Archive of Our Own

Max doesn't know how long it's been since he was captured, since he had his belongings stripped away and his skin tattooed. The days slide away meaninglessly, filled with an endless cycle of bleed-rest-bleed, a well-oiled machine designed to keep him from having the least chance at escaping.

It's been months, at least- long enough for the brand on the back of his neck to have healed over, for him to grow almost resigned to the muzzle fitted around his face, for the regular access to water and constant press of so many people's pheromones to push him up into a damn heat.

The fucking sick excuse for a doctor they have here dismissed Max as potential breeding stock despite his omega status- too old, too used-up, too ugly- and he tries not to be grateful for that. From his vantage point in his hanging cage he's seen women of all designations and the handful of male omegas who were deemed suitable stripped and examined on the cold stone slabs, assessed like cattle for signs of fertility. The fact that he isn't among them is one of the few things that makes biding his time here while he looks for ways to escape even remotely possible.

Being a blood-bag instead of a broodmare doesn't mean he'll be allowed to endure a heat by himself, though. When it finally does happen the discomfort is slow growing, almost unfamiliar after so many years of that aspect of his biology being all but shut-down. Max hangs upside down, draining into yet another painted Citadel skeleton, and only hopes it will go unnoticed, more light-headed than usual as waves of itchy warmth wash over him.

“Cut that line!” the Organic Mechanic shouts, “Damn feral'll have this whole place in heat, you let it stay up there.”

The needle being taken out of his veins is less of a relief than it could be.

Max fights as soon as there's enough leverage but his hands are locked behind his back, he's dizzy and weakened, distracted by the slow burning low in his pelvis. It's not much of a struggle, a pack of betas carrying him away from the Blood Shed to be thrown into a small cell, empty, windowless. The door slams shut behind him and he's in darkness.

He claws at the door, but it's metal set solidly into the stone. The room is carved from one piece of rock, no seams or weak spots that his feverish mind can detect.

Max curls into himself in the corner, eyes trained on the very faint sliver of light he can see from the seam of the door, waiting. They won't leave him here to die- his blood is too valuable for that. They'll have to open the door eventually, to give him water, to try and fuck him. He'll rush the opening, fight his way out. He strains against the manacles on his wrists but they're solid, unyielding.

They leave him for what feels like hours. He paces the confines of the tiny cell restlessly, fingers feeling for anything loose, any hint of weakness to use while he can still think. There's nothing, just darkness and warm air, a cool stone floor to lie against when he can no longer manage to keep his feet under him at all.

The heat builds in him, a quiet desire blooming to a burning need. Max hasn't had a full-blown heat in years, had thought that maybe he couldn't, anymore. There's no mistaking it now. His dick's hard and aching but it's an afterthought compared to the way his cunt yearns, itches deep inside with the need to be filled. There's slick smeared all over the inside of his leathers where he's all but dripping wetness and won't that be a bitch to clean out later, such a mundane thought that it startles an almost hysterical bark of laughter out of him.

He resists sticking a hand down his pants for as long as he can, but eventually he has to try, the need too strong. Max clumsily works his bound hands between skin and leather, reaches down as far as he's able to press against the aching cunt nestled up between his legs. He's hot and slick, vaginal opening quivering against even his own fingers, desperate to be filled.

The angle's terrible and even flexing as much as he's able, he can't get more than the bare tip of his finger inside, a fraction of a centimeter that does nothing more than tease at the burning he feels. He growls in frustration, throws his head back so the metal cage around his face clanks against the stone walls, shock reverberating through his skull.

Eventually the door opens and light floods the cell, blinding him.

Max is a sweaty heaving mess by the time it does so, desperate enough that he doesn't even care that the people he can hear crowding inside will be raping him, totally at the mercy of his body.

“Smells ripe enough to me.”

“Look, he ain't even trying to get away.”

“'Cause he knows we got what he needs.”

There's too many too guess at a number, anonymous and reeking of aroused beta under their paint. He struggles weakly when hands grab at him, pull off his boots and leathers and brace to be flung aside, but it's futile.

“Think we can we take the muzzle off?”

“He'll bite- I ain't risking my dick!”

The stone is cold and unyielding against Max's knees when they force him to kneel, caged face pressed up against the floor without his hands to brace against. The worst part is how his body wants to be in this position, wants to present himself for mating, wants to get fucked even as the distant parts of his rational mind rebel at the thought.

“By the eight he's wet.”

“Gonna feel so good stretching that pussy open.”

“You just gonna look or you gonna fuck?”

His ass is in the air, legs spread so his puffy hole is on display, cool fingers trailing his overheated flesh to cup and pinch and rub. Wetness seeps out of him even as he tries to remember how to struggle, how to lash out instead of pressing into the contact.

“Need a hand, brother?”

“You always were lousy with a lance.”

“I'm on it, shut up!”

The hands on his limbs tighten, and there's the unmistakable press of a cock against the opening of his cunt. Max can't help but moan as it slides in, blunt and hot and for a split second exactly what he needs, exactly what silences the itch and calms his mind.

“Listen to that wouldyah.”

“Knows his place already.”

“Good bitch.”

The beta above him ruts quickly, hands wrapped tight around his hips to hold him up off his bad knee, a steady stream of obscenities falling from his mouth.

“Gonna fucking breed you, stuff your belly full with my pup, you're gonna leak for days when I'm done...”

At first the sensation is perfect, hot and hard and fast, but- Max clenches down on the cock inside him, wanting it to stay. Betas can knot during an omega's heat, but even as addled as his mind is, he knows these ones won't. He needs a knot to come while he's in heat but they don't, and there's no reason for any of them to tie themselves to him for the length of time it'd take for a knot to deflate.

The beta groans, thrusts stuttering to a stop, and spills inside of him wetly. Max can feel his cock pulsing against the sensitive nerves of his k-spot and his internal muscles try to lock down, but there's nothing to grab- the beta pulls out, leaving him achingly empty.

The next to use him palms his dick while he thrusts in a slow steady metronome rhythm, gets Max to shoot off a weak miserable shadow of an orgasm that just leaves his cunt spasming, burning with need.

He has enough presence of mind to try and get away from the third, cock thick enough to hurt even with the mess of slick and cum leaking from his hole, but the betas around him just laugh at his attempts. It feels like it's splitting him wide, tearing him open, the unrelenting pressure of it deep inside more than he can handle.

“This cum-bag thinks it can get away!”

“Gonna breed it up real good for that.”

“Bitch's gonna be begging for it by the time I'm done.”

The fourth lets his knot swell, fucks it in and out of Max's stretched sore opening, never deep enough for his muscles to tie down around. It's agony on top of the boiling need, not having a knot properly filling him just where he needs, not being able to come and dampen the heat for a few precious minutes.

He loses track of how many use him, after that. It's so close to what his body needs but not nearly close enough, leaves him panting and growling in frustration as anonymous dicks fill him one after the other.

Once, Max looked forward to heats, back before the world went entirely insane and there were still things like consent laws and heat leave. He'd had fun, locked away in his flat with a partner or some toys or eventually a real mate, just a long weekend with nothing to do but eat, sleep, and fuck.

This is a cruel mockery of all of that, something he'd hoped to be spared when his heats were scourged away by the harshness of wasteland survival.

Cold metal against his opening shocks him back to the present, has him hissing out and thrashing weakly. It's blunt and slick and far too cold against his overheated flesh, and the unyielding length of it presses in deep, plugs him full of beta cum.

The swell of it is nothing like a real knot but his internal muscles spasm and clench down on it anyway, desperate for whatever relief it can bring. The plug warms quickly to his body heat, sitting heavy and firm up against his k-spot, almost what he needs. Max is so distracted by the fact that he's finally coming, as weak and miserable as it is with the awkward shape, that he doesn't even realize he's been left alone until a long stretch of minutes pass.

Without hands holding him in place he crumples completely onto the floor, reaches down to try and manipulate the plug with his fingertips so his strained muscles can pretend he's milking a real knot. He should pull it out, push out as much of the cum that's been left inside him as he can, but his body rebels against the thought. It wants to be bred, wants his womb to grow and swell, even as unlikely as that outcome is.

He's given birth before but it was a lifetime ago, back when he was healthy, had the support of a mate and real trained doctors. It was a shock to go into heat at all, as battered as his body is- there's no real chance of him emerging pregnant, no matter how much cum gets pumped into him.

Time passes with Max is helpless to do anything but writhe on the floor, trying to fuck himself with the plug as best he can, wrists cramping at the angle and knee singing out agony that does nothing to dampen the fever raging through him.

The door opens again, flooding the cell with light once more. More betas swarm in, hands cool as they pin him, pull out the plug and plunge their own cocks inside in its place.

The door remains ajar this time, sounds echoing down the stone hallway, fresh air gusting in and sweeping away some of the thick scent of cum and slick and heat.

Max watches the doorway with dull eyes, wondering if there's some way to make a dash for it- useless thinking, as chained as he is by his biology, by the thicket of hands holding him down. A shadow fills the lighted space at the same time a sharp powerful smell hits his nostrils- an alpha.

“Boss, want a turn?”

“All warmed up for you!”

He can't see anything of the person, but it's the first unbonded alpha he's encountered since coming into heat, and he wants. Betas could decide whether to knot, but alphas- they don't have the choice, need something tight around their knots same as an omega needs something to tie down around. And oh, how he needs- the burning ache deep in his body is all-consuming, barely affected by the sweep of cocks hammering deep inside, the cum sloshing out of his wrecked cunt.

The alpha hasn't stepped over the threshold yet to start fucking him and Max groans in frustration, thinking of nothing but the relief that being knotted would provide. What remain of his senses are all trained on them, waiting for them to make a decision.

The beta inside him finishes with a groan, pulls out and slaps the meat of Max's ass. “Come on, when's the last time you had a go? And see, he's willing enough!”

The alpha steps into the room, crouches down not at his ass, but near Max's head. Something metallic grips the cage of the muzzle, tilts his head further off the floor. His eyes are slow to focus, hazed over with exhaustion and heat hormones, but when they finally do catch he can see that it's a woman, a female alpha staring at him in assessment.

Alpha women were about as uncommon as male omegas, both of them abominations in the eyes of some, prizes to others- it doesn't make much difference to Max, especially not when he's this deep into his heat. She has a knot, same as an alpha man, and she'll either give it to him or leave him to the mercy of the betas again.

He hopes she stays, plumps him full of cum and ties with his needy hole.

“Alpha,” Max rasps out, the first word he's spoken since the full force of the heat hit. It's a plea and an acknowledgment, a gambit to appeal to her own instincts.

The grip on the muzzle falls away but he fights to keep his gaze trained on her, panting raggedly to at least get as much of her sharp alpha scent as possible, all metal and blood and spice. She rocks back on her heels before standing and he lets his eyes close again, a defeated sob welling up out of him.

But instead of heading for the door, he hears steady bootsteps walk around his body, down to where the betas are still supporting him.

A new hand touches his flank, warm and soothing, and his body presses into the contact. Alphas in general weren't particularly rare, but it wasn't often that they bothered with omegas in situations like this. The vulnerability of being knotted was better saved for a mate, not some cast-off held down against his will.

“You've done a real number on him,” the alpha says, her voice low, almost reprimanding.

“'Nother crew got here first; said he was right feral with 'em.”

She tsks, her hand trailing down to slide through his sore lips and causing the tired muscles of his cunt to flutter, a line of cum and fresh slick dripping out onto the stone floor. Max bites back a whine, wanting her to commit to plunging in or leave so someone else could resume fucking him. Just the presence of an alpha is starting to edge off some of the desperation, the mind-numbing haze of need, but it's not necessarily a good thing when it means being more aware of what's happening.

“You've all had your turns,” she says with the weight of easy authority, and the betas grumble but one by one their hands peel away from his skin, heavy steps ringing out as they leave the room.

“Ace, doorway.”

“Gotcha, boss.”

Max opens his eyes again when he realizes that it's just the two of them, the close air of the cell filled with her heady scent over the stink of beta cum. His body fights to stay upright past the strain and tiredness, wanting to present himself as best he can, prove he's worthy of the alpha's attentions.

“Do you want this, omega?” she asks, words slow to filter through his brain.

When they register, he almost wants to laugh. Does he want this? Max is in the middle of a full-blown heat, so damn wet and open he'd be willing to fuck just about anything, so needy he hadn't even tried to fight the last set of betas to take him.

He growls in frustration, presses back into the warm weight of her hand in answer. Even if speaking wasn't beyond him at the moment, he wouldn't want to give her the satisfaction of listening to him beg- because if he had words, he would be begging for it, well beyond the point at which he could turn aside a living knot when it's offered.

“Easy, easy,” the alpha says, tone soothing. She slips her fingertips inside his cunt, rubs the walls carefully until she finds his k-spot tucked up deep, that tender band of tissue that's made to hit against a swollen knot, to spark pleasure along his nerves as his body fulfills its purpose.

Max all but keens at the feeling, frustrated and aroused and wanting- needing- more. He rolls his hips back into the contact but his already over-stressed bad knee quavers, threatens to send him tumbling the rest of the way to the floor.

The alpha must see because she pulls her fingers back out with a slick sound, wraps a hand around his hips and stretches out so the strange metallic object from before is on his shoulder. “Over,” she says, guiding him to roll onto his back.

It's not comfortable at all to lie with his chained hands trapped underneath his chest, doesn't send the thrill of rightness to his omega hindbrain that properly presenting would, but it is much kinder on his knee. He raises his head to look now that he can, sees that the alpha has a metal hand in place of a flesh one, notices that she's not shaved and painted like the others. Her eyes are very green when they meet his gaze, glinting in the light from the propped-open door.

Max lets his head fall back down again, resting against the cool stone floor. The alpha runs her hand down the exposed skin of his belly, scratches at the wiry hair over his chest and plucks at a nipple, spends a moment fondling his stiff cock, a horrible tease. It only takes a light touch before he's spilling with a frustrated groan, useless heatcum splattering over his stomach, another frustrating mockery of an orgasm.

She scoops up some of the clear fluid off his abdomen, leans over his prone body to hold it out towards his head in offering. Max wonders if she knows to be afraid of the muzzle, what it represents. But he lets her put her sticky fingers through the gap of the metal without biting even a little anyway, licks his own cum off her skin. The combined tang of his fluids and her skin sends pulses of hunger spiraling through him again, her pale eyes darkening with answering desire as he mouths at her retreating fingers.

Her legs are snugged up tight with his hips where she's kneeling between his spread thighs, cold metal and rough leather rasping against his skin when she twitches her hips forward, and he's never minded that instead of cocks alpha women keep their ovis tucked up inside- except that it means he can't feel it, doesn't have anything hot and firm to press against.

Max groans in frustration, tilts his head back as he arches his spine, exposes his throat on a hard-wired impulse, mating instinct overriding the need to keep himself protected.

She tugs at the metal of the muzzle as if testing its strength, runs the fingers of her hand down the vulnerable length of his neck. There's an old healed-over mating scar near the juncture of his shoulder and the alpha's fingertips stutter over the raised skin of it, thumb sweeping down to rub at the arch of his collarbone. He jerks away, unwilling even as desperate for touch as he is to let her examine that part of him. It was one of the last things he had left of Jessie, safely hidden under layers of leather and armor until this wretched place had him stripped to the bone.

The alpha brings her hand away from the scar, murmurs some soft wordless noise of apology. The reminder of what he's lost unfortunately doesn't do much to distract from the growing need, rising again now that the initial calming thrill of alpha pheromones so close has worn thin. Max whines at the wave of heat and spreads his thighs as well as he can without jarring his bad knee, hooks his right leg around her belted waist demandingly.

“I know, omega, I know,” she says, “I've got you.” It's less a brag and more a reassurance, incongruous against the taunts of the earlier betas.

The alpha smooths her flesh hand down his side before reaching out of sight for what he can only hope is the opening of her pants. There's the slick sound of her easing out her ovi and Max swallows heavily in anticipation, cunt clenching around nothing as the heat burns up his skin.

The alpha takes her time sliding in, the tapered tip of her ovi hot and firm where she presses inside, filling him up with the promise of her knot. Her metal hand wraps around his leg to hitch his hips up higher, closer, sharp edges digging in as she sets a rolling rhythm, striking deep against the itch inside him.

It's so much more than what the betas had given him- an angle that hits his k-spot effortlessly, her powerful intoxicating scent urging him on, the sure knowledge that she won't be pulling out before knotting. Max finds himself enjoying it for more than the base physical need, almost, a reprieve from the hellish scrape of beta cock pounding him without break.

She doesn't waste time dragging the fucking out, her knot already swelling- or maybe she's inexperienced, overwhelmed by his heat pheromones. Max doesn't much care, as long as that knot stays inside him. His muscles clench down against the growing swell in anticipation, breaths coming shorter as a true climax draws near.

The alpha gives one last sharp thrust before letting out a muffled cry of pleasure, curling up over him as she buries her ovi as deep inside his cunt as it'll go, knot expanding to its full dimensions. The hot rush of seed pumping into him should be too much, too feverish on his overheated skin, but it's instead soothing, a balm for that itch deep inside.

Max squeezes hard, the press of her knot bright against his sparking k-spot, muscles locking down around her. Wave after wave of pleasure hits him as he milks the knot, until it's all he can do to remember to breathe, great gasping breaths that draw the alpha's scent down into his lungs. Fuck, this was exactly what he needed, a perfect compliment to his own biology, a shadow of the completeness he once felt at the hands of his mate.

Her hand finds its way to his dick once again, but now that he's stretched full with a knot it's a welcome touch, and he arches up into it as much as he can, pinned as he is. The alpha wrings out another orgasm through his dick and the small movements of her ovi deep inside him, rocking back and forth where she's snugged in tight. Her hand drops away when he's finished spilling, metal arm unhooking from his leg until he can relax his posture.

It's a horribly uncomfortable position to be knotted in but the relief Max feels at having that itch momentarily sated overwhelms the discomfort. The alpha rubs the clear heatcum he's spattered across himself into the skin of his belly, a slow hypnotic sweep of slick friction, cooling as it dries in the close damp air of the cell.

“Alright?” she asks, and Max cranes his head to look her in the eye, mildly disbelieving that she'd bother asking. He was literally chained up, muzzled, had right up until his heat hit been used as a blood-bag for dying psychopaths, and was now tied with an entirely unknown alpha in a tiny cell after being similarly used by any number of betas.

There really wasn't any way for any of it to be 'alright,' though he supposes he's still relatively unharmed, chronic blood-loss aside.

To her credit, the alpha looks as if she wants to take the question back. With one last swipe of her hand over his sticky skin she leans back, her knot tugging at where they're joined but holding firm for now.

When she softens enough to pull out the blazing need will rise back up, but Max is glad for the temporary reprieve.

“Would it be better for you if I came back?” she asks, as if he has any say in the matter. “Or told the betas to leave you alone, maybe?”

The thought of being left alone is as intolerable as the thought of more strangers using his body, of lowering himself to beg for this alpha and her pretense of caring. The fact that she's even asking is confusing. Max let her bury her knot in him so he could have a few minute's peace from the burning ache within him, and unless she was suggesting that she even informally claim him- unlikely, considering that he hasn't so much as said two words to her- he can't make sense of her motives.

The alpha sighs and says something to herself, too quietly for him to hear. It sounds wistful, whatever it was, and Max wonders if he reminds her of some long-lost lover, to explain the way she seems to almost care more than just getting a fuck.

The deeply omega parts of himself can't help but spend a moment to think about what it would be like to be bonded with her, to have that controlled intensity at his back, in his bed. It sets off shivers of want deep inside himself, all the weak instinctual parts of him that desire a strong mate above all else practically purring at the thought of bearing her children. His rational mind isn't so swamped by hormones and stops the thought before it gets any further, before he has to hate himself.

It's a more pressing concern that the knot is deflating, and as hard as his muscles clench it'll slip out soon, the tide of his heat already rising back up to swallow him.

The alpha tucks the discarded metal plug back into him before she leaves, half a mercy and half a torment. It fails to replicate the feel of her living knot while still providing something for his beleaguered muscles to clutch around, a poor substitute for the taste of completion he'd had.

Max doesn't see her again after all, for all she'd made the offer. The next group of betas to swarm over him pause, have one knot him while another pours water down his throat. Every group after that has at least one knotter, sometimes two, little moments of relief that keep him going until his heat finally breaks.

He's brought back to the Organic Mechanic's lair, hung back up in his cage to be drained of blood again after a quick dunk in a tank of ditch-water and a day's respite.

