FIC - "If Found, Return to Furiosa" (Mad Max: Fury Road, Gen)
Title: "If Found, Return to Furiosa"
Fandom: Mad Max: Fury Road
Author: rightfootred
Rating: R
Warnings: On the cracky side, descriptions of peril/injury, my other usual B.S.
Word Count: 2180
Spoilers: Just gonna say read at your own risk if you haven't seen the movie.
Summary: From a truly delicious prompt on the kink meme that really does say it all: every single post-apocalyptic wasteland community out there has some notion that the guy who keeps turning up lost/injured/starved/delirious with sunstroke on their turf belongs to furiosa. is he her bff? husband? strange giant grunty pet? all of the above? the post-apocalyptic wasteland communities don't know, but they really don't want to get on furiosa's bad side. so they drag banged-up max back to the citadel in multiple hilarious instances of 'hey we found your person??'
I have never been lost, but I will admit to having been confused for several weeks.
-Daniel Boone, Frontiersman
If Found, Return to Furiosa
The first time it happens, Furiosa's in the Citadel armory doing inventory, a War Pup who's just coming out of his "pup" phase bouncing behind her with a piece of paper and a stick of charcoal. Toast is looking everything over for cleanliness with narrowed eyes - occasionally she takes a piece down from the wall and spit-shines it on her shirt, snarling at any War Boy who dares to give her a sideways glance.
There's a sudden commotion from the hall outside. Furiosa's ears prick up the way a watchdog's do at the sound of an intruder - can't be too careful with prospective mutinies. She's about to pass it off as the average day's hubbub when she hears snippets of The blood bag and He's back and her feet start moving her forward at a steady clip. She gets the urge to wring her hands the way she used to when she had both of them.
She's coming to the mouth of the Citadel, where the falls are, and she hears a mass of voices crowing Furiosa, Imperator Furiosa - an impossible tidal wave of voices.
Furiosa stands at the mouth but doesn't rest her hands on the tempting handholds of the water levers (she's learned the hard way how easily that simple gesture can still lead to a riot). There's a swath of dust below that's just beginning to clear. In its place are three figures, two of them standing with more or less unamused postures, and the third one with his arms slung around the necks of the other two. It doesn't take long to notice that it's not comradery binding the three together: the man in the middle is essentially dead on his feet, his head hung so low she can't make out his face, his boots occasionally sagging and scraping for purchase in the dirt.
Furiosa sees the cropped brown hair and the cloth pauldron on his right shoulder, and there's not really any mistaking who it is.
Better safe than sorry, though.
"I am Furiosa," she calls. It comes out sounding strangled. Maybe she should have cleared her throat first.
One of the men spits in the dirt.
"Found 'im skirtin' the edge of the salt," he says, cocking his head inward. "Seemed fit for the buzzards, but 'e was goin' on and on about 'Furiosa' this, 'Citadel' that. An' gettin' on your bad side isn't somethin' people are much in the mood for these days."
Furiosa sets her jaw. Good answer, she thinks.
"His face?" she asks. She has to be sure it's him but also, strangely, doesn't want to see how bad off he is.
"Ain't much to look at right about now," the man says, and the one on the other side takes a fistful of their charge's hair and pulls his limp head up from his chest. "Snake got to 'im."
The face pointed up at her is almost comically pale and sweaty, eyes puffy and crazed and rimmed in red. His mouth is moving, likely uttering a stready stream of delirium-babble, and she thinks:
That's Max, alright.
Furiosa resists the urge to sigh. Sighing isn't very formidable.
"Let them up," she calls. "And prep the infirmary."
She turns to go, adding, "Don't wait on me to get started."
The med staff better have heard all that.
...
...
Max starts awake twenty-six hours later. If he was having a nightmare, he's still too weak to flail and start ripping out IV lines, which Furiosa counts as a small blessing. He gapes, confused, from under heavy eyelids at the sight of his ankle, which is propped on a pillow and already swollen without the ten rolls of bandages encasing it.
Furiosa watches him try to put it together for another long, hilarious moment, and then offers, "Snakebite."
Max raises his eyebrows in a half-lucid holy shit expression, grunts, and croaks, "Water."
Furiosa puts a water skin in his hand. "You haven't changed, huh," she says. "Slow down a little there."
The man glowers at her over the top of the skin, hands it off to her, and wriggles his back into the pillows as his eyes slide closed again.
"Hey," Furiosa says gently. One of Max's bleary eyes peels open to look at her.
