Work Text:
“Hey mister, you can’t park here,” came an angry tap on the window of Larry’s orange 1995 Camry. The little acolytes had scattered when he pulled in, tires crunching across the gravel of the makeshift parking lot of Kurain village. Even Pearl had ducked inside the manor, not recognizing him frantically waving.
The window rolled down with a stutter, nearly getting stuck halfway as Larry twisted the lever. The window lowered to reveal Maya Fey, arms crossed and hip jutting out in annoyance. The scowl on her face was cutting, the kind of thing he expected from Edgey. Not Maya.
Something caught in Larry’s throat. Maya’s expression was ten entire degrees colder than anything Elise had ever sent his way, but he couldn’t help the lurch. They had the same eyes. He had forgotten how much they had the same eyes.
“Oh. Laurice,” Maya groaned.
“Yep, that’s me!” Larry grinned. “I heard it’s someone’s twenty-first birthday today!” he sing-songed.
“What’s it to you, Laurice?” Maya interrogated him with the same ruthlessness he’d seen Nicky and Edgey perform, shoulders set and finger pointing down at him.
“I thought I’d take you out to celebrate. Everyone needs an older friend to go with, right?”
At that Maya stiffened and craned her neck just slightly, focusing on some point behind Larry’s head. A double take revealed nothing—and, oh, she had been hoping the diffuse shadows of the passenger seat would unblur and reveal Nicky beside him, and his daughter in the back.
Larry caught her eye, the moment sticking between them. But like with a lot of things in his life, Larry folded first, dragging his gaze away from the emotions playing across Maya’s face within only a few moments. He heard her take a shaky breath, and the crunch of her feet on gravel. Perhaps this hadn’t been a good idea after all.
“Yeah, okay. Sounds cool, I guess,” Maya mumbled, grabbing at her sleeve. “Just let me go change.”
The ground was wet in the first dredges of spring, winter not yet having given up its hold, and Maya flounced away with a squelch. Every few feet or so she turned to look back at him, narrowing her eyes, as if worried he’d disappear if she didn’t double check. But before too long she was in the manor, slamming the door closed behind her, and Larry was left alone with nothing but his thoughts and his car.
He tapped on his steering wheel to the beat in his head, drumming along to Nickelback’s ‘Rockstar’. It wasn’t until he’d gotten through the song two and a half times that he felt a prickle of sweat on his neck. He needed something else to do with his hands.
Looking around his car, the mess that had previously faded into sight blindness seemed to suddenly blare to life. Most of it was art supplies that he actually had specific places for, but somehow they always seemed to creep their way out of those places to the rest of his car when he wasn’t looking.
By the time Larry had cleaned the front passenger seat to a level he deemed acceptable, Maya still wasn’t back. His palms were beginning to sweat too. He looked at the manor as if staring it down it would give up its secrets to him, and summon Maya Fey through the watery spring air.
With nothing left to do, Larry twisted around to palm the delicately wrapped packages in the back, thumbing along the deep crease in one made when he used too much tape and tried to course correct with… more tape. He sucked in a breath at the oblong one, wrapped worse through shaking hands. He had an old hoodie in the back that he’d meant to give to his last girlfriend, he could cover it with that, leaving only the smaller, round gift visible.
The decision was made for him when the door screeched open and Maya flopped into the passenger seat.
Larry suddenly realized he had never seen Maya out of her acolyte robes. Casual for her apparently meant purple high tops, dark jeans, and an Ivy U pullover that she had to roll the sleeves up three times. It looked—but it couldn’t be—but it might be—Larry was pretty sure the sweater was one of Nicky’s old ones.
“Let’s just go,” Maya sighed out with resignation.
Shlorp! Maya held direct eye contact with Larry as she took the first sip of her fifth drink of the night. This one was a fizzy electric blue something or other—Larry had stopped paying attention to their names around the third one. With a soft swallow, Maya furrowed her brows and considered the drink. Larry swore he saw her mouth twitch, almost about to smile and he let relief warm his gut.
It was a premature celebration, when Maya wrinkled her nose and declared “That one is disgusting too,” drawing out the syllables of disgusting, and pushing the drink away from her towards Larry.
He swallowed it down in one shot, still not even close to tipsy.
“Buy me something else,” Maya demanded, pointing randomly to a drink on the cocktails list, something named ‘Honey Badger Blitz’.
