Chapter Text
The floor beneath her feet disappeared faster than she expected as she burst towards him, her brain already mapping the positioning of his fists at his chest.
Jack’s form began moving faster than she’d realised though, shifting a leg back as his whole body twisted out of her way before she could even comprehend his motion.
Shit. She’d launched her attack from too far away, given him too much time to react.
Her balled fist whistled past his shoulder and Furiosa grit her teeth at the lost satisfaction of contact. Recovering quickly, she planted her feet and ducked, expecting a return swing from him.
Instead, as she looped around she spotted him simply standing, the corner of his lip upturned slightly. He made no move to retaliate.
Prick.
She spun again, throwing a low punch at his abdomen but he somehow avoided her for a second time. The third attempt was no better, nor was the fourth, shifting away at the last moment and never letting her touch him at all. He slid like air through her fingers every time.
As the minutes passed, Furiosa was feeling herself getting increasingly wrought with frustration. She hadn't even grazed him once. His range was so much further than hers, his agility unnerving for how broad he was.
After she’d thrown herself one forward more time, this time not even coming close, she slid to a stop. She let herself stay facing away from him momentarily, her breathing coming hard with the exertion. After each failed attempt he’d simply wait, observing her, waiting for her to try again.
After a second, Furiosa shook herself, taking a longer moment to catch her breath.
This time, his voice called to her. ‘Again.’
Furiosa spun back round immediately, catching his eye. There was no humour in his features, no mocking tone to his voice. She forced herself back into it, rising to the challenge.
After a few more missed punches she changed tact, and dove for his thigh; for the pocket he had stowed away the blade in.
If Jack was surprised by the move, he recovered quickly. Furiosa's fingers managed to graze the pocket this time, but the tip of her short nails didn't quite catch before Jack slid his foot back and away as he dodged, removing it once more from her grasp. The chains on his Praetorian belt clanged, swinging from where it was hoisted low on his hips.
He moved with such fluidity, such a calm non-urgency that Furiosa felt herself becoming more and more irritable in comparison.
Furiosa hadn't been angry at him before, she’d tried to be rational about everything… but now the frustration and bitterness she’d had to keep in check all day swelled in her.
She’d been poked and prodded all like a bear in a cage, the boys digging in with their stupid, endless questions, and Jack had just stood there. Stood there and bloody watched.
A tiny voice inside her appealed that judgement, knew it wasn’t quite true, but it was as if Furiosa couldn't hear it at all.
She'd had enough. She missed home. She missed her mother, she missed the quiet, the wild comfort of the green place. Not having to watch her back every moment, every fucking five SECONDS.
She turned her furious glare on him, burning up inside.
This time when Furiosa launched herself at Jack, hands curled into claws, there was no plan at all. Just violence.
Which, in retrospect, was probably why she now lay gasping on the solid floor.
She wheezed, the wind knocked out of her entirely as a light pain lanced up her spine. Jack had easily turned the fight, but this time instead of just dodging out of her way he had swung out his leg, catching her ankles with a solid kick.
It had pulled her feet out from under her and she’d landed hard, unable to stop the gasp of air forced out of her lungs.
The floor was cold now, the hot air of the day finally giving way to the evening chill.
Coughing up dust, Furiosa felt inside herself to gather up the rage she had exploded with, but it leached out of her unwillingly, dissipating quicker into the blackened ground than she could muster it. Wincing, she felt along her body mentally. She was bruised, but thankfully nothing was injured badly. She lifted her head slightly and let it hit back into the floor in frustration, the taste of pain soothing her rising embarrassment.
The vibrations of Jack’s approaching boots on the floor ran up Furiosa’s arms. She gripped herself together and sat up forcefully, scrabbling to regain a semblance of her pitiful self pride.
Jack stopped his advance when moved, and she met his eye regretfully. She waited, expecting to see the disappointment that would lay waste to her… but it didn't come.
He was like an empty space, a blank page waiting to be written on.
He didn't offer her a hand to get up, just waited patiently for her to piece herself back together on her own. The wasteland held no place for pity, and Jack seemed to hold no expectation of her at all.
When she stood and faced him again, the only hint of something in his expression was when she caught his eye lingering on her ankle. The one he’d injured when he’d pushed her out of the rig; the same one he had just tripped her up on.
Furiosa narrowed her eyes. It didn't make sense for him to feel guilty about injuring her, that wouldn’t be it. Was he examining her weaknesses?
