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There existed certain blends of emptiness that, when looked into for long enough, threatened to swallow the gazer whole.
Franziska had heard tales of these distinct abysses, of course. The cold, uncaring void of space. The way the dark waves churned beneath shipsteel in the dead of night. Looking off the top of a foggy mountain and into the shapeless chasm below. There was a vastness that felt as though it was intent to pull one in, so vacant and sprawling that its magnetism was palpable.
‘Overpriced apartment medicine cabinet’ was probably a new one.
The absolute lack of anything useful within it certainly makes Franziska feel like she wants to vanish into the unforgiving depths of some deep dark hole somewhere.
It’s so embarrassing, she tries not to think as she scrutinizes it. There’s one single half-full bottle of antihistamines for whenever Miles comes over (for her, if he brings his dog, and for him, if she brings her affinity for flowering houseplants). Her prescribed antipsychotic, some ginger chews for the nausea it occasionally brought on, and a years-old, dust-covered bottle of hydrocodone that might be considered illicit with how long past the expiration date it is.
Franziska doesn’t know, because she’s not a lawyer right now. She’s a shapeless entity made of anxiety and shame, wondering how she could drop the ball so hard.
Still, she can hear her Papa’s voice echoing in the back of her mind, the same exasperated tone he always took on when she’d scrunch up her brow, squint her eyes, give herself a headache staring like this. Glaring daggers at the case file isn’t going to make it change, Franziska.
For all his faults, he was often right. Holding back the urge to sigh, Franziska slowly closes the thing, trying to avert her eyes from the oval-shaped mirror attached to its front. She can’t really bear to look at her own reflection right now, how foolishly incompetent she must appear.
Her superiors back home were always getting on her case about taking sick days, rest days, mental health days. She’d risked insubordination more than a few times, leather clenched tightly in her hand as she informed them that no, she would not be using her paid time off. Because a von Karma did not find any greater joy than the joy they found in work, and moreover, a von Karma certainly did not get sick. Why on earth would she need the forethought to buy cold medicine? So it could rot in the cabinet with its shiny plastic seal untouched? Bah.
If somehow the unthinkable happened—if some maniac crafted a bioweapon and shot her point blank with some beam of pure virus—and she did somehow fall ill, she had no problem just buying the necessary medication in the moment, tossing it when she was done. Moments like these, where she’s sure she’d thought of all the possible scenarios, only to have the rug pulled out from under her… they never stopped feeling as though she was cliffdiving, fearful and sprawled out with nothing to grasp onto.
From the other room, she hears Maya let loose what can only be described as a roaring sneeze. Its sound scrapes across Franziska’s beating heart much in the same way it scrapes her girlfriend’s throat. What is she doing, standing around like some kind of fool? Franziska takes a deep breath, exiting the bathroom, making an attempt to gather herself as she skulks through the hallway.
Maya doesn’t hear her approach—too engrossed in whatever she’s watching on her laptop to notice. It’s like the air pressure changes when Franziska walks into the room, there’s a heaviness that seems to bear down on her and make her feel weak and struggling. She wonders if it’s the weight of that aforementioned shame, or simply the presence of what is quickly shaping up to be a sick room. Maya really should be in bed, but Franziska does appreciate her willingness to softly quarantine herself like this, pointless as it is.
Unaware, Maya puts up no facade. She allows her features to droop like a wilting flower, or what of them Franziska can see peeking out from their veil. Said veil, at present, is the thickest comforter in the house pulled up to her chin, and a bag of frozen peas on her head, because Franziska couldn’t even be bothered to have a proper ice pack. Again, that angry and protective squeeze wrenches at her heart, she has to move her hands, she has to do something.
Starting small, she clears her throat, and watches as Maya visibly brightens.
“Maya Fey,” she says, “I regret to be the bearer of bad news, but it seems as though my living space is woefully unprepared to properly nurse you back to health.”
“Are you drafting me a fucking work email right now?” Maya says through a stuffy rasp, and turns her head over the arm of the couch to look at her upside-down girlfriend. The peas fall unremarkably to the floor.
“Babe, I keep telling you it’s fine,” Maya carries on, “I’ll veg out for a few days until I feel better. It’s just a cold.”