Larry grinned, scratching at the back of his head. “’Course, of course,” he chuckled.
With a lazy swish of his hand he waved over the waitress again, exchanging flirty one liners with her until Maya glowered at him to get on with it. It was a long empty five minutes of silence until the nice woman came back with a green drink that she put in front of Maya with a chirpy laugh, trying to engage the young woman in friendly conversation. Maya sent her away with a glare.
This time Maya did not take a sip right away. She took the sweating glass in hand and stirred the ice with her straw, eyes unfocused towards the table between them. The drink sloshed a little as she stirred and Larry watched her hand tighten against the glass, the straw crumpled soft between her fingers.
Maya made sharp eye contact again. “Laurice, why are you even here?” she snapped out.
“To celebrate your twenty-first birthday, My.” He had heard Nicky use the nickname on Maya before, saw the way it had always lit up her smile. Maya was not smiling now. Larry had a sinking feeling that he had said the wrong thing, as usual.
Maya banged her little fist on the table, sending ripples through the ‘Honey Badger Blitz’ and the pint of light beer Larry had been nursing all night. “Do not call me that. Nick can call me that. And you’re not Nick.”
Maya’s voice rose through the octaves, tremulous and heavy as she continued talking, “You’re just some pathetic loser who my baby cousin practically had to parent during the worst crisis of both our lives. You barely even know me.”
Maya reached across the booth to smash her finger into his chest at each syllable, asking sharply, “So why take me out for my birthday?”
“Any little sister of Nicky’s is a little sister of mine!”
“I don’t need another older brother, Laurice, my previous two are doing just fine!” Maya growled sarcastically. Fine being in jail, in the case of Godot, and disbarred, in the case of Phoenix.
Larry licked his lips and tried again. “I didn’t want you to be alone on your birthday, Maya,” he said quietly. “It really blows.” Digging to his back pocket Larry fished out his wallet and carefully extracted a weathered photo.
He slid it across the table, avoiding the small wet patches of alcohol until it was in front of Maya. It seemed like she might ignore it at first, her anger so comfortable as to be inescapable, but she must have caught the earnest curve of Larry’s mouth, or the soft tremble in his hand, because eventually she picked the photo up to examine it.
Larry had memorized it. Him, wearing two party hats, double fisting two beers, face down on a grimy bar table that should’ve been for two (or three).
“Nicky and Edgey didn’t come to my twenty-first either,” Larry explained, quietly embarrassed at Maya’s gentle scrutiny.
“What the fuck?” Maya swore, and Larry flinched at the foul language.
“Nick couldn’t even be bothered to go to your party?”
It felt—Weird. For someone to be angry on his behalf. It was a rare shade he’d never tried on before.
Habitually, his tongue stammered out excuses. “Well, it’s not a big deal, I mean, Edgey was, y’know, Edgey, and Nicky was so busy studying to save him. It’s fine really. I mean. It’s just my birthday party. Something probably would’ve gone wrong anyways. And Nicky always means well, he probably needed the night to himself, right?” Larry grew quieter and quieter as he talked, the excuses sounding hollower the longer they went on.
Maya watched him, biting her lip. As he petered off into silence, something in her seemed to break and Larry swore he saw the exact moment, and his own heart broke for her.
Maya scrunched up her face and sobbed. In mere moments she was red faced and bawling her eyes out, sniffling disgustingly and wiping her nose on the sleeves of Nicky’s sweater.
“I’m, I’m, I’m,” Maya struggled to get out the words, breath huffing with her tears. “Sorry,” she wailed. She sniffed wetly and tried again. “I’ve been such an asshole to you Larry. You’re being so nice.”
She swallowed and choked out, “I miss him so much.”
Larry willed himself to move. He was used to women crying about him, not at him, and he needed to get up and move. His feet were smarter than his head, and he was crossing to Maya’s side of the booth, and asking if he could sit next to her and she was clinging to him, and his head was rushing high and fast.
Maya shook in his arms, let him pat her back, sobbed into his chest. Eventually, voice hoarse, she explained further, “I’m such a shitty sister. Nick is going through the worst time of his life and he won’t let me help him. I haven’t talked to him for months, and I thought maybe today, he might… Sometimes I get scared that he hates me now, and it’s so stupid, and I’m supposed to be a good little sister, how can I even think he hates me? He has so much bigger things to worry about and I’m crying like a baby because he won’t give me attention. I’m supposed to be better than this for him. And I don’t have anyone else, Larry. I want Nick. I want my mom. I want Mia.”
