Chapter Text
Driving a War Rig again was satisfying, Furiosa had to admit. She might have been feeling a little cooped up in the Citadel of late, and now Toast had mostly taken over the day to day running – with the support of a council – Furiosa could do these runs again.
It'd been a run of the mill guzzoline run, and when she rolled back through the gates of Home, she was content to let the unloading fall to the work crews and go up to hand off the trade ledgers.
Not ten minutes later there was a great shout from outside, and a war pup came to get her, panting something about an intruder.
Furiosa was feeling her knees, after going up and down the newly hewn steps of the Citadel twice inside half an hour. When she came down to where she left the War Rig, there were three wounded War Boys – one of them with a broken arm, and one with an ugly headwound – and an unconscious man on the ground. Blood was streaming from a headwound and his arms were tied tightly behind his back.
"To the Infirmary," she directed the wounded crew members. "You, what happened here?"
"He was hidden out in the hold, Boss," was the explanation. "Attacked us when we got to his spot behind the food crates and discovered him."
Furiosa had a sinking feeling.
She slowly knelt next to the man, just out of immediate reach. He was wearing a muzzle made of some kind of metal mesh, the holes just about big enough to stuff little bits of food through, but no way to bring a cup to his lips. It had been welded to his head. Judging by the length of his hair and beard and the places that had been rubbed raw on his face and head, he'd been wearing it for a while.
She wished she was more surprised when she recognised Max. He looked pale – he must have been kept indoors and only recently escaped – and a lot thinner than she remembered him.
"He speak at all?"
"No Boss. Just growling-like."
She sighed, thinking of the man who was finally remembering what it was like to be a person again, by the time he left them, only to have it taken away again.
Should have tried harder to get him to stay, she thought. But there hadn't really been the opportunity, and he'd needed to make his own decisions.
"Bring him to the vault."
Old Joe didn't keep prisoners as such, or at least none Joe would have called prisoners.
Even if there had been prisons she wouldn't have wanted Max in one. But he and the Citadel denizens needed to be safe for now, and she figured he'd need the privacy until he could get himself together.
Once she'd done her supply run, she went to the vault, discovering that the work crew had locked him into the inner vault.
She also discovered that she had overestimated his state of mind. He was still tied – she should have told them to cut him loose, the straps were far too tight – and he snarled at her when she came through the door.
Shit.
She'd thought to treat his new headwound plus the older, infecting ones she could see, assess how to go about getting that nasty muzzle off of him, get him some food and water. Looked like it was going to be a lot harder than she'd thought.
"Hi Max. Not looking so good there," she began, circling him a few steps to put her supplies behind her. "You remember me? Remember where you are?"
He shook his head, but she thought it was more to try to shake off the blood that was running into his eyes. The mute look of suspicion didn't give her much hope that he recognised her.
"I need to have a look at your head. Will you come here so I can help you?"
Nope, that wasn't happening. She had to try though.
"If you come here I can treat your wound and free your arms. And see about getting that damn thing off your face."
She remembered the effect those last words had had on him the first time, almost a year ago. There was nothing now though, just a snarl.
Furiosa sighed, trying to decide on an approach. She needed to treat his wound, ideally all of them but at the very least the one that was bleeding heavily. She needed to get a good look at the muzzle so she could figure out how to get it off – she'd brought a file, but at present she wasn't going to wield anything remotely weapon-like around him.
Most of all, but especially if she couldn't get the muzzle off right now, his hands needed to free so that he could feed himself from the food she'd brought.
Ideally he'd let her do these things, but she was worried enough by the bleeding that that wasn't a primary requirement for her course of action anymore.
The decision was taken out of her hands when he decided to lunge at her. Hands behind his back, weak and probably dizzy from blood loss, and he charged at her, trying to headbutt her.
There was a brief struggle, but ultimately she was healthy and well fed and he was... pretty severely injured and didn't have the use of his arms. She evaded his move and put her metal hand on his shoulder, a tighter grip than her flesh hand could have done.
