c17h19no3 | [ MAD MAX AU : EYEPATCH DISASTER ]

[ MAD MAX AU : EYEPATCH DISASTER ]

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?"

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"Ah, so that's what all that commotion was about. I knew the smell of unwashed War Boy was fading into the horizon for a reason."

Not that either of them are particularly well-washed. Pip also completely sidesteps the question of whether or not they're running low on anything, because he's of the opinion that he's perfectly capable of rationing. He'd crack a joke about being able to run on his own blubber if he didn't know that it'd set off another lecture session from Mr. Hothead over here.

(he doesn't like the kid worrying, there's enough to worry about without being a shithead about food.)

"So some of the water and supplies are ours for the taking if we managed to slip inside. Not bad."

That'd tide them over comfortably for a good week or two. Lips clamp over his cigarette, teeth biting a small indent on the end as he goes over the pros and cons.

"Hey now, you know they've got very strict ways of going about it...like never once washing their ass cracks," Badou snarks, holds his hands up in surrender as if the issue of the War Boys' hygiene is some delicate matter.

The reach around and brush off of the subject of the status of their supplies causes Badou to frown, a stern warning loaded on his tongue, but he knows that look. And he also knows Pip is a stubborn bastard.

"I'm gonna count off what we've got when I get up from here," is what he mutters first, stink eye loaded on his companion. Then, "If we got them to lower that lift. It'd have to be a hell of a reason for them to do that. Their own supplies, or news from Joe."

It'd be tricky, either way. And there's no guarantee, even with the weakened War Pups and scavengers left behind.

Hands go up in the air, fingers laced in the familiar salute of pale-painted War Boys.

"We'd need more intel if we want to get our asses up that lift, mignonette. Maybe a trip to gas town is in order."

A journey made easier, no doubt, thanks to the lack of security around the roads proper. More fuel is always welcome for their clunky stolen ride, anyway— a rickety heap of metal that Pip likes to call 'Lucky Strike', despite many, many debates upon what best to call their (tentatively) shared vehicle.

Badou's glare is boring a hole into his head, but Pip returns it with a lanky, lopsided half-grin. He's been lectured by the kid far too many times for the threats to land properly anymore.

"How about you stay behind and keep the one eye you stole from me on the comings and goings around here, ah?"

Read: 'I'm taking the baby for a spin so go suck it, kiddo'.

Badou has said it time and time again, for years, how that name is bad luck. One of these days the piece of shit is going to strike like a match and light them up.

(once upon a time there used to be lights seen in some parts, when the tits of the world were covered in ice, lights that shone pure and true. They danced, and maybe Mother Earth was happy. Lighting up scraps of metal and lightning sand storms aren't worth it.)

That grin knows just how to make Badou want to punch Pip in the damn jaw. Fingers curl into a fist reflexively. Sympathetically. Breathe and count to ten, thats what Davis always said.

"ARE YOU SHITTING ME, YOU MONUMENTAL IDIOT?!"

Of course none of that advice helps, that's why shrinks were the first to go in the New World order. So out with the flailing and the spitting, Badou even kicks a mote of sand , lets it arc over their heads until it falls back and stings his eye.

"How bout I spit in that eye of yours and leave you here if you think you're gonna pull something ballsy like that?! You're not going off on your own for some scheme you don't even have planned yet."

Read as: FUCK NO, IDIOT FUCK DICKNOSE.

"Look at you, learning how to compliment me so well. Don't forget who's been trudging through this hell like an idiot for far longer than you have."

Barely a flinch at this scene that Badou's making: there's even a half-patronizing hand that goes up to his ear, like warding off a large mosquito. The other one moves to pinch the tip of Badou's sunburnt nose, twists it just enough to be uncomfortable.

(you know what they say about kids: the cuter they are, the more you tease)

(some things still remain consistent, even after the world's been razed and the sky rains dust)

"Besides, you don't even know where I hid my lover this time around. She's too wild for you, you can't satisfy her with your kid dick."

Meaning, their car.

