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“She's a demon”
Max shifts into top gear, cutting sand with rubber, and almost chuckles at Toast’s comment.
“She runs like one” he retorts.
Toast huffs, “Interceptor..” barely a whisper. Toast knows interceptors, knows the trouble they gave her parents. Bastards always had a gun at their side, flashing it off, like it meant something to still be a cop in the fallen world.
“She's an animal” Furiosa adds, sitting backseat, with an empty shotgun shell in her teeth. one hand sorts through bullets tossed in a bag. Max keeps tons of miscellaneous pockets, stuffed with bullets that he can only know the location of. That frustrates Furiosa quietly, so she sorts to know where everything is. She finds two lance canisters that she didn't know he had and doesn't say anything about it.
Toast feels like the wrong gear at the wrong speed sitting shotgun with Max. She should be collected and calm, this is just a check in with a new settlement. Usually it’s just Max and Furiosa; small enough of a team to not seem like a threat, but they carry the muscle to deliver a punch when they need too. Not to mention, less war boys or pursuit vehicles with them means less collateral damage.
It surprised Toast when a week ago Furiosa was picking at a lizard morsel next to her and said “Come with us on our next run” and it sounded like a heavy demand that Toast didn't have the option to pass up. “You need to learn diplomacy beyond Gastown and bullet farm”
So Now the three of them sit in the interceptor, wind cutting at their cheeks beneath the hot sun, which hung on the cusp of an hour till sunset.
Finally Furiosa gives context, “Small settlement, maybe 50 people. We don't know much about them, only that they ride bikes. but aren't rockriders.”
“Interesting people” Max adds. “bit rough around the edges”
“Who isn't...” Toast growls.
Mothers, Toast feels mediocre beyond belief. Diplomacy in Gastown was a sinch, every man fell to her feet over her glowing skin and militant stature, same with Bullet farm. She went on one run to each, with ace, and that was that. She’s been able to do it on her own ever since. Now, with both of those two in the interceptor she feels like she's being fucking babysat. Max and Furiosa, probably the most whispered about duo in the wasteland, are nearly like one person in how they are. Different people with different goals, sure, but together they are like cogs melding perfectly. She remembers what Polly, the older vuvalini told her about this feeling, “Wordburger: third wheel”
Furiosa lists out where each concealed gun and its respective reload of ammo is: “nine millimeter bullets in the glovebox, magnum and it’s ammo under the driver's seat, revolver in the ceiling pouch, extra one and ammo under the passenger seat, Max, shotgun is on you,” she hands him the sawn off barrel gun and then points to crevices in the interceptor “knife, knife,” and then she lifts the gear stick and, “knife.”
Max grunts a little irritably because not only had she managed to mod his car without him knowing, but he couldn't even tell about the concealed weapon in his own interceptor. Also maybe because he hadn't thought to do that earlier.
Furiosa herself is equipped with the surplus of an entire war party; knifes in her boots, rifle slung on her back, pistols, flare gun, and not to mention that with the proper flick of her prosthetic, a razor appears on the knuckles of the metal hand. Max himself has bits and pieces of everything strapped to him. Sure he has knives and guns, maybe even a grenade or two but no one but him could know where they are.
Finally, finally, the sought out settlement comes into a better view than a smudge on the horizon. Specs of bikes, a campfire or two, and sand sleds appear into something of a tangible sight. Max slows the speed down and the interceptor stops kicking up dust. 100 feet out from the settlements camp, Max comes to a stop and the engine sits, running patiently.
“Your turn” Max mumbles in his deep voice.
“Mm, no, yours. Cant get out of it this time” Furiosa says back.
Max glares at the clanspeople through the windshield, all with robes and rifles ready to aim, and whines a little in the back of his throat before agreeing with a grunt.
“Stay sharp” he says to Toast.
The creak of the neglected hinges on the interceptors door slices through the silence and wind between his car and the unknown camp. He lifts himself out stiffly and raises his hands to his head, universal sign of peace in the wasteland. Every time he does this he can't help but think of Furiosa in the canyon.
“Citadel” He yells across to the settlement.
All of them shift on their bikes, lower goggles and scarves, till eventually, they look to one another and lower the rifles too.
Max nods and crawls back into the interceptor, pushing the throttle on second gear. It only takes a few seconds until they approach the camp fully and Toast breathes out any previous nervousness. As each one lifts themselves out of the interceptor they sort of huddle together, hands all ready to grab a weapon on their hip.
