Fic: The Happy Ending
Title: The Happy Ending
Rating: PG
Pairing: Nux/Capable
Word Count: 2,147
Summary: Capable and Nux get a chance to live happily ever after. Nux Lives AU.
Note: Written for Mad Max Fury Road Exchange 2018.
He knew she couldn't hear him, but he said the words anyway. "Witness me."
She was watching, witnessing, and he watched her watch him as he turned the steering wheel all the way around. He'd wanted to die historic on Fury Road for as long as he could remember, but as the war rig crashed spectacularly, Nux wished for another day and another night with Capable.
~
Capable had hoped that Max would change his mind and come back, like he had when he'd ridden after them into the Plains of Silence and convinced them to turn back. So she was happy when he returned to the Citadel the next day, though she was bemused that he was sentimental enough to bring back Nux’s body. She wondered again what his story was.
She wasn’t the only one bemused. They all stared at him as Max drank the water Cheedo had brought him.
Max glanced at them, glanced at Nux’s body, and then glanced at them all again, with a bewildered look on his face.
The Dag knelt beside the body. “He’ll become part of the green and help bring life.”
“He’s not dead,” Max said.
Capable heard the words, but she didn’t think she’d heard right and her brain was processing them a second time when the Dag confirmed it.
The Dag touched Nux’s scarred chest and swore. Then she said, “He’s right, he’s alive!”
Capable hurried to Nux - not Nux’s body, Nux, alive and hers once more - and felt his pulse for herself.
“Pulled him from the wreckage and gave him a transfusion,” Max said. “It’ll be a rough few weeks for him if he makes it, but he might make it.”
“Another blood transfusion?” Toast commented. “You have a lot to spare.”
Max grunted, a response that could mean anything.
“Thank you,” Capable told him. He had given her a gift almost as precious as the gift of freedom Furiosa had given her.
~
He was in his pursuit vehicle, speeding through the wasteland, nothing but brown sand and blue sky all around. He was alone and he was content until he realized how odd it was that he was without a lancer. Why was he alone? That wasn't right.
And then he was back in the barracks, surrounded by War Boys and War Pups talking excitedly and laughing. There were double rations tonight and plenty of Aqua Cola, rewards from the Immortan for a job well done, and everybody was happy.
But something was missing, though Nux couldn't remember what. He glimpsed a blur of red and white out of the corner of his eye, and he turned but it had moved farther away. Nux followed it, and a memory of soft touches and soft skin returned to him. So shiny, so chrome. Capable the treasure who'd taken him for her own.
Nux hurried through the dark halls of the Citadel, trying to reach Capable. He called out to her, and at last she stopped and turned to wait for him.
~
Capable took care of Nux herself. He was responsive, but not truly conscious yet. She carefully spooned nutritious broth into him twice a day and gave him sponge baths.
“Capable,” she heard him sigh at one point. She was elated to think he was conscious, but she quickly realized he wasn’t awake, that he was simply dreaming of her.
Her sisters each came to check on her wellbeing, separately.
Cheedo brought a book of poems. “I thought you could read to him. You know, so he hears your voice.”
Then she stared hard at the book in her hand and seemed to reconsider, frowning. “But maybe he wouldn’t like this one. Do War Boys know about poetry?”
Capable took the book from her and kissed her cheek. “Thank you, Cheedo. That was a wonderful idea. I’m sure Nux will be happy to learn poetry.”
The Dag brought a leaf still warm from the sun. “You should come up top with me again, Capable. Your War Boy can come too when he’s healed.”
“We will,” Capable replied. She made the words into a promise to Nux, stroking his cheek with the leaf. She couldn’t wait to stand in the middle of the green fields atop the Citadel and watch Nux’s face as he experienced the same awe she had felt.
Toast brought words of caution. “I know it must have been intense, but a…”
Capable watched Toast choose her words carefully, trying not to hurt or offend her.
“A connection in the middle of a life-or-death struggle, when there’s adrenaline and other hormones flowing, is very different from a relationship in everyday life. Especially when everyday life is going to be so very different from what he was used to before.”