Badou's so flabbergasted, choked with rage, it takes him a couple of seconds for brain and tongue to connect through that spark of nodes and signals to the point where all he can speak are incomprehensible sounds of rage, vowels and consonants drawn out and screeched to accentuate the sand he brings up with whirlwind movements of long arms.

Fingers clamp around Pip's wrist, pulls it and twists the way he was taught, until he gives (if he does, he never has before when it's been For Keeps) and growls,

"When the fuck did you get laid? You keep that shit to five finger discounts because my waifu ain't taking none of your tiny tootsie roll grandpa dick, man. She'll purr right for me and show me the way."

He's going to fucking puke, why is Pip so damn gross....

What a grip. Tendon grinds against bone in the vehemence of that hold, leaving a ring of little red indents along Pip's wrist: a mark of Badou's insistence. He's always been a kid that knows when to sink his teeth in.

(one that also knows what it's like to burn out and fizzle, but Pip doesn't mention the 'D'-word because some woulds still crawl fresh— he'd rather be a father before a brother, a second eye than a replacement.)

Lazy features slump into a half-pout, single eye narrowed and gauging the exact moment he should Say Uncle to save his skin and arm. He releases Badou's nose, flicks it as a farewell present before attempting a patented Hair Muss.

"I get laid at least 10 times more than you do, you little shithead! Besides, you learned all your moves from me, my lady wants the real thing and not an imitation."

All these slanderous lies. It's a good thing no one else is around to hear.

A snuffle and a wheeze follows the lethal surrender, back of his hand cradling his nose gently before curling into a fist to shove at Pip's chest. Clearly Badou is still Not Happy, judging not only by the new spots of red on his cheeks in perfect circles, but the spittle when he shouts,

"She's not interested in your whiskey dick! She knows a stallion when she sees it, and can't get enough of me. Last time you 'got laid'," yes, he does air quotes, disgust written as plain as the patch on his face, "you probably fell asleep after the first round. Loser."

He actually doesn't want to think about his foster...guardian fucking anyone. This is just gross. Please stop.

"In any case," Badou's the mature one, "you can't do that. You're gonna get your ass killed."

Badou is absolutely the mature one, judging by the tittybaby way Pip rubs his wrists and looks mock-offended by all of this, as if he hasn't heard every permutation of every insult in the world by now. The theatrics are a way for him to digest those last words— 'you're gonna get killed'— spoken as plainly as a report on the weather.

Before he met Badou, dying somewhere nondescript was basically the headlining statement of his job report.

Now?

He's doing what he can.

"It'll take more than a little trip to get me killed, oison. Or are you trying to jinx it? You bastard."

A sharp elbow accompanies one of a million nicknames: this one, 'gosling' in French. When Pip gets back onto his feet, his boots sink in the sand warmed by midday heat, like clay kneaded by one too many hands.

Edited 2015-06-26 01:44 (UTC)

It takes him a couple tries to get to his feet, a few slips in the dust here, a couple of growls of distress there, until finally Badou's long-legged stride catches up to Pip. He looks worse for wear, sweaty hair clung in ropes around his neck, flyaway hairs give away the distress this brings.

This being Pip's pain in the ass ways.

"I'm not trying to jinx it, you idiot. I'm stating the cold hard facts, something you seem to forget when you get too greedy-- it'd be possible if done right. With the right planning and equipment and people. It ain't a one person job."

For a guy who spent his career, if you can call it that, barking out orders and strategy, Pip somehow gets in over his head when it comes to this shit. Badou guiltily wonders if it's because of him....he bites his lip.

"Just don't bother, there'll be other chances."

It's nice, this. Someone being a stopgap, not necessarily because they need to be, but because they want to be. Pip rolls Badou's advice over in his mind, then recalls a piece of family history that his deceased grandfather'd relayed to him oh-so-impartially, all those years ago: the question of his father's death, taking on more than he can chew to make sure that his nearly-born son would make it in this Hell.

Fuck, he thinks, as he inhales the remaining stub of his cigarette. Blood, water, etc.

"...Ahh, fine. If only your Uncles were here with us, hein? They'd have gotten a kick out of me bossing their asses around again. It would've been a right ol' good time."

