to rest.”

Capable reaches a hand out toward her. “Furiosa, are you sure you’re going to be alright?”. The wives huddle around her, questions in their eyes.

“Where will we go?”

“Where do we sleep?”

“Are we safe?”

Nux waits to hear her answers. All his life he has waited for orders. His life was a set of rules and jobs, no questions asked, no defiance or doubt. He doesn’t know what to do with this sudden freedom, this lack of routine and order. He can feel the fear of uncertainty creeping up his neck, prickling his skin, hot and pressing. What is he supposed to do now? What is he good for? Where will he go? At his side, Capable senses his panic and she gives him a reassuring touch. It is like a wave of Aqua Cola and he relaxes inch by inch under her fingers.

“I don’t have all the answers for you right now.” Furiosa sounds on the verge of collapse. “but tomorrow is a new day. What I do know,” and she passes a meaningful look around the crowd. “is that you are safe. We are all safe. Nobody is hurting anyone.”

Wounded, bleeding, exhausted - she is still a warrior. Max is as imposing as ever beside her and he passes the same look of warning among them. Some of the faces in the crowd belong to those who would have shredded Furiosa alive two days ago. Faces still fiercely devoted to their Immortan, unaware of the lies and control, the manipulation. Unaware of the way that life could be better, that they did not have to be things.

Nux can understand their reservations. Little else in his life had been as unsettling as realizing that every day lived under Joe had been a lie. He can only imagine how the wives feel. Here they stand, together, a group of suddenly free people with rights and idle time on their hands to do with as they wish. All of them survivors of abuse, in some form or other.

They have never been as free, and yet have never been as scared.

The crowd is dispersing. Furiosa places her good hand on Toast’s shoulder and offers them all a shadow of a smile. “You can sleep wherever you like, now.” the wives shuffle uneasily and mutter among themselves quietly. “Citadel has many rooms.” she catches the look on Toast’s face, angry dark eyes glittering at the floor. “Many rooms.” she repeats softly. “Not that one.”

From beside him, Capable murmurs; “Where will you go, Nux?” as though there is any other place for him, any other answer. He doesn’t know what to say. All he can hear is the screaming metal of the Interceptor folding in on itself.

Sensing his hesitation, she makes a sad face at the ground and it makes Nux’s chest tighten. No, not sad. Not her. He swallows. “I don’t…” he stops, tries to find his answer. “Before, I would...we would...the bunks.”

Capable looks up at him. Capable, with her soft eyes that make him think of cool water and green things. “Where will you go?” he asks, and when she opens her mouth he answers for her.

“Yes. Come. Come with me?” and she does, without question.

Chapter Text

It feels so strange to walk the corridors of Citadel with Capable. Never in his wildest dreams did he ever think his feet would be taking these familiar steps with a wife, a breeder. So shiny and clean and soft. He gives his head a shake at the thought. No, not a breeder, not a thing - not Capable. He glances over at her and he can see her taking it all in, running her hands over the stone walls that have been marked by hundreds of war boys. She does not look afraid.

They are getting close to the bunks, and with every step Nux can feel his heart quickening. Capable doesn’t know, none of them know. He wonders if she will think differently of him, if he can even make her understand. He can’t stand the thought of her thinking less of him. He falters in his steps, pauses.

“Capable?”

She turns to him with that calmness, that serene look on her face that has been a salve to his heart these last couple days. He takes her hands in his and looks down at the ground, at his boots. “This is where I...where we slept.”

She gives him an encouraging smile. “The war boys?”

He frowns and glances down the hall where he can see the doorway to the bunks from here. They are alone - he doesn’t hear any activity from the room. Swallowing, he turns his eyes back to hers and nods, but her expression changes at what she sees.

“Nux,” she squeezes his hands gently. “it’s ok. Whatever you have to tell me, you can. Or you don’t if you don’t want to.”

He feels so stupid, so selfish. They have all suffered. She watched Angharad go under the wheels. Why is he any different? Why does his pain matter more? It’s simple - it doesn’t.

She is peering into his face. “Nux?”

“My lancer.” he blurts it out with an expulsion of breath. “we shared a bunk, every night. Grew up together as pups - he taught me - protected me...I know you think...but I can’t, h-he wasn’t…” and he can’t breathe, he can’t get any air into his lungs and he feels like he’s going to fall.

Capable has him. She has her soft perfect hands on his arms and she’s letting him lean against her while he takes huge gulping breaths of air, shaking like a tumbleweed. “Shh,” she gentles him. “just breathe, Nux. Right now, just breathe. I’m right here.”

And he hates himself but he thinks, he was always right here.