"So you're telling random strangers to bring you back here, now?" she says. Even she doesn't know whether she's just teasing him.
Max blinks.
"Mm," he grumbles, "must've been the venom talking."
She opens her mouth to try again, but he's already snoring.
...
...
"When was someone going to tell me?" Furiosa huffs, feeling the hairs on the backs of her arms stand up. It's about a month after the first incident - it feels like it's only been a week.
The women look at each other. Cheedo twiddles her thumbs. She looks like she's going to cry.
The Dag pipes up, "Well, you were sleepin', weren't you."
Capable must see the murder in Furiosa's eyes, because she quickly adds, "He's not as bad as the last time. Quick patch job, fill-up, he'll be good to go."
Furiosa sighs. She's been doing a lot of that lately.
"That's not why I..." she starts, but throws her hands up instead and says, "Who brought him in? If they're being detained, they can go. My orders."
"They wanted to talk to you," Capable says. "Get things squared away."
Furiosa clenches and unclenches her hand. The metal one.
"Things like what?" she fumes.
...
...
"Things like... y'know... reward... things...?" the man says, right to Furiosa's face, too. He's barely more than a boy - she'll have to remember to give him credit for having guts before she kicks his ass back onto the road.
"You want a reward," she replies, without breaking eye contact.
"I, uh..." the kid replies, already faltering.
"For what?" Furiosa asks.
"He's 'yours,' i'n'he?" the kid says, shrugging. "Everyone's always on about how if you find this fellow Max on the road an' he's in a bad way, you bring him 'round the Citadel and the Imperator unloads the good stuff for your trouble."
Furiosa smiles a condescending, sad little smile, and replies, "Someone a lot smarter than you once told me, 'you can't own a human being.'"
And she heads off to visit the fool who's been dumped on her doorstep again.
...
...
True to Capable's word, Max is out the door the next day, limping on the bad leg he managed to screw up again and sporting a nasty black eye and some cracked ribs, but otherwise whole.
"You ain't gonna fix him up with a collar or nothin'?" an unnamed War Boy hoots behind Furosia as she watches Max leave. "Make it official?"
Furiosa fires back a molten glare. Truth be told, she's unsure whether she's more angry at the War Boy, or at herself for thinking it's not a half-bad idea.
The smithy has been pretty unoccupied lately.
...
...
"Hold still, will ya?" Furiosa hears The Dag's voice yell from behind the Infirmary door. She was going to pass the room by, but anything that has one of the wives paying a personal visit to the Infirmary is probably worth a look.
Of course it's him again.
Max has got a gaggle of War Boy healing staff crowding him, which she knows he'd hate if he wasn't on the verge of passing out. Thankfully, he looks to be... on the verge of passing out. The Dag is working on something at Max's side with what looks like tweezers, and a War Boy is standing on her left with a bowl that she occasionally drops tiny artefacts into with a hollow plunking sound. All the other War Boys seem to be there solely to gawk and shove each other out of the way to claim better gawking territory. There's a cloth over Max's eyes, but underneath she can see his face is sunset-red and his mouth is twisted into a grimace.
"What-" Furiosa starts.
"Heat fucked him up pretty good," The Dag replies shortly, cutting her off. "Bastard fainted onto a hornets' nest."
Furiosa crosses her arms. She's starting to see a pattern here.
"Anyone banging down our door for compensation?" she asks.
"There were a couplea blokes brought him in, didn't really get a look at 'em, though," murmurs The Dag, not looking up from her work. "They fucked right off. Didn't want you to think they had anything to do with how 'e wound up like this, I guess."
The Imperator resists the urge to grin.
"Smart of them," she says.
...
...
Three months later and she's summoned to the entry hall to meet a broad woman who has Max slung over her shoulder like a sack of guns.
"Brought him from a few clicks South, big ol' head wound, poor thing."
Furiosa nods, thinking that all the blood going to his head from hanging over the woman's back can't be a good thing for his probable concussion. All she can see from where she's standing is Max's dusty ass and legs.
"I'll admit this one weren't entirely his fault," the woman continues, saying 'this one' as if the other times Max has been dragged back here are now common knowledge. "Was assisting me in a lil' skirmish with some hostiles, caught a steel toe - BAM! - right to the skull. Ain't that right?"
Max groans in response.
"Not the chatty sort, is 'e?" the woman asks.
"Not that I know of," Furiosa sighs.
She has to stop sighing so much.
...
...
Max isn't happy with her. She does not care one bit.
"You don't leave here until the fever's gone," Furiosa says.