The days continue to blur beyond Max's capacity to care as the cycle of bleed-rest-bleed resumes. He's thinking that the food delivery might be the weak link in the chain, his potential way out. Some of the kids sent to pour slop down his throat were pretty cocky, slow to use the shock-sticks in favor of trying to be intimidating, lazy about making sure the doors were fastened while he twitched.

However, eventually the rhythm is interrupted by what seems like some sort of celebration, the stone walls resounding with explosions and delighted shouting and guitar riffs. Painted War Boys hurtle through the hallway below him as they collect their steering wheels, tumbling and rutting and spilling astringent liquor as they pass.

Whatever the celebration is for, it also sets the Organic into a “good” mood; he jovially declares the Blood Shed closed for the night. He's done this once before, and terrible anticipation clenches Max's chest when the man goes for the first of the cages, spills the captive inside to hang limply. He won't cut his precious blood-bags, no, but there's plenty of ways to make a person hurt.

Max turns away, shuts his eyes and ears against the foul deeds being carried out. There's the barest brush of moonlight peeking through the window-slit he can see out of, the stars above undimmed by the lamps burning inside the stone walls.

The hatch below him opens without warning, jerks him roughly to swing by his ankles. He's disoriented until a gust of moonshine-laden breath hits him, and he wriggles against his bonds fruitlessly while the Organic Mechanic laughs cruelly.

“And you, omega,” he sneers, “let's get some samples, hmm?”

Max bares his teeth at him, a useless threat with the metal strapped to his face but one he can't help.

“Omega men make terrible milkers,” the Organic says like it's a lesson, and Max realizes that there's a young War Boy trailing him, a sick mix of admiration and fear in his black-rimmed eyes. Max's shirt is pulled down to expose his front, covering his head and blocking the pair from sight. A hand lands roughly on his chest, pinch one of his nipples harshly. “They'll lactate all right if they're knocked up, but you can't get much out of 'em. Best save that for the women- they've the better equipment for it.”

A second hand reaches up to pat at Max's chest tentatively. “Don't feel like a milker,” the kid says.

“Nah, this one's all dried out,” the Mechanic replies, already moving on. He brusquely undoes the fastenings on Max's pants, easily brushing aside his wild attempts to resist. Max snarls insults and threats at him, words tangling into one rolling noise of rage, falling unheeded on the ears of someone who thrives on misery.

“See how small the balls are? Some cut 'em off entirely- makes 'em more docile, and they're hardly worth anything anyway.” Max squeezes his eyes shut even behind the tangle of his shirt, tries to take himself away. Without the haze of heat surrounding him the touch makes his skin crawl, gorge rising in his throat despite the lack of any food in his stomach. “Neat trick to leaving 'em, though- you hold that flask steady, now.”

Something slim and cold and metallic is wedged between his clenched legs, presses dryly against the opening of his cunt. The Organic spits, just enough slick to ease the way, and the probe pushes inside. It buzzes to startling life a second later, vibrations rattling their way through his flesh, and Max bites the inside of his cheek to contain a shout.

“Prostate's tricky to find with all the crap they've got stuffed in there,” the Organic narrates over the noise of it, “I'll show you when we get the other samples. Gotta jump-start this bitch's engine first.”

The probe is unrelenting as it hones in on what is otherwise an unremarkable aspect of omega anatomy, delivers up a mechanical facsimile of pleasure that feels like the worst sort of betrayal, his own body subject to the whims of biology without even the mind-numbing hormones of heat to smooth the way. It's not long before Max can feel slick wetting his lips, his dick leaking, balls aching as the ruthless press against his prostate makes his body react. Against his will his cum's milked out of him, drips down into the jar the kid is holding up.

“Well well well,” the Organic says, switching the probe off suddenly. The tone of his voice makes it feel less like a relief than it should.

“Omegas shoot clear?” the War Boy asks.

“Omega spunk goes clear when they get into heat, since they ain't gonna be doing the fucking. Good way to tell their cycle- just drain 'em now and again, see if there's any sperm.” A hand smacks the bared skin of Max's stomach, digs in to rub forcefully. “This one had his heat, hmm, 'bought a month ago. Shouldn't be due for another three, at least- hard to tell with these stringy wasteland bitches, of course.”

Max keeps his eyes shut tightly, wishes the roar of blood in his head was loud enough to drown out the words.

“Means this one's been sprogged, bred like the bitch he is. Balls ain't need to make sperm if there's already a baby, hormones all switch over and whatnot. Never liked the Pups ferals put out much myself, but they have their uses.”

“He's a breeder?” the kid asks, awe in his voice, and that's what makes Max finally retch, bile burning up the back of his throat. He can't be pregnant, not again, not while stuck in this hellhole. Panic claws down his spine, heart pounding fit to burst out his chest.

“Congratulations, blood-bag,” the Organic drawls, fingers trailing over his skin in a mockery of a caress, “You're going to be a mother.”

The kid runs off to fetch a pair of War Boys while the Mechanic haphazardly does his leathers back up, presses a crackling electric prod to the back of Max's neck. He goes limp from the pain and shock of it, can't do more than struggle ineffectually as he's brought down to the ledges from his hanging chain.

“Take this one down to the Breeder's Den,” the Organic says to the War Boys once they arrive, and they heft him up so he's forced to walk with them, albeit shakily while he's still buzzing from the hit of electricity, more-or-less pliant while he's still overwhelmed by the pronouncement.

The further they get from the Blood Shed, the clearer Max's head gets. The pregnancy won't last, he knows that- he'll bleed it out sooner or later, his body too inhospitable after years of wasteland survival. But now they've seen it's a possibility at all they'll try again, and again- he's seen the breeders this place keeps, the seemingly endless flow of children. Ugly and old though he may be, they'll try their damnedest to see him adding to their ranks.

The War Boys stumble and weave as they haul him to his fate, sour liquor flavoring their breath, movements languid and sloppy. They're propping themselves up as much as they are him, Max realizes. They haven't passed anyone else so far, hallways deserted save for a few slumped-over figures tucked into the shadows, victims of the earlier revelry.

Max doesn't spare the time to think up a plan.

He twists in their lax hold, headbutts one with a face full of pronged metal, slams him against the solid stone with a resounding crack of bone-on-rock. The other shouts, grabs for him, but Max had seen the tumors welling up on his chest, slams his chained-together hands viciously into the weak spot.

The second he's free enough he runs through the labyrinth of stone, completely disoriented, only knowing that he has to find a way out. This is the best shot he'll have, before he's chained into life as a breeder, while the normally bustling hive of the Citadel sleeps off their celebration.

There's flashes in the air as he runs blindly, ghosts and shadows and flickers of fire. A child appears at the end of a long stretch of hallway, “Are you coming?”

White suddenly fills his vision and he collides with something living, takes them both down to the floor to the sound of high-pitched shrieks.

“Capable!”

“Get him off!”

Max can't do more than wallow, tangled in meters of white fabric with his hands bound behind his back. He writhes to get as far from the other person as possible, kicking out desperately to avoid the hands trying to reach for him.

“Quiet!” an authoritative voice hisses, someone reaching to yank his muzzled head up off the ground.

Freed from the white tangle his vision clears, catches on five women and- the alpha from his heat, with the metal arm. The women in white help the one he'd knocked over to her feet, bunch up together angled away from him. The alpha has her mechanical hand tight around the cage of the muzzle, gaze assessing while her face betrays no emotion but mild surprise, something that might be recognition.

“Where'd he come from?”

“Is he taking us back?”

“He's not one of them.”

“What's on his face?”

“Who cares? We need to keep moving.”

“Furiosa...”

“Omega,” the alpha says, voice cutting through the murmurs he can only half hear, “Did anyone follow you?”

“He's an omega?”

“What's an omega doing out here?”

“I think that's blood on his face.”

Max shakes his head, rattling against the grip of the alpha's metal hand, less in answer and more to try and clear his mind. There was always ambient noise at the Blood Shed but none of it was directed at him, was something he did his best to block out. One of the women in white- an omega, he thinks, though all their scents are fairly well tangled together- has a dramatically swollen belly, and his eyes snag on it.

“We need to go before someone comes looking for him.”

“If he's an omega...”

“We don't have time for this.”

“Are there omegas at the Green Place?”

There's a noise from further down the hallway and everyone goes silent, still. The alpha jerks up on the muzzle, grabs under his arm with her other hand and forces him back to his feet. “Follow, and keep quiet,” she says before stepping away, motions for the clustered women to start walking again.

Max could turn, keep running and take his chances elsewhere. The noise from down the hallway sounds out again, closer but still out of sight, and he flinches closer to the group of women reflexively. If the War Boys captured him again, he could look forward to a life of being chained and bred like an animal. There was no telling what these women were heading towards but they seemed to want to be discovered about as much as he did, and they were headed away from the noise for now.

He falls into step behind them, tense and wary, braced for danger. The torches are few and far between, leaving the hallway dim and smoky. Gold metal glints around some of their hips, and he'd call it decoration except for the locks he sees dangling there. Caged, just like the muzzle around his face.

The alpha stops in her tracks as they come to a better-lit junction, footsteps sounding out round the corner. She holds her flesh hand out, waves them back from the open doorway.

“Back!”

“Against the wall.”

“Shhhh.”

The alpha steps casually into the hallway just as the long shadow of a person appears. Whatever she says is too indistinct to make out and the women besides Max stare anxiously out of the shadows, hands clamped over their mouths to muffle their breathing.

There's a peal of laughter, masculine and jovial, and then the shadow wavers, retreats. The bootsteps fade away as the alpha reappears.

“You'll only have a few minutes to get into the hold,” she says with the air of a reminder. “The hatch is open now, shut it after yourselves.”

“Are we really taking him?” one of the women asks, sounding more disdainful than anything else.

“Omegas are breeders too,” the pregnant one replies, hand resting on the swell of her belly. Max has to fight a wave of nausea, glad his hands are pulled behind him so he can't clamp them down on his own abdomen. “And he's here now, it's too risky for someone to find him.”

“Quiet,” the alpha reminds them, and leads them through the hallway to a vast garage, dim and empty save for a huge black rig, bristling with lethal spikes.

The women immediately head for the underbelly of the tanker, ducking between the massive wheels while Max watches in bewilderment. He'd expected that the alpha was moving her harem to a new room, maybe, despite the fact that at least one of them didn't smell like she'd even presented yet, not- whatever this is.

“You can either follow them inside, or I can tie you somewhere you can't betray us,” the alpha says while the women busy themselves climbing into an open hatch beneath the tank. He assumes that she means, he can switch to being her prisoner or he can have his throat slit. Whatever was going on, they seemed to want it to be a secret. “We're leaving, and I won't allow anyone to jeopardize that.”

“Leaving?” Max rasps out, the first word he's really spoken in days upon days, caught off guard. It makes sense that if they were climbing into a rig they'd be driving somewhere, but he hadn't quite put it together until she said the words.

The alpha nods. “For a safe place, far away.”

There's no hint of deception in her face, and though he doubts there are any safe places left in this world... just about anything would be better than the Citadel. Max ducks under the tanker, finds curious faces peering at him through the open hatch.

“Help him up, his hands are tied,” the alpha says, coming up besides him, and they reach for him with soft hands, steady him as he lurches into the small compartment. It's cramped, full of musty fabric and what he thinks might be greenery, indistinct in the gloom. “Trade run leaves at midday,” the alpha says, and the women nod.

“Furiosa...” the pregnant one says, “Thank you.”

The alpha- Furiosa, apparently- only gives a short nod, face a mask of grim determination, and grips at the hatch door. “Keep this closed and keep silent, no matter what.”

The hatch closes, and they're in darkness. Max feels extremely aware that he's just closed himself into a very small, very dark space with five strangers, and shifts as far from them as he can, until the struts of the tanker's sides dig into his back.

Outside the alpha's footsteps ring out and then fade away, steady as she leaves them. There's no sound but their breathing, the shifting of cloth and occasional clank of metal as they hit the sides of the compartment.

“Why's that thing on your face?” one of them asks, and Max can only guess that she's talking to him but says nothing.

“It's because he's crazy,” another replies. “Bit someone's schlanger off.”

“That's not true...”

“What were you doing out there?” it sounds like the pregnant one, a sort of authority to it. The ringleader, he would guess, used to having her way.

There isn't much he wants to say, would think that his trying to escape would be obvious. Max shifts, draws his knees up close to his chest for the illusion of security it brings. He wishes his hands were free, wishes he had a weapon, wishes he was out under the open road. Wishes he hadn't gone into heat, that he hadn't been forced to breed, that there wasn't some poor doomed fetus festering in his womb.

“What's your name?” the same voice with a soft accent, distinct, pausing for a reply that he won't give. “I'm Angharad.”

“I'm Capable,” another says. One by one the women introduce themselves, all but impossible to distinguish in the dark even if he was willing to make the effort, and Max still says nothing.

The silence stretches on for long enough that he thinks they might have given up trying to engage with him.

“We're going to the Green Place,” Angharad says. In the close air of the hold it's impossible to escape the rich smell of her pregnancy, sweet and fresh like a sliced-open fruit. “And now you are too, I suppose.”

The women proceed to tell him about this “Green Place,” where, according to them, there's food and water shared out for honest work, and no one is kept as breeding stock but instead there are “the Many Mothers” keeping order. It sounds like a fairy tale, a pretty lie to help them sleep at night.

Max wonders who of them came up with it, whether there's even a kernel of truth to their words. There must be, or else he thinks that the alpha wouldn't have agreed to help take them away. She didn't seem the sort easily swayed by fantastic stories, even if she was fucking them. Not that any of them have even a tang of alpha overlaying their scents, just a tangle of omega-beta-unpresented rising off their skin, the sort of melding people get from living on top of one another.

Eventually they give up on talking to him, turn amongst themselves with quiet words before easing into the deep rhythm of sleeping breaths. Max finds that he dozes off despite himself, fitful snatches of sleep interposed with bright sparks across his vision. It's so dark that he can see nothing except his fiery ghosts, luridly illuminated against the pitch of the hold's interior.

Somewhere outside the hold there's a loud clatter of metal-on-metal, voices calling out and rebounding off the stone walls of the garage. Max holds his breath, keyed up into a strained alertness, feels more than hears the women around him do the same. The noise builds in intensity, clanking and banging all around the tanker but never nearing their hatch.

The voices he can hear are all talking about a supply run, engine specs and wheel inflation and the arrangement of lancers. Some sort of call-and-answer, a chant. None seem to have any idea that there are six people hidden inside the tanker, that one of their own crew is planning to smuggle them away.

An engine starts, loud and aggressive, and then the tanker itself lurches, one of the women giving a little gasp of surprise that's swallowed up by the din outside. There's no way to know where they're going, what's happening on the outside, and Max's heart beats hard inside his chest as he tries to tamp down on the adrenaline that surges through him as the wheels start rolling.

He doesn't know much about the surrounding terrain, his earlier exploration cut off swiftly before he'd gotten anywhere close to the base of the Citadel, but he can tell when they take a sharp turn, bodies jostling against each other, and switch from smooth-enough pavement to rocky soil. Sand flies up, crowds in through all the cracks, and before long one of the women starts coughing, muffled into a bundle of fabric.

“We'll smother like this,” one of them says, and Max can't help giving an incredulous snort. There's about as much sand in the air here as there would be up in the cab, in any rig without a full set of windows and good sealing.

There's another sharp turn, one that sends him sprawling onto his face, metal pressing harshly against his nose, and then the explosions start sounding out. Max pushes himself off the floor, instantly alert, trying to figure out what the commotion's about- he doesn't know what gangs roam this area, whether the Citadel might have caught on to the escape so swiftly.

“Buzzards; Furiosa said we might run into them.”

“Spikers and cannibals,” another agrees, the girl besides her giving a shiver of fright that Max can feel where she's pressed against his leg.

Just on the other side of the tanker's walls there's the scrape of metal-on-metal, harsh and shrill, resounding through his ears. The walls are reinforced enough to hold, he's sure, but the image of something tearing through and into their soft flesh plays out vividly in his imagination.

It's a wholly new experience for Max, to be bound helpless and blind in the middle of a fight. His instincts are screaming at him to find a way to escape, or else jump into the fray. He can only trust that the alpha knows what she's doing, that they won't be overtaken.

After a long unbearable interval the noises change, metallic scrapes and groans dropping away in favor of a peculiar brushing noise, more and more sand flying through the cracks until Max too has to bury his face into one of the musty bundles of fabric piled on the floor or risk choking.

Eventually everything else drops away until the only sound besides their breathing is the rumble of the engine cutting across sand, and then even that halts, the rig rolling to a stop.

“Is everything alright?”

“Someone should check.”

“I think we're clear.”

There's a rapping on the metal of the hatch and Max jolts, twitches half to get out of the way and half to put himself between the hatch and the women, for all the good that would do. It slides open, throwing bright sunlight into the dim space, reveals the grease-stained and grimly satisfied face of the alpha.

The women scramble out immediately, glad to stretch their legs and escape the cramped hold. Max follows with more hesitance, feeling deeply aware of the fact that he's at the greatest disadvantage. The alpha no longer has her prosthesis on, arm bare and seeming no more vulnerable for the lack.

“Can we rinse off?” one of the girls asks.

“I want this thing off,” another says, tugging at what in the daylight is unmistakably a chastity belt locked around her hips, solid and fanged, gruesome.

Furiosa nods, “We have enough of a head start.”

There's a hose coiled up under the rig and Max watches in amazement as two of the girls eagerly fall upon it, as if the idea of wasting water to rinse off a little sand isn't antithetical to everything he knows about survival. The alpha rummages for a moment at the rig's cab before coming up with a long pair of boltcutters, meets Max's eyes.

He's wary of letting someone behind him with what could so easily be a weapon, but he needs his hands free. He nods, and she approaches as if he was a skittish animal, slow and careful. To the side the women start up a wasteful flow of water, wash away the layer of orange dust that clings to their white clothes.

“Hands first,” Furiosa says, and he holds them out as well he can, arms sore from being kept restrained for so long. With a loud click the chain falls away and he sucks in a relieved breath, swings his arms round his front, reaches for a gun he no longer wears.

“Now the muzzle,” she says in warning, but the movement she makes towards the back of his head halts abruptly, a change enough to set Max on high alert.

“Stop!” a male voice shouts, young and angry and betrayed. Max twists himself to face the noise, sees a painted War Boy brandishing a sawn-off that's aimed directly at Furiosa and thus, him as well. “Traitor!”

The Boy's eyes are wide and a little feverish as they take in the frozen tableau, panting like he's out of breath, show a flicker of confusion when he sees Max amid the rest, still muzzled like an animal. Where the fuck the War Boy came from Max has no idea, but what he wants is easily guessed. Water flows uselessly out onto the sand until one of the women shuts the hose off with a pointed click.

“We're not going back,” Angharad says, steel in her voice. It draws the War Boy's attention, not enough for his aim to waver but enough for his gaze to leave Furiosa.

Max shifts just a little, tries to ready himself to run, to maybe jump into a confrontation now his hands aren't tied together. He can sense the alpha at his back doing the same, though how either of them plans to dodge a shotgun blast he's not sure.

At the movement the War Boy tears his eyes back away from the women, takes a menacing step closer. “Drop that,” he says, motioning with his free hand towards the boltcutters Furiosa's still gripping, grins smugly when she tosses them to the sand. “Away from the breeders, now,” he says, jerks his head to indicate the place he wants her to go, further from the women, further from the cab of the rig.

“He's gonna shred you,” The War Boy taunts, seeming to take great delight in having the advantage over her as Furiosa takes a careful step away, eyes trained unwaveringly on him.

Max is no longer in the line of fire, doubts the War Boy cares overly much about him. He could, he realizes with a little thrill, make a break for the cab of the rig and drive himself the fuck away. It's a toss-up of whether the kid'll even try to stop him, considering he'd have the women to deal with. Just from being out on the sands again Max is already halfway to freedom. This doesn't have to be his battle.

“Thieving his stuff, after all he's done for you.”

But it would mean leaving the women to return to whatever was waiting them, the sort of existence where they're pregnant and branded and have fangs locked between their thighs. The very same thing he's running from.

Max shifts his stance, squares up. He can't run and leave these people, that damnable urge to protect and be a halfway decent human again rising in him, something years of living by the law of the road still hasn't completely scraped away.

“Get down,” the War Boy orders Furiosa, jerks the gun a little as if she needs a reminder of the threat he poses. He hasn't seemed eager to shoot, even though there's no danger of him hitting the other women now. Probably gets a better reward if she's left alive.

“On the ground!”

Furiosa doesn't move except to coil in anticipation of whatever she's planning to do, hand clenching, radiating all the wild ferocity of a storm. Max thinks that surely there's no way she'll go to her knees to be taken in without a fight, but a gun trumps determination any day.