Franziska’s not listening, though—presumably trying to find a way to pierce the fabric of her sleeve with the force at which she’s gripping it. When she grows tired of that, she struts over to the poor, unattended bag of peas on the floor, attempting to affix it back to Maya’s brow where it belongs.
“You can probably just use a wet towel for this, Franzy.”
“That’s less efficient.” She waves Maya off. “And I sincerely doubt it’s just a cold with how quickly you spiked that fever.”
“I always get like that.”
Maya makes some attempt to wiggle away, but her body protests, not having any of it. She ends up wincing and slumping back down into her nest of blankets instead, suppressing a shiver when Franziska places the dreadfully cold thing on her head. The chill that runs through her sticks there in her nose, and Franziska tries her damnedest not to stare at Maya’s overdramatic wind-up as she makes a poor attempt to bury another pair of wrenching sneezes into her hands. The peas fall off again.
Eyes shut tight in pain, Maya attempts a sniffle, but the stubborn wall of congestion she’s fighting doesn’t dare chip a single brick. When she manages to blur herself back into the real world, Franziska looks like she might be on the verge of tearing herself limb from bloody limb—face scrunched in something near furious, foot tapping so quick it threatens to spark the hardwood, white knuckle grip on the sleeve of her blouse.
“Franzy.”
The pacing begins.
“This is unacceptable, this is unforgivable, I’m—”
“Why are you so torn up about this?” Maya grabs the bag of peas herself this time, plopping them back atop her bedhead. “Look, your couch is comfy. I got my soaps. And there’s a bangin’ hot European lady doing laps around her kitchen for me to stare at. Literally what more could I ask for?”
“Plenty,” Franziska says, squinting at the ornate analog-clock on the far end of the room. Then at her phone. Then back at the clock. Outside, a particularly obnoxious revving of an engine sees her perking up like a dog that’s just heard a bell ring. Her phone vibrates, and now it’s Maya’s turn to squint as Franziska’s furiously answering.
“What on earth took you so long to get here, you foolish slug of a man?!”
Maya raises an eyebrow. Gumshoe?
“What use is that pathetic, gaudy, overpriced, fuel-inefficient slag heap of metal you call a vehicle if you’re not even smart enough to make use of its horrendously illegal penchant for speed?!”
Edgeworth.
As she’s ranting at him, Franziska begins a routine that Maya can only describe as angry momentum. This is something she does often, where she somehow finds a way to loudly seethe while she is attending to tasks that must be completed. Right now, it takes the form of her slipping on and zipping up her booties, shuffling into her coat, double-checking her hair in the mirror—all the while ranting and raving what Maya can only assume are some very creative insults in German. Edgeworth had said once that Franziska, scathing as she was, was far more clever and sharp-tongued in her first language. Maya couldn’t fathom the idea of Franziska being any more eloquent than usual, and frankly she sounded so unbelievably sexy speaking it right now that thinking about much else was nigh impossible.
Just like that, Franziska is cramming her phone back in her jacket pocket, clasped up and ready to go. All at once, that anger vanishes—her eyes go soft and sleepy, the way they always did when she smiled. Maya’s obsessed with those eyes, downturned and half-lidded even when Franziska’s trying to chisel the smirk on her face into something sharp and smug. The love she’s moving with now, well, it’s like sugar hitting her tastebuds after eating something salty. Contrast makes it so much brighter, and Maya feels twice as dizzy with the rosy hue of its shape.
Franziska’s circled the couch, facing her beloved head on. Up close, Maya can see the subtle traces of worry swimming in her eyes. Then there’s a hand on her cheek—calloused and strong, boundlessly tender still.
“My dearest,” says Franziska, “I vow to you, I shall set this right.”
“Okay, now you’re giving oath-bound warrior on a perilous quest.”
“‘Giving?’ What am I giving her?”
“Nevermind.” Maya smiles adoringly into her palm. “Will you be gone long?”
“That is up to the fools that clog your foolish Californian infrastructure with their equally foolish automobiles.”
“Ughhhh. Tell me about it.” Maya falls back dramatically, out of her girlfriend’s touch.
