Work Text:
When Maya finds Franziska in the cabin bathroom that morning, the latter can’t help but feel like she’s six years old again, caught raiding the fridge for sweets long past bedtime. To her credit, Maya does not snap her fingers and demand Franziska explain herself, but Franziska still feels some part of herself go back-to-the-wall, ready to plead the fifth.
The crime scene was sloppy, that was on her—Franziska had left the door open, because Maya was a heavy sleeper usually, but apparently not so heavy that the rattle of pills and shuffling of her suitcase went unheard. Sleepily Maya took the sight in front of her in, and Franziska tried with all she was to hide the pallor of her cheeks and the way her nose was threatening to drip, tilting her head up in as natural of a manner as she could muster. It was perfectly normal, she tried to remind herself—an overconfident jut of her chin, eyes narrowed, she wore it as well as she wore anything else, Maya wasn’t going to think it was anything out of the ordinary.
“Morning, beloved,” Franziska says, trying not to distract herself by overanalyzing how her voice may or may not sound. She just woke up, it’s normal for it to be a little scratchy.
To that Maya just yawns and trudges forward with her hair a black jungle, wrapping her arms around Franziska’s waist and shoving her face into her shoulder. Making a little noise of general exhaustion, Maya curls around her like a touch-starved python. All manner of deception leaves Franziska the second she feels Maya pressed against her torso, leaning like a tree in the wind and still-warm from sleep. Her heart flutters at the heat, and she snakes her arms around Maya’s back and presses her cheek against the sleepy girl’s head.
After a precious moment Maya pulls away, and already Franziska knows she can tell something is off in the lowlight of the newborn morning. The two of them hold the eye contact, for a moment, which worries Maya a little—Franziska isn’t particularly fond of looking people in the eye, it’s purely adversarial, and last Maya checked she was not currently in any sort of argument with her girlfriend. She frowns a little, studying Franziska’s face more carefully.
“You okay?” Maya says, palming Franziska’s face, thumb tracing lovingly over the spot beneath her eye. “You look really tired.”
“I’ve… slept better, I’ll admit.”
Maya tilts her head, looking concerned. “Did I have the heat too high?”
“No, no, just,” Franziska gestures vaguely to everything around them, “not used to the sleeping arrangements, I suppose.”
That was a little strange, Maya thought as she took in the scenery. The cabin they’d rented was as nice as they came—Franziska had money and she was unafraid to put it to good use. The living room was sprawling and sepia-toned, with couches and a widescreen television and a 70’s-style conversation pit in the center, a crystal chandelier above that drenched the whole room in warm lighting. Maya had slept just fine on the queen bed—the thing was like cozy quicksand in how it swallowed her up, she’d barely moved an inch since shutting her eyes.
Maybe Franziska needed something a little firmer, but… it was still something curious. She’d spent most of her adult life traveling from hotel to hotel, apartment to apartment, it was odd to think that there existed some sort of threshold she had trouble sleeping at.
It hits Maya all at once, then—the noisy cadence of a shaking pill bottle, that’s what’d woken her up. Curiously, she eyes the countertop, where Franziska’s done an imperfect job of shuttering a bottle of elderberry supplements, one Maya only ever saw surface when Franziska was sure that she was—
“Aw, Franzy,” Maya says. “Are you—”
“I’m fine!” Franziska counters before Maya can finish, admittedly going a little pink in the cheeks as soon as she realizes how defensive she’d gotten. If Maya’s bothered by the interruption she certainly doesn’t show it, just smiles fondly and crosses her arms, and Franziska knows there is no winning against that look.
“Do you really wanna drag this argument out when we’re on holiday together?” says Maya.
“Our holiday is precisely why we do not need to be having it.” Franziska looks away briefly and—there it is, her first delicate sniffle of the morning, the beginning of several to come, Maya’s sure. “You may very well be able to strongarm me into frankly excessive rest when we’re home, but I spent good money on this trip and I do not intend to let minor illness hinder me.”
“So you admit you’re sick?”
An exasperated noise falls from Franziska’s throat. “It’s absolutely nothing of note, dear. A minor ailment.”
“Dunno if I believe that,” Maya presses her thumb and forefinger suspiciously to her chin, eyes narrowing. “I have it on good authority that you’ve said the same about a bullet hole.”