The ankle still pained her, but the swelling had gone down significantly overnight, and it bore her weight well enough now. To demonstrate, she shifted back into a fighting stance, sliding the foot in question to the front as she raised her fists. She tensed her muscles experimentally, determination lacing her back up again. She wouldn’t be stopped that easily.
This time, it was her who called for the fight to resume.
‘Again.’
Jack’s face had the faintest ghost of a smile before his features rearranged themselves into that practiced emptiness again. This time, however, his stance was wider, a heavier defensive.
Was that his version of an acknowledgement?
Pulling on the part of her that relished the challenge, Furiosa pushed herself towards him once more.
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When they next broke apart, Furiosa was breathing heavily, sweat evaporating from the sweltering heat of her skin. The thin cotton Jack wore clung to him tightly, visible without his usual heavy jacket.
It gave her no small satisfaction to see Jack’s chest heaving as well, even if he disguised it better than she was able to.
In the last half an hour she’d actually managed to force him to block several times rather than just dodge, and she ran a palm over her own knuckles. The feel of his solid forearms blocking her had been strangely gratifying, even if she felt the soreness blossoming now.
The pain she felt was a measure of small success, of her slow improvement beckoning her on.
Somehow, it wasn't too bad if her waistband where she had been storing the knuckleduster blade was still empty. The poignant lump on Jack’s right thigh still taunted her, but the rage from earlier had lost its grip on her now.
The sounds of shifting material pulled her attention back to Jack and Furiosa watched him move to lean his shoulder against the wall. He had slowly begun unravelling his hand wraps.
Looking up at her, his forehead was creased but as he caught her eye he seemed… pleased? Furiosa straightened up instinctively.
‘That’s it for today. We’ll pick this back up again soon.’ Jack said calmly, echoing none of the rushing high that still ran through Furiosa’s veins.
The disappointment that he was ending the session cut her stronger than she’d been expecting, but it was mollified a little at the implication of a repeat.
Pouring out her rage had been cathartic, a necessary release after all that had happened that day. A tinge of embarrassment tried to colour her skin but Furiosa refused to feel it.
She shouldn't feel ashamed of who she was, especially not because of this man or what he thought of her. He was her means to an end, and to him she was…Hmm.
Well, she didn’t know the answer to that yet.
What she did know was that she wanted to train with him again. She needed to.
The pump of her worn muscles was leaving her now, the sweat drying cold. Furiosa didn't bother to repress the shiver that ran across her flesh.
She couldn't deny it, her body screamed for it - muscles she’d not been able to use properly in years beginning to ache already. She'd not felt so… so free in a long time.
Furiosa let her head hang back briefly, her tangled hair brushing the backs of her elbows. She didn’t trust herself not to stare at Jack as he unravelled the fabric from his hands.
He’d known she’d needed this sparring session too, it was a little unnerving how he’d begun to read her.
Even if just for a short moment, he'd helped let her loose, unwound the chains of this citadel only for her to realise how tight they had been before.
That wasn't to say it hadn't bothered her how much better he was at this. When she had hidden herself as a dogman, it didn't feel bad to fail. Now, unveiled of her mask and forced back out into the open… she felt underwhelming.
Furiosa dusted off her trousers lightly, biding her time.
Jack was a step above her on the ladder, physically, metaphorically, whichever way Furiosa wanted to look at it.
But gods be damned, she wanted to level that playing field. Step out of his shadow and to his side.
So you can get out of here, her brain drummed in. She waved the thought away, not needing the reminder. Obviously that was her goal.
‘Tomorrow?’ Furiosa called to Jack, trying to calm her rushing blood. She wouldn’t sound desperate, wouldn’t let him know how riled up she was.
Give him nothing, Furiosa told herself. Nothing he can use against you.
Jack looked up at her from the wad of fabric he was neatly folding. He nodded, unphased by her request.
‘Yeah. We’ve got a couple days before we’re due back on the road. Right now, I don't know about you, but I'm starved.’ he replied casually.
Furiosa glanced over at the two packs of rations on the workbench rack, dropped off by a nervous war boy earlier but both still left untouched. She’d been so consumed with her own safety, with keeping herself in check that she hadn't noticed he’d not eaten his portion earlier either.
Furiosa didn't have a chance to mull over it for longer as Jack pulled himself away from the wall and moved towards her. Furiosa quickly unknotted her own hand wraps, holding them out towards him. Instead, Jack just blinked at her, and made no move to take them back.
‘Keep ‘em. They're yours now.’
Furiosa swallowed, forcing herself to stop running her fingers over the material as she shoved them into a spare pocket.