What did he even say to the girl sobbing again in his arms? How could he comfort her? But then suddenly he knew, with a visceral heartsick grief. On his own twenty-first birthday, he hadn’t cried in the bar. He made it all the way home, before he sobbed his eyes out. It was the loneliest he had ever been. And it was how lonely Maya was now.
He thought about what he’d say to littler Larry then, what he’d say to Maya now. Maybe she wouldn’t have to end the night sobbing into her pillow.
“You’re not a bad sister Maya. Not at all. It’s okay if you want Nicky’s attention. Being lonely hurts so much. It really, really hurts. And you can only distract yourself for so long,” he mused bitterly. “But maybe, neither of us has to be alone. I won’t try and be your big brother, but I’d really like to be your friend, if you’ll let me?”
Maya wiggled and cried as he patted her back, but it felt like she was nodding along.
“And I’m going to kick Nicky’s ass for you!” Larry wailed out, in his typical hysteria. “He has no excuse breaking a girl’s heart like that!”
Maya, finally, finally laughed, and looked up at him, lashes wet with tears to say “Maybe just tell him to call me sometime, okay?”
“Okay,” Larry agreed.
Maya pushed him away after that, and Larry wisely went back to his side of the booth, waiting for Maya to properly calm down and compose herself.
“So, friends?” he asked, sipping his beer as Maya finished wiping her eyes.
She nodded, looking guiltily at the barely touched drink in front of her and the empty glasses piled on the table.
“Larry, I don’t think I really want to drink tonight. Sorry for wasting all your money.” Maya fiddled with her straw, shamefaced.
“Don’t worry about it,” Larry laughed flippantly, “I get free drinks because an ex-girlfriend works here. I probably should’ve asked you what you wanted to do anyways.”
Maya considered for a moment before suggesting, “Maybe bowling? Or an arcade?”
“Why not both?” Larry responded with a wink.
Kershunk!
The tinny speakers of the little tv above them rattled static as it warbled through the celebration of Maya scoring a turkey in bowling.
Whirling around from the perfect stance she had frozen in, to watch the ball whoosh down the center line perfectly, Maya flashed him a peace sign and a megawatt grin.
“And that’s three! Pay up Larry,” she demanded, practically skipping over to him.
Pulling out a five-dollar bill, he placed it into her open palm. His wallet was getting uncomfortably light at this point and he was starting to suspect that Maya was much better at bowling than she had initially claimed.
“You would think you’d be nicer to a guy who’s paying for everything, and let him win once in a while,” Larry joked.
“Nah, that’s how you know I really like you, is when I exploit your kindness and generosity,” Maya barked back with a wink.
Larry hadn’t missed the way she’d been subtly stuffing a few of the five dollar bills back into the pocket of his suit jacket; he’d taken it off earlier, and was still too hot, but it was fun to pretend he was going to put it back on and see Maya panic that he might find out that she actually thought of him as a good friend after all.
Teasingly, he went to put on his jacket again, exaggerating every movement, and pitching his voice up into a joking falsetto, “You know, it’s kind of cold in here, maybe I’ll put my jacket on?”
“You’re so right!” Maya shouted back, oozy with pretend ditzyness. Sliding on her bowling shoes, she speedily grabbed his jacket and jammed her own tiny frame into it, giggling like mad.
Larry smiled lopsided, it was a relief to see her like this compared to earlier.
The jacket fit over Maya’s borrowed pullover poorly, bulging in the arms and too big in the waist, not even fitting where the fabric nipped in at his hips when he wore it. She looked down at it, up at him, and he followed her gaze back down to the jacket, the two of them repeating the movement a few times until deep laughter erupted slowly from Maya’s chest, gaining a wonderful fullness, until they were near breathless. Once he was sure it was real laughter (not at him for once too!) he allowed himself to breakdown with her, adding his deep throaty laugh-snorts to the mix.
Twirling in the too large jacket, Maya laughed until her stomach hurt. As the mirth faded quickly as it came, she dug her hands in the pockets, feeling the scrunch of money she had put back in both of them, toes curling at the texture.
As she rolled on her feet, shifting her weight forward and back, Larry watched her face turn soft and sad, eyes lost somewhere in the blurry back of the bowling alley, looking at everything and nothing.