“Those circumstances were,” instinctively she grabs at the fabric of her nightgown hanging over her shoulder, “different. You know I’ve gotten better with these things.”
“Hmm… you have,” Maya says, then steps a little closer to Franziska, placing her knuckles at a soft rest against her jawline. “Doesn’t feel like you’re hiding a fever from me, either.”
“Because I am fine.”
Maya doesn’t seem to listen to that, moving her hands to Franziska’s neck and studying the shape of it for something. “Does your throat hurt?”
“Barely.”
“Barely like barely,” Maya raises an eyebrow. “Or barely like ominously?”
Franziska waves a hand, unbothered. “Nothing a strong cup of tea won’t fix.”
“Alright,” Maya says. “I’m gonna trust you, don’t make me regret it! Are you sure you don’t just wanna order breakfast?”
“Staying locked away inside all day will just make me feel restless.” Franziska offers a smile, hoping the lively intent behind it will shine through. “I want to see the sights with you, love.”
“Can you promise me you’ll tell me if you start to feel worse?”
In all honesty, Franziska’s instinct is to say no, if only because she doesn’t trust herself to know. From the day she was born she’s felt more machine than person, dreadful at reading her inner responses and needs and any and all sensation. It’s always been something she viewed as an asset, untethered from hunger pangs and exhaustion and illness—they were all things she could stave off until she felt the time was right, until her workload was lower and her schedule was free. Meals at set times, sleep only when she knew it would sharpen her focus, certainly never something as trivial as illness.
Unsurprisingly her father was the person who taught her about leisure sickness—the astounding ability of some to physically push their immune response to the side until their work was well and truly done. Foolishly, Franziska had thought little of it—irrelevant to those of our ilk, papa. I will not be taking any vacations.
No, she hadn’t accounted for a life beyond work, certainly not holidays, certainly not vacations with a girlfriend. Maya once accurately described Manfred von Karma as a “shitty old bitch,” but Franziska had to admit, every now and then, that he kind of knew a thing or two about how to work yourself down to the bone and still remain upright.
“I’ll do my best,” is what she says, and means it. “Did you still want to peruse those tourist traps in town?”
“God, more than life itself,” Maya says. “Here, you take the shower, I’m gonna make you that tea.”
With a lingering kiss to Franziska’s cheek she’s off, whistling some tune that the latter knows is from one of Maya’s shows. Franziska waits until she’s out of earshot to shut the door and sigh, running the water just a hair short of boiling in an attempt to chase the sudden chills away. The steam pools against the oaky walls, makes her feel a little dizzy as it swirls around her, and she lets the clamour of it ring for a moment to cover the sound of her pinching two desperate sneezes into her elbow.
Rubbing sorely at her throat, Franziska pulls back the foggy glass door and steps into the walk-in, breathing deep as she’s able. It is, perhaps, going to be a long day, but she finds she doesn't mind those so long as Maya's by her side.
Maya’s starting to think that one too many investigations with Nick have maybe rubbed off on her.
It’s not that she’s not enjoying this date—really, she is, every second is precious. She’d been homesick for the mountains for a while, now, but it was something she had a… complicated relationship with, if she was being honest. Maya loved the scenery—the towering pines, the winding roads, the musty scent of leaflitter and evergreen, some comforting sort of rot that made her unafraid to someday return to the earth beneath her feet. Being in the hallowed walls of Kurain, sleeping on tatami and feeling like she was being watched at all hours by something ancient and malevolent, well. She enjoyed that… less.
But Franziska had a big, cool, sexy brain that often worked as Maya’s common sense filter, and that’s how they’d wound up somewhere Norther in the American Cascades, sorta-kinda like home but without all the oppressive, purveying sense of dread. The cabin was a little further up the mountain, a shuttle ride away from a quaint little town at its flank, decorated in little dives and tourist shops selling all manner of trinkets and antiques.
At present they were on the tail end of their day, and Maya’s bag was sagging a little on her shoulder with how many pointless little items she had resting within, a sparkle in her eye and an infinity sign festooned across her girlfriend’s bank account. Franziska, chivalrous to a fault, had tried to take the bag off her hands, but Maya insisted buying her so many things to begin with was gentlemanly enough. Not to mention there was still the matter of Franziska’s health.