It takes a while to compose himself. Nux doesn’t know what is happening to him, this panic flaring through his body. Sweat is cooling on his back and he can’t stop the trembling in his hands. He looks down at where Capable grips his arms, at her fingernails. Looks for blunt ones bitten down and stained with grease and see’s impossibly clean ones instead. He lifts his face and tries to look reassuring.

“Where is your lancer, Nux? Is he.…?”

You filth!

You traitored him!

“Valhalla.” he whispers.

Capable nods like she knows but she doesn’t. She can’t. Valhalla is theirs, and even with their green things and seeds and not being things the sisters are wrong about Valhalla. He knows now that they killed the world, it’s true, but Slit can’t just be nowhere. He can’t just be nothing.

Nux doesn’t know when he started walking again but they’re at the door to the bunks now and he stands, hesitant at the edge. The room is huge, carved out in the deepness of Citadel stone. It’s midday but gloom hides in every corner - there is only one window. He can’t make himself look to the right, fifteen paces to the memories that he knows will grab hold and choke him, but his feet begin to carry him there anyway.

They know the way.

“Nux,” Capable calls from somewhere behind him as he finds himself at the side of their bunk. It is simply a narrow, rectangular alcove carved into the wall. Hardly deep enough to sit up in, just like all the others. He runs his hand over the cool stone and his fingertips find the edge of the worn, threadbare blanket. He pulls back as if burned.

“Slit would have liked you.” he says quietly. Capable says nothing, just waits for him to continue. “he was a right asshole. Stubborn as fuck, but...” he forgets that he’s talking to a shiny, becomes all war boy again as memories rush him and the familiar smell of the bunks settle in his nose. “he wouldn’t admit it but he’d admire you. ‘Cause you’re strong, and you’re not afraid of anything.”

“I am. I’m afraid of so many things.” she whispers, but he doesn’t hear the catch in her voice.

Nux kneels at the edge of the bunk. Falls? He doesn’t know, his legs feel like they aren’t his. He puts his forehead to the stone and reaches out with his arms, gathers fistfuls of the sheet and pulls it to his face. The smell of Slit is everywhere.

Behind him, Capable’s hand on his shoulder. “Nux…”

“He would have, Capable, and you could have liked him too. He just didn’t know.” he squeezes his eyes shut tightly. “none of us knew. We didn’t...the Immortan...for so many years, our whole lives were --” he chokes on the words.

“If he was anything like you, Nux, I’m sure I would have liked him.” Capable says, kneeling beside him now.

This is what breaks him. “He was.” his voice is raw. “He was a part of me.”

Nux’s shoulders heave as he feels the sobs rising in his throat, the first tears he has allowed himself to cry spilling forward. It has been hours since he heard Slit cry out for Valhalla, his voice cut short by the brilliant fireball of guzzoline as Razor Cola was crushed. He’d been numb, in a daze - concentrating only on putting one foot in front of the other. Grateful for Capable’s arm around him as they rose on the platform, deaf to the shouts of The Wretched below, chanting only dontfalldontfalldontfall in his head.

“You call that driving? Mediocre!”

“Hold still! This is gonna look real shiny.”

“Valhalla ain’t chrome if you won’t be there…”

He is dimly aware of movement behind him, and Capable is pressing her face against his back, her soft skin against his. She wraps both arms around him and simply holds him as he sobs into the fabric, his arms shaking as he tightens his fists harder and harder. She murmurs soothing words he doesn’t understand into his ear and gradually he feels his pulse slowing, the tears drying on his scarred cheeks.

“Fuck, I’m sorry.” he wipes his face across his arm, his voice like a mouthful of sand. Ragged. “bein’ weak.”

Capable shakes her head against his shoulder and makes a sound like she might cry. “No, Nux.” she stands and helps him up, where he sways unsteadily for a moment. “there’s nothing weak or shameful in mourning our dead.”

Dead. Nux absently runs his fingers over the mods on his skin - vicious angry lines where the knife was hot, the strip of leather bitter between his teeth. He thinks of the look on Slits face when he put the blade down and gathered Nux’s shaking, pale body against him. Told him it was done, that he was real ace, looked chrome as fuck. Nux’s face slippery with blood against his chest.

Silently, he bends and folds himself into the bunk, a movement he has performed hundreds of times. As familiar as driving. There is no snoring bulk to gingerly crawl over this time. He shifts until he is facing the stone, his hands curled against his chest, waiting. Holds his breath for Capable. For a touch, another body, anything, and feels a fist tighten around his heart when she crawls in after him. Molds herself around his body like the seat of the coupe. Warm. Safe.

When he finds his voice it is hardly a whisper. “Will you stay?” he knows her answer but he needs to hear it.

“Yes” she says, and he can feel a wetness on her face. “all night.”