“Mia used to hustle guys at bowling all the time, y’know?” Maya murmured.
“It was actually pretty annoying, sometimes,” she admitted, in a careful way that Larry was intimately familiar with. Elise wasn’t perfect either, but how did you talk about it when they were dead?
“Mostly it was because she’d pay more attention to them than to me. And we couldn’t just have fun bowling. She did teach me to throw a strike at least.” The laugh that escaped Maya’s mouth was a little too fake for Larry, bitterness bit back into shape, a nice and gentle lie.
“Is this,” Larry paused and licked his lips, frightened of the answer, “fun?”
Maya snapped her gaze to him. And beamed, megawatt and brilliant. “Yeah, actually, you’re pretty fun to play against, Larry.”
Larry’s heart flipped. It was probably indigestion, even though they still hadn’t eaten. Yeah, indigestion or something. Thankfully, Larry didn’t have to think about what the ‘or something’ might be, because Maya’s stomach interrupted the meaningful silence.
Maya grinned, somehow, even harder, the edges of it gleaming with mischief. “Guess who gets to spend the rest of his money on food?”
A snort. “I bet he’s a really cool and fun friend type, right?” Larry fished.
“Right,” Maya replied with a wink.
In the end, it was Maya who got the food for them, when Larry remembered the presents for her tucked carefully in the back seat of his car, and had to go get them. He hesitated again at the oblong one, the package heavy with expectation. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea. But. Well. It was already wrapped.
The night felt fragile though. What if he fucked it up again with Maya? He wanted to be friends with her. She was one of Nicky’s Very Important People. (Even if he was doing a poor job of showing it recently.) And Elise was her mother. Every life at Dusky Bridge had changed, and now they were all scattered away, full of pain and sadness and anger. Larry wasn’t good at much, he thought, but he was good at dragging them all back together, he was the sad wet glue that refused to let them go.
The oblong package fit snug under his arm when he took it, the other present held tight in front of his chest. He would reach Maya, he would start with her, and bring everyone back together, slowly.
The plan completely fell apart when he saw her wave him down from a booth near the back of the bowling alley/arcade he’d taken her to, and he shoved the unruly oblong package behind his back, twisting his wrist uncomfortably to hold it there.
When he got to the booth he shuffled in, delicately balancing the present to keep it both safe and unseen by Maya. The veritable feast laid out before him came into sharp focus as he sunk into the deflated booth seats, maneuvering the package out of Maya’s line of sight. If she noticed, she was polite enough to pretend otherwise.
“I told them it was my birthday and got a bunch of free food, Larry!” Maya cheered around a mouthful of burger.
He wasn’t sure he could eat just yet, no matter how good it smelt. But he was glad Maya could. He’d known a lot of women who didn’t want to eat much around him, worried about what he’d think of them. What he thought was that they deserved to eat and feel full. What usually tangled its way out of his mouth, jumbled without his consent by his damn brain, usually had the opposite effect. For that reason, he said nothing, and waited.
Maya let him wait, not pointing out the very clear round package peeking up from his lap until she was licking the grease off her fingers.
“What’s that?” she asked, with a coy little smile that said she knew already.
“Just a birthday present,” Larry shrugged. “Picture book money came in, so… no more coupon books as gifts for this guy!” He thumbed towards himself awkwardly.
Maya pushed her food aside and wiggled her fingers, hands grabby for her gift.
It was easy to hand over, light as he passed it across the table. The package was a fat cylinder that fit easily in Maya’s small hands. On that one the wrapping was nice, each fold and crease of the paper well wrought. A brief snowfall of wrapping paper later, and the present was sitting in front of Maya in all its glory: a cylinder that contained Eau Du Law , an incredibly pungent lotion with the tagline “Tough on dry skin, like we’re tough on crime!”
“Uh, thanks Larry,” Maya said, the slightest wobble in her cheerful voice, and a smile that was a little too wide.
Oh god, Larry recognized that smile and tone. It was the one women always gave him when they were pretending to like his gifts. He thought it was a great gift. Isn’t that what young women were into? Lotion? Especially expensive lotion!
“What about that one?” Maya asked, pointing at the one thing he didn’t want her to be pointing at.
“That one’s not as cool,” Larry admitted, crestfallen. He picked at the skin on his finger nails. “I made it.”