‘Cause yeah, Maya really did feel like she had her investigation eyes on, today. She was trying not to be too obvious with the stolen, cursory looks she’d shoot her girlfriend’s way, but Franziska had sharp eyes of her own and little to nothing really managed to escape their watchful gaze.
Franziska was definitely ill, there was no denying that, but she hardly seemed too bothered by it, a mere annoyance she was content to shrug off. The most obvious sign that anything was wrong was how utterly bundled she was—Franziska rarely shivered in the cold but today the piled snow seemed to be getting to her even beneath her thick winter jacket, and she spent most of the morning with a scarf pulled right up to her nose. Clearing her throat every so often, swiveling elegantly to the side to muffle small, irritated sneezes into the fabric as it hung around her neck, but other than that she seemed alright, and so Maya kept her worry to a minimum. Right now Franziska was nursing a massive, steaming cup of tea, no doubt in a bid to chase away the deeper tones creeping into her voice as it started to protest at all the cold air and socializing.
“You about ready to head back?” Maya asks, and Franziska does some manner of snapping back to herself from where she’d been slouching just barely over her tea.
“Hm? Oh—” it takes her a moment to process the sentence, “whatever you’d like, love.”
Maya studies her face, lingering on the dark circles that are showing through her makeup. To anyone else Franziska would look as put together as always—her hair straight and perfectly in line, her eyeliner sharp as it’s ever been, the confidence in her stride like a song against the icy cobble underfoot. Maya knows her better, though—enough to see silent millimeters in her sinking shoulders, the way she’s a second slower to respond. No, she doesn’t look horrendously ill, but she does look very tired.
“You holding up okay?”
Maya watches as she stiffens, tries to distract from the motion by pulling her drink to her lips as elegantly as she’s able. “I’m fine, dearheart, I keep telling you it’s just a little chill.”
“Okaaaay,” Maya says with a playful grin, reaching across the table to twine their free hands together. “Well, I think I’ve bought some stupid trinket at every shop this little town has to offer, so I’m good to go back to the room if you are. You might have everlasting energy, but I’m beat.”
So that is what they do, then. On the bus back up Maya looses a gentle sigh and leans her windblown hair on Franziska’s shoulder, and the latter allows herself a brief moment to shut her eyes and lean as well, drifting to the purr of electricity and churning wheels as it rumbles below them.
Maya wakes up the next morning and immediately regrets it.
The cabin is freezing, she feels like she’s sleeping beneath one of the waterfalls back home. Desperately she tries to pull the blankets over her head but there’s some sort of resistance tugging at her arms, stopping her from doing the work she’s trying so desperately to do. Franziska’s hands on her face aren’t immediately obvious, not until the prosecutor’s voice fades in, sounding a little on edge as it makes itself known. Maya lets out a groan through the sharp pain in her throat, batting Franziska’s hands away and curling in on herself.
It works, because Franziska pulls off the bed and away, and Maya regrets that too, because Franziska was warm and Maya’s so cold and she’s—shaking, she can’t stop shaking. Living under the blankets, she finds she can’t manage a tolerable angle to rest at, and so she’s tossing and turning for a few more minutes trying to fall back into something resembling comfortable sleep. Before she can get there Franziska’s weight shifts on the bed again, and then it’s her hands cupping Maya’s face once more and making her best attempt to coax the sleepy girl out of her nest of covers and pillows.
“Go awayyyyy,” Maya whines. “I’m tired—”
“Stop being difficult,” Franziska orders. “You need to take this—”
“Mmm?” Maya says, finally cracking an eye open. Franziska’s a silver-blue blur against the contrast of the cabin walls, a glass of water in one hand and a couple of pills in the other. Maya blinks at them, which makes her realize just how horribly itchy and hot her eyes feel, which brings to the forefront all the other things she’s feeling—her throat is rough and parched, her head feels stuffed clear to her eyes, every inch of her body aches. Curiously, she peers up at Franziska.
“...am I sick?”
“Incredibly,” Franziska answers. “You’re running one hell of a fever. Do a favour for my heart and please take your medicine.”