He's in the sixth infirmary bed he's occupied in some five months, and she's not about to let him stumble out into the wasteland with his brains still cooking so he can get scooped up and brought straight back.
"How're you gonna stop me?" Max challenges. He doesn't look very menacing with the cold compress drooping down over his eyes. He stares up at it, crossed-eyed, then grunts and yanks it off.
"By not helping you up when you fall on your face trying to get out of bed," Furiosa replies.
Max just purses his cracked lips in response. At this point, even he has to see the futility of running back out into the heat just to let it kick him while he's down.
Furiosa takes the lukewarm cloth out of his fist and presses it back onto his forehead. Her tending to him like this isn't normal for them: the fact that he's letting her do it means he'll stay, at least for a short while. He tips his neck back onto his pillow and sighs. At least she's not the one sighing this time.
"Cheedo made something for you, you know," she says. "Figure it could save us all some trouble when you head back out there."
Max's eyebrows slope upward. Should I be worried?
"She gonna give it to me?" he asks.
"I think she's scared that if she tries you're either gonna freak out or pass out."
"Mm."
"Or both."
"Mm."
"You'll see it when you leave."
What she really wants to say is Rest, take all the time you need, but he knows what she's offering - and he'll take it when he's ready.
For now she just wants to get away from his snoring.
...
...
Max is heading for his bike when he hears a tiny "A-hm" behind him.
That Cheetah... Freedo... whoever she is... is standing there, slender arm outstretched and mouth twitching with what he's pretty sure is impending laughter.
She's holding something... Ah, yes, the thing, whatever that thing was she was supposed to have for him. It's a scrap of white fabric, as far as Max can tell, and he thinks sourly, Won't be white for long.
He nods at her, mumbles something that might be "Thanks," and turns to go.
Max hears a strange, high-pitched noise behind his back, and whips back around to see Cheedo literally running back into the Citadel, giggling the entire way.
Crazy, he thinks, and unfurls the fabric to wipe a trail of sweat off his forehead.
It's not a white rag but a white shirt - it must have belonged to one of the women, because it's slit deeply up either side to make it wider - that reads, in grease or blood or what have you:
IF FOUND,
RETURN TO
F U R I O S A
Max grumbles some obscenities, shoves the shirt in his pants pocket, and rides away.
On his way into the salt, he runs into a party of War Boys who ask him what he's grinning so hard about.
Fandom: Mad Max: Fury Road
Author: rightfootred
Rating: R
Warnings: On the cracky side, descriptions of peril/injury, my other usual B.S.
Word Count: 2180
Spoilers: Just gonna say read at your own risk if you haven't seen the movie.
Summary: From a truly delicious prompt on the kink meme that really does say it all: every single post-apocalyptic wasteland community out there has some notion that the guy who keeps turning up lost/injured/starved/delirious with sunstroke on their turf belongs to furiosa. is he her bff? husband? strange giant grunty pet? all of the above? the post-apocalyptic wasteland communities don't know, but they really don't want to get on furiosa's bad side. so they drag banged-up max back to the citadel in multiple hilarious instances of 'hey we found your person??'
I have never been lost, but I will admit to having been confused for several weeks.
-Daniel Boone, Frontiersman
If Found, Return to Furiosa
The first time it happens, Furiosa's in the Citadel armory doing inventory, a War Pup who's just coming out of his "pup" phase bouncing behind her with a piece of paper and a stick of charcoal. Toast is looking everything over for cleanliness with narrowed eyes - occasionally she takes a piece down from the wall and spit-shines it on her shirt, snarling at any War Boy who dares to give her a sideways glance.
There's a sudden commotion from the hall outside. Furiosa's ears prick up the way a watchdog's do at the sound of an intruder - can't be too careful with prospective mutinies. She's about to pass it off as the average day's hubbub when she hears snippets of The blood bag and He's back and her feet start moving her forward at a steady clip. She gets the urge to wring her hands the way she used to when she had both of them.
She's coming to the mouth of the Citadel, where the falls are, and she hears a mass of voices crowing Furiosa, Imperator Furiosa - an impossible tidal wave of voices.
Furiosa stands at the mouth but doesn't rest her hands on the tempting handholds of the water levers (she's learned the hard way how easily that simple gesture can still lead to a riot). There's a swath of dust below that's just beginning to clear. In its place are three figures, two of them standing with more or less unamused postures, and the third one with his arms slung around the necks of the other two. It doesn't take long to notice that it's not comradery binding the three together: the man in the middle is essentially dead on his feet, his head hung so low she can't make out his face, his boots occasionally sagging and scraping for purchase in the dirt.