He won't say he misses it, even if he does. He's got his hands full, anyway. It satisfies him in ways he didn't anticipate.

A sandy glove reaches to rustle through sandier red hair.

"We do need more bullets, though."

"Please don't call them my uncles like I wanna be related to those dunderheads. They couldn't wipe their asses without you telling them how," he grumbles, much like the kid he is. And true, alright, he recognizes they give away their lives and their gunpowder and grit teeth away for money. Cold hard cash and trade, the soothsaying of this world.

And yeah, maybe they're a little skilled and determined and grit.

(oh, but he doesn't bat away Pip's hand this time. no, he lets his palm sink into dusty hair, like rust over time, memorizes the weight of it. who knows when this will--)

A little sigh rolls from his shoulders. Defeated.

"Of course we do. We always do. I've got some other info to trade for that....about Joe's latest little bundle of joy."

A sad story, really. But maybe it was better this way, cruel, but short.

"Bullet town should be free of scavengers right about now. Relatively, anyway."

Pip talks about his stupid flock with an affection only reserved for those select few people in his life that've been stupid enough to bleed and hurt in his presence. Some of them have fingers missing, or crooked fingers that Pip'd sewed back on with a needle and thread from ripped patches on his jacket: once you see someone's bone and brittle, it stays with you. If they dare to share a haven with Pip, his heart is their nest.

So, naturally— they're all Badou's uncles, since Pip's already pitched a makeshift tent for him in the shitty barracks that Pip calls sentiments.

He rubs that concept right into the strands of his charge's sandpaper-red hair, hopes it'll seep into that thick skull of his.

"Don't break their hearts, you ungrateful bastard. They're all old and living vicariously through you."

He barks a laugh, one that rings hollow next to Badou's news. It's never stopped him, though, even if his features sober and his one good eye narrows against the unrelenting dust.

"Well, then. Are we due for a trip? Even if the old 'mistake-me-for-you' trick is starting to wear thin, merde."

He knows. Irreparably and fractured yet whole, he knows. Some life this is, the one he's shared with these warriors of heart, these pains in the asses, these humans. Men of flesh, like he is, maybe more so...because whereas he's perhaps learned his lesson, they still have yet to do so. Running headlong to their deaths...he doesn't want that anymore.

(he doesn't want that for them, but necessity is necessity)

(which is why he doesn't want to call them uncles, doesn't want to lose th-)

"Yeah, yeah. I'll play nice. I usually do," is what he finally mumbles, eye downcast across the horizon and decidedly not on Pip's expression. He's only drawn to Pip's noise, then, that hollow ring of laughter.

"Maybe if you got into shape they'd believe you better, old man. Try to keep up, will you?"

He moves to pack up his meager belongings from the sand.

"Don't try to make me feel old. My dick still rises like the morning sun, trustworthy and sure."

The only guarantee they still have that this world operates on something resembling principles of nature: that unforgiving sun, glaring holes into them. Clockwork.

Tipping his hat to ward off the judgmental looks that Lady Light seems to give him on a constant basis, Pip starts walking past Badou and into the desert proper. His long braid trails behind him, a scorpion tail.

"—Speaking of those idiots, if there's really some skirmish going on in the horizon, they might show up. Damn vultures, they are— any sign of a scuffle and they reappear like an old stain."

Something to look forward to, maybe, if the flock hasn't dwindled in number.

He's actually wary, following Pip deeper into the salt. Not because he doesn't trust the man (well....) but Badou still gets annoyed that he won't let him in on where he hides their beauty when he takes the wheel. What if they split up (as they inevitably do) and someone mistakes him for the mercenary and then he's fucked up and Pip runs off??

But he trudges on dutifully. Not because he can't get along without the other man (he'll snark "I'm better off without him" at people who ask, just like the few who remember Dave), but because...why not?

"An old underwear stain, you mean. You old war dogs sure go looking for it....can't you get by with a peaceful life?"

This is a question he already knows the answer to. He doesn't even have to look at Pip to know this. Just trudges, and trips, and flattens the sand and time beneath his feet.

