[ MAD MAX AU : EYEPATCH DISASTER ]

[soldatdefortune]

The others tell him that he's shortening his already-dwindling stock of life, blowing fumes into his pipe instead of out. But the way Pip sees it, he's no different from the machines, those beautiful disasters made of mangled parts that growl with gasoline, drinks noxious fuel that churns in the heat of chrome and breathes wisps of toxins into the sky. Cigarettes are similar to that. Familiar. Cigarettes kill slowly, and Pip is fine with it, the way the War Boys are fine with drawing patterns on their corroding skin and naming their diseases with innocuous names. Hello, Tim. Hello, Greg.

Pip names his 4 disease sticks after names of people he doesn't know, and treads through sand and dust to find the only other person in this wasteland that's as stupid as he is. His journey takes him past a few old faces that look up from their aimless tasks, sifting through nothing for something, and they greet him with his given nickname— Goose— which Pip responds to with a crooked grin and an exaggerated sigh.

(it's the only thing he knows about the concept of family, that his father and his grandfather and great-grandfather were always part of the shitstorm that brought them closer and closer to hell: a long line of idiots called the Wild Geese, happily trading in their blood for gold. the grapevine's informed Pip of how his grandfather and the generation before that one died with a smile on their faces during the Big One that eventually laid waste to humanity, but if Pip ever resented the nickname that stuck with him like a bad reminder of his family's foibles, he doesn't think about it anymore.

he doesn't even know what a goose looks like. he can hardly be offended.)

Squinting his one eye against the sun, he maneuvers through dunes and dilapidation until he finds his target: a jarringly bright shock of red in a world already saturated in oranges and yellows. Badou is blindingly obvious even when he tries to be discreet.

Pip likes that about the kid.

"Hey, Badou. Got my hands on a few friends today, how 'bout it?"

He holds up one hand, tired cigarettes held between fingers in makeshift bearclaws.

"What've you got to barter for 'em, huh?"