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“This meat’s no good.”
Miles can really only roll his eyes at that, taking another bite with an almost exaggerated affectation. It was Franziska who had bothered him to pull over for food in the first place, and of course she would be the first to complain about its quality, picky as she’s ever been. Miles often found himself wondering if she’d have the palate of a child for the rest of her life, scowling at red wines and dumping sugar into her tea and refusing water on the guise of it being too stale, whatever on earth it was that meant. Sometimes it seemed as though she was being incorrigible just for the sake of it.
Miles has another go at his burger, and she cracks her whip so hard the silverware and glasses rattle on the diner table. He doesn’t flinch, brow tight and eyes squinted, just swallows his food dryly and stares her down with an aura of general exasperation.
“Has your hearing gone in your old age?!” She swats at the table with her free hand, the whip clearly not enough. “Put that thing down!”
“I’m not wasting a perfectly good meal just because you’re insatiably picky.”
“That’s irrelevant,” she says. “It’s not a matter of taste, the food’s off. Surely you’re not saying that you can’t tell?”
“Nothing to tell.” He keeps on eating. “You’re welcome to starve on my watch, sister dear, but I’d prefer it if you’d lighten up on the peer pressure.”
“Hmph.” Franziska pushes her plate to the side and crosses her arms, taking a hearty swig of her juice in an attempt to wash the stain of the meal away. “Every day you outdo yourself in way of being a foolishly stubborn fool, Miles Edgeworth.”
“Quite the bold claim considering who it’s coming from.”
“Bah, see if I care.” She waves a hand. “Don’t you dare come crying to me if you make yourself sick on that.”
The heat will make him sick first, he thinks as his back begins to stick to the vinyl booth. For an establishment nearly in the Nevadan desert, the little dive they were situated in definitely didn’t have much to boast about in way of proper air conditioning, nor was the dish of the day particularly spectacular. Every ounce of quality seemed to be concentrated entirely in whatever drug they brewed directly into the coffee, because Miles was on his second cup and strongly considering a third.
His sister was tapping her foot, though, clearly irate with the subpar food and the way it left her stomach growling. He knows there’s no use in telling her to just get over it after this many years by her side, so instead he rushes to finish what’s left of his lunch and flags down waitstaff to foot the bill himself. Franziska elects to twist her brother’s arm for food later, then—she’s done being adventurous with new places on this godforsaken road trip, as soon as she sees a Starbucks she’s getting a pastry and calling it good.
They haven’t even made it out of state when Miles starts sweating.
Hardly of note, at first—it’s hot out here, and he’s got his window cracked, the humidity seeping in and making it difficult for the air conditioning to do its job properly. But when he shuts it and cranks the air higher the sweating comes with shivering, and suddenly he’s white-knuckle on the steering wheel and feeling a bone-deep sense of wrongness that permeates every corner of his trembling self. Franziska’s been in and out of half-sleep for the better part of an hour, a padded sky-blue mask tied over her eyes and a neck pillow wrapped snugly around her, and oddly enough it’s the car coming to a stop that wakes her up.
She stirs to find her brother braced there, wracked with violent tremors he’s struggling to contain, shoulders high as he holds onto the wheel for dear life. In the liminal space between sleeping and waking she doesn’t have the mind to remember her walls, and so what comes out of her mouth is unmistakable, unobscured concern.
“Miles?”
“I just,” he inhales, “need a moment.”
Stupid thing to say, the thought comes immediately after. That’s not going to satisfy Franziska, but then again, what is? She’s speaking in the tones she’d speak in when they were younger—at his bedside in the dead of night, with her hand tightly grasping his own outside elevator doors, or her arms around him when the earth would shake and he’d lose half an hour, half a day. He’d have the mind to enjoy the compassion while it lasts, if being weak like this weren’t so humiliating, if he didn’t know for a fact she was about to turn on him.
His mouth is uncomfortably wet, an omen for what’s to come as he fights the horrible stab that underlines his guts twisting like they’re intent to wring themselves out. There’s cold sweat dripping down his neck, and he hangs his head and hides in the veil of his hair and screws his eyes shut and begs at least for some relief from his body, because in a minute his sister is going to start firing smug I told you so’s his way like they’re bullets from a gun. Giving into futility, he starts to plot a course.