He growled and spat like a feral thing when she worked him to the ground as carefully as possible, controlling his weight so he didn't drop on his face like a sack of stones. He immediately tried to roll away, so she grimaced and put a knee between his shoulderblades, pinning him down with just enough weight to keep him in place.
"Believe me, this is not what I had in mind for a reunion," she told him, resigned to the fact that she wouldn't be seeing anything of the Max she knew – at least for a while.
He had needle marks in his neck, over the veins. Had he been picked up by some dirtbag in Gas Town and become a blood bag again? God, this guy had the worst of luck.
She pulled up the med box and went to work on the head wound.
"We've been doing OK here," she told him conversationally, leaning in to examine the headwound. "Took us a while to make peace around us and for people to stop trying to take the Citadel, but we're getting roots in the ground now..."
She kept talking, knowing he wasn't getting any of it, but feeling the better for doing it. It made her feel more like somebody taking care of a sick friend and less like somebody fixing up a thing.
She poured some water over the head wound and cleaned out the grit as gently as she could. He was growling and snarling, but when she poured more water she heard him slurp. He was trying to drink from the puddle of bloody water that was forming.
"Urgh. Don't drink that, I have clean water for you in a moment," she sighed, but he wouldn't stop, so she let up her weight and moved him to the right, away from the puddle. "Sorry, this is gonna suck."
The blood clotting powder stung like nothing else – she remembered it well – and there was nothing to be done but hold him still while he howled.
"Sorry. Sorry, I'm doing my best... sorry," she murmured, gritting her teeth. Getting through this as fast as possible was perhaps the kindest thing. She didn't know if she could stomach to do this again. So much had already been done to him against his will.
She desinfected the other wounds within easy reach, having to put more weight on him to keep him from rearing up in his pain and desperation.
"I am so sorry."
He was already weak, but finally he was exhausted, breathing harshly with his muzzled cheek pressed against the hard floor. She laid a gentle hand in his neck while she examined the muzzle. Welded onto his head. Welded! It hadn't been intended to come off again, and he had a thick, tangled mess of beard under it, almost obscuring his mouth. She didn't think boltcutters could do it, it was going to need to be an extended session with a metal file and some very careful bending. It was nothing he was even remotely ready for now.
She was still hoping he'd come back to himself and realise she was trying to help him. That would make it so much easier to solve the muzzle situation. Maybe food and water and sleep would help and he'd be able to cooperate tomorrow?
She sighed, exhausted from the day and this miserable task both.
"I'm gonna untie your hands," she told him. "Stay down, okay? I need you to stay as you are."
She'd thought to cut the ties, but she didn't even want to bring a knife in his reach, so she untangled the cargo straps the work crew used for this, picking out the knots with her weight still on his back.
His hands grasped weakly at nothing when she finally freed them. His wrists looked terrible, but mostly from older scrapes and bruises. It wasn't so bad that she wanted to re-open the painful chapter of wound treatment right then.
She put her hand in his, just for a moment, and squeezed gently.
"Max, I'm gonna go now," she announced softly. "I'm leaving water and food, and I'm going to have them clear out the greater vault so you can use that space. There's a little pool so you can wash your face, and I'll put a blanket there too."
She considered clean clothes, but she doubted that in this state of mind he'd be willing make use of them. Maybe tomorrow.
"Stay down, okay?"
He made a garbled, incoherent sound.
"I don't want to hurt you any more than I already have, and that's what's going to happen if you come at me again. Just stay on the ground until I've left."
She squeezed the back of his neck, slow and firm, in the way that touched on some old instinct to make animals and people go still. It worked on him too, some of the furious tension eased off.
"Okay. That's good, Max. There we go."
She'd packed the med box as she finished with the contents, so it was a matter of easing her weight off him, then letting go of his neck and quickly stepping away from him. He drew his arms under his torso, grunting in pain, but he did indeed stay on the ground until she closed the inner vault door.
Furiosa leant her back against the outside of the door and tipped back her head. She really hoped that the next time she opened that door, she was going to find her friend in there.