“I know,” Capable assured her. She’d been sold to Immortan Joe when she was still a girl and she’d never had a romantic relationship before, but she had no doubt that she and Nux would have a good one.
She’d started to fall in love with him the moment she’d laid down beside him in the back of the war rig’s lookout cab, and she was certain he’d fallen in love with her too.
At last Nux opened his eyes, and focused them on her, and tried to reach for a strand of her hair that had escaped her braid. “Capable.”
Looking into those adoring big, blue eyes, Capable fell in love all over again. “Welcome back, Nux,” she whispered, before pressing a chaste kiss to his scarred lips.
~
He'd lived, he'd died, and now he lived again. He was living in Immortan Joe's vault no less. Nux felt almost like a treasure. He confided this to Capable one afternoon.
She smiled and fed him another little fruit thing with her fingers. "No one begrudges you a little luxury, Nux, you're a hero."
He gently nibbled her fingertips, enjoying the act itself and the way her breath changed and the look in her eyes turned less tender and more intense. He was just about to do more when half a dozen pups raced into the room and began piling onto the gloriously soft bed.
The former War Pups were unpainted and their heads were fuzzy from not having been shaved in days. They looked funny to Nux, but they seemed happier than ever. Probably because the milkers were spoiling them.
"You telling him a story, Capable? Tell us too!"
Nux laid his head in Capable's lap and she petted his unshaven scalp as she began to tell a story Miss Giddy had told her about life Before.
He had never imagined life like this. And to think it was a reward for doing the opposite of what a War Boy was supposed to do. He wondered what the others thought.
~
When Max had left the Citadel only two days after his return, Capable had selfishly wished that he would grant her a second miracle. She’d hoped that he would find Angharad alive and bring her, too, back to her.
Max did achieve another miracle, but it wasn’t one anyone had particularly wanted. He’d saved and brought back one of the War Boys who’d been believed to have died pursuing them.
“Him?” Furiosa said dubiously. “This one tried to kill you twice.”
“I went to get my car. He was in my car.”
It was one thing for Max to save a War Boy who’d been their ally, it was quite another to save one who’d been ready to die trying to kill them. No one would have expected Max to do anything but leave him for the crows or perhaps put a bullet in his head out of mercy. Capable was very, very curious about who Max was and where he came from, but questions made Max uncomfortable and spurred him to flee so she refrained from asking.
“Well.” Furiosa sighed. “Given a choice between falling in line and getting tossed out to scavenge, he’ll probably fall in line. If not…”
They all stared hard at the unconscious War Boy, whose most gruesome scars weren’t even from the pursuit. Furiosa would do whatever she had to do, but it would be a pity to have to take a life so miraculously spared.
“He’s always been an asshole,” Furiosa muttered, prodding him with her booted foot too lightly for it to actually be called a kick. “Toast, keep an eye on him.”
Toast nodded, and Capable wondered if she was aware that she’d squeezed her gun as if for reassurance.
“Slit survived?!” Nux exclaimed, when Capable told him about it later. He sounded and looked disbelieving. “I saw him. Razor Cola got crushed and there was a fire; he couldn’t have gotten out in time. He wouldn’t have tried to get out.”
“I saw you in the rig as it overturned, but here you are.” Capable interlaced her fingers with Nux’s. “Maybe some cosmic power is giving second chances to a few lucky people.”
“Slit would have wanted to die on Fury Road. He won’t like it here without Immortan Joe.”
“Maybe he can change. That’s the opportunity he’s been given.”
“Maybe,” Nux agreed, but he looked doubtful.
Capable very carefully straddled him and leaned down to kiss him, and they soon forgot about everything but each other for the rest of the evening.
~
There were no more raids to go on, but there were there still vehicles to salvage and maintain and there was talk of beginning trade caravans soon. Nux had plenty to keep him busy during the day, and at night he had Capable. He was no longer waiting for his big chance to die historic and ride eternal in Valhalla, he was simply living one day after another. He was happy in a way he hadn't known it was possible to be happy.
He only wished his fellow War Boys could be happy too. No one had spat at him or called him a traitor in days, and things were almost back to normal with the other blackthumbs, but some Boys acted like he didn't exist. They just ignored him like they didn't see or hear him. It reminded Nux of the stories he'd heard as a pup of the dismal fate of Boys who died unwitnessed or unworthy of a place in Valhalla.