Jack took a moment as if thinking, then reached into his pocket and pulled out the blade. He held it out deliberately, gripping the blade end and extending the handle towards her. The blood from earlier was gone, the weapon as gleaming it had been when she’d stolen it from him that first day. Furiosa couldn't take her eyes off it as it rested on the wide span of his calloused palm.
When she didn't immediately take the weapon, too caught up in her tumultuous thoughts, he moved even closer and held it directly in front of her this time.
‘Keep this as well’ his voice was a little gruffer this time, and he ran his other hand through his hair, scratching the back of his head lightly.
‘Just…’ he paused and Furiosa’s ears pricked.
‘Just try not to kill my crew with it. Alright?’
Jack stood close, but it didn't bother her as much as she expected it to. Her brain was all over the place. It didn't seem right, but her senses told her that if Jack wanted to hurt her, he’d have done it by now.
He’d certainly had enough opportunity to do so.
Furiosa forced herself to move and took the blade from his hand, slipping it back into her waistband. The weight was comforting, a sudden reprieve from a loss she didn't know had affected her quite so much.
What was she supposed to think that he’d just handed it back to her? She’d almost begun to want to fight him for it. To prove she could. To feel the embers in her reignite again.
Jack stood silently, but she could feel the expectation sitting between them. He wanted something back from her. Her agreement.
Furiosa eyed him carefully.
‘I won’t stop defending myself’ she stated, her tone argumentative as she met his eyes.
His face was unyielding as he replied.
‘That's not what I meant.’
Furiosa knew exactly what he meant. She really had come within a wheelspan of spilling the rest of that boy’s blood on the floor earlier.
She’d only managed to stop herself when she’d caught sight of Jack, his arm outstretched towards her and a fleeting expression of dread on his usually calm face. He’d made her realise right then that if she hadn’t stopped, there’d be no coming back.
The memory trailed its way up her spine. The feeling of that warboy’s fingers gripping her collar, cold nails skimming the back of her neck had shocked her. No, it had terrified her, Furiosa admitted to herself.
How had she allowed herself to let her guard down like that?
Against her better instincts, she had strayed a little further from Jack's side. She’d begun to feel like it was a false sense of protection she got from him, didn't like what being next to him was slowly doing to her.
How foolish she had been. How pathetic she felt.
Furiosa scoffed aloud, unwilling to acknowledge Jack's point, but the steel that lay in his eyes gave her pause for thought. She settled for a scowl instead; anything to muffle the terror that begged for her to remember it.
Jack turned and skimmed the room, checking the perimeter. Echoes of excitable voices bounced down the entangled corridors but none seemed to be getting closer.
Once he satisfied himself that they wouldn't be overheard, Jack stepped in, his voice lowering to a murmur anyway.
‘I get it.’ he started, before shaking his head slightly, a frustrated growl escaping his lips. Not what he had meant.
‘I see it. You have about you a purposeful savagery. I've no doubt it's why you're still here today.’ Jack’s words felt like they were wrapping around her throat, but he continued relentlessly.
‘But, if you let it go uncontrolled and you kill one of our own, even I won't be able to pull you from Joe’s wrath.’
He examined her closely before sighing wearily and finally taking a step back, leaning on his heels and tucking his hands into his jacket.
‘Whatever mirage you're seeking out there in the desert, I'm sure you'd prefer to be alive to go chasing it again one day. I can’t protect you if you sabotage yourself first.’
Furiosa instinctively stiffened at the barest mention of her secret, but she forced herself to settle. She hated it, but she knew he was right. She let the silence wind between them for a moment, before she pushed herself to speak.
‘What of the warboy?’ her voice came out as a crackle, dying embers in a burned-out fire.
Jack tilted his head, his dark forehead angling towards her.
‘That’s your decision. I’ll respect your choice.’
Furiosa didn’t let her surprise show. She fought the urge to smooth the back of her collar down, and took her time before replying.
‘...He stays.’
At Jack’s raised eyebrow, she scowled at him again. She’d need to face the boy again sooner or later, and whether she wanted to admit it or not, she’d rather have Jack behind her when she did. Begrudgingly, she conceded the point.
‘I won’t kill him.’
She’d intended it to come out snappish, but a tension in Jack’s shoulders released almost instantly.
‘Thank fuck.’ he declared, and Furiosa could only watch him in a daze as he sparked back into action, pulling back on his jacket fluidly and flipping the collar down.
‘Now let’s get something to eat.’