MAD MAX SANDBOX POST

[iamawaited]

Welcome to the Wasteland: a sandbox/open post for Mad Max RP

(Seriously, go nuts.

That's what this canon is for.)

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[sheiscapable]

The lift starts to move, and for a moment all she can do is stare up at him and be grateful he's alive. "The others will be happy to see you. They need...they need someone who understands that the world can be more than what they've been told."

Her second hand comes up to frame his other cheek. "Whatever you want to do, I'll help you figure it out."

[iamawaited]

He looks down at her again when her hands cup his scarred cheeks, and though there's still something a little lost in his eyes, they brighten with gratitude when they find hers again. Want. He's never had a want before that hadn't been given to him by somebody else.

Well, no. He does have one, he realizes: an impulse that's gripped him a few times since she first lay down with him in the cab. He hasn't done anything about until now, not the least of all because it's not a thing he's ever done before, but she says whatever you want to do, and he doesn't think she'll mind -- so he ducks down and kisses her, very quickly, very briefly.

[sheiscapable]

She blinks. This is there and gone before she can really do anything. Her fingers touch her mouth as she looks up at him in awe. "You did that." she says, like she finds it to be some kind of miracle. "You did that on your own."

In his way he's been a slave his whole life, and seeing him make his own choices fills her with wonder.

[iamawaited]

"Yeah." He grins, though it falters slightly after a second as he thinks back on the words and hesitates. He touches her hair again, then drops his hands down to her arms, like he's trying to reassure her and himself at the same time. "Is that okay?"

He thinks it was. He hopes it was. He'd like to do it again, if he can.

[sheiscapable]

"It's more than okay." Capable murmurs, glancing on each side at the way his arms are coiled around hers. She looks back up at him. "We don't know how much time you have." The truth of it presses down on her the way Larry and Barry press down on his windpipe. "But we're going to find a way to give you more." It still won't be enough, she thinks. The only amount of life for him that would be enough is a full one. And almost every minute of it with her.

[iamawaited]

The first part relieves him. His smile widens again, and he runs his hands up and down her arms just for the pleasure of the touch, then rests his head against hers again. "Good."

The second part... The lift grinds to a halt and he takes advantage of the distraction for a moment, because her proposition sets his head to whirling. The only reason anyone has ever considered prolonging his life before -- the only reason he's ever considered it -- has been to spare him for a greater death. The idea of living just to live is supposed to be something for other people. Full-lives, not half-lives.

But in those last few moments on the rig, just before Rictus had come up on him and torn his engine out, hadn't he thought: what if? Hadn't he thought, skidding into the canyon wall, that maybe he might have hoped to live after all?

He slips his hand into Capable's as the lift stops and limps with her into the Citadel proper, oddly quiet in the face of her declaration. It's a lot to chew on, and not only for his tumors.

[sheiscapable]

Leading him in, she considers his limping form with concern. "Do you want to go see the Organic Mechanic?" she asks, keeping her fingers curved around his. "If you can wait, there's someplace I want to take you - someplace I don't know if you've ever really been allowed in."

Because now all places are free, and accessible, and she wants him to know that freedom.

[iamawaited]

He shakes his head. "I can wait." He knows he can -- he hurts, and he's tired, but he knows the difference between pain and weariness and something closer to fatal. He'll know when there's no choice but to see the Organic, but he's not there yet.

And if it's a choice between sitting around on a rock with a tube in his arm for hours or going somewhere with Capable, he knows which one he'd rather do. It'll spare him from his thoughts a while longer, anyway. There are suddenly so many of them.

[sheiscapable]

She wants to ask if he's sure, because he really does seem like he needs a medic, and at this point the Organic Mechanic is actually too frightened of the Wives (a revelation, imagining anyne would actually be afraid of them!) to not do as he is bid - Nux is going to get the best care. But she doesn't, trusting him to know is own mind.

Instead she keeps hold of his hand, an begins to guide him deeper into the Citadel. It's just as much up as it is in, and the stairs cut out of rock that she's guiding him to lead to the very top of the Citadel, an heretofor forbidden zone full of lush greenery. Her fingers tighten around his. She's taking him to a sacred place.

[iamawaited]

Through all of this, from the very beginning, one hope has been recurring in Nux's heart: that whatever the reason the gates refuse to open for him -- or whatever the truth out there might really be -- that he's lived all this extra time to be able to do something great. He'd thought to do it with his death, and it's still an adjustment, trying to think of it as something he could do with his life.

But that's all to say that when he first gets to the green place, he wonders if this might have been it all along. He'd caught glimpses, the faintest glimpses of it before, moving through the aquacoladucts, and he's seen the produce, but... he'd never imagined that there was this much of it. It's almost too jarring to be beautiful, like he doesn't know how to love it. He grips her hand tightly, staring all around them, astonished.