"Slit! I know you heard me! Give me a hand with this."
Slit continued to ignore him, not even bothering to retort that he didn't have to take orders from him.
It irritated Nux, and he was tempted to kick Slit. But Capable would hear about a fight and she'd be disappointed in him.
"Forget it. You're probably still too weak to lift an engine block this heavy."
"I'm not weak," Slit snarled. He grabbed the other side of the engine Nux needed help with.
They carried it in silence, and Slit glared at him hostilely the whole while, but Nux felt like they had passed some important marker.
"It's a start,” Capable agreed, when he told her about it later. “We're all going to be happy now."
~
There was a slight frown on Nux's face. He wasn't frowning at anyone or anything that Capable could see, and she didn't think he'd meant for her to notice it because he immediately tried to smile when he saw her.
Capable wrapped her arms around his middle, offering silent comfort. She waited for Nux to share his troubled thoughts with her, but he only hugged her back.
"Is something the matter?" she asked, after several minutes of silence.
"I was just thinking about the Boys who died on Fury Road and all the Boys who died before. If everything Immortan Joe told us were lies, then what’s happened to War Boys who died? If there's no Valhalla, is there something else? Or is there nothing at all?"
Capable had been so happy to have Nux back that she hadn't really spared much thought about any existential crises the surviving War Boys might have. She'd thought that they were adapting to the changes at the Citadel rather well, but now she realized that perhaps they were simply following Furiosa's orders and going through the motions of their new lives without any emotional investment or sense of purpose.
"I don't know," she said. "Nobody knows. But I believe there's another life after this one, where there's no hunger or thirst or sickness or pain."
"But what if there's nothing? What if everything just ends when we die?"
Capable considered it. "That wouldn't be so bad either. Some people prefer to believe that."
He looked sad, and Capable never wanted him to be sad. She said, "But you can savor every moment you have here and now."
He seemed to think that she meant being with her because he replied, "Knowing you is worth losing Valhalla."
"I love you, too, Nux."
Rating: PG
Pairing: Nux/Capable
Word Count: 2,147
Summary: Capable and Nux get a chance to live happily ever after. Nux Lives AU.
Note: Written for Mad Max Fury Road Exchange 2018.
He knew she couldn't hear him, but he said the words anyway. "Witness me."
She was watching, witnessing, and he watched her watch him as he turned the steering wheel all the way around. He'd wanted to die historic on Fury Road for as long as he could remember, but as the war rig crashed spectacularly, Nux wished for another day and another night with Capable.
~
Capable had hoped that Max would change his mind and come back, like he had when he'd ridden after them into the Plains of Silence and convinced them to turn back. So she was happy when he returned to the Citadel the next day, though she was bemused that he was sentimental enough to bring back Nux’s body. She wondered again what his story was.
She wasn’t the only one bemused. They all stared at him as Max drank the water Cheedo had brought him.
Max glanced at them, glanced at Nux’s body, and then glanced at them all again, with a bewildered look on his face.
The Dag knelt beside the body. “He’ll become part of the green and help bring life.”
“He’s not dead,” Max said.
Capable heard the words, but she didn’t think she’d heard right and her brain was processing them a second time when the Dag confirmed it.
The Dag touched Nux’s scarred chest and swore. Then she said, “He’s right, he’s alive!”
Capable hurried to Nux - not Nux’s body, Nux, alive and hers once more - and felt his pulse for herself.
“Pulled him from the wreckage and gave him a transfusion,” Max said. “It’ll be a rough few weeks for him if he makes it, but he might make it.”
“Another blood transfusion?” Toast commented. “You have a lot to spare.”
Max grunted, a response that could mean anything.
“Thank you,” Capable told him. He had given her a gift almost as precious as the gift of freedom Furiosa had given her.
~
He was in his pursuit vehicle, speeding through the wasteland, nothing but brown sand and blue sky all around. He was alone and he was content until he realized how odd it was that he was without a lancer. Why was he alone? That wasn't right.