(maybe he wouldn't have it any other way)

Lucky (debatable) for Badou, Pip fancies that the only person who's allowed to kick the kid ginger's ass on a regular basis is him— War Boys and desert gangs and all those other vice-loving assholes can wait their turn, which'll come approximately never.

(his other eye's not the only thing he's willing to give up for the kid, no.)

"Peaceful? Us? Not a chance, look at what I suffer every day with you trotting by my ankles."

A nonanswer, because the alternative is his grandfather's speech; 'we're the scum of the earth, we are'. It's not as if he thinks Badou can't take it, but best not to sour the mood before they get in their ride: they need to be on the best (worst) behavior when taking her out for a spin, after all.

And it just so happens that Pip is a near-miracle worker when it comes to hiding their wheels; there's an unassuming mound of tan and brown that quickly turns into a car once he finds the ends of the tarp covering their Lucky Strike, a beautiful chrome disaster in the middle of the desert. Spitting sand out of his mouth, he peers in through the window to make sure that there aren't any scorpions in the front seat this time around.

"You? Suffer? No, no, no, I'm the one who suffers dealing with your dumbass schemes you don't even consult me about. I'm all for following orders but I still think you forget I'm not one of those assholes you work with." His voice catches at the end of his tirade, and he shoves it back down again. He doesn't want to get into it again, old wounds and anger under the surface.

Actually, that's the opposite end of the problem. Pip can never, ever, ever forget Badou isn't one of them. He is acutely aware, and Badou knows it but he won't stop...trying to drag him out of things. To shield him. That's not what mercenaries with blood in their teeth and their comrades corpses at their feed do, right? That's not how you get yourself paid and get to the next one.

(it makes Badou so mad he grinds his teeth during the day as well as at night)

When their beauty belle is revealed in all its dusty chrome glory, Pip gets a dirty look for all his trouble. Then a scarred hand runs along her flank, as if listening to her and checking to see if she's really alright after Pip had her down there. His girl is tougher than that, though. And once it's confirmed that scorpions are not confirmed, he pries open the door with a dusting of salt in greeting and a grunt from him as the thing creaks.

"You need to get stuff for her. She's telling you that, listen."

Edited 2015-06-29 07:39 (UTC)

The anger would remind Pip of that red-cloaked hound that lurks in the spaces between horizon and mud, their 'fairy godfather' rendered in shade and blood: delighted as always by the idiocy of humans, absolutely enamored by the emergence of Immortan Joe and his warriors. 'Some things will never change.' Pip recalls that low baritone, that chuckle that tumbleweeds through the desert, that smile that paints a knowing caricature of a concerned third party.

'How will the gosling die, Mother Goose?

As a dog? A human? Or a living corpse?'

The remains of his cigarette burn a hole into baked sand, and Pip ducks into the front seat of their car, tasting charred wood on his tongue.

"Mm. She sounds thirsty, make no mistake. We're going to need to lather her up: that's rated NC-17, let's hope you can handle it."

A pat to the dashboard, eliciting a few protests of static from broken radios. Pip's fixed it some, and occasionally, it plays music— remnants of 'shows' that they pick up from satellites still beaming SOSes into the stars.

"How lucky do you feel today, mignonette?"

Badou waits until he's actually settle down before he grants Pip his audience (of 1 shitty young shounen). Wiggles in the seat to discover that familiar groove his ass usually takes up. Pops open the glove box to see how bullets are going (Bad, as Pip already said, but double checking is always a good idea). Checks his usual foothold up on the dashboard. Check.

And then, yes, he grands Pip his due. The stink eye.

"I'm an adult, of course I can handle it. Better than you can, you damn twelve year old girl. Even fix your hair like one..." Muttering, he wipes the edge of the window, sand crumbles away, paints his forearm without a care in the world.

Pip's comment at least drags a chuckle from him, however disgusted. "Do I ever? Just get it over with. We've gotta live somehow."