Furiosa sees the cropped brown hair and the cloth pauldron on his right shoulder, and there's not really any mistaking who it is.
Better safe than sorry, though.
"I am Furiosa," she calls. It comes out sounding strangled. Maybe she should have cleared her throat first.
One of the men spits in the dirt.
"Found 'im skirtin' the edge of the salt," he says, cocking his head inward. "Seemed fit for the buzzards, but 'e was goin' on and on about 'Furiosa' this, 'Citadel' that. An' gettin' on your bad side isn't somethin' people are much in the mood for these days."
Furiosa sets her jaw. Good answer, she thinks.
"His face?" she asks. She has to be sure it's him but also, strangely, doesn't want to see how bad off he is.
"Ain't much to look at right about now," the man says, and the one on the other side takes a fistful of their charge's hair and pulls his limp head up from his chest. "Snake got to 'im."
The face pointed up at her is almost comically pale and sweaty, eyes puffy and crazed and rimmed in red. His mouth is moving, likely uttering a stready stream of delirium-babble, and she thinks:
That's Max, alright.
Furiosa resists the urge to sigh. Sighing isn't very formidable.
"Let them up," she calls. "And prep the infirmary."
She turns to go, adding, "Don't wait on me to get started."
The med staff better have heard all that.
...
...
Max starts awake twenty-six hours later. If he was having a nightmare, he's still too weak to flail and start ripping out IV lines, which Furiosa counts as a small blessing. He gapes, confused, from under heavy eyelids at the sight of his ankle, which is propped on a pillow and already swollen without the ten rolls of bandages encasing it.
Furiosa watches him try to put it together for another long, hilarious moment, and then offers, "Snakebite."
Max raises his eyebrows in a half-lucid holy shit expression, grunts, and croaks, "Water."
Furiosa puts a water skin in his hand. "You haven't changed, huh," she says. "Slow down a little there."
The man glowers at her over the top of the skin, hands it off to her, and wriggles his back into the pillows as his eyes slide closed again.
"Hey," Furiosa says gently. One of Max's bleary eyes peels open to look at her.
"So you're telling random strangers to bring you back here, now?" she says. Even she doesn't know whether she's just teasing him.
Max blinks.
"Mm," he grumbles, "must've been the venom talking."
She opens her mouth to try again, but he's already snoring.
...
...
"When was someone going to tell me?" Furiosa huffs, feeling the hairs on the backs of her arms stand up. It's about a month after the first incident - it feels like it's only been a week.
The women look at each other. Cheedo twiddles her thumbs. She looks like she's going to cry.
The Dag pipes up, "Well, you were sleepin', weren't you."
Capable must see the murder in Furiosa's eyes, because she quickly adds, "He's not as bad as the last time. Quick patch job, fill-up, he'll be good to go."
Furiosa sighs. She's been doing a lot of that lately.
"That's not why I..." she starts, but throws her hands up instead and says, "Who brought him in? If they're being detained, they can go. My orders."
"They wanted to talk to you," Capable says. "Get things squared away."
Furiosa clenches and unclenches her hand. The metal one.
"Things like what?" she fumes.
...
...
"Things like... y'know... reward... things...?" the man says, right to Furiosa's face, too. He's barely more than a boy - she'll have to remember to give him credit for having guts before she kicks his ass back onto the road.
"You want a reward," she replies, without breaking eye contact.
"I, uh..." the kid replies, already faltering.
"For what?" Furiosa asks.
"He's 'yours,' i'n'he?" the kid says, shrugging. "Everyone's always on about how if you find this fellow Max on the road an' he's in a bad way, you bring him 'round the Citadel and the Imperator unloads the good stuff for your trouble."
Furiosa smiles a condescending, sad little smile, and replies, "Someone a lot smarter than you once told me, 'you can't own a human being.'"
And she heads off to visit the fool who's been dumped on her doorstep again.
...
...
True to Capable's word, Max is out the door the next day, limping on the bad leg he managed to screw up again and sporting a nasty black eye and some cracked ribs, but otherwise whole.
"You ain't gonna fix him up with a collar or nothin'?" an unnamed War Boy hoots behind Furosia as she watches Max leave. "Make it official?"
Furiosa fires back a molten glare. Truth be told, she's unsure whether she's more angry at the War Boy, or at herself for thinking it's not a half-bad idea.
The smithy has been pretty unoccupied lately.
...
...
