inthewildwood | fanfiction: the only war we can afford

Title: the only war we can afford
Fandom: Mad Max: Fury Road
Pairing: Cheedo the Fragile/The Dag, Angharad/Capable
Summary: "We’re supposed to love him more than anybody else.“
Rating: T
Warnings: Physical and sexual abuse.

Capable always knows when something terrible is about to happen.

If she walked among the Wretched, she knows, they might call her a witch for it. But there’s nothing so mysterious to her abilities: having built her life around anticipating the needs of others and fulfilling them before she has a chance to be hurt, she’s cultivated the ability to read the mood of a room, guess when a simmering argument is about to erupt, know when soothing words and gentle hands are required. It’s saved her life more times than she wants to count, and even if she sometimes hates herself for playing peacemaker- even if she’d sometimes rather throw a match and watch everything burn- she holds her tongue and keeps her watch.

Today it’s Angharad and the Dag. They’ve both been in dark moods all day, circling and snapping at each other and turning on anyone else who tried to intervene. The Dag even snapped at Cheedo, though she softened and apologized moments later. Capable knows what’s behind their tempers: Immortan Joe has been more genial than usual lately, and those two in particular hate his good moods more than his bad ones. It’s easier to bear bruises than feign goodwill.

Now they’re all sitting at his feet in a circle, eyes downcast and hands clasped, and Capable can still feel the anger rising from her sisters like steam. Angharad has her fists clenched, buried in the gauze in her lap so that Joe can’t see them. The Dag is digging her fingers into her thighs so hard, the skin around them has gone white. Toast, as always, stays diplomatically silent and stiff-faced. And Cheedo has her knees pulled up against her chest, arms wrapped around herself, looking poignantly small and vulnerable. Capable prays Joe doesn’t notice: it’s just the sort of thing he likes to see in his wives, their fragility juxtaposed with his benevolent care.

But it’s too much to hope for, because: “Come here,” he says, crooking a finger at Cheedo. “Let me look at you.” Cheedo darts an anxious look at the Dag before uncurling herself from the floor, clutching her gauze against her chest as she approaches. Capable, whose eyes are sharp, can see that her knees are trembling, but she hopes no one else can. Be brave, she thinks. Be strong. I know you can. It’ll be over soon.

When Cheedo reaches Joe’s chair, he puts a hand under her chin and pulls her face upwards, forcing her to look him in the eye. Whatever he sees there makes him laugh. “Are you frightened of me, Fragile?”

“N-no,” Cheedo says. Her voice only shakes a little.

Without warning, he grasps a handful of her gauze. Cheedo clings to it, but the fabric slips through her fingers easily, and a few firm tugs have her bared to the waist in front of the whole room. Beside Capable, Angharad lets out a barely-perceptible hiss. Toast’s back stiffens. The Dag leans forward slightly, eyes blazing. Joe reaches out and pinches Cheedo’s skin between his fingers. She whimpers slightly. “Growing fast, aren’t you?” he says. “We’ll make a mother of you yet.”

"Don’t you touch her!"

Before any of them can respond, the Dag’s shot to her feet, arms stretched out towards Cheedo. “You keep your filthy hands off her!”

With a sudden roar, Joe lets go of Cheedo and knocks the Dag sideways with the flat of his hand. She goes tumbling backwards, hitting the dirt floor elbows first. With a squeak, Cheedo backs away from Joe, frantically pulling her clothes back into place. Capable leaps to her feet, rushing to help the Dag back up, but she doesn’t even reach her before Joe backhands her as well, sending her skidding across the floor. Angharad kneels down beside her, but doesn’t reach out. For a breathless moment, no one speaks.

Joe is still looming over the Dag, glaring down at her. She’s got herself propped up on her elbows, hair wild, a trickle of blood running from the corner of her mouth. With the fire in her eyes, Capable thinks, she looks like a harpy or a fury- one of the vengeance-giving goddesses they read about in Miss Giddy’s oldest books. She meets Joe’s gaze without the slightest trace of fear. “Ratbag,” she snarls.

Joe bellows, grabbing her by the hair and wheeling her around to slam into the opposite wall. Cheedo starts forward, but Toast grabs her around the waist and holds her back. Angharad’s hand lands on Capable’s shoulder, fingers digging in. The Dag kicks and flails, but Joe’s still got her by the hair, and she can’t get loose. She screams, high-pitched and rabbity.

“Stop it!”

Everyone stops, turning to look for the source of the new voice. Cheedo’s freed herself from Toast’s grip, and stands with her arms wrapped around her stomach. “I’ll go with you,” she says. “Please leave her alone.” She lowers her eyes. “I don’t like it when you fight. It scares me.”

