He straightens very slowly, not even consciously aware that he's waiting for her to draw a gun on him. It's just habit. It's just a reflex he developed that has kept him alive, that's all.
"Max." It still feels strange to say his own name. And he still hasn't lowered the can or put it back in his pack, even though he knows he should. Or, if he were a better person, he'd give it to her. He would have done that once, but now...he can't make his hand cooperate.
But he has a next best thing, something to satisfy his need to survive and the shame he feels at having fallen back so hard on his scavenging. "Someone tried to spoil some of these. Mn...here," he turns, shows her a plastic container full of pear slices. "Have to eat them or they go bad. Once we lose power, they'd be poison."
But they're okay now. And he has two dozen two forks, so he offers her one and keeps one for himself. If he can't stomach the thought of giving away food, he can at least share, one scav to another.
She doesn't know how many names are shared here, how many men are named Max on this ship, but once she knows his name it's not hard to make the connection that he's got to be Furiosa's Max. That makes something in her shoulders relax a little, it gives him an extra leeway he might not have had if it weren't for Furiosa.
And then he offers her a spoon, and his food that will go bad if it's not eaten, and maybe she isn't trapped on Jakku after all. This would never happen there. She watches him as she spears one of the slices of fruit, as she brings it to her mouth and eats the whole thing in one go.
There's a part of her that still thinks it might be a trap, but she's trusting Furiosa on this.
"Furiosa mentioned you," she says while she chews, but she does at least cover her mouth. "You're from her world?"
The mention of Furiosa does the same thing to him that the connection had done for Rey: his shoulders relax a little, he stops hunching over the food like at any minute he and Rey will have to start biting at one another for it.
"Helped her with a job," he nods, which is a peculiar way of explaining that mad rush with the wives. "You work with her here? The greenhouse?"
The war rig is sort of like Furiosa's way of testing compatibility: if you can grasp the importance of that sliver of her homeworld, you stand a chance at understanding her. So Max nods, and his expression loses some of its edge. "Means she likes you."
His personal opinion is that Furiosa likes people too easily, but there's so much that's familiar about Rey, so much that he can read and understand, that he thinks Furiosa was right to show Rey the rig.
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"Max." It still feels strange to say his own name. And he still hasn't lowered the can or put it back in his pack, even though he knows he should. Or, if he were a better person, he'd give it to her. He would have done that once, but now...he can't make his hand cooperate.
But he has a next best thing, something to satisfy his need to survive and the shame he feels at having fallen back so hard on his scavenging. "Someone tried to spoil some of these. Mn...here," he turns, shows her a plastic container full of pear slices. "Have to eat them or they go bad. Once we lose power, they'd be poison."
But they're okay now. And he has
two dozentwo forks, so he offers her one and keeps one for himself. If he can't stomach the thought of giving away food, he can at least share, one scav to another.no subject
And then he offers her a spoon, and his food that will go bad if it's not eaten, and maybe she isn't trapped on Jakku after all. This would never happen there. She watches him as she spears one of the slices of fruit, as she brings it to her mouth and eats the whole thing in one go.
There's a part of her that still thinks it might be a trap, but she's trusting Furiosa on this.
"Furiosa mentioned you," she says while she chews, but she does at least cover her mouth. "You're from her world?"
no subject
"Helped her with a job," he nods, which is a peculiar way of explaining that mad rush with the wives. "You work with her here? The greenhouse?"
no subject
It's not that she forgot the name, honestly, it's that she still can't believe that thing that had had such an accurate name.
no subject
His personal opinion is that Furiosa likes people too easily, but there's so much that's familiar about Rey, so much that he can read and understand, that he thinks Furiosa was right to show Rey the rig.