And then he was back in the barracks, surrounded by War Boys and War Pups talking excitedly and laughing. There were double rations tonight and plenty of Aqua Cola, rewards from the Immortan for a job well done, and everybody was happy.
But something was missing, though Nux couldn't remember what. He glimpsed a blur of red and white out of the corner of his eye, and he turned but it had moved farther away. Nux followed it, and a memory of soft touches and soft skin returned to him. So shiny, so chrome. Capable the treasure who'd taken him for her own.
Nux hurried through the dark halls of the Citadel, trying to reach Capable. He called out to her, and at last she stopped and turned to wait for him.
~
Capable took care of Nux herself. He was responsive, but not truly conscious yet. She carefully spooned nutritious broth into him twice a day and gave him sponge baths.
“Capable,” she heard him sigh at one point. She was elated to think he was conscious, but she quickly realized he wasn’t awake, that he was simply dreaming of her.
Her sisters each came to check on her wellbeing, separately.
Cheedo brought a book of poems. “I thought you could read to him. You know, so he hears your voice.”
Then she stared hard at the book in her hand and seemed to reconsider, frowning. “But maybe he wouldn’t like this one. Do War Boys know about poetry?”
Capable took the book from her and kissed her cheek. “Thank you, Cheedo. That was a wonderful idea. I’m sure Nux will be happy to learn poetry.”
The Dag brought a leaf still warm from the sun. “You should come up top with me again, Capable. Your War Boy can come too when he’s healed.”
“We will,” Capable replied. She made the words into a promise to Nux, stroking his cheek with the leaf. She couldn’t wait to stand in the middle of the green fields atop the Citadel and watch Nux’s face as he experienced the same awe she had felt.
Toast brought words of caution. “I know it must have been intense, but a…”
Capable watched Toast choose her words carefully, trying not to hurt or offend her.
“A connection in the middle of a life-or-death struggle, when there’s adrenaline and other hormones flowing, is very different from a relationship in everyday life. Especially when everyday life is going to be so very different from what he was used to before.”
“I know,” Capable assured her. She’d been sold to Immortan Joe when she was still a girl and she’d never had a romantic relationship before, but she had no doubt that she and Nux would have a good one.
She’d started to fall in love with him the moment she’d laid down beside him in the back of the war rig’s lookout cab, and she was certain he’d fallen in love with her too.
At last Nux opened his eyes, and focused them on her, and tried to reach for a strand of her hair that had escaped her braid. “Capable.”
Looking into those adoring big, blue eyes, Capable fell in love all over again. “Welcome back, Nux,” she whispered, before pressing a chaste kiss to his scarred lips.
~
He'd lived, he'd died, and now he lived again. He was living in Immortan Joe's vault no less. Nux felt almost like a treasure. He confided this to Capable one afternoon.
She smiled and fed him another little fruit thing with her fingers. "No one begrudges you a little luxury, Nux, you're a hero."
He gently nibbled her fingertips, enjoying the act itself and the way her breath changed and the look in her eyes turned less tender and more intense. He was just about to do more when half a dozen pups raced into the room and began piling onto the gloriously soft bed.
The former War Pups were unpainted and their heads were fuzzy from not having been shaved in days. They looked funny to Nux, but they seemed happier than ever. Probably because the milkers were spoiling them.
"You telling him a story, Capable? Tell us too!"
Nux laid his head in Capable's lap and she petted his unshaven scalp as she began to tell a story Miss Giddy had told her about life Before.
He had never imagined life like this. And to think it was a reward for doing the opposite of what a War Boy was supposed to do. He wondered what the others thought.
~
When Max had left the Citadel only two days after his return, Capable had selfishly wished that he would grant her a second miracle. She’d hoped that he would find Angharad alive and bring her, too, back to her.
Max did achieve another miracle, but it wasn’t one anyone had particularly wanted. He’d saved and brought back one of the War Boys who’d been believed to have died pursuing them.
“Him?” Furiosa said dubiously. “This one tried to kill you twice.”
“I went to get my car. He was in my car.”
It was one thing for Max to save a War Boy who’d been their ally, it was quite another to save one who’d been ready to die trying to kill them. No one would have expected Max to do anything but leave him for the crows or perhaps put a bullet in his head out of mercy. Capable was very, very curious about who Max was and where he came from, but questions made Max uncomfortable and spurred him to flee so she refrained from asking.