Struggling still Maya pulls herself up against the headboard, trying not to wince too noticeably as she does. With shaking hands she pulls the pills and water from Franziska’s own, scarfing them down and finishing the water off for good measure. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was until the liquid hit her tongue, and in her haste to inhale the sweet ambrosia she ends up stuttering her lungs into protest, coughing roughly into the blankets as she pulls them over her face. With a tired groan she leans against Franziska, who wraps an arm around her with little hesitation, snaking her hand beneath the covers to rub at Maya’s back.
“Holy shit,” is all Maya can really say, upon feeling the full brunt of all this. Out of the corner of her eye Franziska’s expression is pinched, Maya’s never seen her bite her lip like that, she looks so shameful. And Maya knows they’re thinking the same exact thing, but Franziska’s not going to put words to it, of course.
“So maybe next time be honest with me, huh?”
Franziska’s shoulders hike themselves, and she turns her tortured gaze away. “I don’t appreciate the insinuation.”
“If you hadn’t been so stealthy then I wouldn’t have been smooching on your germy little face all day!”
“That is an outright lie and we both know it,” Franziska counters, turning to face Maya again. “You are utterly incapable of keeping your hands to yourself.”
“My point still stands, Prosecutor von Karma.” Maya sniffles loudly, exaggerated to prove this point. “Oh my god I feel like shit. I can’t believe you were hiding this from me, Franzy, we coulda just stayed in.”
“It wasn’t—” she starts, then pulls back with a sigh, looking embarrassed. “Perhaps our thresholds for what constitutes a stay-at-home illness are… different.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Maya says, slumping back down into the covers. “I’m so glad we got so much shopping done yesterday, I think I’m about to keel over, I’m—”
A sneeze cuts Maya off, one she clearly wasn’t expecting, judging by the way it splits her sentence and bends her messily in half. The sound of it breaks Franziska’s heart similarly in two, there’s an ache that runs through its cadence that tells in no uncertain terms how quickly and surely the illness has taken hold.
Alright. So perhaps Franziska hadn’t been using her best judgment, she thinks as she’s muttering a soft bless you and pressing her lips into Maya’s wild black hair. Pushing through minor ailments like this was something she’d bred into herself, yes, something she viewed as an asset, but she—didn’t think about how they’d hinder anyone else. When she was sick at work she was sure to lock herself away and keep her distance, and it was just as well that her whip was a good six feet of additional motivation for anyone who didn’t listen to the uncomfortable scowl that lived on her face. It had never been a problem before, but—
Maya had changed so many things, shaken up her life in such a way. Try as she might to mark herself as resilient and adaptable, at her core Franziska was a creature of routine—when she got in a groove she worked like an absolute machine, and little change had come to that routine since she was a child. No, she’d never anticipated having to account for a holiday with a significant other, let alone one who hung all over her like a decoration, stamping kisses onto every inch of skin she could find.
Franziska had been careless, that’s what all the evidence pointed to. In her selfish desire to watch her girlfriend coo over hinge boxes and seashell crafts and dusty antiques she had inadvertently made her sick, and now she was reduced to a shivering, raspy mess that couldn’t coo over much of anything. Guilt settles over her shoulders at the heat of Maya’s skin beside her, clammy and sweat-drenched tinted an angry red.
Feeling like she’s overflowing, Franziska holds Maya closer, trying to say in her own wordless ways just how sorry she is. It’s evidently not enough, because as soon as she feels how fiercely Maya’s shivering she can’t help her tongue.
“I’m sorry,” Franziska breathes, attempting with all she is to hold her steady. “I truly didn’t mean for you to fall so ill. I am… admittedly very new to having someone so close to me.”
“It’s whatever.” Maya waves a hand, and then ruins her point with a truly nasty cough. “Just wish you woulda been more upfront with me about how shit you felt, you’re right I woulda caught it otherwise but at least then my expectations would’ve metered.”
From where her arm is wrapped around Maya, Franziska rubs her shoulder in a bid to warm her up. “You’re right. Although I… was trying to be as honest as I’m able, it’s… difficult to read how I’m feeling, most days. Background static, if anything.”
“Hm… I think I kinda get that.”
Franziska blinks down at her. “You do?”
Maya nods, chirping a little noise of affirmation. “Sometimes when I’m training I just go full zen, I guess. Whenever I’m doing endurance stuff—y’know, my usual thing under the waterfall most of the time—I reach this point where I just stop being able to feel any pain. Like, it sucks before I get there, but I always do. Background static is a good word for it.”