He didn’t add: you know how me making stuff for Feys goes. Even he knew better than to talk about his tentative new friend’s dead sister at her birthday.
“You know, us ladies don’t like it when you tell us how to feel about you, Larry. Why don’t you give it to me anyways, and I’ll tell you if it’s actually cool or not, okay?” Maya suggested, gentle and warm.
Larry grumbled, but did as she requested, handing over the oblong package. That time was hard, it was heavy, so heavy, and the meaning behind the gift was not fun or easy.
This one Maya took her time with, running her fingers across the wrapping paper, feeling the place where he’d used too much tape, peeling the paper back, revealing inch by inch the gift he’d laboured over for hours.
It was watercolor. A portrait of Elise, holding her book, looking at the viewer with the kindest eyes Larry had ever known. The eyes had taken forever, a part of the painting that he laboured over for weeks. He couldn’t remember their exact color, the way light would glint off them when she gave him a kind word, and pictures didn’t hold the same spark, couldn’t capture the electricity.
“It’s, uh. It’s your mom,” Larry explained awkwardly. He cringed; of course she knew it was her mom!
Maya didn’t say anything for a long time. She ran her finger with the lightest touch over her mother’s face, as though she could really feel the warmth of her cheek and the crinkle of her smile. She hugged the painting carefully to her chest, tucking it under her chin and meeting Larry’s eyes.
“She’s beautiful,” Maya murmured, eyes wet. “Thank you, Larry.” The thanks was heavy, full of unspoken feelings and tangled emotions, the kind that were too big to talk about under the neon lights of a bowling alley-arcade.
When Larry swallowed, it was a half choke down his throat, clogged with memories of Elise. The burger in his hand dripped without him noticing, as he watched Maya move the painting back again to take in the face of her mother, hands shaking with effort to avoid touching the delicate canvas again. A few tears snuck out of her eyes and she sniffled wetly. He dared not even breathe too hard. This was a moment to absolutely not fuck up.
Something must have drawn her gaze, because a few slow moments later Maya was looking at him, and then a smile was cracking lightning across her face, and she was laughing, pointing at him with one hand and holding the painting safe with the other.
“Y-You spilled mustard down your entire shirt!” Maya laughed full and loud.
Larry looked down at himself and laughed. He had spilled mustard all down his shirt. On the plus side, at least the stain wouldn’t clash with the color of his jacket.
As his laughter died down his cheeks pinked a little, and a maybe Maya noticed the way he had to hold back a flinch, laughing with someone always made things better, helped him pretend they weren’t laughing at him. But the Feys were perceptive and she saw right through his facade.
Putting the painting of her mother aside, Maya smiled tightly, and cocked her head to the side. “I think I spilled some mayo on my shirt too,” she offered, pointing to a tiny stain near the collar of her shirt and laughing at herself.
She really was laughing with him.
“Thanks Mayo,” he grinned.
The fuck-up that had slipped out of his mouth didn’t quite register at first, but when it did, his entire face blanched.
Maya snorted gross and loud, hiccupping with laughter, “You too Mustard!”
“Now hurry up and let’s eat so I can beat you at more arcade games!” Maya added, eyes bright with challenge.
It was 2 AM and pitch black in the village when Larry pulled in again. In the quiet overwhelm of too many stars, Maya was trying to keep her eyes open—and failing comically, as each time her chin dipped, she startled herself awake again, only for the cycle to repeat again mere moments later.
“Mayo, wake up, your birthday’s over.” Larry shook her shoulder gently.
“Thank yoooouuu Mustard,” Maya slurred, sleepily nudging his hand away. “Now go ‘way, there’s a pretty girl.”
Larry’s hand hovered near her shoulder, and then he relaxed again, the movement melting away in the dark.
“Yeah, okay.” He leaned against the steering wheel and tried to count the stars.
Later, he’d wake Maya properly, try to hand her the painting before she crushed his ribs in a hug and asked if he’d come to her birthday again next year. Later, he’d promise that he would and that next time he’d make sure Edgey and Nicky are there, no matter if he has to drag them. Later, Maya would laugh and say she’d help and trudge her way back to the manor with the painting in her arms, slow in the cool night air.
But that was later.
For the moment Larry leaned back, let the gentle hush of his breath slow even further and closed his eyes, let himself consider the day a win, let the soft contentment of the moment linger in the dark.