Archive of Our Own ^beta

At first, Max thought he was paranoid. He was still relatively new to the Citadel, and the War Boys and Repair Boys had no experience outside of Joe's regime; it made sense if they thought he was exotic and possibly untrustworthy. It wasn't strange that their eyes followed him everywhere, or that they often stopped talking when he walked into the garage. Right? Not strange at all.

Except it really, really was.

He didn't want to say anything to Furiosa. He thought she was still afraid, sometimes, that he might leave, and though he didn't plan on it, he couldn't guarantee he wouldn't. He didn't want her to think he was uncomfortable. He wasn't, most of the time.

Still, they stared, and it bothered him, especially when he hadn't slept, or when she was under stress, or when they'd argued.

So one day, when he was disassembling an engine with a pup named Kit and heard that suspicious whispering behind him, he turned around and said, "What?"

There were nine of them, all male, all staring with wide, startled eyes. They mumbled and muttered and said, "You," and, "No, you," and finally pushed the tallest of them a step in front of the others.

He stood there opening and closing his mouth.

"Well?" Max said. He was not above using fear to gain the upper hand.

"Oh, uh," the tall one said. Max thought his name was Spanner, but he'd never worked with the kid. "We were just wondering, uh."

Someone elbowed Spanner in the ribs; he closed his mouth and looked resolutely at the floor.

"Wondering," another one said, a chubby one with big ears who stood up straighter as he spoke, "wondering if it's good when a woman screams?"

Max must have had a nightmare of a look on his face, because they all shuffled backwards. "Why?" he asked. "What did you do to her?"

"Nothing! We didn't do nothing!"

The chubby one spoke up again. "It's just, the Boss, we hear her scream at night, and you --"

"Stop," Max said, calling up his most dangerous voice. "Pups, out. You," and he picked a Repair Boy at random, "you make sure they go, and shut the door."

Kit and the other pups grumbled, but went. The boys whispered to each other.

"You don't talk about her that way." Max knew Furiosa didn't care who heard them, and he loved when she was loud, but there was a line. "It's disrespectful. You don't talk about anybody that way. You don't speculate about what two people do when they're alone, okay? Ever."

"What's 'speculate'?" asked a boy who had begun growing in his hair.

"Guess. Talk about. It's not your business what other people do in private."

One of the shorter ones was biting a fingernail and looking abashed. "But she likes you, right? How did you get her to like you?"

By trying to kill her, Max didn't say.

"We just figured, I mean. You must be doing something right."

Someone else said, "Where do you ...?" but couldn't finish.

There was more shuffling, and more whispering, and more shoving. Finally a skinny one Max knew, Plug, came forward. "Speck kissed a girl and asked her to trade paint and she punched him good."

"Pow, right in the face!"

Max could tell which one was Speck by the red cheeks and crooked nose. "Well, good," he said.

"Why's that good? She didn't have to hit me!"

"Did you ask her before you touched her?"

Nobody had an answer to that, but everybody looked confused. Max sighed. Respect was not a value Joe's Citadel had had time for. Respect was soft. Even Furiosa, who knew more of the outside world than the others, hadn't seen love between adults for more than 7,000 days. If she and Max had found their way though that minefield, maybe others in the Citadel could follow, if they were taught how. And he seemed to have been nominated.

"You have to ask," he told them. "You always have to ask before you touch anybody."

"I asked!" Speck said. "I did!"

"You don't ask like that," Max said. "You don't just walk up to her. You have to talk to her."

Someone piped up from the back. "I said a girl looked like she ate really well and she ran away!"

"Not like that, either," Max said. "You just, mmm. You just talk. You have to get to know her." He winced as he said it, and winced more as he watched their reactions.

"What?"

"Why?"

"How?"

"I never talked to a girl since I was a pup with my mum!"

"We don't have to ask when it's just us!"

Max picked two of these to address. "One, whatever you've done between you is between you. But you have to ask women."

In reply he saw some frowns, and some nods, and plowed on.

"Two, you talk about other things first. You say hello. You tell her your name, and you ask her name. And if she smiles at you, maybe you ask if she wants to sit with you at dinner."

"And at dinner you ask if she wants to trade paint?"

"No, not --" Max started, but their curiosity had overtaken their patience.

"What do you do when she says yes?"

"How do you make her scream?"

"They have different between their legs, right?"

"Can they squirt like us?"

He was going to have to draw a fucking diagram, and that, Max decided, was his limit.

*

Word had already spread when Max slunk out of hiding and down to dinner. He stood frozen in the doorway, seeking out Furiosa's eyes, and she laughed as she approached. All around the room, he could see young men looking at him with interest and respect, and older women nodding in approval. He missed the desert sometimes. Lizards didn't tell tales.

When Furiosa came close enough to see how uncomfortable he was, her laugh turned into her fondest smile. "You're a good man, Rockatansky," she said.

"Please don't make me do that again."

"We'll find someone else, I promise."

"I was thinking Nate," he said desperately. Nate was a former Wretched, an old man who'd lost two wives and now had two grown daughters and a son. He was good at keeping his family alive, and he treated women like people, and he could corral the boys. "Nate would be good."

"I'll talk to him," Furiosa said. "Don't worry about it." She patted his back, between his shoulder blades, and suggested they take their food upstairs. Then she suggested they eat it naked.

When the plates were clean, and Max was feeling less exposed (though no less naked), Furiosa sat on his thighs, rubbing his shoulders. Between moans, he told her about the conversation. It was very different from the version she'd heard.

"They told everyone you said to never touch a woman," she said.

"Mmm," Max said, shrugging. "If that's all they remember, it's fine with me."

She bent down and kissed the back of his neck, then sat up again. "But really you said they have to want it."

"Mmm."

"That's," she said. Her fingers danced over his skin. "The women could use lessons in that, too."

"Just leave me out of it."

She chuckled and pinched him on the spine.

"Are you going to teach them, then?" he asked.

She chuckled again and he knew it meant no. Then her hand stopped moving and she stretched out on his back to say in his ear, "Thank you. Thank you for making it about --" She paused, and he felt her lungs expand as she breathed, and he heard tears in her voice. "About yes."

He turned over underneath her. Her lips were right above his. "That's what we're trying to do here, isn't it? Make this a better place?"

"Yes," she said, interlacing her fingers with his. "We are."