Highway on the driver’s side. Unfortunate. Desert brush around the other side, if he made a mad dash he could probably—
No. That’s a last resort. He swallows once, twice, breathes deep and with his whole chest. He should probably explain himself, but every twitch of his throat threatens to unleash the floodgates, and his words stick there like weapons, turned against himself. Thankfully and unfortunately the two of them don’t need words, steeped in silent language from years growing up beside one another. Franziska knows all she needs to just looking at the way he meters his breathing, deep and slow and fighting for control.
“There’s a hotel past the next exit here.” She had pulled out her phone at some point, was pinching at the touchscreen with a steady furrow in her brow. “Do you think you can make it?”
Miles blinks hard, as if to steel his will. His stomach lurches in the night with the way headlights blur past them, but making it is the only viable option. It is going to get much worse.
“I’ll certainly try.”
His words come out tortured and slow, voice a little raspy from a lack of use. As he’s pressing on the pedal his stomach twists, and folds in on itself, and protests every micromovement—but he breathes deep and swallows saliva as it pools in his mouth and somehow he manages, the world a hazy blur around him as he pulls into the lot and shakily pulls his keys from the ignition.
Franziska is quiet the entire time, with a grip on her sleeve to rival the one Miles has on the steering wheel. If he had the focus to study it, he’d see without much trouble what it told of—she worried easily, and fiercely, and detested being powerless to help. This theory would’ve been proven easily by the way she all but dragged him from the car, sat him down on a bench outside while she checked into the shabby hotel, and pulled her handkerchief from her pocket to wipe some of the sweat drenching his brow away.
“Keep breathing, just like that,” she instructs firmly as she’s doing so, her jaw set tight. “Fresh air will do you good. I’ll be back in just a minute.”
He hugs himself a little pathetically, arms tight around his stomach, and nods in affirmation as Franziska reluctantly pulls herself away. It’s been a very long time since he heard her voice melt into those soft, protective tones, the very same ones he heard every night when they were little. And she’s right, as usual—the desert air plunges somewhere crisp when the sun is down, and right now it’s a welcome balm to the burning heat beneath his skin.
Franziska works efficiently, and she works quick, when she wants to. It’s not long before she’s back with the key cards, and then Miles is being ferried down a hallway with offwhite trim and ugly, burnt sienna doors, trying not to nauseate himself further when the chemical-floral scent of freshly cleaned carpets hits his nose. They’re a few feet from the stairwell when he finds the mind to ask, “What floor?”
Probably best to know exactly how much of an ordeal he was in for, after all. She doesn’t seem pleased to be asked this question.
“Third was the best I could do,” Franziska scowls. “Can you handle that?”
He’s going to respond to her when his stomach shudders, and another wave of nausea rolls over him violently. Franziska takes a half-step back in anticipation, but to his credit Miles keeps a handle on himself and pushes forward to throw the door to the stairs open with still-trembling hands.
“Take it easy,” Franziska all but growls at him. “You’re nearly dead on your foolish feet.”
“We’re on a time limit,” Miles grumbles out, and immediately regrets it, throwing a palm over his mouth and swallowing hard. He stays like that for a few seconds, ones that feel like torturous hours as he’s fighting with all he is not to make a mess of himself right there on the stairs. As soon as his feet find the will to move again Franziska grabs his hand, instinctually squeezing it the way she always used to when they were kids.
Miles, thankfully, is very good at climbing stairs even when he’s so thoroughly food poisoned that he can barely think. Plenty of practice going to and from his twelfth floor office for upwards of forty hours every week, in all fairness three flights of stairs should be nothing. By some blessed, benevolent force their room is only a few more paces from the stairwell exit, and Franziska stomps ahead and unlocks the door before Miles can try with futility against the tremors wracking his every muscle.
In all honesty she’s expecting him to fall inside when the door opens, but Miles is a creature of surprising grace even in some of his lowest moments. She’s seen him looking like an absolute fool over far less, so it’s a little surprising when his steps remain heavy and rhythmic on the scratchy carpet underfoot, all the way to the bathroom as he quietly shuts the door behind him. The sink is switched on—a wordless courtesy, to distract from the red-hot embarrassment of it all—and then Miles falls to his knees on the cold tile floor and proceeds to be violently sick.