Of all things to notice about the stand-off, the fact that this War Boy is wearing what is undeniably Max's own jacket catches his attention. It sends a sharp spike of ridiculous, out-of-place anger through him on top of everything else. These painted lunatics have taken his goddamn blood, raped him until he was pregnant, done who knows what with his car- and now there's some fucking kid with a gun trained on the person who just smuggled him and five others out of a stone prison wearing his jacket as if he has all the right to it.

Ridiculous as it is, it's enough to push him over the edge.

Max lunges for the War Boy, shoulders low to ram in his soft underbelly, take him off his feet. He goes down with a muffled noise of surprise, limbs flung wide as Max lands heavily on his torso. The shotgun's in his outstretched hand and Max scrabbles for it desperately, but he's too far from it, can't get a hold as the kid struggles to get out from under him.

“Rusting... feral,” the War Boy pants, wrenches the sawn-off so the barrel's aimed more-or-less at the bulk of Max's body, pulls the trigger.

With perfect, adrenaline-fueled clarity Max hears a click as the hammer falls- but what follows is only a muted fizz of gunpowder, no loud blast of gunshot, no pain tearing through him. Gun's loaded with fucking duds.

He bares his teeth in an outraged snarl, doesn't care that the angle's terrible as he slams his fist towards the surprised War Boy's face. It only glances off, but a thick-soled boot connects solidly a second later with the shaved top of his head. The kid's eyes flare wide and startled before sliding shut, body falling instantly limp.

Max glances up to see Furiosa looking ready to stomp the War Boy's face to a pulp if he so much as twitches, heartily echoes the sentiment. But after a tense moment of waiting it seems the kid's down and out for good, the rise and fall of his chest the only thing moving.

It's a bit of an anticlimax, adrenaline surging with no further outlet, but truthfully he's always glad for a fight over before it has a chance to get messy. He exchanges a halfway grateful look with the alpha before she moves away, acknowledgment for the mutual save.

Max shifts off the War Boy, roughly yanks at his jacket until he wrangles it off the kid's unresisting body. It was only a small piece of himself to be sure, but he feels better just having it in his hands once more, feels a bit less like the animal the Citadel was turning him into.

He lurches back upright as the scene returns to a strange version of normal, almost as if there hadn't been an ambush moments ago.

One of the women has picked up the fallen boltcutters, uses it to snap through the locks of their belts with efficient movements, another determinedly starting the hose back up to wash the last of the grime away. Furiosa starts dislodging a blockage in the engine's intake, quick and sharp, still keyed up for a battle. Max keeps his eye on the unmoving War Boy and wonders if he trusts the girls enough to let them cut the muzzle off his face when they're done with their chastity belts, wonders why the prospect of Furiosa doing it seems somehow less risky.

One of the women looks up suddenly as the last belt falls away, squints off into the distance with odd pale eyes.

“Is that just the wind?” she asks of seemingly no one, “Or is it a furious vexation?”

Max follows her gaze to see a glimmering blur on the horizon, catches echoes of heavy music he'd thought was just his heart pounding. That War Boy had to have come from somewhere, he realizes with a low roil of dread. The Citadel was catching back up.

He glances at Furiosa to get her reaction, sees still-burning anger and not a single trace of surprise.

“Get in,” she orders, grabbing her hanging prosthesis to strap it back on. “We've lost our lead.”

They hastily stow the hose away, one of women darting forward to grab the forgotten sawn-off from the War Boy's limp hands, another kicking the discarded belts in good riddance. Max climbs inside the cabin with them, immediately switches to the second front seat instead of staying in the overcrowded back. There's several guns tucked away and he restlessly catalogues the ones he can see, wonders if any of the women can shoot. Wonders if this escape has any chance of actually working.

“Here,” Furiosa says to him, passes over a metal file, “Get that thing off your face.” Too cramped to use boltcutters inside the cab, of course, and he should have just let the women snip the lock but maybe it's better that he can remove the muzzle himself, now.

Max grunts out something that might be a noise of thanks, sees Furiosa dip her chin in the barest of nods to acknowledge it before turning back to the dashboard. The engine starts back up with a loud roar, and they leave the Citadel behind them for good.

They skirt the marsh on the way back, the extra distance eating up another night. Max drives for a while, relinquishes the wheel when his eyes drift too often from the way-finding bike ahead, snag on stunted dead trees and shades from his own mind.

The rig is crowded, claustrophobic. The former-Wives huddle in the rear of the cab with their lost duck of a War Boy-turned-ally, the elderly Vuvalini ranging out over the back of the tanker. When he switches off the wheel to the seat left for him the leather is warmed from Furiosa's body, creaks as he shifts restlessly.

They haven't lit the lantern tonight- or if they have, it's extinguished by now. He doesn't remember.

Max finds that he's hunched over, arms crossed low over his gut, for protection or restraint he couldn't say. He'd overheard the night before, the Keeper of the Seeds and the Dag talking. The beta was pregnant as well, pheromones just beginning to change, probably not much further along than he himself was. Between her and Angharad the cab smells rich, flowering over the ingrained scent of blood and guzz and sharp-spiced alpha.

He lurches, twitches his gaze from the front window out to the side, the moon-washed expanse of bog. It's cloying, even the fresh air coming in from the shot-out windows not enough to make much difference.

“Mhm, gonna,” he mumbles before leveraging himself out the window, not waiting for a response.

The Vuvalini near the cab look to him when he clambers onto the roof, probably just making sure there wasn't a message to be relayed, but their keen eyes feel like daggers where they glint in the dim light. Max slides down the back of the cab, opens the hatch to the hidden hold. It's comfortingly dark and still smells faintly of the the six of them from earlier, but mostly now just musty fabric and clean sand, bruised vegetation.

He slides inside, closes the hatch. Lets the rocking of the rig lull him into some semblance of sleep for a while. He should rest while he can, conserve his strength for the coming day.

The scarf that Furiosa had given him finds its way to his neck again, warm against the chill of the night, thick with her sharp-edged scent. It was a practical gift, no more meaningful than the cloths the Vuvalini had bestowed on the rest, but in the illusory safety of the hold Max lets the weak yearning parts of himself pretend for a moment it was something more. That she'd meant to wrap him in her scent, mark him out.

Max shouldn't want it- doesn't really, in his rational mind. But his purely omega instincts are in high gear with the flood of pregnancy hormones in his veins, think of Furiosa's strength and command and want nothing more than to somehow earn the security of her claim for himself. Even beyond base biology, they fit together- he'd fallen into step with her escape as natural as breathing, defending the girls and the rig, offering what skills he could, and it had felt deeply right to do so.

A soft knocking interrupts the miserable turnings of his thoughts before the hatch slides open, even the dim moonlight temporarily blinding his senses.

“There you are,” Angharad says, head and shoulders filling the narrow slot. “Can I come in?”

If it wasn't for the danger that crouching on the swaying connection between cab and tank poses, especially with a gutfull of child to unbalance her, Max would be sorely tempted to say no. As it is, he makes a wordless noise and slides further away from the opening, lets her clamber inside.

Angharad settles besides him heavily, adjusting the fabric around them until her belly is supported. He remembers that stage, just on the edge of still being nimble enough to move easily but never being able to find a comfortable resting spot.

“I'll let them know you're alright,” she says. “Furiosa was worried you'd fallen off- none of the Vuvalini know about this compartment.”

Max grunts in acknowledgment, doubting that anyone really thought he'd slipped. Probably Angharad needed the excuse to get away, for all that she seemed content to curl up with her sisters, soak in the accumulated knowledge of the elders.

“I can smell it, you know,” she says, and something inside of him goes cold, sour. She doesn't mean the scarf. “That you're pregnant. Is that why you were running, that night?”

He lies very still, heart pounding in his chest, hands itching to cover his midsection as if it would do any good. There wasn't anything to see, even if the hold wasn't pitch black, wouldn't be for another couple of months at least, assuming he doesn't miscarry before then. Stupid, not to remember that another omega would be capable of smelling out the shift in pheromones. He wonders with a clench of dread if it's obvious yet to the others, if Toast and Furiosa and the non-betas of the Vuvalini have picked up on it as well.

“We'd forgotten there must be other people kept as breeding stock,” Angharad continues, voice almost apologetic. “Trapped up there- it becomes the whole world. It was far too easy to think it was only us.”

“If we make it through, we'll free them all,” she says. “No one should be used, as if they're not even a person.”

Max says nothing, doesn't know what he would say if he had the inclination. He'd suggested turning the rig around not because he had any noble intentions, but because he couldn't bear to see these people die out on the Salt. A selfish need to gain a bit of redemption for himself, to wash away some of the blood on his hands. Because he'd seen how fiercely Furiosa defended the women, how deeply it had cut to lose her home a second time, how if anyone would be capable of building something good with the resources the Citadel offered, it was these survivors.

“Thank you, for reminding me.”

He leaves. The lift ascends with Furiosa surrounded by the women she'd saved, battered and alive and so powerfully beautiful in her triumph it steals his breath, and he knows with a sudden clarity of mind that he can't possibly stay.

It's not hard to nick a bike in the commotion, fill his canteens with the waterfall someone had unleashed. And then Max rides out into the wastes fast as he can manage, nose buried in the black length of her scarf, ghosts licking his heels.

He doesn't bother to count the days, never really has since the wastes overtook his life. The all blend into one another, a long smear of hot skies and exhaust fumes and hunger so sharp he could cut himself with it. It's finally quiet again, out on the sands, nothing but the roaring wind and his whining engine, the echoes of his black-matter brain.

Max waits to bleed out. The rough rhythm of the motorcycle alone should be enough to do it, to dislodge whatever scrap of tissue is trying to cling to life inside him. Days pass, and there's no blood but what's on his hands, in his mouth.

His abdomen grows rounded even with the dearth of tucker to be had, firm under his skin, stubbornly persistent.

There's a strange sort of look in people's eyes when he barters for water and guzz, covetous and jealous and piteous by turns, depending on who's looking. He takes a shirt off a dead man, billowy and loose, smells a little like an alpha for a day until his own sweat ruins the illusion. One omega pulls him aside, offers a bottle of some viscous tonic and a safe place to ride out the effects, nose full of his unclaimed pheromones and eyes understanding.

It's a tempting offer. There's no place in this ruined world for children, no place in his heart to care for one even if there was. He'll probably never go into heat again, if he avoids places with as much water and enforced stillness as the Citadel, and he could forget it had ever happened in the first place.

Except... People have started telling stories, here and there, among the usual roadside tales of explosions and spirits and mythical fuel caches. Stories that mention a place of refuge for anyone willing to put aside arms, green springing up under the feet of the women who guard it, water flowing from the rocks for anyone to parch their thirst. Stories that, outlandish as they seem, he knows have a kernel of truth at their core.

It's no place for him, but Max places a hand over the growing swell of his belly and thinks- it had started moving not long ago, fluttering movements deep within his womb. Undeniably alive. Maybe there's no place there for him, but perhaps there's one for a babe stubbornly refusing to die.

He turns down the tonic.

He keeps to the road a while longer, talks to himself and avoids people, traders and raiders and travelers alike. Finds himself in a small tucked-away patch of settlement anyway, hardscrabble tents and thin dry weeds, barely enough to keep a maggot farm going.

Max offers nothing, is given nothing. There's a fire at night, small enough not to attract any attention their numbers can't drive off, most everyone who isn't circling on watch crowded around to listen to their self-appointed storyteller.

“But none of the bullets found their marks! She tore down the mountainside as she passed and erased the trail, though it only made the Immortan angrier. He sent his fastest after her with roaring engines, chasing her down in the dead of night.”

It's not the first time he's heard this story, doubts it'll be the last. Most people like this, families with kids and something less than terminal craziness, they'd never see the scale of battles like what happened on the Fury Road, full war parties mustered and a flight lasting days. It was just entertainment to them, instead of the stuff of screaming nightmares.

“The Imperator called up a demon from the toxic sands and sent it to do her bidding. The night split open with fire, the very ground shook! Not until the sun rose was there enough blood spilled to satisfy the fiendish spirit.”

This is also not the first time Max has found himself called a demon, though usually they were saying it to his face, and never with this touch of odd reverence. He doesn't regret the lives he's taken, those times it'd been necessary, but it hadn't always been necessary, or kindly done.

“The tides had turned! The Imperator next called up her dead kin from under the earth, and prey became predator. She'd set her eyes on the great water towers for herself, drawn the Immortan out away from his stronghold until he was cut off from his power.”

It's not a new story to any of them crowded around the glowing embers of the fire, but there's still anticipation in the faces of the younger kids. Max has heard a fair few variations already, his own memory of the events warped with adrenaline and fear, almost enjoys learning what parts get picked up to be passed along.

“Their great war machines met in the middle of a terrific battle, one that spanned horizon to horizon. Alone the Imperator fought the Immortan, neither giving way, a match for the ages! With a mighty burst of strength she at last sunk her fearsome metal claws into his chin, and ripped the Immortan's head clean off his neck!”

The storyteller mimes taking off his own head to the children's delight, and it's hardly the least accurate version Max has been told. It's a strange comfort, to think that in all the tales he's heard, not once has anyone come close to describing the severity of Furiosa's wounds, the way she'd gone pale and limp and almost beyond them all.

“With their leader dead, all the warriors bowed their heads to her. The Imperator drove triumphant to his towers, took up his omegas for herself. She freed the waters, grew green from bitter sand, drew guzzoline from deep underground! They say you can join her, take shelter from sun and wind, as long as you pledge your aid in return.”

Except- Max's chest clenches, because he doesn't know for certain that's how her story went, once he'd left. Whether all Furiosa needed was pressure off her lungs and what blood he could spare, whether for all that there's stories about the after if she really was there to see it. He's spent too long in this world to take something like a traveler's story as truth, not for something as important as this.

“Now, I believe it's time for little'uns to go to bed,” the speaker says, and it's a cue for the kids to whine and drag their feet, but eventually they start melting into the shadows of the camp. Max shakes his head to clear the linger doubts. Furiosa was fine, of course. She had to be.

“You should stay for this,” the person next to Max in the circle says to him; an alpha by the cloying smell of him, unbonded and rankly unappealing.

When the last of the children are dismissed, the storyteller leans in close to the fire, smiles wickedly out at the people left. “Of course that's not the end of the Imperator's tale,” he says conspiratorially, “Not when she's but one alpha tending a harem of omegas.”

Something like a rock settles into the pit of Max's stomach, replaces the lingering worry with deep-set revulsion. Sharing raunchy stories was hardly a new thing, just another way to pass the evening when hearing of death starts to wear thin. He's never heard anyone tell such tales about Furiosa and the sisters before, for all that he knows it's alluded to. They're always a band of omegas, in the stories, never anything else. It's expected that any virile alpha would lay claim over them, pick up where her predecessor left off.

The very thought sickens him.

Max sits through a few lines of the 'story' unwillingly, until he can't hear the speaker's voice over the dull roar of anger. He leaves the fireside abruptly, fists clenched, is glad there's nothing tying him to this camp, no half-finished trade to complete.

“Hey, omega,” someone calls after him. Max keeps walking towards his bike, purposeful strides as he navigates the dark.

“Omega...” the person drawls, catching up quickly, more familiar with the terrain. “Good story, huh?” He sounds lazily conspiratorial, cocky.

It's the same alpha he was sitting next to at the fire, undoubtedly looking for a fuck, and Max can't help the disgusted grunt that leaves him.

The alpha mistakes this noise for dissatisfaction with the story, apparently, because he counters with, “Bet you and I could make a better one.”

“Fuck off,” Max all but growls.

“Don't be like that,” the alpha says, “I'll make it real good for you, knot you 'till you're seeing stars.”

“Fuck off,” Max repeats, nearly at his bike now. There's weapons on him already, of course, but even this far from the firelight he wasn't betting on the camp remaining unaware that he'd killed one of their own. A quick getaway would be crucial, if this turned as ugly as it might.

“What's your price?” the man tries. “I can smell your sweet little pussy, omega, you'd be bonded if you weren't selling.”

Close enough to the bike. Max turns abruptly, sees a lecherous grin spread across the alpha's face as he thinks he's about to get his way. He's completely unprepared for the punch Max throws at him, right into the unprotected area below his ribs hard enough to hurt, to stun the air from his lungs.

Max doesn't bother getting out the last word, just throws his leg over his motorcycle, kicks the starter before the alpha recovers from the blow.

“You bitch!” the alpha wheezes, lurching forward as if to drag him off the bike. Max gets the engine started, one hand grabbing the revolver tucked into his thigh holster to level it at the man. He growls and slurs out more insults, but doesn't push his luck against a potentially-loaded gun, more bravado than true danger.

Max twists the accelerator aggressively, doesn't care that he's going to have a hell of a time navigating the unfamiliar stretch of land in the dark. The alpha and his camp slide away from view.

He's not so far from the Citadel, the spires appearing on the horizon after only a few days of skirting hostile territories. There's no scout party come to blow up his ride, this time.

A single vehicle detaches from the shadow of the towers, speeds in a quick straight line towards his dust plume. Max almost jerks on his handlebars, guides the bike to loop back around and flee. Only a well-timed flutter from his gut stills him, reminds him of why he's making this trip in the first place.

He slows to a halt as the car nears, engine rumbling beneath him, one hand on his holstered revolver.

Max isn't sure why he expected it to be Furiosa or one of the other women to greet him. The War Boys are no longer painted but their scars still stand out in stark relief, menacing as they level a gun his direction.

“What's your business here?” the driver demands, “This is protected territory.”

He weighs his options, wonders whether to ask to see the women who must surely be in charge, whether he has that right. “Sanctuary,” Max says at last, “Heard this's a safe place.”

The War Boy holding the gun narrows his eyes, casts an assessing gaze over Max's gear. He's well stocked still, doubts he looks like the type of people who come seeking shelter. Even as lived-in as his clothes are, there's no hope of them catching his scent under the scouring wind and clinging dust, his swollen abdomen hidden from view under layers.

“You alone?”

He nods carefully, fully aware of the possibility that they might decide to gun him down, haul his stuff back as rightfully scavenged. Max tightens his hand on the butt of his revolver, tenses to spring into action.

“You'll have to see the Council about staying,” the War Boy says. “We'll escort you.”

If they'd been planning on shooting him, he expects them to have done so already. He nods again, waits until the War Boy moves back to the interior of his car before taking his hand off his gun.

There aren't many Wretched clustered around the base of the towers, those that are looking marginally less wretched, and the lift isn't running. Instead there's a strong steel grate set into the recessed cove of one of the spires, behind which the scouts direct him to leave his bike. Max is uneasy at the prospect of leaving it behind but there's no way for him to haul it up himself, and his most important possessions are already tucked safely into various pockets and pouches on his person. As he walks away from the bike he reminds himself that it wasn't as if he hadn't stolen it from this very place months ago, anyway.

Max is ushered through countless winding stairwells, twisting hallways. The further into the stone he gets the more agitated his ghosts become, until it's all he can do to keep walking at a steady pace instead of running blindly. His hands are unbound, he reminds himself, there's no cage around his face. He's not a prisoner this time.

It doesn't really help.

By the time his escort knocks perfunctorily on an opened set of shining metal doors Max is sweating more than the heat of the day deserves, nerves dialed up high, eyes twitching at every little hint of movement.

“Scav lookin' for sanctuary,” the War Boy calls into the room, eager to be rid of him.

“Send them in,” Capable's voice rings out, familiar enough to have Max suck in a deep breath, force himself to shake his head to clear the shouting before stepping over the threshold.

The room is dominated by a long table, chairs filled with a motley assortment of people- he thinks he recognizes one of the surviving Vuvalini among them, but it's hard to say.

“Max!” Capable says, stands up from her seat. She moves as if to embrace him but restrains herself, settles for laying a hand on his arm. “It's good to see you. Oh! We should get Furiosa, hold on.”

It's obvious in this moment that she's a beta, all but oblivious to the waves of scent he knows he's throwing off, stirred up by the climb. There is a Vuvalini, familiar enough to recognize but not name, and she regards him with sharp eyes, expression knowing. He refuses to let his arms wrap around his belly, already feeling exposed enough.

“You don't need to sit through the Council,” Capable says once she's turned from directing a War Pup to fetch Furiosa. “We already know you're not a threat. There's a room you can wait in just over here, and water if you want.”

She doesn't seem to expect him to reply, something Max is grateful for. The room she brings him to is small, empty save a few low benches and an ewer of water. He drinks deeply, though there had been splashes of water left in his canteens still, rinses away some of the grit lodged between his teeth. There's a window cut into the stone letting in fresh air and Max walks over to it, looks out to see that it overlooks the central courtyard of the spires, bustling with activity.