The chief, large headdress and the biggest shoulders of anyone Toast’s ever seen points his rifle, and growls at them through a scarf on his face
“What’s the Citadel got to do with business here”
Before anyone, even Furiosa can speak up, Toast replies, dignified and strong, “Security”
The chief snarls and doesn't say anything back. Toast has realized that if she was going to prove herself strong enough to handle small diplomacy on her own, she needs to be strong enough to not need help. So she speaks with equal parts nerve and politeness.
“Both yours and ours. We know settlement like yours suffer greatly from raiders, whether they be Gastown, bullet farm, or wasteland raiders. We’ve come to offer you security, as well as food and water”
“At what price..” the Chief snarls again.
“Scouting” Toast steps forward without a weapon in hand towards a completely unknown settlement and she does it without any fear. Furiosa nearly jumps to grab her and ask ‘what the fuck are you doing’ but keeps her stance. “We need small clans like you to scout the wastes When we can’t. Those buzzards have been awful pesky lately and we need outside eyes and ears on their activity”
A settler cocks his gun and growls “I don't like the sound of these chrome huffing bastards-’
“Watch yourself, mate” Toast cuts him off. She takes her canteen of water from her hip and flashes it to the settlers, “Why don't we talk over a drink. Got more in the back”
A clan woman standing by the chief licks her lips with a tongue of sandpaper, and whispers to the chief, “I've heard about citadel water. Crystal clear, the stuff shines.”
The chief lowers his scarf and dark, sun beaten skin is revealed. “We talk”.
Max and Furiosa exchange impressed glances and follow Toast’s lead into the camp. People part as they walk through, Staring intently at Furiosa’s metal hand and the Exposed brand on her neck.
The chief instructs the three of them to sit around the fire and Toast Passes her water heavy canteen to a quiet clan member beside her.
“This is The Citadel’s retired imperator, Furiosa, and a citadel affiliated road warrior, Max. I’m the prime imperator at the Citadel. We are all veterans of the Fury Road.”
The Chief rubs his calloused hands together, “We know who you are. Your victory has reached far”
“What do we call you?” Furiosa speaks up.
“Not important” The chief talks back, “Story later, right now is negotiation.”
Toast nods and starts talking strategy, showing Maps of what they know about dangerous raiders and territory. Every clans person adds their own knowledge and Toast listens intently. Every once in awhile, even Max himself raises his voice, but only to disagree with something.
The evening rolls on and the sky darkens. Still, the fire is lit. It seems wasteful to keep something blazing, but they burn anything; rubber, and plants that you can't eat. Eventually Toast decodes that they are meeting with a fire clan.
The chief bonds with Toast more than anyone and eventually they are chatting about war stories. Everyone shares input as well as a third canteen of water. Eventually Toast has him fucking laughing and he looks at her with old wrinkled eyes.
“Imperator, forgive me, but I don't know your name”
Toast bites off some lizard jerky and says “Toast,” between chewing, “the Knowing”
The chief goes silent and rocks back, furrowing his brow. Toast stops eating and debates whether or not to ask what’s wrong.
“How many days old are you?”
“9,300, something around that. Can never keep track. Why?”
The chief hums and leans towards her. The circle goes silent and dead twigs snap in the flames.
“How old were you, when you were taken?”
Everything is silent. Max and Furiosa don't make a move, and neither does Toast. When she speaks her voice nearly cracks.
“6700 days old”
“Toast…” The chief echoes and Furiosa glances at the circle, looking for any clues as to what’s going on, or rather any signs to pull a gun.
“What’s going on? How do you know I was taken?” She demands
“Toast. You’ve come back to your clan” He says.
Her heart pounds in her ears and the taste of bile bubbles up at the back of her throat. Max thumbs at his bottom lip and hums to himself quietly, this could get messy.
“My family. Where is my family?” Toast is frantic and she clutches onto the chiefs arm with a bony hand.
“Mmm, at your age we were caravanners. Eventually the Camels got diseased and we traded them in for bikes. We’ve changed a lot since you have gone.”
Toast’s eyes are smoldering and words come out like threats from her teeth, “My mother, your Chief, where is she, what happened to her” She bolts her body up to stand and the light from the fire blazes on her skin. “Where are they”
“Your parents,” the chief starts out patiently. “Your parents left to get you after you were stolen. They went alone and they weren't found again”
Toast wells up with tears and her throat tightens on itself. Eventually her knees give out and before her entire body buckles, Furiosa is on her feet to catch her from behind. Toast tries to catch hold of herself again and she feels burnt out. By some miracle she is standing and she looks at the ground. “We need to leave” she grits out. Furiosa glances to Max who nods and gets up to lift Toast’s arm behind his neck. He guides her to the interceptor and Furiosa finishes up the diplomacy.