The Stink Eye is especially powerful when delivered with a single functioning eye. It laserbeams into a notch in Pip's soul that he diverts it to every time, and it leaves a brand in his head that he thinks about fondly. Some glares are as welcome as smiles.

Rocking the frame of their car with his weight, Pip adjusts the wheel in its seating with one hand while simultaneously ruffling Badou's hair with the other. Multitasking is second nature to him.

"It works, don't knock the hair. Your mane's long enough now, don't you want to match?"

And that's enough teasing for him to run on, and Pip gets busy with starting the ignition. She's a finicky one, their ride— it takes cajoling to get her to hum, and Pip knows which buttons to press, and in which order. Left, left, right, center. Then the key, then the acceleration. His efforts are rewarded with a reluctant but satisfied kick of the engine.

"—Got it in one. We are lucky today, I must've picked Lady Luck up with the cigs."

"Over my dead body," is the springloaded retort that fizzles out halfassed when its apparent their lucky Striking Lady is going to cooperate today. He'd even held his breath, just in case. If only a lucky rabbit's foot would give aid in these parts.

(when's the last time anyone ever saw one of the fuzzy critters? 10 years? 15?)

While Pip occupies himself with that, Badou decides to twist halfway 'round to get an eyeful of their belongings back there. Clothing, what little water they have to spare (his mouth goes extra dry, with an extra helping of salt-grain to it, just at the thought), the weapons, and the nicknacks they've gathered over the years.

How did he survive so many years with this bonehead?

"She must've known I was along for the ride or else you wouldn't have picked up jack dick."

Frugal living is the name of their game. Under the pile of spare weaponry that Pip's managed to salvage from years and years of roughhousing (including his darling Kalashnikov, mon cher Kalash), there are trinkets that he hasn't had the heart to throw away, tucked discreetly along with all the junk that his Geese have given up to Badou as consolation for all the scars and bloodloss that they've come back with. An empty lighter with a message engraved on it, a half-broken canteen embossed with a family crest that no one can identify. Useless, sentimental junk.

Descriptors that fit humanity as a whole, really. They're all just afterthoughts by now, set apart by a primal desire to live and laugh while they can.

"I should've known that you have an older women fetish. You like the ones that'd wrap you up in their tits and suffocate you lovingly."

His shoulders shake with his own unfunny joke, and the hand not trained on the wheel for dear life fiddles with the radio, waiting for just the right position that'd give them sweet, sweet reminders of a civilization where people had the luxury of song.

The machine fizzes, grunts, and then starts playing the first few bars of the Stones's 'Wild Horses'.

"—Merde, we're really getting lucky today."

The backseat, once upon a time a decent gray, has now turned a rusty, blotched out burgundy of dried blood and sand combined. It's a wonder they even have any room for anything with all the junk back there. At least the weapons are somewhat neatly packed beneath each of their seats and wedged between the doors and the seats.

"As long as she buys me food and water she can do almost anything to me. Just not freaky shit...and again with the projecting your own fantasies onto me? You old farts and your dreams..." Sighing, Badou shakes his head, eye flickers to the radio in an afterthought.

"Almost too lucky...Better watch your ass."

He doesn't want to say it out loud (because if he's learned one thing from Chuckles, that smiley fuck, it's that breathing into words gives them power. Words have power) but he's pretty sure it's too good to be true. Instead, Badou decides to check the ammo for the gun wedged between the door, careful fingers work quickly to figure out what he already knows.

A comfortable silence falls between them, one filled by broken hums of the former Frenchman trying to recall the lyrics to an old classic: something after living once love dies. Paying attention to the poetry of it all seems superfluous. The metallic click of weaponry being taken apart and put together is his percussion to the song, and Pip knows that those sun-cracked hands working the weapons are moving just the way he taught them to.

"You've gotten faster at that," he says, and it isn't a compliment. Just an observation. He says it through curled lips, posture slouched forward with his forearms on the top of the wheel. Dangerous.

The car keeps rumbling forward at a comfortable pace, kicking up sand and debris until the front tires hit the first beginnings of a road proper. It's smooth sailing from here, nothing but horizon.

"When's the last time you fired a gun, oison?"

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