Though his back is to the doorway, he's alert for approaching footsteps. It's not long before they ring out against the stone, steady, assured.

He turns, meets Furiosa's eyes as she walks forward, a small smile on her face he can feel echoed across his own lips. Max drinks in the sight of her, pleased in ways he doesn't have words for that she's no longer weak and hurt like he'd last seen her. She grips the back of his head with her flesh hand and he startles, not sure when she'd gotten so close, finds himself leaning into the press of her forehead against his anyway.

Max knew she would be alright, a fast healer like him, too strong to succumb. It's still good to see it for himself, to feel the living warmth of her through his palm on the prickly hair of her nape.

He can tell the exact second the scent hits her and Furiosa realizes why he's returned, breath stuttering before taking a deeper inhale, eyes snapping open.

“Max?” she asks, gently disentangling herself from the embrace. He's surprised to find himself reluctant to lose the contact, but pulls away all the same.

“Mhm,” he hums, greeting and confirmation both, eyes darting away from her face, feeling overly exposed.

He feels Furiosa's gaze land on his swollen midsection, barely hidden by the looseness of his layers, and shifts uncomfortably.

“You're welcome to stay,” she says without hesitation, eyes flicking back to take in his face, instead of asking any number of questions he'd expected. “For as long as you need to.”

“The others will want to see you,” Capable chimes in, hovering out of the way near the door.

Max doesn't particularly want to be seen, fond as he'd become of the women. He wants to stay within the pull of Furiosa's magnetic presence, wrap himself in her scent and hide in the dark and quiet until he births. It's the sort of thing he'd gone through with his and Jessie's pregnancy, wanting nothing more than to build a nest, but it surprises him with how strong the urge is now. He wasn't this alpha's mate, hadn't spent more than a single moment of heat and a few blood-drenched days together.

“A bath, first,” Furiosa says, reading his reluctance perhaps, or just taking charge according to her nature. “When was the last time you ate?”

He lets her lead him to another room he'd certainly never seen before, a grotto fitted with a thick steel door and a shockingly large pool of water, eddying gently with some unseen current.

“We have spare clothes, if you'll take them,” she offers, lingering near the door while he tests the water with a cautious hand. Warm, clean, nothing like the miserable ditch they half-drowned the blood-bags in when they became too rank.

“Hnn,” he hums, noncommittal. His clothes are as much a part of him as his skin- but there was no sense in cleaning that skin and then layering back on filthy fabric. The thought of wearing someone else's clothes sets a prickle of unease down his spine all the same, more changes already from his accustomed life.

Max isn't sure whether he wants to ask her to stay or not, her presence steadying and unbalancing him by turns. To delay deciding he takes off his pack, his jacket, his brace, each a layer of armor, protection for a threat he thinks might not exist in the space between them. Has to struggle inelegantly with his boots, feet swollen enough since he'd last donned them to be a challenge to get out of the leather. Gives her time to leave, if she wants.

He takes a deep breath when she still remains and tugs off his shirts, the layers he'd accumulated to disguise his condition as best he could. There's an ugly dark scrawl tattooed on his back that she's already seen but he still keeps to the safety of the wall, though he's not sure which side lays him more bare, at the moment.

There isn't much room for nudity out on the road, such vulnerability dangerously unsafe without anyone to back you up. It's the first time Max has looked down at his bared abdomen in weeks, the rounded swell of it unmistakably pregnant, dark twisted streaks spanning the edges to mark its growth. He lets his hands come to rest on the taut skin, hears Furiosa pull in a quietly ragged breath.

It's one thing to know how he comes across to alphas in his current state- an unclaimed omega, ripe and fertile, perfect for the taking- and another entirely to turn and see the barest spark of contained heat in Furiosa's eyes. She doesn't step forward, doesn't flare her nostrils to pull in his scent, looks as if she'd leave if he so much as hinted he wanted her to.

His womb flutters, kicks landing sharp against his flesh. “C'mere,” Max says impulsively, lifting one hand to beckon her over. “Come feel it move.”

She does step closer then, lets her organic hand come forward to be pressed against the skin of his belly, held in place by his own. The sprog inside him obligingly wiggles, skittering movements just strong enough to be felt from the outside.

“Do you know how long?” she asks, hand warm and steady against him, grounding.

Max shrugs, he hasn't kept track of days. “Last heat was here,” he says, swallowing down the memory of hands and misery and a stone cell. Female omegas could conceive like other women, but for men like him, heat was the only window.

“That was... close to two hundred days ago,” Furiosa says. He'd been wondering if she remembered, if he'd imagined the recognition in her face the night their escapes had collided.

He hums in response to her estimation, compares that count with what he remembers of doctor's charts from a lifetime ago. Three months, maybe four, left. Still plenty of time for the life inside him to turn cold and dead. Three months seems a very long time, longer than Max has willingly stayed at any place in recent memory, daunting to even consider.

The kicking settles down, movements tapering off until there's only the press of her hand on his skin to be felt. She moves to pull away and he reluctantly lets her hand drop, already missing the contact.

They've given him a room to stay in, right on the same hallway as the sisters as if there was no danger in letting a road feral in so close. It's bare stone like the rest of the warren, a low-slung pallet in the corner, an empty dented locker. There's a window cut into the rock, letting in fresh air and light. The door only locks from the inside.

It should be fine, nothing like that terrible cell or the Blood Shed with its hanging cages, but the stone walls are the same color, have the same dusty mineral smell.

Max tries to sleep on the mattress, tries to sleep propped up as if back in a car, tries to sleep curled up on the floor. He finds himself staring at the doorway instead. With the sun gone there's almost no light in the room, just a faint glow from the stars outside, a sliver of lamplight from the hallway peeking through the crack of the doorjamb.

The sprog in his belly is as restless as he is, swimming around discontentedly and just serving to further remind Max of what this room reminds him of. It was a mistake, not to take that offered tonic. To come back here.

He lurches to his feet, still fully dressed in a stranger's borrowed clothes, jacket wrapped tight around himself. There's a black scarf he's not thinking about tucked deep inside his pack, scrubbed of all but his own scent, something better left alone.

The door is sturdy when he tests it, holds firm until he unlatches it and then opens readily into the hall outside. There's no noise to be heard, no wandering War Boys- Free Boys, now, the women had said when regaling him with what changes they'd begun- just the dim flicker of a torch burning.

He should duck back inside, lock the door and force himself to sleep. Should find his way back to his bike and ride out, refuge be damned. Should have accepted that tonic, should have fought off those betas harder, should have-

There's a quiet noise, another door opening. Max flinches back towards his own, unsure if he wants to be seen, even though he recognizes the person in the corner of his eyes as Furiosa. He stills anyway, but she's already caught sight of him.

“Max?” she calls, soft like the noise of it might scare him. Hearing his name in her voice is still something he has yet to get used to, draws him out of the open doorway.

He hums out a response, lets her know he's heard. There's another blanket wrapped around her, like that night before the Salt, when he almost let her ride off to her death. This one isn't a loan from the packs of her kin but is definitely hers, almost drips with how saturated it is with her sharp alpha aroma. Max sways towards it, caught between the desire to run far enough where he'd never have to smell it again and the urge to wrap himself in it, soak it into his pores until it was inextricable from his own scent.

Furiosa draws her eyes over him, then tilts her head. “If you're not going to sleep,” she says, “I could use a set of hands. Got a stuck gear that needs fixing.”

He considers it, whether to hide back in his empty stone cell until daybreak or make himself useful, even if it's only busywork. He nods, and follows her into her room.

Rock and metal don't hold scents very well but her room has a deep layer built up all the same, sharp and spicy and warm. Must have been hers for a while, even the few soft furnishings he can see wouldn't be enough to impart that same sense of territory. Like it was a den, almost, a nest.

Some part of him wonders if it's really all that strong, or if it's just his omega hindbrain reacting to a suitable mate, instincts picking up her scent until it's at the forefront of his mind. Doesn't think it really matters either way, when it's hitting his senses hard enough to weaken his knees all the same.

He'd half expected to be directed to work on her prosthetic arm, but it's hanging undisturbed from a post near the sleeping pallet, all its parts seemingly in order. Instead there's a small motor lying partially disassembled on the workbench, rust crumbling across the surface of the table. Better, certainly, to keep his fingers away from something that was so wholly hers.

“Pump belongs in the hydro garden,” Furiosa says, clicking the door shut but not latching it. Leaving the quick escape open for him. He's not sure if he appreciates the gesture, or if it sits uneasily. Like she thinks he might not trust her, like he hadn't killed and bled for her already, hadn't all but bared his neck for her to slit or mark as she'd like.

“Damn gear's rusted fast; I can't get enough torque without strapping the arm on again, and it's already been a long day. Doesn't wear as nicely as my old one.”

Max makes an understanding noise, steps closer to the motor to look at what she'd been dealing with.

Once the stuck gear finally prises free, the rest of the work flows smoothly. Max finds that he's mostly handing tools to her, arranging the components on the table so they won't get lost or disrupted. He's better at cars, at engines that run off blood as much as anything else, and watching her nimble fingers work is mesmerizing in its own way.

“You should get some sleep,” Furiosa says after he yawns for the fourth time in a short span, the suggestion startling him enough that he drops the screw he'd been fiddling with. “There's nothing I can't finish by myself.”

Max thinks about going back to that cold empty room, tossing and turning until the sun rises in the sky. It's not an appealing thought.

He'd get more rest just staying here, sitting on an uncomfortable wooden bench as Furiosa works on that motor at his side, than he would by tossing and turning in a bed. His back will pay the price tomorrow, the displaced weight pulling uncomfortably at his muscles after a long tense day, but there's a line of heat where his thigh presses against hers, the occasional jolt of her shoulder brushing his through their layers as she works.

“Nn, I'll stay,” Max says, deliberately picks up the screwdriver she'd need next so he could pass it off to her.

“You can stay,” she says carefully, an offer. “But you should rest.”

He wants to argue that he's fine- but he stops himself when her words register. He can stay, rather than go back to the other room where it's cold and anonymous and the lock on the door doesn't mean anything against the weight of memories. This room is almost identical in construction but there's a roughly woven rug on the floor, a lamp burning warm and golden, a dark safe scent that speaks to all the lower functions of his omega instincts.

“Mhm,” he hums in acceptance, shifts off the bench. As soon as he stands Max can feel how deeply unpleasant his backache is going to be, and he grimaces at the thought of hobbling around tomorrow.

“No boots in the bed,” Furiosa says without turning to look and he dutifully toes them off to thunk heavily on the floor, doesn't let himself think about how it'll slow him down if he needs to run.

The mattress is low to the ground, easy to sink into even if it'll be a bitch to get back out of in the morning. The fabric of it smells so strongly of her it's almost like he's wrapped up in her skin, only missing that vibrant living quality to make it perfect. Max tries to hide his deep inhales, nose pressed to the pillow guiltily, feels something ease in him. He doesn't dare draw the loose blanket at the foot of the bed over himself- it's not so cold that he needs it, and the thought of covering himself with something that carries her scent so profoundly sets off shivers deep inside that he doesn't trust.

He drifts, sleeping the light half-waking sleep of those accustomed to trouble coming in the dark hours of night. At one point Furiosa knocks something off the bench, and it's her hushed cursing more than the clang of metal-on-stone that catches his attention. Later, the noises slow, and then halt altogether, and he cracks open an eye to see her staring at the assembled casing pensively.

Max hadn't thought it would actually take all night to reassemble.

“C'mere,” he slurs, voice croaky with sleep, and shifts away from the edge of the pallet.

She turns to him and looks as if she wants to argue, but after a moment of his insistent staring she only sighs, softly, and stands from the bench, dampens the flame on the lantern.

The mattress is big enough for them both to lie on, but the fit is tight. Max is already on his side, his belly just a bit too large to be comfortable pressing down on him anymore, but he's surprised when Furiosa slips in so that she's facing him, curved carefully away from touching.

It's a challenge not to reach out, to curl up into her so he can feel what little bare skin there is between them touch, press his nose to the beating pulse of her neck. Max shifts, uncomfortable suddenly, wishing he had maybe gone back to his own room after all.

“Sleep,” she says, half a command, adds in a pointed look for good measure before closing her eyes in example; a display of trust.

Max can't handle looking at her this close, not with the pale wash of starlight from the window on her skin, the way her scent surrounds him, vibrant and rich. He turns himself over so he's facing the wall instead, her steady breathing at his back, and lets his eyes slip closed.

It's strange to gather with the women once the morning tones have rung off the spires and eat a meal together, not in a mess hall even but a small circular room near where the Council met. They had done so the night before but Max thought it was maybe an unusual event, all of them seemingly eager to talk about what had been happening since their coup.

“Try some of these,” Capable says, passes an earthenware bowl with some sort of fruit in it over to Max.

The fruit are small and smooth and red, sweet on his tongue. His last pregnancy, when he had the luxury of choosing rather than just eating whatever was remotely edible, he'd craved sugary things for every meal, so much so that Jessie had teased that his teeth would fall out. Now he finds it to be too much, cloying to his senses. He passes the bowl back, stunned that there's enough food that he once again has the ability to turn some of it away based on something so frivolous as taste.

“Give 'em here,” the Dag says, a plate resting on her own more swollen belly while she reclines against Cheedo. Betas pregnancies don't have quite the same aroma to them as omegas, more earthy than floral, a grounding note. Her scent's twined all around the other woman's, not quite a bonded claim but something close, now that she's finally presented.

It's still a little strange to see Angharad no longer pregnant herself, her body and scent returned to what must have been her baseline. There's no child in her arms, no mention of one at all, and it's something he wonders about but doesn't give voice to.

“So what are your plans for the day, Max?” Toast asks, nonchalant as she swipes a piece of ground-millet bread off the central platter, already having talked at length with Furiosa about what weapon drilling she was hoping to oversee. She'd seemed to size Max up as she did so, remembering how he'd fought on the road he would guess, no doubt wondering if he was fit to lend a hand in his current state.

He shrugs in reply, noncommittal; it wasn't as if he'd been assigned a job, for all that he was willing to work to earn his keep. He'd make himself useful down in the garages maybe, while he was still small enough to slide under some of the taller rigs, not so ungainly he was at risk of hurting himself.

“You should see Sawbones,” Furiosa says, a careful suggestion, “Over in the infirmary.”

“Oh! Yeah, you haven't gotten checked out yet, have you?” Capable says with an easy smile.

Max remembers seemingly countless doctor's visits during his first pregnancy and knows that seeing a healer is probably not a bad idea; he also remembers what sorry excuse for medicine this place had offered the last time he was here.

“It's not like it was,” Furiosa says, picking up the direction of his thoughts.

“I have to talk to her about something,” Angharad says, “We can go together.”

It really would be sensible to be checked over, he knows. For all that he'd done this before, he hadn't been living in a toxic wasteland the first go-around, hadn't subjected his body to anywhere near the stresses it's been enduring.

He doubts that Angharad has any real need to see the healer, but he finds that he's glad for her presence. The clinic is no longer the open air ledges of the Blood Shed but a room in one of the other spires, filled with mostly-empty cots and white-washed walls.

Sawbones turns out to be the other Vuvalini woman who had made it through the road war, an omega well past her fertile years, scent gone powdery with age. He thinks he remembers her voice prompting him on the Gigahorse, but many of the details of those days slip away like dreams in his memory. She ushers Max and Angharad into a smaller cubicle off the main room, draws a curtain over the doorway.

“Here about the pregnancy?” she asks, and he nods. “Well, have a seat. Angharad, are you staying?”

Angharad looks at Max questioningly, waiting to take her cue from him. He doesn't want to be alone like this, while he's examined, but she's not really the person he wants to be with him. He hesitates in giving an answer, because it's ridiculous to be uneasy about this but he is, even though it's a quiet room with two other omegas and no bloodstains to be seen.

He takes the time to settle onto the table in the center of the room, raised and sturdy, cold metal covered by a flimsy sun-bleached cloth. Finally, Max nods.

“It won't be anything invasive,” Sawbones says, “Just palpations and listening in, really. You might be too young but ah, what I wouldn't give for a sonogram machine!”

He does remember sonograms in the rickety local clinic, cold gel slathered on his belly while a picture miraculously formed on a screen, Jess squeezing his hand so hard it hurt when they saw-

“First, let's get the basics out of the way. About how long since your heat?” Sawbones asks.

Unbidden Max recalls hands, a stone cell, darkness. Even Before, it wasn't really rape if it happened during a heat; it couldn't be helped, a biological imperative.

“It's been about one-fifty days since we came back,” Angharad offers into the silence. And she'd smelled it on him in the Rig, had known it had been long enough for his body to start changing.

“Two hundred days,” he rasps out. The estimate Furiosa had given him. He has a sudden flash of the Mechanic's voice, talking to his young assistant. Heat about a month back, he'd said. The exact date was probably in his records somewhere, marked down in blood-black ink. Preserved for posterity.

“Hmm, you're small for two hundred,” Sawbones says with a cluck of her tongue. “To be expected, living like a scav. Not that that's your fault.”

Max shifts on the table, uncomfortable.

“Is this your first pregnancy?”

He keeps his breathing steady, longer out than in. Shakes his head.

“Any to term?”

A nod. Max finds that his hands are clenched into fists at his sides, knuckles white. He takes a deeper breath, relaxes his fingers one by one.

“Good, good, gives this one a better chance.”

There are a few more questions- has he been experiencing any sort of pains, what sort of foods has been able to get, has there been any tainted water he'd come across. The swarm of memories dials down, a little, as he focuses on the immediate past. Remembers finding a trove of bush tomatoes and spending three risky days in one place to press them dry under the sun, flesh so acidic his tongue burned.

“And now for the physical,” Sawbones says when she's satisfied with the information she's gathered. “It can be just you and me, or Angharad can stay.”

Max glances at her, thinks about her own swollen belly, the Dag's, whether she'd been been able to have someone with her for her exams. The breeders he could see from his cage had been alone, always.

“You can stay,” he says to her. Angharad smiles and nods as if he's paid her a complement by not sending her out.

Sawbones starts by taking his pulse and then produces a delicate glass thermometer he's amazed survived to get his temperature, flashes lights into his eyes and ears and mouth. Building up to the main event, getting him used to her deft clinical touch.

“It'll be easier if the shirt comes off,” she says at last, “Or you can lift it up out of the way.”

There's an ugly scrawl of black ink all over his back that tallies his supposed worth, the sort of thing Max has wrenched his shoulders trying to scratch away. He lifts just the front hem of the shirt up, exposes his swollen abdomen to the air of the room.

“I'll start by just palpating,” Sawbones says, bringing her hands up to cup at his belly. The sprog's awake, has been since breakfast, and a smile flickers onto her face when it kicks right under her hand. “Fetus feels active, that's good.”

He's not sure what information she's able to pick up just from rubbing and pressing at his abdomen, but her expression stays steady, reassuring.

“Now to have a listen, see if the heart's a steady rhythm.”

The listening-horn is cold against his skin but Max holds himself back from flinching. She moves it to several different locations, taps the stretched skin of his abdomen once or twice, face narrowed in concentration.

Finally she lifts it back up. “Everything sounds alright,” she says, and a measure of worry he hadn't known he was feeling slides away.

She sets the listening-horn back down on the table. “Lift your shirt higher,” she instructs, “I need to check your chest.”

Max complies only a moment of hesitance, drawing the shirt up to expose all the rest of his front. It's not as dramatic a change as his belly, but his breasts have started swelling, preparing themselves to make milk. With omegas it was nearly all gland, almost none of the flesh women had naturally. He'd never gotten particularly large even during his last far-better-fed pregnancy, hadn't even earned himself any stretch marks when the weight melted back away. With how lean he's been eating now, his chest is sore and tender but hardly changed from its usual profile.

“Milk start coming in yet?” she asks, hands firm against his sensitive skin, and he shakes his head. “Plenty of time,” she says, “But you'll want to start doing massages, stimulate the mammary glands.”

“Um,” he starts to say, because he knows about how to coax his body to lactate, but there won't be a need for it. “I'm not nursing. Not, hm, keeping it.”

Max hasn't been thinking of this child as his in any way, beyond the fact that it's gestating in his womb. The only things he claims anymore are things, and even they suffer for it- his car mutilated and crushed, his jacket cut and burned and patched back together, his body used and taken from.

Sawbones pauses, pulls away with an understanding nod. “You might still want to massage, to reduce discomfort. You're too far along for me to to do anything about the pregnancy but wait for you to deliver, I'm afraid.”

He shrugs his shoulder, lets his shirt drop back down with a shade of something like relief.

“If you're not keeping the baby,” Angharad says, “Do you have any plan for who's to raise it?”