“The agreements are settled, report back to us when you need to.” She hands him a scrap of a map for the location of the citadel. “We’ll be looking out for you”
Max places Toast into the Backseat and she rubs at her neck, biting her lip and not knowing how to react. She thinks of Furiosa on top of the sand dunes, screaming out the desperation of 7000 days and a dead family. She should be handling this better, why is she breaking down, she should be better.
She nearly vomits all over Max but she holds it down, looking sicker than half life.
“I know, I know” He says tenderly to her, before settling her back and rubbing at her temples for a moment, “It gets easier”
Furiosa hears that and wonders if he's lying through his teeth.
-------
The drive back is a bitter silence. No one says a word, and even if any of them knew what to say, they would keep it to themselves.
Toast had thought, for every day that she was in that vault, that her family was alive. She convinced herself, over and over that they were smart enough not to get her, they saw the Citadel raiders and were wise to spare their own lives. If any of her sisters, or the war boys in the mess hall, asked her the slightest thing about her family she would say “Royalty I am, that's right, my own mother, chief of the largest northern clan there is”. Eventually when someone piped up to ask if they were still alive she said, “ of course they are, my kin is tough as nails aren't we?”
She repeated this mantra, again and again, and eventually it became the truth to her. Any other way just wasn't feasible.
Now Toast is torn raw. the hangnails of her thumbs have been picked past bleeding and each breath feels like a monotonous task. She realizes, and hates, that she doesn't feel sorrowful, or mourning, or anger, any of those things you're supposed to feel when somebody dies. She is drained and stalled. Everything is blank though the only thing that supplies a real feeling is the relentless rattle of her skull leaning against the interceptors passenger door.
---
The interceptor’s engine glows a warm heat as it rises on a lift. Toast doesn't help roll the interceptor back into the garage. Instead she plucks up her respective weapons and disappears into the convoluted tunnels of the Citadel, without any words. Max and Furiosa exchange glances, with glassy eyes and stuck in a space without any right words. Both of them know this pain, they've lost people. Then again, everybody has, and it hasn't been easy for anyone.
“Mess hall” Furiosa says rubbing at her neck. Max nods at the thought of a warm meal and grunts in agreement.
They travel down the tunnels together, Max behind her, as they do, and they let the echoing familiar sounds of the citadel fill up the empty air. With pursed lips and quiet thoughts they file in line, before being served up leftovers from the midday meal. They sit on two plastic, cracked crates, on the edge of the hall’s walls. Really no one had specifically owned those crates before but now no one dares to move them from their designated spot (or god forbid sit on them). Crouching over their meals, they eat a little solemnly. Max can't help but think of Toast and how she's doing. The thought churns over in his mind, until eventually he thinks of Jessie, sprog, Glory. Mmm, no, can't think of Glory now. That girl brings too much trouble and everything has been okay for so long. But eventually, all he can think about is dead people. Angharad, that woman, the one who's given him the worst trouble. Always telling him not to steal, not to kill and she ignores him when he does. Valkyrie, always scouting out for him on mountain peaks, miles ahead, like she knows where he wants to go. Right now his ghosts aren't here, but he cant stop fucking thinking about them, it feels obsessive, it feels pathetic.
He is scraping at an empty bowl.
Furiosa has been chewing more quietly, and watching him scrape nothing onto a spoon.
“Need to go check on Toast” He says getting up.
“She’ll be in my room” Furiosa says like she's known it all along.
Toast has been spending more and more time there. Once she watched Furiosa reload a rifle faster than a crack of lightening and she asked “How do you do that?”. Sure Toast knew how to shoot and reload, but not like Furiosa. Since then, she’s been practicing and modifying her weapons with her, in Furiosa’s room. Toast would spend an awful amount of time in there even if Furiosa wasn't around. Normally, she would hint towards her space being invaded as annoying, but Toast is quiet and genuinely wants to learn. If anyone in the Citadel knows the solace needed after being around war boys all day it's Furiosa, and she's more than willing to give to give her that.