“You’re always welcome to call me, of course,” Franziska says. “I’ll just be running some errands in the interest of making you more comfortable.”
Peering up at her, Maya makes an attempt to brighten her eyes, hiding how… sensitive she’s feeling about all this. The thought of being spoiled by her pretty girlfriend is pretty great, even if it means having to spend some time away from her.
“I love you, Franzy.”
They’re new, fledgling and nervous, and Franziska’s still not used to this. While she’s certain, finally, that there’s people out there who do love her, no one but Maya has ever spoken those words aloud. She doesn’t know why they stick in her own throat so often, too gummy and viscous to slip out. Maya’s so patient, though, it’s as though she doesn’t mind at all.
“I…”
She’s going to say it. It’s there, on the tip of her tongue, despite the foolish burn of embarrassment and discomfort that singes slow across her chest. This time, the words are stolen when Miles fucking Edgeworth decides to lay his hand across his godawful car-horn.
“—AM GOING TO CHOKE THAT MAN OUT WITH HIS OWN CRAVAT!”
Maya, true to herself, starts laughing so hard she falls into a coughing fit.
The first thing Miles notices is that Franziska still has not broken her stubborn habit of refusing to use a shopping cart.
It’s just before noon in LA, the lingering autumn sun high and bright in the sky, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the buckets of sweat pouring off Franziska’s face as she’s nearing the parked car. She must be carrying at least six grocery bags, what on earth she’d need to buy this much for Miles can’t even fathom. He turns the radio down as she approaches, knowing there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of her appreciating the fandom podcast he’s got on. She’d like it about as much as she’d like him offering to carry her bags for her.
Mindlessly he unlocks the back, watching boredly in the rearview mirror as his sister furiously arranges bags that are uneven and intent to topple to their side. The sight of it’s a little strange, because Franziska usually brought her own totes when she went shopping—but oh, no, they’re there, they just weren’t enough. How low the mighty have fallen, then, so taken by the spirit of retail that they could not manage it in two bags.
A polite man would not comment on what a lady has chosen to buy. But Franziska’s not a lady, and by her own designation Miles is her annoying little brother, and so instead he raises an eyebrow as she’s fighting for her life in his backseat.
“Did you purchase three humidifiers?”
“Hmph. Should I have gotten four?”
The sentence is segmented in its tone—indignant and huffed out at first, and then upturning into something oddly genuine by the end. Miles recognizes the patchwork of it—she’s out of her depth and pretending she’s not.
Hm. Careful navigation, then.
“Forgive me for asking,” he says as she’s breathing heavy, glacially pulling herself into the passenger seat, “but may I ask what inspired this rather passionate demand for a sudden grocery trip?”
She’s angled down, in the process of strapping on her seatbelt, but Miles can just barely register the annoyed twitch of an eyebrow.
“You may not.”
“I’ll rephrase,” says Miles, keying at the ignition and finally pulling out of the spot. “Would you like the illusion of telling me before I use simple logic to figure it out?”
Franziska looks about the same way she always does—back straight, eyes forward, chin high, arms crossed. It’s there, though—the nervous scrunch of her sleeve, slightly stiffer and more emphatic than usual. Miles watches as she purses her lips, in that angry, scowling way she always did, like she was trying to hold back the urge to bare her teeth.
“There is no shame in looking after my loved ones, Miles,” she finally says, staring out at the road ahead. Miles ignores the fact that at no point did he try to shame her.
“Certainly not,” he agrees, and she scoffs, as if their agreement alone is a blow to her ego. “Is Miss Fey quite alright, though? If she’s fallen ill, this seems a bit excessive for—”
“It is perfectly reasonable!” Franziska snaps. “My sick girlfriend will see love and care the likes of which no one has ever dared witness!”
Again, Miles eyes the excessive amount of supplies in the back—all those humidifiers alongside the necessary scents and medicinals, what looks to be the entire cold & flu aisle of a big box retailer, a gratuitous amount of hyperspecific tea blends. He knows from being thoroughly beaten as a child, but it’s still a little phenomenal, how much arm strength Franziska has to carry all of that.
“Yes, I can see that,” says Miles unremarkably. “Now, would you care to tell me what you’re plugging into my GPS?”
“We are going to Monrovia.”