Max shakes his head; beyond thinking that an infant would be safe here, he hadn't thought about the details. “Not with the Pups,” he says, sick unease roiling in him at the thought of it being raised alongside the painted warriors, no matter their new name and supposedly reformed ideology.

“No,” Angharad agrees, “We've already dismantled the 'kennels' anyway. The young ones were returned to their parents when we could, or else fostered as best we could match.”

“He's not much behind Dag,” Sawbones puts in. “Could raise 'em together.”

Just the bare thought of wrangling two infants at the same time seems incredibly daunting to Max, but Angharad looks thoughtful. “We've already agreed to all help her,” she says, “The six of us could manage two, I think.”

He hums, noncommittal. There's still three months or so before the kid's born, if it doesn't die in the meantime. Plenty of time to figure out someone willing and trustworthy to take it, now the hard work of getting here is done.

Max doesn't end up spending much time in the garages. He trails after Furiosa a day or two after he arrives, intends to spend the day wrenching away at whatever they'll trust him with, content to think that he'll be earning his keep.

It wasn't that he hadn't thought there might be whispering. He remembers how breeders were treated before the revolt, doubts the women have squashed years of thinking patterns in a few months. But he hadn't thought about himself being recognized, remembered.

“It's that blood-bag, isn't it? The feral bitch?”

“Fuck, knew I should have knotted him.”

“Wonder if he'd give us another ride.”

“He's breedin' now, he doesn't need you poking him!”

“Looked better with the muzzle, if you ask me.”

The conversations are quiet, eddy in the corners of the room. Max tries to block it out, focuses instead on the warped salvage metal he's been set to. But one of the betas steps close, sniffs near his neck like he'd be able to pick up the scent off his skin, says something in a low rough voice.

Max reacts. There's blood on his hand.

He can't tell if there's silence or shouting, his head full of a strange ringing. Might just be the power tools working, metal on metal as they grind and drill and cut. The walls are stone, thick and solid and inescapable.

So he avoids the garages, after that.

Plenty of other places to be, in a settlement as big as the Citadel. There's little projects all over the place Max lends a hand to, routine maintenance and organization, plans for trade runs and city defenses, things that don't need to be done while knee-deep in War Boys. He doesn't think he knows anything that would help the sisters with running their council but he sits in on it sometimes, listens to Angharad blaze with ideas for the future and tries to let himself believe any of it could come true.

Sawbones suggests he eat as much as he can stomach, to help the baby catch up in size some, but what Max can eat turns out to be not much at all. It's not that the food sickens him- he's long past that stage, had it not been ground into the dust by road living anyway. But it sits uneasily in his gut, his stomach unused to multiple daily meals of such rich quality.

He gorges on as much fresh food as is offered to him the first day, like the starved feral dog he is, and suffers the consequences. Takes it slower, after that.

Something he starts noticing is that the foods he can stomach plenty of- the grainy mealworm biscuits, the dark bitter greens- they have a tendency to slide off of Furiosa's plate from where she sits next to him, end up on his.

The sisters all share food freely, dearly out of practice with the sort of life where you hunted and scrounged and prayed to have enough before someone took it away. Max accepts the tidbits they offer or turns them away, but gives up nothing in return. And Furiosa- she doesn't always eat meals with them, can just as often be found down in the workshops, the mess hall outside the training pits, floating over the sandy perimeters of the Citadel's territory. When she does find herself in the sisters' round gathering room, the only plate she eats off is her own.

There's some sort of fruit today, blue-black and a little tart, still too sweet to his tongue. Max turns to listen to Capable explaining the idea she'd had for mending her goggles' lenses, finds an extra biscuit in his dish when he turns back. Furiosa at his other side isn't looking his way, but there's only crumbs left on her own plate.

He deliberately doesn't think about it, just picks up a few of the too-sweet berries, places them on the edge of the metal saucer she was eating off of.

Doesn't look to see her expression when she finds them. Doesn't listen to the way the cadence of her words falters for a split second.

It becomes a habit, slipping things from plate to plate during the meals they do share, something neither of them remarks on.

One dinner they trade the same overly-salted experimental bean roll back and forth, almost mischievous as the both of them pretend to be doing no such thing. It lasts nearly the length of the meal until Toast rolls her eyes in exasperation and stabs her knife through it, claims the roll for herself.

Max expects that to raise his hackles- he's grown used to the women living in each others' pockets but he is careful to maintain his distance- but instead he just laughs along with the others as the triumphant expression on her face turns to disgust when she actually bites into her prize.

He spends a sleepless night curled into his locked room, jacket and boots on, loaded gun in hand. Spends another the same way before sheer exhaustion drags him down to an uneasy semblance of sleep, mind flickering fire and blood and panic.

Max finds himself pacing through the hallway deep at night, naught but a single lantern lit, glowing just enough to see that every other door is dark and still. No Free Boys come through the hallway the sisters sleep on past dark, he's been assured. Pups, sometimes, if they need to fetch someone, but it hasn't happened so far in the short span of time he's been there.

There's chalk drawings on the doors, the walls between, vivid even in the deep of night. Branching vines and flowers spill from the room the Dag and Cheedo share, constellations mark Toast's door, Capable and Angharad have handprints of all colors and sizes, words in a bold script. On Furiosa's door there's chalk birds in flight, silhouetted against an imaginary sky.

Max wonders who drew them, if she sketched them herself or came in one night to find them there, a present. They're well done, whoever the artist was, distinct enough that he can recognize the shape of them from what he sees out in the wilds- wheeling buzzards, a diving hawk, crows flocked together.

His own door at the far end of the hall is blank, the chalk vines trailing off long before the wall runs out. There had been a little bundle of chalk in his room, tucked into the single otherwise empty shelf. He could mark it up with something, he thinks.

Max doesn't know how to feel about the thought of drawing something on the door, putting his mark on it, claiming the space. That he'll be here long enough for it to happen, for it to matter.

The door in front of him opens, soundless on oiled hinges. “Max?” Furiosa says after her eyes land on him, voice quiet, a little rough. Like she'd just woken up.

“Mm,” he hums, feeling very aware of the fact that he's standing outside her doorway in the dark of night.

She doesn't state the obvious- that it's late, that the both of them should be in bed, asleep. She scrubs her hand over her face tiredly, nudges the door open a little more. “You won't get much sleep in the hallway,” she says, an offer.

The thought of spending the night in Furiosa's room again, her reassuring presence holding back the tide of nightmares, is a bright lure. He shouldn't; eventually he'll become used enough to the room he's been given, settle into a rhythm of hours where he can feel safe enough to sleep.

He steps towards the doorway, too tired and weak to resist.

Furiosa finds him the next night. Max is lingering in what used to be the milking room as the sun goes down, fidgeting with adjustments to the telescope left unattended. She comes in from the garages, oil and guzz and sweat, and doesn't speak or extend a hand but the invitation to follow is plain to read in the tilt of her head.

He sleeps, those nights he spends in her bed with her back pressed to his, more deeply than he has in years, since the world burned to ashes. The nightmares come less often, though they still come, even his ghosts quieting down under the sway of her commanding presence.

His meager collection of belongings leave the empty stone cell, find places tucked against the walls of her quarters. He stops wearing all his layers to bed, jacket folded over the metal chest she has yet to unlock, brace unfastened, leathers traded for loose, impractically soft trousers.

Their scents start to mingle, surface-level and faint, the natural consequence of spending so much time with bare centimeters between their skin, of trading blankets and sharing breath. One day her doorway gains a new chalk design, dust plumes from an approaching car over a jaggedly sketched landscape. It catches his breath when he sees it, torn with the desire to rub the drawing away and flee as fast and far as he can manage, and the smug omega instinct to be proud for having secured this for himself.

Max tries to not let it draw him in, this illusion of belonging, though with how firmly the nesting instinct has him wrapped up it's a constant struggle to not just bare his throat for her and draw her scent down bone-deep, invite her to lay a claim and claim in turn.

He's in the middle of sketching out as best a map of the northern reaches as he can remember for Cheedo to compare with some ancient crumbling Before-Times ones she unearthed in one of the stores, something he thinks will be ultimately useless but indulges her in anyway. Approaching bootsteps have him on alert, looking at the doorway to see Furiosa slip just inside the room. It's immediately apparent that there's a sort of energy to her presence he's never seen her display before, wholly different from the battle-lust he remembers and the milder side she shows now when among the sisters.

“Fool,” she says lightly, teasingly, the name she'd given him on the road, “Come with me.”

Max doesn't hesitate, sets aside the charcoal stick for another time and follows. There's no hint of danger in her demeanor, no sign at all that there's bad news to be had. The set of her shoulders as she walks before him down the labyrinth of hallways is almost playful, her steps light. Whatever it is, she's excited about it.

She leads him to one of the vehicle bays that attach to the lift room, the only Free Boys they pass occupied with their own tasks, paying him no mind.

There's a car in the center of the garage, low and mean and his breath catches because-

But the double image fades as soon as it hits him. This vehicle is not his Interceptor, nor the abomination they reconfigured her into. The car before him now has vicious lines to be sure, but it also has a sort of grace to its violence, lacks black blood soaked into the grille and the weight of memories.

“Just finished her up this morning,” Furiosa says, “She needs a shakedown, and I thought...” She turns to him, lets the question hang unspoken.

Max flicks his eyes from the car to her, back to the brushed steel. There's no skulls on it, nor anything that recalls the branding iron. He steps closer, lets his hands run over the bodywork, itches to pop the bonnet and find out what more there is beyond the protruding blower he can see.

He clears his throat, ducks his head in a nod. There's already a steering wheel mounted on the column, no skull grinning up but of all things a tree, spiraling out from twisted wires.

They don't speak further as the car gets lowered to the ground, no need for it. The treadmill rats pulling the chains of the lift are no longer shackled in place, brakemen unhooded. The people living at the base of the spires step aside leisurely to clear the roadway, smiling to see Furiosa instead of cowering before a warlord. Little signs of change, reassurances he made the right choice when he thought there might be a place for a child here after all.

Furiosa's expression goes sly as she flicks a sequence of switches, movements just showy enough for him to follow- not the same as the War Rig, of course, but familiar all the same. The engine roars to life and they're away.

Max tries to swallow his bitter envy at being the one in the passenger seat, the weight of the sprog in his gut reminding him of why that was the case. The sand flows by at a good clip, not as fast as he thinks the engine could be pushed, before Furiosa abruptly eases off the gas, lets the car slide to a stop a bare few klicks from the towers.

He turns to look at her, perplexed, sees her give a small smile, that anticipatory energy undimmed. “Switch,” she orders, and it takes a moment for his brain to catch up.

“Though I wasn't,” he says, because Sawbones continually clucked over how risky his pregnancy was, strongly suggested he not do anything “overly exciting” if it could be helped.

(“Sex is still fine,” the healer had said with a wink to clarify a question Max most assuredly hadn't asked, “Just don't rest weight on your front, but you already knew that.”)

“You're saying riding along is less stressful?” Furiosa counters, which. She has a point.

Max resettles into the driver's seat, edge of the steering wheel uncomfortably close to his belly, just sits for a moment with the engine idling and his hands wrapped around the wheel's grip. It's not his car but it's a car, a thing he was born to drive, and something uncoils inside himself to have that measure of control again.

He presses down on the accelerator and the car leaps forward with an eager growl.

It's intoxicating to put it through its paces, jamming down the pedals, cutting from one gear to the next, effortless even when he has to brace against the bulk of his belly.

“She's got a 5-liter V8,” Furiosa tells him over the noise, “No nitrous, but she's twincharged.” Max looks from the expanse of sand in front of him and she has a sharp grin on her face, metal hand braced against the grab-bar, body angled forward into the drive.

The car steers worse than any hauler he's ever driven, anything more demanding than wide looping turns threatening to tip it up onto two wheels, but it's fast enough.

“Two reverse gears,” Furiosa says, and Max takes the suggestion, throws the engine backwards with a squeal of mechanics. There's a single sliver of a mirror set up above the windshield that he checks reflexively, the sort of thing that might be useful if the terrain wasn't featureless sand.

The turns are easier in reverse by some quirk and without hesitation he spins them into tight spiraling donuts, sand kicking up high and obscuring everything through the open windows. Besides him Furiosa lets out a whooping laugh, startling against the roar of the road, and Max finds that there's an answering grin stretched across his own face.

The sprog inside him doesn't seem to be quite so pleased, to go by the kicks it's landing to his kidneys. Everything else Max has been doing since coming back here is for the fucking brat, though, so he holds out a while longer, lets the exhaust fumes sear into his lungs, dust settling back over his skin. Lets himself imagine for a moment if it was just him and Furiosa in a car, driving with no destination. She'd probably hate that, he thinks, to not have something to strive for.

The problem is, good sleep and good food and the insufferable press of his own hormones serve to make Max uncomfortable in his skin, desperate for touch. It's as unfamiliar to him as his heat had been; he hasn't touched himself for simple pleasure in years, perhaps, the wasteland drying up the desires of his flesh like everything else in favor of bare survival.

Laying besides a powerful alpha, wrapped in her scent-laden blanket, his belly full of a child that he knows isn't hers but his hindbrain insists could be, he finds parts of himself reengaged that have long been dormant. He starts waking every morning with his cock stiff-pressed against the lower swell of his belly, his cunt slick and hot, blood thrumming through his veins while he drinks in her presence.

There's no doubt that Furiosa can smell it on him, how ripe he is for it, how when she leaves- earlier and earlier, as if escaping- he takes himself in hand, wrings out meager unsatisfying orgasms on their shared blankets until his empty balls ache and his hole cramps from clenching on next to nothing.

He wants to ask her to stay, wants her to fuck into him and sate the yearning he feels, wants her to take himself inside her own cunt.

The sun hasn't even risen when she leaves this time, pulling on her outer layers in quick efficient movements, stomping her feet down into her boots.

“Why do you leave,” Max asks, still half asleep, already knowing why but hoping to persuade her otherwise.

He's rolled into the warm fragrant space she left on the mattress and watches her with lidded eyes, the way she holds herself away from even the barest brush of contact now she's awake. But it's so early, and she's never mentioned any sort of project in the workshops, any training for the Free Boys that needs to take up so much of her time. Surely she hasn't been satisfied with how little sleep she's gotten, the nights growing shorter and shorter as they near the apex of the year.

Furiosa pauses where she's pulling on her prosthesis, lets her organic hand linger over the strapping. “Because I have to,” she says after a moment.

“Why?” Max asks, stubborn and needy and already missing the living heat of her, the snatches of skin he might have brushed up against had she stayed abed with him.

She turns to look at him, expression shaded. “If I don't leave I might... react, to you. As an alpha. And I won't do that to you, I won't let myself betray your trust.”

Oh. Max blinks in sleep-addled confusion, because it's exactly what he wants to happen, but she's saying it as if it's something to be avoided.

“What if I wanted,” he says, because he does want her, wants her to press up close and rut with him and stay in his arms after, wants her scent to leach into his pores and stay, wants to carry a piece of her whenever he leaves. He thinks that he might come back to this soft green place whether or not they ever moved beyond this, thinks she's already claimed him in all the ways that matter.

Her voice wavers, “Max. I can't.”

Maybe it's the early morning but he doesn't understand, because he's just said he wants her, and she wouldn't be letting him into her space, her territory, wouldn't be giving him extra food off her own plate if she didn't want him in return. He's sure of it.

Max leverages himself up off the mattress, reaches out to grip at her wrist, forces himself to look her in the eye. “Why?” he asks, “If you don't want- okay. Say that. But can't?”

Furiosa pulls herself in, looks bizarrely small and fragile, vulnerable. It's so incongruous with what he knows of her that it makes him uneasy, sets him on edge waiting for her to speak.

“When you were in heat, I took advantage of you,” she says, drawing steely resolve back around herself like a cloak, looking more like the warrior she was, “And I told myself it was a mercy, that it was to help, but I wanted it. I wanted to so I did, just like any other alpha would have, just like-” she shakes her head, “And now you're here, and still asking, and I can't.”

Max makes a quiet noise, rubs his thumb along the thin skin of her wrist, the place he can feel her beating pulse. Furiosa had carried his blood in her veins, had it circulating with each pump of her heart, something freely given that the War Boys had taken and taken and taken.

“You're not them,” he says, because that much at least is true. “Heat... draws you in. There's no reasoning. 'N you still- you asked. And I said yes.”

She still leaves, draws her hand away from his loose grip and walks out the door. He doesn't see her at all, the rest of the day, feels restless and tired and like he's failed, somehow.

There's an expanse of open sky above the green tops of the spires. There's also workers picking through the plants, tending drips in the irrigation lines and pruning leaves and checking soil, but none of them pay him any mind. He can see for endless kilometers when the wind's not stirring up dust, feel the sun beating on his skin.

The Dag spends most of her time among the green, slower and more burdened than he remembers her, still as sharp aside from the swell of life that surrounds her. It's a good place, quiet; he finds himself joining her some of the time.

“Sometimes I think about killing it,” she tells him, sprawled across a patch of greenery, feet propped on a low hummock of soil while her fingers idly rip at some weeds. There's not much that grows unwanted in these gardens, the space and resources too precious to waste, but little drips and drabs can always be found tucked away.

“Sawbones offered to take care of it, back before I got huge. Said it was my right.”

Max says nothing, focuses on the task he has spread before him. Replacing the firing pin for a rifle Toast's come to favor, the sort of work that's mobile, doesn't need a workshop.

“I said, eh, maybe it won't be so bad. It's only half him, and that only barely. But sometimes I feel it kick and think- wait till you get out here, brat. Then you'll have something to fuss about.”

She sighs, head lolling to the side to squint up at him. “Angharad's lasted a day, she tell you that? Looked fine coming out, but after a while it just got quiet. Went cold. Saws took a look, said it was something in the heart, maybe. Then we put it under the date palms, those ones we moved over.”

“Blood's good for trees, did you know? They need meat like the rest of us, I guess.”

The Dag holds up a leaf she hasn't shredded yet, shadow falling across her face. “I think mine'll go under the squashes.”

Max shifts a little uncomfortably, unsure if she's still talking about killing. One thing to stop a pregnancy before it's really begun, but a babe that could be handed off to someone else... He wouldn't, he knows, else he wouldn't be here, but there's a lot of ways people react.

He thinks he might not find fault in her for it, if that's how it ends. The sisters don't talk of their time as Wives in words, but it's plain to see writ across their actions, the silences they leave. Joe was a nasty piece of work, the sort you wanted nothing to do with once he was gone, everything he once touched seeming to need to be torn down and made new lest the taint remain.

Max keeps getting bigger, cumbersome beyond reason now as he nears the end of the gauntlet, unbalanced and slow and tired when he isn't desperate for touch. His chest starts aching more even than his over-strained knee or perpetually sore back, tits swollen and tender, heavy enough despite their small size that it hurts to leave them unsupported. He remembers there used to be delicate-sturdy things made of elastic and lace and cotton, laughably extinct now at the end of the world.

There's strips of cloth now instead, loaned out from the sisters, that he wraps over and over to bind his chest in place, clumsy with the unfamiliar act of it.

Furiosa hasn't reconsidered her stance on touching him, but she's stopped leaving quite so early in the mornings. She lingers, some days, until Max is almost beyond caring that he should wait for her to leave before taking himself in hand.

Today, the near-constant arousal is dimmed, his chest still sore from the day before and a night of fitful sleep. He doesn't plan to linger in bed, starts wrapping the cloth brusquely around his bared breasts while Furiosa is still donning her own outfit, side-by side on the edge of the low pallet. He pulls the wrappings tight and feels slightly bruised, but the pressure against his flesh is almost comforting.

“You're going to hurt yourself,” Furiosa says, head turned just far enough to watch him from the corner of her eyes.

Max grunts; it hurts already. She shifts so she's facing him more, casting a critical eye over the work he's paused.

“Did anyone show you how to wrap your chest?” she asks, hesitates and then reaches out, takes the bundle of still-coiled cloth from his hands. “You can hurt your ribs, doing it wrong.”

She hasn't touched his bare flesh with intent since he first returned, when he took her hand and let her feel the sprog in his belly. She's not touching him now, not yet, but the offer is there.

He waits, his posture loose and open, until she shifts closer, sets her stump against his shoulder for balance. The wrappings fall away easily when she tugs them free.

There hasn't been time for red stripes to mark his flesh, but her hand still feels cool against his skin, soothing. Furiosa has to wrap both arms around his chest in a mockery of an embrace to get the wrapping started and the feel of her pressed so close to his sensitive skin tears a low sound of desire out of him, nipples pebbling against the soft rasp of her shirt where she brushes against him.