Smart girl, Capable thinks, shaken. The Dag is still crumpled on the floor, moaning, but Joe’s no longer holding her hair: he let go of her in surprise when Cheedo cried out. Toast and Angharad are both frozen in place, breath collectively held. Everyone waits to see what he’ll do.

He says nothing, but grunts, grabbing Cheedo by the upper arm and pulling her alongside him. She darts one last look over her shoulder at the rest of them, a silent request in her eyes, before Joe slams the door and leaves the remaining four women alone in the room.

Angharad is the first of them to shake herself loose from the spell they’ve been under, going to kneel down next to the Dag and help her to her feet. The other woman groans pitifully as she’s pulled upright, and Toast and Capable go to help her stand. Capable can see raw, red patches on her scalp through her pale hair, and her mouth is swollen and bruised. She leans on Angharad’s shoulder, eyes bright with angry tears. “He can’t do this,” she says, voice quivering. “He can’t treat her like that.”

Capable knows better than to answer her. “Come on,” she says instead. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Later, the Dag lies curled up in bed a cold compress pressed to her bruises. The other three range themselves around her: Angharad on one side, holding her hand, Toast perched at the foot of the bed with a hand resting on her calf, and Capable stroking her hair. Miss Giddy, who had helped them tend to the Dag’s wounds, has withdrawn with a sympathetic look. The Dag is letting angry tears fall now, eyes swollen and red. “He can’t treat her like that,” she repeats over and over as Capable tries to soothe her. “I won’t let him.”

“Nothing you can do,” Toast says, though she gives the Dag’s leg a little sympathetic squeeze. “Not like we can stand up to him, is it?”

The Dag lets out a choked, angry noise. Angharad’s hand tightens around hers’. “He thinks he loves us,” she says. “And he thinks that means he can do whatever he wants.”

“I love her,” the Dag says, voice ragged around the edges. “He doesn’t even know what love means. He thinks he can lock us up in his tower, treat us like dolls, paint our pretty faces and make us dance for him and play pretend.” Her eyes are like slits, pale and cold as ice. “What do you think he’d do if he knew? Would it kill him? I’d tell him just to see the look on his face, and if that didn’t do the trick, I’d stick the knife in myself.”

“Shhh,” Capable says, adjusting herself so that the Dag’s head is resting on her knee. “Hush now. Don’t talk like that.” She avoids looking at Angharad as she continues: “We’re supposed to love him more than anybody else. You know that.”

“But-“ The Dag’s voice cracks.

“He raised us up from the Wretched” Toast recites, voice toneless. “He chose us for his most precious treasures. He gave us endless food and water, indulged our every wish and need. For that, we owe him everything.”

“Don’t say that!” The Dag surges up from the bed, and Capable has to put an arm around her to hold her back. “Don’t quote him to me like you think he’s right. I know you don’t. You hate him. You-“ She points to Angharad, “-cut your face open just to spite him. You-“ She turns her gaze to Capable “-put that sleeping stuff in his drink so he wouldn’t take you that night, but you didn’t give him enough to kill him because you’re scared to see what comes next. None of you think he’s our saviour, but you’re all too cowardly to do anything, and then you tell me I shouldn’t stand up to him-“

“Shhhhhhhh.” Capable reaches for her again, but the Dag shrugs her hands away. Patiently, she repeats the motion until the other woman finally relaxes trembling, into her embrace. “It’s all right,” Capable says. “It’s all going to be all right. Don’t talk any more. Don’t say anything.” She rocks her back and forth gently, like she would a baby, murmuring small comforting words under her breath. Deep inside herself, she feels another seed of self-hatred unfurl, reaching up into her throat to choke her, but she ignores it. She’s had a lot of practice.

Toast is the first to get up, uncurling her legs from under herself and leaving without another glance backwards. Angharad lingers a little longer, watching Capable soothe the Dag to sleep. Capable avoids the heaviness of her gaze until the Dag’s breath has grown slow and even, and then she can’t anymore. When she looks at Angharad, she keeps her face smoothed to blankness, but it does her no good. Angharad’s gaze pierces through all her careful calmness and wrenches at her heart until she has to duck her head and close her eyes to keep tears from falling. It falls to her to be the calm amidst the storm, the one all the others can cling to when their strength fails them. It isn’t fair, she thinks, for Angharad to make it so hard; it’s not fair that she tries so hard to be good, to not hurt anyone or let them hurt themselves, and along comes Angharad to hurt her instead.

But Angharad doesn’t say anything; she doesn’t have to. Instead, after their exchange of looks, she simply slides off the bed and walks to the door, shutting it behind her with a dull thud. Capable looks back down to where the Dag is nestled against her shoulder, lips parted slightly, tears still drying around her eyes. At the moment, it seems that she’ll be more peaceful company than her other sisters. She lets herself slide down against the pillows and closes her eyes, mentally preparing herself for a long, sleepless night.