"Hold still, will ya?" Furiosa hears The Dag's voice yell from behind the Infirmary door. She was going to pass the room by, but anything that has one of the wives paying a personal visit to the Infirmary is probably worth a look.
Of course it's him again.
Max has got a gaggle of War Boy healing staff crowding him, which she knows he'd hate if he wasn't on the verge of passing out. Thankfully, he looks to be... on the verge of passing out. The Dag is working on something at Max's side with what looks like tweezers, and a War Boy is standing on her left with a bowl that she occasionally drops tiny artefacts into with a hollow plunking sound. All the other War Boys seem to be there solely to gawk and shove each other out of the way to claim better gawking territory. There's a cloth over Max's eyes, but underneath she can see his face is sunset-red and his mouth is twisted into a grimace.
"What-" Furiosa starts.
"Heat fucked him up pretty good," The Dag replies shortly, cutting her off. "Bastard fainted onto a hornets' nest."
Furiosa crosses her arms. She's starting to see a pattern here.
"Anyone banging down our door for compensation?" she asks.
"There were a couplea blokes brought him in, didn't really get a look at 'em, though," murmurs The Dag, not looking up from her work. "They fucked right off. Didn't want you to think they had anything to do with how 'e wound up like this, I guess."
The Imperator resists the urge to grin.
"Smart of them," she says.
...
...
Three months later and she's summoned to the entry hall to meet a broad woman who has Max slung over her shoulder like a sack of guns.
"Brought him from a few clicks South, big ol' head wound, poor thing."
Furiosa nods, thinking that all the blood going to his head from hanging over the woman's back can't be a good thing for his probable concussion. All she can see from where she's standing is Max's dusty ass and legs.
"I'll admit this one weren't entirely his fault," the woman continues, saying 'this one' as if the other times Max has been dragged back here are now common knowledge. "Was assisting me in a lil' skirmish with some hostiles, caught a steel toe - BAM! - right to the skull. Ain't that right?"
Max groans in response.
"Not the chatty sort, is 'e?" the woman asks.
"Not that I know of," Furiosa sighs.
She has to stop sighing so much.
...
...
Max isn't happy with her. She does not care one bit.
"You don't leave here until the fever's gone," Furiosa says.
He's in the sixth infirmary bed he's occupied in some five months, and she's not about to let him stumble out into the wasteland with his brains still cooking so he can get scooped up and brought straight back.
"How're you gonna stop me?" Max challenges. He doesn't look very menacing with the cold compress drooping down over his eyes. He stares up at it, crossed-eyed, then grunts and yanks it off.
"By not helping you up when you fall on your face trying to get out of bed," Furiosa replies.
Max just purses his cracked lips in response. At this point, even he has to see the futility of running back out into the heat just to let it kick him while he's down.
Furiosa takes the lukewarm cloth out of his fist and presses it back onto his forehead. Her tending to him like this isn't normal for them: the fact that he's letting her do it means he'll stay, at least for a short while. He tips his neck back onto his pillow and sighs. At least she's not the one sighing this time.
"Cheedo made something for you, you know," she says. "Figure it could save us all some trouble when you head back out there."
Max's eyebrows slope upward. Should I be worried?
"She gonna give it to me?" he asks.
"I think she's scared that if she tries you're either gonna freak out or pass out."
"Mm."
"Or both."
"Mm."
"You'll see it when you leave."
What she really wants to say is Rest, take all the time you need, but he knows what she's offering - and he'll take it when he's ready.
For now she just wants to get away from his snoring.
...
...
Max is heading for his bike when he hears a tiny "A-hm" behind him.
That Cheetah... Freedo... whoever she is... is standing there, slender arm outstretched and mouth twitching with what he's pretty sure is impending laughter.
She's holding something... Ah, yes, the thing, whatever that thing was she was supposed to have for him. It's a scrap of white fabric, as far as Max can tell, and he thinks sourly, Won't be white for long.
He nods at her, mumbles something that might be "Thanks," and turns to go.
Max hears a strange, high-pitched noise behind his back, and whips back around to see Cheedo literally running back into the Citadel, giggling the entire way.
Crazy, he thinks, and unfurls the fabric to wipe a trail of sweat off his forehead.
It's not a white rag but a white shirt - it must have belonged to one of the women, because it's slit deeply up either side to make it wider - that reads, in grease or blood or what have you:
IF FOUND,
RETURN TO
F U R I O S A
Max grumbles some obscenities, shoves the shirt in his pants pocket, and rides away.
On his way into the salt, he runs into a party of War Boys who ask him what he's grinning so hard about.