She breathes out a shaky breath against him in return, and Max can't help that he's growing aroused by the contact, that he has to shift his hips when his dick starts taking attention. Furiosa doesn't say anything, though, just arranges the cloth carefully around his swollen chest, somehow pulling up the right areas while leaving the rest looser, comfortable.

Her face is close enough to his that he wants to lean in and kiss her, wants to draw her back down onto the bed and ruck up the work she's just done so he can have her hand on his breasts, her mouth on his. Max's gaze drops from her magnetic eyes to her lips while he licks his own unthinkingly, flicks back up to see the indecision warring in her expression.

“Max,” she says his name like she's losing an argument, like she can smell just how wet his cunt is, how desperately he wants her.

He doesn't say anything in reply- he could, he thinks, could call her alpha and tell her he needs and use her instincts against her, but he doesn't. It's Furiosa's decision, and as much as the trembling omega parts of him are screaming to present himself, to make sure this strong alpha mates him and has a tie so she can't leave; he lets her be the one to make it.

She pulls away slightly, just enough for a disappointed noise to well up in him unbidden, bitten back but not completely muffled. And then her mouth is on his, her hand cradling the back of his head, and he's finally, finally kissing her.

Max sinks into it, presses himself forward and brings his arms around to encircle her body, keep it close to his own. She inhales a shuddery breath when he opens his mouth to her, tests the give of her lip between his teeth.

Furiosa shifts in closer, straddles his legs, mindful of the swell of his belly between them. “Do you really want this?” she says, voice a touch desperate. “Max, you have to tell me.”

“Yeah,” Max forces out, the words feeling far away under the weight of just how very much he wants, “I want this. Want you.”

He'd be content to just stay like this, he thinks, lose himself in the feel of her mouth and her body under his hands, take care of himself later. But she brings her hand down to lay hot against his dick, dips to where the wetness seeps out of his cunt, before tugging the cloth of his trousers down. Her own clothes she leaves untouched despite how much he'd like to see her, feel her, and it's with a thrill that he realizes there will be time enough to see her bare.

Sitting up like this, her practically in his lap, there's not much maneuvering he can do. Furiosa gathers wetness from his pussy, her fingers little more than a tease, uses it to ease the way when she starts stroking his dick. It's magnificent, having someone else's hand on himself when he's so worked-up, the intoxicating scent of her filling his nostrils. He moans brokenly, silenced only when she retakes his mouth in a kiss, forceful enough it feels like a challenge.

Max can't decide what to do with his hands, wants to touch all of her, wants selfishly to get himself off quickly, before what must surely be a dream ends. He uses one to cup the soft weight of her breast, so different from his own swollen chest, the other stretching down around his belly to his own cunt, desperate for it. He finds one of her nipples through the fabric of her shirt and rolls it between his fingertips, earns himself a pleased gasp and a skillful twist to Furiosa's wrist as she works his cock.

“Come for me,” she whispers into his ear, the same she'd nearly deafened that night in the marsh. “I want to see it.” He's helpless but to comply, needs only a few more strokes before he spills wetly between them, hips jerking up even under the combined weight of their bodies.

Furiosa's hot through the leather of her trousers, ruts herself against the tensed muscles of his leg harshly until she comes, so much sooner than he had hoped for. Max buries his face into the curve of her neck to muffle the wave of disappointment that washes over him, that she can't slide inside of him properly and replace his own inadequate fingers.

It turns out to not much matter- she coaxes him to lie back against the mattress, teases him until she's ready to go again. Furiosa shocks him by sinking down onto his cock, her pussy wet and warm and tight around him, ovi pushed out just far enough to rub against the curve of his belly while she rides. And he craves the feeling of being penetrated but this is almost as good, something not many alphas would even think to indulge an omega in.

Max tries to make it good for her, figure out what sort of touches she likes on her ovi, work his hips up into the rocking rhythm Furiosa's using. He can't bend well enough to touch her as he'd like, not when she's riding tall above him, has to settle for wrapping the hand not teasing at her ovi around her hips to support her as she starts speeding up, head thrown back in pleasure.

It's not long before the squeezing contractions of Furiosa's orgasm start fluttering around his dick, quick gasps sounding out as she rides through them, unrelenting. Max wishes he had a knot to offer her, wishes he could stay hard and let her work herself over as long as she'd like, but before she even comes down from her climax she slips her fingers down into his cunt, rub at his k-spot with determination in her eyes until he's coming as well, her name on his lips.

The scent of them is heady in the enclosed space, barely affected by the breeze from the open window, and Max would purr with how right it feels if he was able to. There's things that need doing, reasons they should leave the safety of their room, but he doesn't bring any of them up. He lets himself soak in the warmth Furiosa is throwing off as she rests against him, the welcome soreness between his legs, utterly content for at least a short while.

The Dag grows full to bursting, ponderously slow as she stubbornly continues tending to the plants she has taken charge of, the seedlings sprouted from the Vuvalini's carpetbags.

“Any day now,” Sawbones says when she looks her over. There's a date written in blocky print inside a human-bound book that details the exact day conception was confirmed, the way she had struggled against the cloth binding her limbs as the Organic Mechanic had leered and leered and “congratulated” her.

There's a date written for Max, too, one he hasn't asked to see but knows that Sawbones is aware of. It feels a little like a timer wired to something explosive, knowing that it's no use looking for the disarm switch anymore. Head between your knees to kiss your ass goodbye, he thinks, can't brace for this impact.

As a diversion, he sets himself the task of learning Furiosa's body as well as he's able. His own at present is strange and distorted, reactions tweaked under hormones and what feels some days like a lead ball inside his gut, but she's utterly in control of herself, perfect.

The scar he gave her sits low on her ribs, a small raised line that looks as if it's healed well, something he doesn't want to linger over. There's as many other scars on her skin as there are on his, road rash and burns and gashes, marks he can't help but skim lightly as he reads the roadmap of her life, his callouses catching against them. Furiosa presses kisses to his in turn and asks about them, and whenever he can't remember what gave it to him- often, more often than he thinks it should be- she helps him come up with new stories. Some are slyly hilarious and he's surprised by the display of her caustic humor, more surprised to find himself laughing along as if he can't help it, voice unfamiliar with the act of it.

She enjoys well enough his being soft and careful with her, but he learns that Furiosa likes when he's rougher, likes feeling the scratch of his nails against her skin, the drag of teeth between her thighs. She doesn't like the sort of squeezing pressure on her breasts that Max currently craves, but prefers sharp little nips to the delicate skin before he bites down on a nipple, hard enough to see the impression of his teeth on the skin when he lifts back off.

He stops being able to lay on his back as his belly grows, has to get creative to work around how easily he knee gets strained now it's carrying all that extra weight. They have to find ways around the memories as well- Furiosa doesn't want to be under him, and he doesn't want her at his back- it's limiting, but they make it work.

There's nothing that really compares to eating out an alpha woman, just the head of their ovi peeking out of where the length of it's sheathed inside, growing slick and firm and more while he works. Max likes to take his time and coax Furiosa's ovi out fully with just his mouth, not with brash obvious suction but teasing licks of his tongue and the drag of his lips, little by little until he has to leave the well of her pussy entirely to let the length of it slide into his mouth. He can't take her deep enough to let her knot his mouth, isn't sure he'd manage not to choke around the pulse of her coming if he could, but he gives trying a good shot anyway.

She doesn't return the favor, clenches her jaw but doesn't do either of them the disservice of looking away when she apologizes for it, says she just can't. Max doesn't mind, kisses her soft and tender as he dares, tells her it's alright and means it without reservation.

As on that first day, sometimes Furiosa has him fuck her, hips moving lazily to meet the roll of his own, never as deep as either really wants because of the room his abdomen takes up. She likes to leave her ovi inside for that, hot and firm along the front of her cunt's walls while he stretches her open, knot held too tightly by her own body to swell properly.

She'll leave the prosthesis on some of the time, metal pressing just so, heavier and stronger than her organic arm, unyielding in a way that Max should find unnerving but instead has him shivering. She's gentle with him now but he can see the shape of what he'd like to try, once there's no sprog to be mindful of, thinks by the answering look in her eye that she'd agree.

Max likes to wear her marks on his skin, little bruised clusters in the shape of her hands, her mouth tucked under his clothes, a secret for the two of them. The one area neither of them goes near when they're together is their necks, the place a bonding bite would go. Furiosa bites down hard enough on the meat of his bicep to draw blood, once, and for a moment he irrationally wishes it would scar, even if it's so far from where it should be.

Anyone with more senses than a beta can smell it on them, how commingled their scents are becoming, almost as thick together as Cheedo and the Dag. It pleases the deeply omega parts of him, that he's all but claimed this alpha as his, staked territory.

It should scare him, how badly his instincts have him wanting to draw Furiosa inside him permanently. It does scare him, when he's alone under the sweep of stars after a particularly vivid nightmare, but it's the sort of fear that comes from knowing what will happen if he loses her. Max admits to himself, in the dark and quiet, that it's not just his instincts that want it. The pull to seek a bond is always there- part of being an omega is wanting a mate, no matter what- but he pictures any sort of future for himself and it's always brighter, when she's there with him.

“Kid could be yours,” Max tells her one day in the quiet dim hours when there's not much need to leave the room but it's not yet late enough for sleep. He's not quite sure what prompts him to say it, other than the nagging feeling that it might please her to hear it.

But Furiosa stiffens, the easy mood between them vanishing. “It's not,” she says without hesitation, voice brittle. “The OM, he- it's not mine.”

As if he couldn't see for himself the ugly incision scar low across the span of her pelvis, the way there's nothing but clear fluid when she spills against him. An old practice for an older prejudice, “protection” for men and their precious dicks, the flipside of the same coin that justifies cutting away at omega men; both deemed unworthy of becoming fathers. It's something he wasn't surprised to find was continued by the toxicity of the Citadel as it was.

“Could be,” Max repeats, because- it doesn't matter to him, who supplied the seed that sparked the pregnancy. It could be Furiosa's sprog if she wants it.

It's something they haven't talked about, how she's looking forward to the birth of the Dag's baby along with the others, the way she speaks of the Many Mothers she'd come from. He doesn't know, won't unless they talk about it, but he thinks she might not hate claiming a child for herself now there's more than just war and bare survival to contend with. Now there's not just a future but a green one, and as much safety for those living in it as can be hoped for, in this world.

She doesn't have to, any more than he has to raise it- the sisters have been interviewing former milkers and breeders and people below for him, sensible and kind enough, trustworthy. There's options. But he already trusts Furiosa implicitly, can't imagine for all her hard edges and fierceness that there's anyone he'd rather have around his child.

“You're not staying,” she says after a pause.

Max doesn't bother to make a noise to confirm it- they both know he won't, can't. Once the sprog is born and his body is healed enough, he'll flee back across the sands, back to the desolate wastes he's used to. Staying here as long as he has is already chafing, foreign after so much time spent over rolling wheels, stifling even with the nesting instinct settled heavily over his skin.

“If I raised your child,” Furiosa says, and turns her head so she's looking out the carved window, the tidy workbench, anywhere but at him. “If I did that- it would be yours, to me. I'd look at it and I'd see that it was yours, I'd see you in it. And if you're going to leave, and leave, and leave... I could handle that for myself, I think, but not if I was raising your baby.”

He'd known the connection he feels doesn't only go one way, but he's never really thought about it, about what he might mean to her. She'd offered him a place with her tribe after a bare day's knowing, and life moves fast in the wastes but she wasn't incautious, didn't let her guard down easily. He knows down to his marrow that he'll leave, but he hadn't thought that maybe it wouldn't be the mercy it usually was.

Max hums quietly in contemplation and tries to picture the future.

He'll leave, but he already can feel the claim this place has on him, the claim Furiosa has. He'll return because he doesn't think he can stay away, and when he does he'll see a child by her side and... Max will know, that it came from him. That he carried it inside for nine months, that in the privacy of his thoughts he commended its will to live, the regular heartbeat Sawbones has told him it displays.

If it goes to another person, if he sees it only by accident, an anonymous child in the crowd, maybe he'll be able to forget. If it's one of the Milking Mothers who takes it into her arms, calls it by sweet names and showers it with love, maybe he won't feel as if he's pulled back by quite so many tethers.

If the sisters take it, raise it as a twin to the Dag's babe, he doesn't know. Maybe he will be able to forget, just as they'll forget who fathered hers. Maybe it'll haunt him all the same.

He's going to leave, that much is certain. But whether he comes back, whether he can find the sort of redemption that Furiosa had, that would allow him to someday stay...

Max thinks about what it would be like, to stay with her. To stay for her.

If they bonded, if he let her scar his neck with her bite, he wouldn't have a choice. His biology would draw him back, would pull her out into the wastes with him. To have that level of connection again- oh, the parts of him that are all instinct and animal desire want it, want to be claimed and to belong, but the rest of him quakes at the thought. Because losing his child, his mate- he's lived that nightmare already, and it burned parts of himself away that will never come back.

It's a tangle inside his skull, a conflict of instincts and reason, what he knows to be true and what he hopes to be proven wrong about.

And that's the thought that steals his breath away, because- hope. Despite knowing better from long and bitter experience, some part of him that doesn't belong solely to the primal omega parts still wants to hope, wants to think that maybe, maybe...

It's not enough to go on, really, but nothing ever is.

“If I,” Max starts, clears his throat. “If I came back.”

Because of course he'll leave- he doesn't know how not to, anymore. Doesn't know how to silence his demons with anything but a roaring engine and searing winds, chasing the horizon as if he might someday outrun his past. But he's come back once already, thinks about the claim-without-a-claim she has on him, the good works sprouting from what had once been barren rock, and he wonders if the returning is the important part.

It's enough to get Furiosa to look at him, gaze piercing. She doesn't say anything for a long moment, just runs her eyes over him, looking for something he doesn't know if she'll find.

“I can't do it on my own,” she says at last. “If it's mine it's yours, too. You don't have to always stay- I won't ask that of you- but I need you here.”

Max nods his head in silent agreement, heart pounding so hard he's sure she can hear it. It's the single most terrifying decision he's made perhaps his entire life, opening himself up like this again when he knows how dear the price of failure is. The urge to run wells up in him, gripping and desperate, but there's a tendril of excitement as well. Anticipation.

“I need to hear you say it,” Furiosa says.

Max works his jaw for a moment, trying to unstick the words from his brain. “I'll come back,” he says at last, a promise he might as well be writing in blood, “It can- it'll be ours. Our baby.”

She smiles, softer than he's used to and so pleased and full of hope his heart hurts to see it, and the terror washes over him still but he's not running, not when she's there to anchor him.

When the Dag finally gives birth, she does so in the middle of the night, labor started early in the day building until the moon is high in the sky and her pained groans echo around the white-washed walls of the infirmary. She had wanted to birth under the open air of her favorite garden terrace, but Sawbones said that the child was breech, wouldn't allow the risk. It had been a dramatic row: the Dag screaming about personal autonomy, the healer calmly countering with the risk to her own self, the fact that she's never delivered a term baby before.

She relents only when Cheedo asks her to, speaks her in quiet words that Max can't hear but can easily guess the meaning of.

The infant is born after a long struggle limp and purple-blue, takes a seemingly endless stretch of time while Sawbones works it over before finally sucking in a sharp breath, heart sluggish but beating.

When it finally starts crying, high thin wails of displeasure, Max flinches because the sound goes straight through his brain, stirs up memories of the child he'd once held, a lifetime ago.

“It's a boy,” Cheedo tells the Dag with a bit of hesitance, running hands through her sweat-matted blonde hair, “An omega boy.”

The Dag looks over at where the baby is being assessed and cleaned, expression thoughtful through the exhaustion. “Old bastard would've hated it,” she says decisively. “Alright.”

Furiosa is right next to him, a steady presence Max turns to, and he'd never told her about his son in words but he thinks she knows anyway, in that way she has of understanding all the grimy hidden parts of himself even he can't confront.

His swollen chest starts aching as the cries continue to pierce his skull, prickling with the need to let down milk, instinct overcoming his own feelings on the matter. He hunches into himself, feels more truly at the mercy of his biology than he has since his heat. The sprog in his belly kicks restlessly against his skin, stirred up by the commotion, and-

Max is on one of the bridges that span the spires, cold night air filling his lungs, lingering cries swept away under the low whistle of the wind, the clanking of chains and creaking wood as the bridge sways. It was a mistake, to think he could handle being a parent again, when just being near someone else's baby has him running.

It's Angharad who finds him, stepping lightly out onto the stony ledge before taking a seat next to him on the swaying causeway. She sighs, and rests her hands over her flat abdomen, a left-over gesture Max has to look away from.

“I was grateful when my baby died,” she says, obviously something she's wanted to say for a while and for some reason has decided to share with him, now. “I couldn't say whether it deserved to live- certainly it wasn't going to be his father reborn, wouldn't grow to be a warlord. But I was grateful, that I didn't have to find out for sure. That it was taken out of my hands.”

Max says nothing, all his thoughts and memories snarled up inside his head, barely held at bay by the familiar taste of toxic sand on the breeze. He doesn't think she's talking about the same things that are haunting him, not at all.

“I have to wonder, what sort of person does that make me? That baby Dag's holding- surely he's just as innocent as mine was, and I can't imagine wanting him dead.”

He'd wanted his son from the very first, had dreamed and planned and loved so fiercely it still cuts him up inside even now. And then he failed to protect him when it mattered most, and all the blood and fire in the world wasn't enough to bring him back.

There are moments when Max looks out over the blighted wasteland and thinks, maybe it's better they hadn't lived to see it. Hadn't lived to see the animal he'd become, the lengths he went to survive. He can never be grateful that it happened but it's the coldest of comforts that they're at rest instead of picking over the bones of the world, meeting even more gruesome ends.

“Life is the only thing worth protecting in this world. But I was grateful.”

He doesn't know how to reconcile that with the hope fluttering in his chest like a trapped bird, the way it catches him off-balance, that he wants to be a parent once again. That he's agreed to do this to himself, that he's agreed to open Furiosa to this sort of pain as well. It's a truer sign of how mad he is than anything else, Max thinks, that he's letting himself hope he isn't too broken to handle it.

Angharad doesn't seem to be looking for any sort of answer from him, just lets her feet dangle off the side of the bridge, takes in the view of the same vast nothing they see day after day.

It's still dark when he leaves the bridge, deep enough in the night that Max retreats back to his shared room in hopes of finding a few hours sleep. Furiosa is already there when he arrives, fingers restlessly running over some bit of mechanics on her workbench in the dim lamplight, prosthesis long since unbuckled.

“I can leave,” she offers, and he shakes his head. The last thing he wants is to be alone again. What he wants desperately is to to feel her skin against his, wants to remind himself that he's alive and she's alive and the baby in his womb is alive, wants to wash the toxic dust out of his mouth.

Max sits down heavily on the edge of the low mattress, works his boots off. When he strips off the shirt there's dark wet patches on the cloth around his chest where he's leaked and he hisses to undo the wrappings, sore and full and aching.

He can feel Furiosa's eyes on him, the concern she's trying not to radiate, can practically smell the tightly-wound control she's exerting over herself. She lets him have the space he needs but she likes knowing where he is, that he's safe. He's not sure if it's the alpha in her or just her own self, so many things taken and lost in the sands that she holds tight to what she still has left.

He doesn't ask her over in words, holds out a hand, waves her in. There's a long moment of indecision before she crumples, takes two long strides to stand before him, lays her hand against the bare skin of his shoulder.

“Want you,” Max says, reaching up to pull her in for a kiss. She goes easily, leaning down until their lips meet and the taste of her replaces the cold soured wind.

He lets himself just relax into the press of her lips for a moment before moving to deepen it, wraps his arms around her torso and closes his eyes at the feel of her hand rubbing the join of his neck, warm against his bared skin.

“You should get some rest,” Furiosa says when they slide apart, and Max hums but ignores the advice. He does want to sleep, but he wants more to be with her. He presses a kiss just below her ear, rasps his stubble against her jaw until she shivers like he knew she would, hand clenching for a moment on his shoulder before moving away to cup the back of his head.

She's warm and solid and living in his arms, chest rising and falling under his spread hands, mouth slick and tender when their lips meet for another kiss. Furiosa hooks her left arm around his chest in return, careful not to press against his pregnant belly as she moves closer, shirt over the swell of her breasts scratching against his own bare chest.

Max slides his hands down the length of her spine, works to undo the laces of her corset, already knowing how she'll bitch about having to sit still for him to lace it back up in the morning, a task neither of them minds as much as she lets on. She's softer, without it, a layer of armor peeled away to reveal white fabric stained with blood and sweat over delicate skin.