“Well.” Furiosa sighed. “Given a choice between falling in line and getting tossed out to scavenge, he’ll probably fall in line. If not…”
They all stared hard at the unconscious War Boy, whose most gruesome scars weren’t even from the pursuit. Furiosa would do whatever she had to do, but it would be a pity to have to take a life so miraculously spared.
“He’s always been an asshole,” Furiosa muttered, prodding him with her booted foot too lightly for it to actually be called a kick. “Toast, keep an eye on him.”
Toast nodded, and Capable wondered if she was aware that she’d squeezed her gun as if for reassurance.
“Slit survived?!” Nux exclaimed, when Capable told him about it later. He sounded and looked disbelieving. “I saw him. Razor Cola got crushed and there was a fire; he couldn’t have gotten out in time. He wouldn’t have tried to get out.”
“I saw you in the rig as it overturned, but here you are.” Capable interlaced her fingers with Nux’s. “Maybe some cosmic power is giving second chances to a few lucky people.”
“Slit would have wanted to die on Fury Road. He won’t like it here without Immortan Joe.”
“Maybe he can change. That’s the opportunity he’s been given.”
“Maybe,” Nux agreed, but he looked doubtful.
Capable very carefully straddled him and leaned down to kiss him, and they soon forgot about everything but each other for the rest of the evening.
~
There were no more raids to go on, but there were there still vehicles to salvage and maintain and there was talk of beginning trade caravans soon. Nux had plenty to keep him busy during the day, and at night he had Capable. He was no longer waiting for his big chance to die historic and ride eternal in Valhalla, he was simply living one day after another. He was happy in a way he hadn't known it was possible to be happy.
He only wished his fellow War Boys could be happy too. No one had spat at him or called him a traitor in days, and things were almost back to normal with the other blackthumbs, but some Boys acted like he didn't exist. They just ignored him like they didn't see or hear him. It reminded Nux of the stories he'd heard as a pup of the dismal fate of Boys who died unwitnessed or unworthy of a place in Valhalla.
"Slit! I know you heard me! Give me a hand with this."
Slit continued to ignore him, not even bothering to retort that he didn't have to take orders from him.
It irritated Nux, and he was tempted to kick Slit. But Capable would hear about a fight and she'd be disappointed in him.
"Forget it. You're probably still too weak to lift an engine block this heavy."
"I'm not weak," Slit snarled. He grabbed the other side of the engine Nux needed help with.
They carried it in silence, and Slit glared at him hostilely the whole while, but Nux felt like they had passed some important marker.
"It's a start,” Capable agreed, when he told her about it later. “We're all going to be happy now."
~
There was a slight frown on Nux's face. He wasn't frowning at anyone or anything that Capable could see, and she didn't think he'd meant for her to notice it because he immediately tried to smile when he saw her.
Capable wrapped her arms around his middle, offering silent comfort. She waited for Nux to share his troubled thoughts with her, but he only hugged her back.
"Is something the matter?" she asked, after several minutes of silence.
"I was just thinking about the Boys who died on Fury Road and all the Boys who died before. If everything Immortan Joe told us were lies, then what’s happened to War Boys who died? If there's no Valhalla, is there something else? Or is there nothing at all?"
Capable had been so happy to have Nux back that she hadn't really spared much thought about any existential crises the surviving War Boys might have. She'd thought that they were adapting to the changes at the Citadel rather well, but now she realized that perhaps they were simply following Furiosa's orders and going through the motions of their new lives without any emotional investment or sense of purpose.
"I don't know," she said. "Nobody knows. But I believe there's another life after this one, where there's no hunger or thirst or sickness or pain."
"But what if there's nothing? What if everything just ends when we die?"
Capable considered it. "That wouldn't be so bad either. Some people prefer to believe that."
He looked sad, and Capable never wanted him to be sad. She said, "But you can savor every moment you have here and now."
He seemed to think that she meant being with her because he replied, "Knowing you is worth losing Valhalla."
"I love you, too, Nux."