There’s a few goes of painful, wholly unproductive retching, full-body jerking that leaves him feeling the ache bone-deep throughout his every nerve. Frayed nails threatening to crescent his palms as he tenses, and gasps, and begs his whole system to get on with it already. That was always how it went, wasn’t it? He’d been staving off the urge for what felt like ages now, but the second he was safe to actually relieve himself his body refused to cooperate.
Eventually it gets the memo, and he convulses forward with a horrible, choked noise and rids himself of everything sitting like uncomfortable slosh in his stomach. Acid creeps into the back of his sinuses, and on his eighth painful lurch he can feel a cold tear slip down his cheek from the exertion. Both leave him sniffling, braced there for a moment in the aftershocks with his gut cramping painfully and his lungs desperate for breath.
Inhaling slowly and purposefully, Miles zeroes in on the sound of the rushing water just above his head, a welcome droll against the erratic twitches and pulses in his stomach. He feels slightly better, but the bar is in hell, one more retch and he feels like his insides might come out alongside it all. And then there are footsteps, a uniform clicking of stiletto heels that sing over the water’s hum. He thought he’d shut the door, spared his sister from the sight and sound of him, but nevertheless here she was, too eager to be at his side to even slide her shoes off.
“Are you quite finished?”
A Miles who was feeling less like death warmed over would undoubtedly have a response to that with equal bite to match. His snark muscles are sweat-drenched and useless, though, so instead he pulls a shaking hand from the toilet seat and offers her a rude gesture with his fingers, but even that is a little much. Franziska seems to accept this answer, and with a shuffling of fabric she’s on the floor beside him, now, an arm hovering around his back to give his shoulder a firm, grounding squeeze.
Miles’ eyes are pressed into his folded arm, and with his other slack Franziska has just enough of a window to fold his bangs in on themselves, touch her knuckles to his cheek. She prods, just a touch—not quite a slap, but enough movement to rouse him, make it clear she’s trying to get his attention. Miles’ stomach protests, but his sister protests more.
“Head up,” she orders. Then, a little firmer, “Now, Miles Edgeworth. I need to untie you.”
He doesn’t know what that means, and moving his head is a monumental task, but if he doesn’t do it Franziska’s going to do it for him, which sounds a million times worse than attempting. With all his strength he pulls his sweaty face from his arm, and then she's weaving her fingers around him at breakneck speed while she fidgets with his cravat, and oh, that makes sense. The fabric slips loose, and she slides it off his neck, and the lack of tightness there makes his whole body lose form with how utterly relieving it is. On a normal day, he rather liked the weight, the subtle pressure making him feel blanketed and safe—today it was choking him, damming the air as he struggled to swallow it. Somehow, Franziska knew.
His suit jacket goes next, she wiggles it off his shoulders and quietly commands him to work his arms like so to more easily shuck it with minimal exertion. She’d been crouched with one of the hotel washcloths resting atop her thigh, and once she’s got most of his outerwear off she drapes the cold thing across the back of his neck. It shocks his system for only a moment before the balm of it takes over, and Miles feels every nerve he has calm itself, the sickly pooling sensation in his stomach quieting down. Sighing a quiet sigh, he shuts his eyes again and goes back to the cover of his sleeve.
Satisfied with her work, Franziska stands, crossing her arms.
“Now, why don’t you say it,” she says. “Get it out of the way and we will promptly move on.”
Miles takes a deep, agonized breath. “You were right.”
“I was right.”
“Du hattest recht.”
“Natürlich.” Franziska can’t help but grin, despite everything. “Once is fine, Miles.”
“Covering—” a laboured swallow, “—my bases.”
“Even the most foolish of fools can be wise twice a day,” she proclaims. “That’s an American saying, yes?”
“It most certainly is not.”
Then the water is running again, and Miles hears the subtle tap of glass hitting the marble counter. If their positions were reversed this gesture would be futile—Franziska would sooner shrivel up from dehydration—but Miles was not so spiteful that he would do the same. Just… as soon as his motor functions start working again.
“You’re running a fever,” says Franziska, “and that is definitely food poisoning. Can I trust you to not choke on your own vomit if I walk to the grocery for some supplies?”