Even in the privacy and relative safety of their room, they don't often undress completely. It's suicidally stupid to do so out in the wastes, and habits like that aren't worth breaking. He wants to feel her skin against his tonight though, pushes up at the wrappings of her shirt until she breaks the kiss they've fallen back into to take it off herself, reveals her scarred perfect body for his roving hands to take in.

There's not many positions that work this late in his pregnancy, that don't stir up memories for either of them. Max stays seated on the edge of the bed, all his weight off his bad knee, rummages for their growing stash of donated and stolen cushions to prop himself up with.

Furiosa steps closer into the welcoming spread of his legs, kneels against the height of the low mattress so she's at a level with him, curls around him without putting pressure on his abdomen. Her hand strokes from his shoulder down the length of his side, back up to rest against his jaw when she kisses him again.

“What do you want?” she asks from a breath away.

“You inside me,” Max says, because she's taken his cock a few times and it's been good, so good, but he misses her ovi, misses having something hot and firm filling him up more than either of their fingers can manage. “Want your knot.”

Furiosa breathes out an unsteady breath and takes his lips in hard kiss before nodding her acceptance, helps him shuck the trousers still loosely belted low on his hips before ridding herself of her own. They haven't done this since his heat, her ovi inside him, and he's not sure if it's because she doesn't like it or she thinks he might not, but here and now she doesn't look as if she's forcing herself into it.

His cunt is wet already, slick against her fingers when she tests with a teasing swipe, ready to be filled. Max groans at the feel of her fingers on his inside walls, runs the hand not steadying himself on the mattress down her side encouragingly, flexes his hips up into her touch as much as he dares.

As close as she is he can't see over the mound of his belly, can only listen for the filthy wet noise of her easing out her ovi when her hand leaves his cunt.

“Want to,” Max starts to say, breaks off to gasp when he feels her press the tapered tip to his opening, clenches down around nothing in anticipation. “Want you in my mouth,” he says, and she pauses.

“Not- keep going,” he demands, reaches down to cup at her ass and bring her closer, encourages her to press her ovi into his cunt. “Later. Want to eat you out.”

Furiosa huffs an amused breath, “You'll have to wait, if you want to tie me.” She helps Max curl his right leg around her hips, holds it in place with the stub of her arm, her hand still down where her ovi's pressing hot against his opening.

“Mhm,” he hums, because he doesn't mind waiting.

She starts sliding in properly and the stretch is amazing, wider and deeper than their fingers could ever reach, sets of sparks of pleasure that rattle around his nerves, buzz underneath his skin. He gives a pleased sigh when she finally hilts herself, as deep inside as she can go, the warm weight of her pressed up along his front so carefully. Max hasn't had this since that awful heat and it's wonderful, a much better memory to override the last.

“Want everything,” he says softly, a little too honestly.

Max doesn't remember closing his eyes but he opens them because she's not moving yet, and he sees that her expression is a little raw, searching. He feels pinned like a butterfly, Furiosa's hot ovi spearing him open, held in place by the weight of the sprog in his gut- but it doesn't feel like a trap the way it probably should.

He feels safe, instead, like with her there's nothing bad that could happen, no harm that could befall them in the quiet privacy of their room. The gravity of it all is almost overwhelming, far more than he asked for, and his mind shies away.

Still, he wants to be fucked, wants to feel her moving against him, inside him.

Max cants his hips in pleading invitation, feels the delicious drag of skin as she starts moving, finally, slow steady thrusts that shoot off sparks with every glancing strike against his k-spot. He could reach down to take his dick in hand but he doesn't want to lose the feel of her skin under his hand, doesn't want to risk coming before her knot's in place.

Furiosa's own hand teases along where they're joined, runs through his lips and sac and up to the base of his cock, gives one firm-soft stroke to the length of his shaft, slicked with his own wetness. The feeling of it is too much and he grabs at her hand to still the motion, brings it up to his chest instead and lays it on one of his aching tits, makes encouraging noises when she starts massaging the over-tight flesh.

The prickling of let-down has long since faded but milk still beads up on his nipple when she squeezes, a hungry sort of noise tearing out of her at the sight. Max just sighs, presses into her hand, hopes she keeps going to give him some relief from the aching fullness.

“Can I,” Furiosa says, hips stilling as she runs a finger through the fine trail of fluid, eyes dark and sparkling when they meet his. “Can I taste?”

There's no sense in wasting sustenance that he can't help but produce, but he doesn't think that's entirely the reason she asks. Max hums affirmatively all the same, wraps his free arm back around her ribs to encourage her in close, arches his chest out as best he can to give her access.

Even knowing it's coming he's not prepared for the feeling of her mouth covering his nipple, hot and wet and soft, tongue laving across the sore skin. It's nothing like the latching of an infant, an altogether different feeling as she sucks in long harsh pulls, draws his milk into her mouth to drink it down.

Furiosa starts moving her hips again after a few seconds, her rhythm just as slow but more forceful now, purposeful in counter-point to the suction at his breast. She's pressed all along his front, curved over his rounded belly, skin hot and sticky with sweat, the concavity of her own abdomen a perfect mirror to the swell of is.

When his tit is drained Furiosa removes her mouth with a slick pop, leans carefully up to kiss him, the taste of his milk on her tongue sweet and sticky and rich. Her knot's starting to swell, rubs along his walls with every thrust, and soon it'll be enough to tie down on, too big to remove, exactly what he wants- what he needs.

Max clenches his muscles down around her, encourages her to move deeper, and she breaks the kiss to groan brokenly.

“Ready?” she asks, hips already snapping quick sharp strokes meant to bring herself off, growing knot sinking in deep with every thrust to hit up against his sparking k-spot. He moans in reply, unable to summon words, hand splayed across her back to keep her close, right where he needs her.

Furiosa cries out wordlessly when her knot finally catches, holds firm against the muscles of his cunt, the pressure of him tying down around her wringing out her orgasm. It hits perfectly against his k-spot and Max groans at how full he feels, the splash of hot cum deep inside him, the throbbing of her knot against his stretched walls.

When he's not in heat he usually needs a hand on his dick to come but Furiosa dips her head to his other breast and sucks, pulling him inside of herself even as he ties down on her, and that's enough. His cock spatters clear all over his belly, cunt spasming around the girth of her knot, pleasure stealing his breath so he can only gasp something that might have been her name, had he the air to form it.

His climax ebbs and flows, stretches out for a long moment while everything remains in perfect balance, the stretch of her knot inside him and the pull at his breast, dick twitching as aftershocks run through him.

Furiosa pulls away from his nipple, a line of sticky white spit trailing from her mouth, her hand and nub both rubbing down the length of his sides soothingly. He's drawing in shuddery breathes, chest heaving, overwhelmed with pleasure and relief and the feeling of the both of them, alive and together. Above him she's making quiet hushing noises, bends down to let him nuzzle into the curve of her neck, lick the salty fragrant sweat off her skin. He feels like a uniquely omega mess, craving more even when he has everything he could want before him already.

Max wishes there wasn't the sprog to worry about, wants to pull her down to lie heavily against his body, skin to skin. He feels needy, exposed in a way he's not used to as the high winds back down, terrified of what's happening in him, around him.

Her hand is gentle against his swollen abdomen as she absentmindedly massages the tense muscles, the infant inside restless but not kicking out. He brings his other arm to join the first in wrapping around her chest, keeping her close as he relaxes back against the precarious stack of cushions, the knot tugging gently inside when he shifts.

Max thinks, for a moment, about what would happen if he guided her mouth to his neck and told her to bite down hard enough to claim, to bond. He's not sure he would want it, truly, but in this moment it seems endlessly appealing. And once Furiosa's teeth were bloodied he'd mark her just the same, a matching scar for the graceful arch of her neck, a circuit completed between the two of them.

It would be closeness, completeness- but unbidden come the memories of fire, his soul wrenched from his body. It's a risk, to bare one's self so completely, especially when their lives are not the sort lived in quiet retreat. Max already feels overly vulnerable just being here as he is, doesn't know if he can survive anything more than the connection of a knot, a promise to return for the sprog in his womb.

“You should sleep,” Furiosa says, quiet, when her knot finally slips back out and his breathing has long since eased back to a more regular rhythm. “It's been a long day.”

“Mhm,” he hums in agreement, keeps his hand steadily pressed against her back. “You too.”

She lets him keep hold of her while they rearrange themselves on the pallet, Max nesting into his stash of cushions to keep the pressure off his stomach, his knees. The feel of her skin on his isn't something he's ready to give up just yet.

With the Dag's baby born, the once abstract matter of his own impending labor looms large on the horizon.

He isn't fit to do much, as burdened as he is, has to endure Sawbones clucking and suggesting bed-rest whenever she sees him. But Max has never been one for stillness, and the stone walls he's started growing accustomed to feel once more like a prison, the wasteland outside tugging on him with every glimpse of the sprawling terrain he gets.

He thinks about stealing a vehicle, driving until the panicky feeling in his chest eases and there's nothing but scorching air for kilometers. Thinks about crawling away to give birth, letting the deadly sands muffle the sounds of a newborn until he's finally unencumbered again after so many days, never to return.

Furiosa says nothing, lets him pace and twitch and mutter to himself, but he's noticed that she hasn't been disappearing into the depths of the garages as often, hasn't taken any trade runs, perimeter patrols. He doesn't want to run if she isn't with him, doesn't want to cut himself off from her entirely, and it's that more than anything that keeps him rooted in the Citadel for the moment.

“I don't see why everyone cares what he's called,” the Dag says, still looking somewhat dubious about how to handle the babe in her arms. She lets the others hold her son more often than not unless he needs to be fed, ambivalent about embracing something that was, after all, partly made from the same man who had stolen her and locked her away.

“Maybe I'll say his name is Nux, he wasn't so bad at the end. 'Course, that does mean Capable will get all weepy while pretending to be fine; it's so annoying when she does that.”

Max grunts in a vague response, because she's been talking at him all day and outright ignoring her never seems to go particularly well for him. The Dag at least hasn't been talking about burying the baby anymore, which is something of a relief.

“Should I hate him?” she asks, changing the topic away from names abruptly, head tilted as she looks at the infant. “I don't think that I do, but maybe I should.”

Max says nothing, attempts to focus on the scribblings of what's supposed to be a treaty brokered between two squabbling gangs near the outskirts of their territory. It's a question he couldn't even begin to answer, anyway.

The Dag sighs, strokes her free hand over her son's soft downy hair. “It was easier before the brat had a face,” she says. “He has my father's nose, did you know?”

As if Max has any idea what her parents might have looked like, as if the baby wasn't still young enough to be mostly a collection of vague soft features anyway.

“Have you got names for yours yet?” she asks, “Now that you and Furi are keeping it. They'll be after you to pick something, you might as well think on it.”

He hums a noncommittal reply. They have talked it over some, in the hours before the sun rises when neither of them can sleep. Haven't come to any conclusions. He can't imagine giving a fierce wastelander name to something so tiny and new, can't imagine an Old World name like his living up to the task either. Max thinks maybe he'll need to actually see the sprog for it to be real enough to name, for all that he can already feel nearly its every move.

What they had decided on was letting Furiosa be the baby's mother. It was traditional, for the parent who'd done the carrying to be the mother, but- Max isn't sure he can handle being called mom again, knows the title means a lot to her. Both the Dag and Cheedo call themselves her baby's mother, set the Vuvalini talking in pleased tones about how it's shaping up to look something like the old days, many mothers once again running around caring for the future.

It's daunting to him, put like that, but it seems to give the others energy, camaraderie. Max isn't sure he wants to be the baby's father, either, when he considers how poorly that word has been used around here, wonders if he can somehow raise it without really claiming it.

Periodic contractions start to twinge through him, something not uncommon so late into a pregnancy, the sort of thing that startles first-timers. Max continues working on the busywork project of the day- inventorying a cache of ammo they unearthed, stationary and so dull he would almost prefer to just nap the afternoon away- unmindful of the pangs. Only when there's a particularly sharp cramp, a gush of fluid, does he set aside his work and acknowledge that he's finally gone into labor.

Unlike the Dag he doesn't mind birthing in the white-washed infirmary, has no desire to kneel in the dirt of the gardens or stain the sheets of his own bed with gore.

The sisters flit around the curtained cubicle, fetching supplies and offering support. Angharad commands the floor while the Dag makes rude comparisons to her own labor that Cheedo halfheartedly tries to shush, Toast hanging back with the same mildly disgusted expression she wears whenever the details of children and births are brought up.

“Is it different for male omegas?” Capable wants to know, a little squeamish about getting close enough to actually see despite her vague intention to learn healing, a distance Max is admittedly grateful for. He's mostly thinking about the pain and mess of it, but the feeling of being all but put on display sets his nerves on edge.

“Not much,” Sawbones replies, sure and confident and utterly unfazed by any of it, “But then, you see enough births and they're all mostly the same.”

“I would have thought,” Toast says, “What with the... extras. That it'd be different.”

“Not hardly,” Sawbones says, “Alphas though- now that's a tricky delivery.”

The contractions sweep over Max in steadily shrinking intervals, stronger and stronger, cramp him down until he's on his knees from the pain.

He lets the room slide away in his mind, concentration taken up by what's happening within himself. It's the most intimate sort of pain, stretching and burning, sharp and dull by turns, blunted only by the knowledge that it's temporary, a far cry from the drug-numbed state he last delivered in. Soon Max is blowing air like a wild thing, teeth bared, uncaring about anything but the agony of it as his insides push and push and push.

Sawbones is a steady presence, touch coaxing and voice soothing, but it's Furiosa who lets him crush her hand between his fingers, holds him steady on his shaking knees with her metal arm as his body works and works to rid itself of a burden nine months in the making.

Finally it's over, one last push before the weight of it leaves him, a relief.

Dimly he hears Sawbones running the sort of quick diagnostics he remembers, the pulsing umbilical cord still attached deep inside his body for the moment. The afterbirth will need to pass in another wave of agony, and he'll have to let her look for damage to his own self, but the worst of his part in it is over.

Max lets himself sink the rest of the way down, sweat-drenched forehead falling heavily against the cold metal of Furiosa's pauldron, wonders if he feels like crying or laughing or screaming. The infant starts crying almost immediately, upset at having been expelled from its cozy home so rudely, and he thinks- me too, kiddo.

“Max?” Capable says after what feels like not nearly a long enough interval, hesitant. Max doesn't want to respond, wants to collapse and hide away until he's no longer raw and exposed, drained. Forces himself to open his eyes and look at her anyway.

She's holding the crying baby in her arms, loosely wrapped in a scrap of linen but still slimed over with the birth fluids, eyes wide newborn blue in a dusky brown face, crumpled and reddish and something that maybe should be disgusting.

“It's a girl,” Capable says, “Do you want to hold her?”

He doesn't. Holding it- her- would mean getting attached, and Max can't do that to himself again, doesn't have the strength. He thought he could, earlier when it was still mostly theoretical, but he hasn't the strength now it's inescapably real. Somehow he finds himself reaching out anyway, disentangling his hands from Furiosa's grip to take the infant.

It- she is so small, delicate, fits into his arms clumsily, unused as he is to holding anything gently. Her cries quiet down as she's pressed back up against a warm familiar heartbeat, and Max feels the urge to run well up in him even as he stares in amazement down at her, so small and perfect and fuck, his.

Theirs, he remembers when Furiosa tentatively reaches her organic hand out, runs the tip of one finger down the baby's cheek. He can't even begin to guess at what she's feeling, if she's seeing a new beginning or a weak liability, if she's feeling the same wash of terrified awe as him.

“Let her nurse,” Sawbones says, breaking into the strangely quiet moment. “She needs it, and it'll speed along the placenta.”

Max makes a noise in reply, throat too raw to support words if he had any, thinks for a moment about refusing. He knows the first milk's important, something he remembers vaguely about the immune system, but letting the baby nurse means he has to keep holding her, has to keep looking at her tiny face and hands, close enough to take in the first hints of that sweet newborn smell.

He undoes the laces of his borrowed shirt anyway, hands trembling a little as he helps her latch on. She's greedy with it, strong already as she demands her share of his body, as if nine months wasn't enough to make her want to flee his presence.

Counting fingers and toes is a more harrowing experience than it once was, now that there's fallout ash drifting in the corners of the world. The baby in his arms has five perfect little fingers on each of her two hands, grasping reflexively around Furiosa's finger to trap it in a tiny fist. One of her legs is perfectly formed, the other twisted and crooked in a way Max can already see will never hold weight. But there's no lumps under her skin, nothing where it shouldn't, no sign that she's doomed to a life over before it had a chance to begin.

“She's perfect,” Furiosa says just loudly enough for him to hear over the quiet noises of the baby suckling, voice painfully tender as she echoes his thoughts, “Max, our baby's perfect.”

A handful of days trip past, ones Max doesn't keep count of. Couldn't if he tried- not that he tries.

The baby is agonizingly loud and frightfully quiet by turns, constantly demanding something, seems to always fuss unhappily whenever he holds her after that first day. He feeds her from his own breast because it's a waste not to, not when the Milking Mothers who've stayed producing do it for the sake of those children who have no other options, but the effort chafes him raw and still doesn't seem to satisfy her.

Max bleeds, and bleeds, and wonders if he won't end up bleeding to death after all, the fate he was allotted when he was first brought to this place. Sawbones says he's healing as well as she expects, but it's no comfort when he feels as though he's falling to pieces despite his supposedly-mending flesh.

Furiosa won't hold the baby if she's wearing her prosthesis, which is probably a sensible decision considering the brutal mechanics involved, but it means Max has to hold her, instead. The baby settles into his arms like she belongs there and that more than anything is what makes him shake, how easily his body remembers this, how easily he can see himself growing attached and losing everything a second time.

He should be able to look at her and feel something more than a sort of numb resignation beneath the terror, he thinks.

The Dag sends him slyly commiserating looks when Max returns to taking meals with them, baby passed around to the rest of the cooing sisters to free his hands for a few precious minutes. It makes him bristle, because he's not the one who planned out where to bury his child, he's not the one who had to seriously consider whether a son was worth keeping rather than the hoped-for daughter.

When Max is forced to speak he snaps and growls, irritated at everything, fearful his life is going to be reduced to him on a soft cushion, babe he can't even bring himself to care for nursing at his chest, forever slow and pained as his body tries to recover from the strain. He can't sleep at night, even beyond being interrupted by near-constant demands for feedings and fouled nappies, only earns himself minutes snatched here and there, disrupted by visions that seem too horrific to be called nightmares.

Furiosa seems for once to not know what to do with him, every offer to help sounding like condescension, any time spent away like a slap to the face. He wants her to ignore the baby and focus on him, wants her to take the infant and leave him the hell alone.

It's possible that he's not handling things very well.

There's a swarm of ghosts in the room when he opens the door, and the sight of them freezes Max to the core. Not one of them looks up at him, bloody faces focused on the tiny sleeping form of the baby in her makeshift crib, silent as their graves.

He can't move from the doorway for a long moment, transfixed in horror, because- no. This isn't supposed to happen.

This was the one thing he could protect her from, shades that only exist in his own mind.

One of the children reaches out to stroke the baby's head and he shouts a warning, lurches to scatter through them. The child grins impishly as it retreats, darting back with a muffled giggle as if they're playing a game. Max's foot jars against the sides of the crib as he moves to chase them away and the baby starts wailing, and fuck, how hard did he kick, how hurt is she?

“What have you done!” one of the dead says over the noise, and he waves his hands agitatedly through the gray mist it's formed of, drops to his knees to check on the baby. She can't be too badly hurt, not when it wasn't more than a jostle, not when the crib's lined with all the soft woven things they could find.

“You killed her.”

There's something horribly wrong because this crib is unlined, is a tiny wrought-iron cage, bars spiking inwards cruelly. There's red all over the floor and the crying is growing louder and louder, almost the wail of a siren, flickers of light flashing across his vision.

“Why did you let her die?”

There's something in the crib but it's not right, limp and light and lifeless, stares at him with a skull's vacant gaze, toothless mouth grinning and crying at the same time.

“It's all your fault!”

He picks it up anyway because nothing makes sense; there's red all over his hands and the far-away smell of burning, something cold and slithering trapped inside his chest where his heart should be.

“Max?”

Had he- his mind flashes to a passing thought he'd had. There wasn't any covering over the windows. The wash-tubs were deep. There were always sharp things on the workbench.

“Max.”

It would be so easy, so quick. A moment of struggling and then he would be free of this terrible burden, preemptively wound himself before the world could get there first. How could a broken thing like him think to love something so innocent, when all he knows anymore is death.

“Fool!”

Max startles awake at the name, eyes flying open in the dark of the room. He's lying in a bed, Furiosa a careful distance away, no wailing or other noises to be heard- just his own ragged breathing. How he managed to fall asleep long enough to dream he doesn't know, but surely that is what's happened.