Apparently bringing up endurance training was not the move, because the phantom sensation of icy sheets of water crashing down over her in all their unbidden whims makes Maya shiver again, a violent jerk closer to Franziska’s side. Truthfully, Franziska is staving off chills, herself—Maya being so upfront with her symptoms pulls all the ones Franziska had been ignoring front and center.
As if reading her mind, that’s when Maya says, “Don’t think you’re off the hook just because I’m down for the count now. How are you feeling, Franzy?”
“I’ve—” she clears her throat, “—been better.”
Maya hums a little, turning her head slowly against the way her body aches, to press a kiss near the indent in Franziska’s shoulder. Out the windows the sun has yet to breach the treeline, dousing the universe in a sleepy shade of purple. It bleeds into every inch of the cabin, and Franziska wishes she could still the freezing grip on her bones long enough to enjoy it.
...wait.
“Hold on,” Franziska says suddenly, and Maya lazily comes to attention with a noise that more closely resembles a cat waking from a nap.
“I have an idea.”
The cabin is flanked by a wrap-around deck, covered in strong railing that tethers all within to what is almost a cliffside. The evergreens part in just the right way for the view of the expanse underneath to be unobscured, an impressionist painting of the world below the comfortable height of this altitude. Positioned toward the east, maybe a hair off center, this deck seems like it exists solely to watch the sun rise over the mountaintops. On this deck, there is a hot tub.
They’d not even thought to touch it, too wrapped up in existing within the cabin’s cozy walls, sleeping off the exhaustion of travel, hitting all the hotspots in town—perhaps this dreadful plague was good for something after all. The hardest part is pulling back the cover, brushing away the pine needles, getting the thing situated though the ache that’s bursting through the both of their nerves. They manage, though, sinking down into the churning waters with just enough time to spare as the sun crosses the horizon, bathing the forest below them in light.
Nestled in the corner, Maya crawls her way onto Franziska’s lap, the two of them angled with the jets all but pelting their backs in bliss. Franziska has to hiss to hold back a frankly unbecoming moan when the first one hits her shoulder blade, melting her into a rhythm of relief she hadn’t realized she needed. She feels her whole body go slack the second it makes contact, wrapping her arms around Maya and melting in relief.
Maya’s shivers seem to have abated, for now, and she drapes her arms around Franziska’s neck and tilts their heads together, enjoying the warmth on her freezing body and the chilly mountain air on her overheated head. Golden sunlight spills over the expanse just beyond, and over the rumble of the bubbling waters the birdsong is a sopor spell, threatening to pull them back into sleep. Franziska does start drifting, for a moment—heavy-lidded and more tranquil than she’s ever felt—only for the waterspray and chlorine to tickle Maya’s nose. The resulting sneeze jolts Franziska out of half-sleep, an impossibly endearing sound from where it’s living, clumsily caught in one still-wet hand. Heart stuttering, she noses her way into the crook of Maya’s neck, pressing a sleepy kiss there and admiring the way the first light of dawn halos hair that’s normally black as midnight.
“I really am sorry,” Franziska says once more, for good measure. “You don’t deserve this.”
“Sssshhush.” Maya sniffles in a manner that could be described as wholly unattractive to anyone else, but Franziska’s insides melt the way they always do, utterly hopeless at the way she exists. “Sharing is caring.”
“I don’t think that turn of phrase applies to illness, schatzi.”
“Well, why not?” Maya says with an eyebrow raised. “I think it’s kinda romantic. I already share everything else with you, might as well share this, too.”
“Is it really worth it, though?” Franziska says. “You sounded pretty miserable this morning.”
Maya waves a hand, a tiny cascade of water trailing off her palm. “Keeping you company and kissing you until I forget my name? Yes. Very worth it.”
To punctuate she wraps both her arms back around Franziska, leaning her cheek on her beloved’s tangled blue locks. Franziska in turn slips her arms around Maya’s waist, holding her steady and close while the water jets warm and soothing around them. Eyes on the horizon, she swallows an unseemly lump, past the throbbing ache in her throat. The sun rises over the mountains, and Maya stamps another kiss into the crown of her head, pulling back with a wheezy, contented sigh.
It is, despite everything, a very lovely sound.