Max doesn't question why she would be there but instead immediately hums and ducks out of the hall. Steps away from Furiosa’s room he hears the familiar click and snapping of loading, unloading, and reloading a gun. He steps to the doorway and Toast is sitting crosslegged, with an array of guns in front of her. She cracks open a shotgun, picks out the shells, cracks the empty gun back and lays it out in front of her to pick up and reload the next one, a rifle. Toast looks at him for a solid, long second but her hands commit to the muscle memory and her machinelike efficiency so the pattern doesnt break. Her hands are onto the next gun before Max can speak.
“Youre faster than her”
Toasts hands still click open chamber after chamber, “That’s the idea”
He stands for a moment and she fumbles, once, picks up the round again and clicks it into place. She huffs and, again, fumble, two shotgun shells roll in front of her before snatching them up. She Tries to put them in the chamber, just simple, they should fit perfectly, but her hands are shaking and the fucking things won't go in. One does and her finger catches it and it pops back out. The tiny, simple practice, that she is somehow failing at is making her buzz with annoyance and her skin feels hot. She focuses, hard, and tries, really really tries to put the shell into its barrel but there's too much fucking shaking, her hands won't stop jerking around the gun in front of her.
“Fuck!” she drops the sawn off shotgun with an unpleasant clang.
She balances her elbows on her knees and holds her face in her hands, cheeks already hot with tears.
Max crouches down beside her and holds her head a little. She doesn't retract or shy away like he had expected. Shes too tired for that and right now she doesn't know what she needs, even wants so she just lets it happen. He touches his head to her temple and he thinks this is what's best. He remembers that time alone, and he was sobbing over the graves for Glory and her mother. He wished and wished that there could be someone there for them to touch his cheek to, though it never happened. Yes, he can be mad, but Max has and will be incredibly gentle in some way or another.
“I know”
Toast chokes down sobs and fuck she can't cry in front of max, even now she can't cry, why is she crying.
Do better.
Do better.
Do better.
“I’ve got dead people too” He whispers. The words should be insensitive but somehow they are just right.
“You've never had any hope though.” She says back. “I got my hopes up. That’s where I fucked myself over”
Max doesn't want to lie so he hums against her scalp instead.
They sit together, and Toasts eyes are swollen magenta. Neither of them can tell for how long, but eventually Max's arms are around Toast’s stomach and somehow they slow down the jagged lurching of her lungs.
This kind of comfort, and the fact that Toast is able to let it help, is alien. She has always felt a wall between the understanding of her sisters and herself; no soft, pale shoulder to weep on could compare to the condolence of how quiet and solid Max is.
And him, Max, barely enough to be an acquaintance, provides this comfort. He barely has ever said a few complete sentences towards her, let alone a conversation. Why does he care? Of course Max has dead people, how does that connect him to her?. Everyone has dead people. Why does she get a special treatment? She doesn't deserve this, there's no time for crying in this world, no room for the comfort of touch.
Everyone has dead people.
Furiosa has dead people.
the sound of the prosthetic being hooked on its perch is loud and interruptive. Furiosa’s stoic presence juts out like a red bruise.
She shucks her boots, her corset, and her overshirt. When she peels off just the few articles of clothing she leaves herself vulnerable in just trousers and an undershirt. It almosts seems like a sort of surrender.
Toast doesn't let herself look at her. This is pathetic; the waste of water from her eyes, the salt tainting her cheeks, the snot from her nose. She locks her eyes on the floor, like her stare could burn holes in the rock.
Furiosa sees her and knows this, knows this feeling of being a frayed live wire, the feeling of 1000 days without sleep. She crouches down next to her, on the opposite side of Max, and lifts her arm over the back of Toasts hot neck.
She submits, and Toasts heavy skull of cradled on Furiosa’s collarbone. The crying is less now, but embarrassing, loud dry heaves ambush her lungs every few seconds. This exhaustion, the type after sobbing and losing track of minutes, that drains to the core, it takes Toast apart and leaves her like an empty shotgun shell.
“You've got dead people too…” Toast says in a wet whisper, in a way that makes the slight innocence in her voice curdle in Furiosa’s ear.
Furiosa hums on Toast’s scalp and rocks her. The three are intertwined in a heat that none of them could tear themselves away from if they were to try.
“That’s not all I’ve got.” she mumbles back into her hair in a deep voice. She makes lazy circles along Toast’s shoulder and Max keeps his perfect fold of an embrace around her waist. Furiosa’s voice could be dry cracks on sandstone, but the words eventually do come out in a fine rubble.
“We’ve got you”