He lurches off the mattress, can't get his feet under him and instead mostly crawls on his aching knees to the little crib, set just far enough away to be out of danger of parents with hair-triggers. The baby's asleep still, stirs with a soft smack of sleepy lips when he reaches a shaking hand to feel ever so gently the rise and fall of her chest.

He breathes out a heavy sigh and removes his hand, slumps back away from the crib, careful to keep his limbs from touching any part of it.

“She's fine,” Furiosa says quietly, as if he needs to hear it even after checking. “You were dreaming. It... seemed like a bad one.”

They didn't often wake each other from dreams, not on purpose. It wasn't worth the trouble of it most of the time. He must have been lashing out, or making some sort of noise she couldn't handle, some noise that would wake the baby.

After a moment of him not moving she pads over, crouches down in front of him. Furiosa reaches her hand out and cups his face, thumb sweeping the skin under his eye, a point of contact he leans into. Her finger smears wetness as it moves and Max realizes with something like shock that there are tears on his skin. He must have been crying in his sleep. A waste of water if he's ever heard of one, tears for something that hasn't even happened.

“She's okay,” Furiosa repeats for him, voice steady and reassuring. “I'm okay,” because he'd confessed to seeing visions of her, sometimes, in a bad way. “You're okay.”

He's really not.

Max tips his head forward and squeezes his eyes shut, feels her press her forehead to his, grounding. Takes a shuddering breath and holds it, exhales. Longer out than in.

“I hurt her,” he says quietly, voice rough with emotion he can't even begin to untangle, “Wanted to.”

Furiosa does not immediately reassure him that of course he'd never do something like that. It is not in her nature to coddle, he knows, which is why he can tell her these things.

“You might,” she says after a contemplative pause. “I don't think you would mean to, but you might.”

It still hurts to have it confirmed. Max keeps his eyes closed, focuses on breathing. In through the nose, out the mouth. He doesn't remember where he learned it, if it's the right thing to even be doing. Doesn't know if it's helping at all.

“What are you going to do about it?” Furiosa asks, because of course everything was a danger in this world- what mattered was how you dealt with the threats.

He needs to leave. It was always a mistake to come here, to think he could care for a child again. He's nothing but fire and toxic sand, killing what he touches. It's only because Furiosa is as strong as she is that she can withstand him, but the baby is so small, so young. He'll be the ruin of her.

Max opens his eyes again to see the peaceful safe crib, throat clicking as he swallows around nothing. He tries to say that he'll leave, spare them the danger of his presence, but it comes out as a wordless mumble.

“Max,” Furiosa says, exerts gentle pressure where she's still holding his head to get him to look at her, though his eyes dart away, reluctant to meet her gaze. “I need you here.”

He clenches his jaw, feeling suddenly hot and defensive and ready to be angry, feeling like a child getting a scolding. It's galling, not the least because she wasn't scolding, wasn't treating him like anything but what he was. A flighty liability, barely able to hold together inside his skin.

With effort Max makes himself meet her eyes.

“Can you hold 'till daybreak? Otherwise you'll have to settle for whatever bike's left at the base garage.”

He blinks, confrontational feeling vanishing in favor of confusion. She just said she needed him here, and yet she was offering him a bike. He thought she was supposed to talk him out of it, remind him of how much was riding on him not fucking up what should be a simple job.

Furiosa must pick up on his confusion because her expression softens. “You said you'll come back,” she says, “And I'm holding you to it. I called you reliable, once- don't make a liar out of me.”

It ticks an involuntary smile onto Max's face, one he twitches away just as quickly. He doesn't deserve her, he thinks.

He makes a questioning noise and tilts his head to indicate the crib and sleeping baby within, because a newborn was a lot for one person, even with the support of the sisters and the Vuvalini. The Milking Mothers would have to feed her after all, the Dag couldn't possibly have enough milk for two even if she was willing to try nursing both.

“She'll be fine,” Furiosa replies with the easy confidence that had entrapped him in the first place.

With effort he looks away from her and gazes back down at the baby still sleeping in her basket. It was lucky she hadn't woken with their talking so near her.

He shouldn't look at her and want to flee, Max knows. But his instincts are all in an uproar, compass spinning wildly as he's pulled in a hundred directions. There's a sort of safety to be found out in the wastes, only his own self to care for, nothing but already-dead sand for kilometers. Safety for him, safety for the baby. No safer for Furiosa really, but of them, he was least worried about her ability to survive what needs surviving.

He makes it to daybreak by the skin of his teeth, makes it long enough to get a barrel of water and a full tank of guzz, rations to last a while. The baby is with the sisters, just him and Furiosa in the vehicle bay, the low-slung rig he'd driven with her earlier fueled up and ready. Its wire-tree wheel won't be pressing against his belly this time.

She doesn't tell Max to take care, or extract another promise for his return, or wish him favorable luck. Furiosa just tucks a scrap of white fabric around his neck, saturated in the scent of them, same as she'd left the scarf for him so many months ago, that night before the Salt. And then she lets him go.

Max drives into the sweltering wastes, never fast enough to outpace his ghosts. If anything they're louder, more insistent now that he's had months of good food and plentiful water, nights full of sleep, voices other than his own filling the air. Now that he has so many more things to worry about than just whether his wheels would carry him from danger fast enough, whether he'd find enough food to keep him going.

They scream at him, flicker across his vision in daylight and under the stars, never tiring. He runs and runs and runs and they're still there, still betrayed, still dead.

Sometimes they're helpful, show him a dewtrap, an old supply cache, a whisper of warning before the danger hits. It used to be the children with their wasteland-mercy, but they avoid him now, faces stony and disappointed. Glory stares and stares, throws out a hand he doesn't react to.

“Where are you?” she asks, beseeching. “Max! Where are you?”

It's harder than it should be to get back to the rhythm he's lived for years. Only three months of living soft and he misses having a mattress to lie on instead of car seats, fresh water instead of tepid, greens instead of hard-tack rations and what he can scrounge himself.

More than that, he misses Furiosa. Finds himself looking to his left to get her reaction to something as he drives through strange sights, seeing nothing but empty air. Once or twice a there-and-gone-again flicker of someone else entirely.

The scent of them, of Max-and-Furiosa, alpha and omega in almost perfect balance, fades quickly from his clothes, his skin under the relentless assault of wind and sand and sweat. Can't catch so much as a whiff of delicate newborn smell after the first day and it's one thing less to haunt him, but the lack isn't a comfort the way he thought it would be.

He's not sure how long he drives, how far he wanders. He's run through the water but there's rations enough, and guzzoline can always be found this close still to Gas Town for the right price.

Max could just- not return. He has wheels and a working engine, more bullets than he usually keeps on him, a healthy enough body. He could keep driving, bare survival like he's been doing since his world burned.

He could, but he doesn't think he can.

There's a hole in Max's chest, not one scabbed over and filled with broken shards of memory but a fresh wound, a slow clean ache, missing something he can still return to if only he's brave enough. It lures him in and scares him away by turns, how much he wants to return. How much he wants to see Furiosa and their daughter, wants to see the sisters, wants to curl up in the room that smells like safety and hold his baby close enough to feel her heartbeat against his skin, wants to scrub off the layers of grit covering himself and see if there's anything worth keeping underneath. He wants to go home.

The fact that he can even think of it as such lances fear through him, keeps him drifting under the burning sun, not ready to face the sort of life where he has someplace, some people, to call his own. It's an invitation for the sort of pain he can't live through a second time, but the hooks are already set deep enough into marrow of him that he doesn't think he can live without it, either.

Max finds his way to one of the tiny informal collectives that seem to spring up spontaneously, everyone as eager for new faces as they are suspicious, full of noise as traders shill their wares and haggle over scraps. He has no intention of staying, only needs more guzzoline and hasn't stumbled across any wrecks with full tanks in a while.

Parked off to the side there's a particularly desperate-looking rig, the sort of thing that was once paneled in flimsy plastic, now held together mostly with scraps and rags and a prayer. It's hardly an unusual sight, one that he pays no mind.

It's rather harder to avoid overhearing the owner of it talk none-too-quietly to what Max would guess to be a kid of his, young and thin and watery-eyed in a way that speaks of the all-too-ubiquitous tragedy of life in the wastes. By the sounds of it they're stranded, hoping to barter whatever remains of their possessions to get just a little further.

Max wonders what exactly it is they're hoping for. There's the same wasteland for miles around, far as he can figure, and at least at the barter camp there's the chance of someone having mercy on the kid and taking her on as labor.

He finishes his trade, bottom-shelf gas for more salvaged trinkets than he'd have liked to part with, and finds that the owner of the rig is standing near Max's own ride, kid a distance away at their own broken-down rig. He's already on edge, dealing with so many people, but his awareness dials up another notch.

“Nice wheels,” the man says, nodding his head at the dusty car. Close enough for Max to tell that he smells like a beta, with that jagged sour note that speaks of a recently lost mate, a broken bond. Add that to the kid and the dilapidated rig and it's the same damn sob story he's seen a hundred times over.

Max grunts, doubts the man wants to talk engine specs. The beta's angling for something, but he doesn't yet know what. One of Max's hands is taken up with the jerrycan but the other he keeps near the hilt of a knife, just in case. Wouldn't be unusual to get jumped, man as desperate as this one looks, for all that he has the advantage.

“Looks fast,” he continues, hedging around whatever it is he wants to ask.

Max only stares blankly at him before deciding to stow the guzz rather than risk filling the tank while still so close to the camp. The man's eyes flick to the jerrycan when it sloshes as he tucks it in the backseat of the car.

“Could drive for a while, I'd bet.”

It would be so much simpler if the man would just come out and say what it is he's after, or make a move that's a threat he can deal with. Max takes his eyes off the man to scan their surroundings, in case the beta's picked up friends to help separate him from the car, but the coast is clear.

“Look,” the man says after a moment of being stared down, “I'm trying to get somewhere, you know?” Still the same story- everyone's trying to get somewhere. “Your car'd make the trip before you even had time to blink, no hassle to yah.”

Max has played taxi before, when he was pretty sure the rider wouldn't try and slit his throat instead of paying up. Not his favorite way to earn guzz, but not the worst.

“I got a man who'll pay a full fifty gallons of gas for my car- it's yours. Anything you want from what I have- yours.”

It's a pretty desperate offer. Max takes stock of the man, flicks his eyes over the meager pile of stuff stacked outside his car, the kid watching with hungry eyes. Kid's holding something, a doll maybe, clutched to its chest.

The beta follows his gaze, resolve hardening his expression. “They're all I got left. I'll beg, if you want. I ain't got the pride to spare. There's a safe place for 'em, if I can get there.”

It's not a toy but a baby, Max realizes, young enough to still be swaddled. Young enough, then, that it should have its mother- the beta's broken scent comes across a little more pitiful.

He could walk away, leave them to the mercy of some other drifter. Plenty of folk who'd take the job, no reason to trouble himself.

“Where?” he asks.

The beta smiles in relief, though he hasn't agreed to anything yet. “East, east as the sun rises. Castle on a pile of big rocks, can't miss it- or so they say.”

Max hasn't heard anything about a castle, or a place called Castle, much less to the east. He does, though, know of a place that a family might have latched onto with the idea of it being safe, a place that's haunting his thoughts for all he's tried leaving it behind. “The Citadel,” he says.

The man nods, “You know it! Fast car like yours, wouldn't take more'n a day to reach, I reckon. Get yourself some water and greens in the bargain. Come on, warrior- for the kids. Don't they deserve something better?”

They are not, as it turns out, a day's drive away from the Citadel. After a long scorching day of pushing the overheated engine they spend the night with the car parked next to an outcropping, ragged tarps disguising the glint of steel siding. Would be better to drive at night when it's cool, but it's rocky terrain, too hard to see. Too easy to run afoul of some obstacle and put the kids at risk.

The baby started crying some hours ago and has yet to stop, despite the man and his daughter trying to sooth it. It's high and thin and piercing, inconsolable.

Max doesn't want to leave the strangers in his car but he can't stay.

He paces a wide circuit around the car, alert for danger, wishing the noise would die down. It'll attract any scavengers in the area, draw in dingos or feral dogs too if there are any to be had. It's also- Max only recently ran through the water he'd left with, made a good deal for more not long after. His body's still not so starved for moisture that it's stopped leaking milk, after the wrong sort of dreams, and now with the wails of a hungry young babe in his ears there's no help for the way he's dripping into the cloth wrapped around his chest, breasts sore and painfully tight, full.

He walks closer, sees through the windows that the man is trying to get the baby to suck on a rag dampened with water. It's refusing, howling and squirming, but the limbs are thinner than they should be, weak.

“How long,” Max asks, “The mother.”

“Mamma died five days ago,” the little girl says with solemn eyes, already used to tragedy, already waiting for the worst to happen again.

It's not as bad as it could be, then. The baby won't have refused water all those days, likely, but it's harder for little ones to go without food than it is adults. Spread thin as this family is, it's likely there wasn't much extra even before.

They'll be at the Citadel by the next night, if they have the good luck to avoid the attention of the local gangs, if nothing breaks down. One more day won't make the difference. Probably.

Max watches the man rock his baby back and forth, frustrated but trying, singing little bits of a stilted lullaby. It's not doing anything to soothe the piteous crying, but eventually the sprog'll wear itself out. Might exhaust itself right into a stupor, if it's not even taking water, the sort that's near impossible to get back out of.

He watches for a long moment under the stare of the kid, how the man's trying even when it's futile.

“Give it,” Max says, holds out a hand.

The man looks at him aghast, stops his swaying movements to hold the babe close to his body. “He'll quiet in a bit! Or, or, I'll spend the night outside, so we won't bother you. But I'm not letting you hurt him!”

Max shakes his head, regrets that betas can't pick up on what would be obvious to any other designation. “Got milk,” he says with a slight jerk of his hand back towards himself, then gestures at the baby, “Needs to be fed.”

The man furrows his brow in confusion as he stares uncomprehendingly for a long stretch, before wary understanding dawns. “You're an omega, then?”

While it was technically possible for any man to lactate, the odds were fairly astronomical even before the world became a wasteland. Max nods in answer, and the man takes another minute to weigh his choices before handing over the still-crying baby.

It's not particularly small but it's frightfully light for its size, squirms unhappily in his arms, fussy at being held by a stranger. Older than his daughter, he thinks- or, older than she was when he left, anyway. He settles himself into the seat of his car with a stranger's baby at his chest and wonders how long it's been. If she's changed, any. If she'll remember him.

It takes a minute for the sprog to even realize there's a milky nipple for it to latch onto, but it finds it eventually, starts suckling with a vigor that belies its earlier weakness.

“Where's your kid, then?” the man asks rather daringly, after Max switches the sprog to the other side. Shouldn't overfill its stomach by letting it nurse him dry, but there was no sense in the discomfort of being lopsidedly drained.

He thinks about his reply for a long moment, though he doesn't owe these strangers any information about himself. On the tip of his tongue was the answer Max was used to, the one that haunts his thoughts- “gone”. But that wasn't the whole truth, anymore. His firstborn was gone, and that would never change, a festering sore on his scarred heart. But the one that'd caused him to be here, that was letting him save this stranger's babe, she was still where he left her.

“Home,” he settles on, surprised by how truthful the answer sounds.

They reach the Citadel near midday, the sun beating down on them. He let the baby nurse again in the morning, already a little stronger, more aware. Max is immeasurably glad that the spires rising on the horizon mean he won't have to feed it any more, that it can be given a milk ration or handled by one of the Milking Mothers.

“Green,” the girl says reverentially when they're close enough to see the overflowing tops, such a rare color against the burnished red of the sand that it's impossible not to be surprised by it, much less in such abundance.

A patrol car meets them a ways out, Toast grinning behind the wheel with a bevy of Free Boys hanging off the sides, not a single gun raised in their direction. Lax security, when there's any number of threats his car could represent.

“Thought that was your car we spied!” she calls over the rumbling of the engines. “Get yourself to the lift before Furiosa comes drag you up herself.”

Toast's eyes land on the family piled alongside him in the car and she quirks a questioning eyebrow, a look that promises he'll have to share the story later, but lets him drive on with only a single Free Boy clambering over onto the roof as escort.

Max could drop the family off and fang it back into the wastes. Part of him still wants to, wants nothing more than the rare moments of wind-scoured peace he'd gained. But the pull to return is stronger, the sense that there's more to be lost than gained if he flees again without even stopping.

When the lift hits the garage level there's Capable and Cheedo, surprised to see the family he'd escorted but taking charge of them easily enough, used to newcomers.

“She's up in the round room,” Capable says to him before ushering the beta and his kids to whatever sort of welcome the Citadel now offers. “Giving the tyke a bath, I think.”

Max grunts a reply, grabs what things he needs from the car, leaves the rest for the Free Boys. He heads to the room he shares with Furiosa, thinking to drop off his stuff, sponge off the layers of road dust. He'd been scratching the worst of his beard off with a knife, but a real shave seems a good idea. Make himself a little less a wasteland creature before he faces them.

He doesn't think he's been doing right by either of them, leaving as he has. Even a feral dog will guard its pups.

The room's not empty when he swings the door open and for a moment he sees the nightmare image of the dream that chased him into the sands, before he blinks it away. Instead of ghosts crowded around a caged crib there's Furiosa on the mattress, the baby such a small soft shape where it rests against her, eyes sliding open lazily at the noise of his footsteps. A smile stretches across her lips, warm and welcoming, only deepens the more sleep clears from her eyes.

“Hey,” she says in an excruciatingly pleased tone, tucks the baby secure with the nub of her arm as she shifts more upright, waves him over with her hand.

Max is helpless but to comply, strides over still dusty and frayed from the wastes, bends down to his knees so he can be on a level with the low pallet. He wraps a hand around the back of Furiosa's neck, breathes her sharp scent in, mellowed by the sweet babe in her arms, still laced with traces of his own from where it hasn't yet faded away. It smells like home, he realizes.

Furiosa butts her forehead gently against his in return, fingers snarling in his hair, lets out the sort of contented sigh she's prone to when just waking up and not yet ready to face the day. The sort of noise she only makes when she's safe, when she's around him.

“I-” Max says, a revelation falling off his tongue as soon as it's formed in his mind, “I missed you." Both of you, he thinks with something like surprise.

The baby makes a soft gurgling noise, draws a reflexive smile out of him as he glances down at her even as he waits for a lance of fear to make him want to bolt. His daughter's tiny still, small enough that for the first time he wonders if she's growing as well as she should be. They used to track that sort of thing, he thinks, back Before.

“We missed you, too,” Furiosa says, adjusts her hold on the baby so she's facing him, eyes bright when they focus on his face and- she smiles, something she was too young to quite manage when he left, something that steals his breath to see. She gurgles again, a formless noise that won't be words for months and months yet, reaches out a chubby hand for him.

He's scared to reach back for her, to touch her with his filthy broken hands, so used to causing nothing but pain. But he thinks maybe it's alright, with Furiosa there to keep watch. She wouldn't allow anything bad to happen to their daughter, least of all from his own hands.

Max is the one to bring it up, days later when he's giving the baby one last feed before putting her down for the night. She's too young to sleep through the entire night, but they're not too far off.

“Needs a name,” he says, because while the Dag might have finally decided that her babe would grow up nameless, choose his own heritage, Max doesn't want that for his daughter. Names are important, even if she grows into a new one sometime later. And two children the same age both growing up without names- it's a disaster waiting to happen, he thinks.

Furiosa leans into his shoulder, a warm weight against his skin as her hand pets through the soft dark hair on top of their baby's head, and hums in agreement but doesn't say anything. She'd offered up some ideas, when they were first talking it over, but she had said that in the end it was his choice, his decision.

“It could,” Max says, darts his eyes away. He'd been thinking about it, what sort of name might possibly work, had an idea but didn't know how Furiosa would react. “I thought.”

She waits, patient, as he finds the words.

“Mary,” he says. Furiosa pulls back a little, enough to get a good look at his face, though he still has his gaze averted. Isn't sure what expression he might find, should he risk checking. “You said, your mother. It's a good name. But. If you don't.”

He's surprised when she wraps her arms around his neck in an embrace, careful of the babe between them. They haven't talked of her mother- any of them. He only knows that the remaining Vuvalini spend some nights talking with her and the sisters, the sort of thing he feels he's intruding to listen to, memories too intimate for an outsider.

Furiosa pulls back after a moment, before he's decided how to react. When he risks a look there's a smile on her lips even as there's moisture gathering in the corner of her eyes.

“She would have loved it,” she says, and Max knows he's made some decisions right after all.