But she does sleep, even if it’s only in fits and starts. She’s dozing lightly, head nodding down to her chest when the sound of the outer door opening jerks her awake. The Dag wakes instantly too, sitting up in bed. “Is-“

There’s the sound of feet pattering rapidly across the floor, and then the door is flung open. She barely sees Cheedo: she’s a blur as she flings herself across the room and into the Dag’s arms. The Dag catches her instantly, already crying again, holding her tight against her chest. They’re both shaking, and Capable’s not sure if it’s a result of tears or nerves; Cheedo’s crying as well, pressing her forehead to the Dag’s, and they’re both trying to speak over the other at once. Capable can only catch bits and pieces of what they’re saying, words overlapping and running against each other.

“-my fault-“

“-hurt you-“

“-sorry-“

Capable knows she’s not meant to be seeing this; she doesn’t think either of them have even noticed she’s still in the room. Quietly, she gets up and pads to the door, making sure to shut it softly behind her.

Their outer room is quiet- not unusual, given the hour, but it still feels lonesome to her. She wants companionship, someone to confide in, but her options are limited: Toast will listen, but she doesn’t always understand. Cheedo and the Dag are still too wrapped in each other to hear about her problems. And Angharad . . .

Angharad is sitting in the centre of the room, dabbling her feet in the water pool. Capable goes and sits down next to her, because she can’t think of where else to go. Because even when she’s lost because of Angharad, she still finds herself sitting in her shadow. Because when they only have each other, they can’t afford to let selfish emotions get in the way. So she sits next to her, lets her feet dangle in the water, and simply breathes.

Angharad is, as always, the first to speak. “You’ll never change her mind,” she says.

Capable tucks her chin against her chest. “About what?”

“About him.” Angharad turns towards her; Capable can see it in their reflections, and feel it in the ends of hair that brush against her arm. “About how we have to love him most of all. She won’t listen. Neither will Cheedo.”

“They don’t have to believe it,” Capable says, swallowing against the pain in her throat. “They only have to understand.”

“Do you believe it?” When Capable doesn’t answer, Angharad presses on. “Why say it if it isn’t true?”

“Not everything that’s true is for saying out loud,” Capable says. Her voice is tighter than she wants it to be. Angharad is always like this, always insistent, always pushing. One of them has to be the voice of reason, and that job falls to Capable. “Sometimes it’s better to keep quiet and stay alive.”

“Alive,” Angharad repeats. “But this isn’t living.”

“It is,” Capable insists. “We walk and breathe and eat and drink.”

“But we don’t think.”

“We think,” she says. “We just don’t speak.”

“Then what difference does thinking make?” Capable tries to turn her head away, but Angharad catches at her chin and pulls. She wants to squeeze her eyes shut and maintain some façade of control, but she can’t look away once Angharad’s holding her gaze. Angharad’s eyes are blue and burning, and it hurts to look in them, the way it hurts to stare directly at the sun. The same way it would probably hurt if she put her hand into a fire because the flames were beautiful and she wanted to be one with them. Wanting isn’t always wise.

“Tell me you believe it, truly,” Angharad says, still holding her face. “Tell me you believe everything he says. Tell me you love him more than anyone else.”

Capable shakes her head, just slightly.

Angharad’s thumb grazes against the point of Capable’s chin. “Then who do you love?”

Capable wants to say you already know. She wants to say I tried to stop and I can’t. She wants to point out all the thousand reasons why letting her heart out of its cage would doom them all, Angharad especially, and she can’t carry that burden along with all the others she’s taken on. But her tongue has turned traitor to her mind, her heart rising up and rebelling against denying itself one more time.

Something terrible is going to happen, and this time she can’t stop it.

“You,” she says, and she feels a weight fall away from her chest as she sets the words free. “I love you. More than anyone.”

Angharad’s kiss is gentler than she thought it would be. She’d always imagined that when Angharad kissed- truly kissed, of her own free will, not submitted to an unwanted, demanding mouth- it would burn as bright as the rest of her, too filled with fire to be calm. But it’s not like that at all. Maybe Angharad understands her well enough to know that she would shatter under the pressure of anything stronger, that she needs to be gentled as she’s gentled so many others. It doesn’t stop the feeling of flying apart, but she does at least feel that she’ll be able to put herself back together. As long as Angharad’s there. She knows she can’t be free, really, as long as they are Wives, but they can have something- just this little piece, secreted between them- and just that little fortune, that secret allowance, will bear her up enough to carry on.