The crass phrasing of it makes him gag on its own, and Miles fights another wave of nausea with balled, shaking fists. That’s probably a no, but the question was rhetorical—Franziska burned with such a protective fire, that strange paradox of violent nurturing that only she could wear. Swallowing back bile, Miles pulls himself to less of a slump to face her, only to find her gone. It lasts for only a minute, and then she’s back with hotel pillows and comforters in hand, her bag thrown primly around her shoulder beneath them.
She tosses them on the floor a little unceremoniously in contrast to how carefully she’d arranged everything else—his suit jacket and cravat folded to perfection on the bathroom counter, a glass of water filled up and edged as close to him as she could get it, some painkillers from her bag resting in two perfectly-aligned rows on one of the dry washcloths. Miles gives her another wordless look, instinctively pulling one of the pillows close for whenever he decides his rioting guts are quiet enough to lay the hell down.
“Drink your water,” Franziska orders, sticking her chin up. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”
She does not spare his aching head the slam of the hotel room door, nor does she ask what it is he even needs from the store. Miles would expect no less from her, he thinks as he’s slowly and sorely prying himself from the bathroom floor. The meds she’s left are hard and solid, not the quick-release things he’s used to her keeping on hand, which doesn’t bode well for their overall effectiveness. Still, Miles chugs them along with his water, hoping at the very least they’ll have a chance to do something before he inevitably empties his stomach once again.
That is a problem for later, however—right now he is exhausted, and shivering, and far too weak to make it to his bed. Franziska’s bedside manner was atrocious, but her methods, at the very least, were as efficient as anything else she cared to do. Taking another deep breath, Miles makes himself a pathetic little nest on the bathroom floor, pressing his clammy face into the impossibly cool fabric of the otherwise sterile pillow and drawing the padded comforter over his shoulder as he drifts.
Miles is in the middle of more violent heaving when the sound of muttered German cursing finds his ears, just barely pushing past the ringing that comes with another two, three, four fresh waves of unrelenting nausea. Franziska finds him exactly where she left him, curled around the toilet bowl and choking wetly, somehow looking even worse. There’s a scowl on her face when Miles finally turns to face her, and she drops a too-thin grocery bag on the tile countertop with an uncharacteristic lack of grace.
“—this foolish country, foolishly littered border-to-border with only the most foolishly foolish of foolish fools—”
If he were less preoccupied Miles could probably attempt to clue himself in to whatever it was she was so upset about. Instead he just jerks forward and pukes more formless bile into the shifting waters his nose is all but pressed to.
“You sound wretched as ever,” Franziska says to that, crouching down to touch at his face. “Still blazing, too, did you take your medicine?”
“I took it,” Miles says, pulling back to dab at his mouth with the washcloth she’d left. “And then I un-took it.”
“Can’t trust you and your foolish gastrointestinal processes to do anything right, can I? Hmph.”
Miles clears his throat, angling her a sarcastic glare. “You certainly seem to be having a rough go of it this evening.”
“I can’t stand these United States, Miles!” She throws up her arms. “Every time I set foot in one of your foolish American supermarkets I’m reminded of why I spend so little time on leisure in this foolishly foolish—”
“It’s the bread again, isn’t it?”
“It’s the bread!” He flinches at the volume she growls the last word at, cracking her whip at a general nothing for emphasis. “This paltry selection, how do you survive so solely on that overprocessed white nonsense? And they dare to slap a German name on there like it means anything, the absolute audacity of those foolhardy—there’s no zwieback, Miles, how am I to nurse you back to health in these conditions?”
“Saltines,” he offers, plainly, “and sparkling water. Which I could have told you, had you not left without consulting me.”
“Saltines and sparkling water,” she imitates him, exaggerated American accent and all. “Bah. Anyways, I brought you pretzels and cola. It is hardly up to standard, but it will have to do.”
Again he eyes the bag on the counter with his stomach already doing more flips. The plastic is full to bursting, likely because Franziska assumed a good deal of it would not be digested.
“Did you at least have a mind to get me diet cola?”
“Absolutely not, you need sugar.” She whips the floor. “Have a pretzel stick and try some more meds. I’ll get the bed ready for you.”
With that she’s off again, stomping away into the other room with a gait that dares anything to get in her way. Miles is in the middle of standing when he fully realizes the extent to which he’s smiling, despite everything. Franziska was not a delicate person, but he sometimes forgot to remind himself that she was also the furthest thing from heartless.