Face scrunched as she taps far too violently at the touch screen, the intensity in her eyes betrays entirely the matter of fact way she says it.
“Why,” says Miles, “are we going to Monrovia?”
“Instant noodles,” Franziska says.
“Instant noodles,” echoes her brother.
A silence, then. The car hums underfoot as it breaks onto the highway, a soon-to-be low-hanging sun breaking across their faces. With a synchronicity that almost reads as parodic, the both of them flip down the visors overhead. Miles pretends to ignore Franziska shooting him a venomous look that proclaims, in a voice he hasn’t heard since he was a young adult, stop copying me!
Finally, after a minute or two, he breaks the silence.
“Could you not have just—”
“I could not, Miles Edgeworth.”
“I see.” He stares at the glint of the sun ricocheting off the countless cars that flank them, an ugly rainbow of jeweltoned Americana. “Why is that?”
“Hmph,” Franziska says, attempting to defy the laws of matter and lean further back in her seat. “Spicyzzz, Miles. Do you know of them?”
“That ramen chain that Miss Fey is utterly obsessed with?” Miles asks. “The one with the noodles that gave me chronic acid reflux?”
“The very same,” Franziska says. “You really should file suit, by the way.”
“It isn’t worth the trouble.” Miles waves a hand. “You were saying?”
“In 2013 they decided to expand their business to shelf-stable versions of their fast food options.” Franziska looks out the window, eyes chasing the shape of the far-off palms that frame the sky. “This was, in large part, a massive success. For reasons currently unbeknownst to the world, though, several of their store-exclusive flavours were discontinued shortly after. Of them was a variation made with carolina reapers.”
It’s a fight not to gag at the suggestion alone. Franziska continues.
“In large part, they were a needless gimmick. Made for foolish social media influencers and their even more foolish lack of any self-preservation in the wake of profit,” she spits. “But, there was at least one soul who worshiped this flavour not for its infamy, but its alleged quality, and she has not known peace a day since it has vanished.”
“Why on earth do you know all this?”
Side-eying him, Franziska narrows her icy blue glare. “Maya Fey will be consuming this artifact by night’s end, Miles. We are going to Monrovia.”
She does not tell him of the circumstances that got them here. She does not tell him of how Maya only mentioned this tragedy once, in passing, and then immediately moved on, because they were watching Pink Princess and a character she was… uncomfortably fond of walked onscreen, immediately distracting from her heartbroken tirade about the state of spicy noodles in southern California.
Certainly, she does not tell him of how she furiously dialed Spicyzzz’s corporate customer support number, only to be given robotic menu after robotic menu. Dial 1, and she does, dial 3, and she does, dial 1 again, then 5, and then she’s back to the first menu with no end in sight. The whole ordeal had Franziska mere seconds away from taking a train out to the coast and tossing her phone in the Pacific like some kind of liberated businesswoman in a feel-good family film.
But that, of course, was a waste of money. And so they are going to Monrovia, where the headquarters for this foolish brand that Maya is so strangely fixated on lies. Franziska is going to march up to their doorstep, and let herself in, and crack her whip at every flat surface until she is shown some answer about where to acquire this noodly holy grail. Then, once her quest is complete, she is going to present it all to Maya on a silver platter, curing her of her cold and ensuring their love lasts into infinity.
As if reading her thoughts, Franziska feels her phone buzz in her pocket. Miles gives her his usual nosy aside glance once more—and she does not see his eyes widen at how quickly she picks up.
“Schatzi!” Franziska says into the receiver, brightening rather notably. “How are you feeling? Did you figure the kettle out okay? Has your—”
She carries on frantically, talking so quickly into the phone that the words almost seem to blur into each other as they come. In that moment, her waspwings turn to that of a hummingbird’s, beating quickly all the same. Miles, wanting to remain polite for once, stops listening and simply lets them talk.
In a quarter of a mile, turn right…
Miles has been parked for approximately five minutes before he hears shouting.
Almost immediately he’s cursing himself, for not going in with her. Of course, Miles knows there are limits to how much he can calm his sister down, but that doesn’t stop him from feeling like the best person for the job regardless. With the way she was walking as she approached the shining glass of the double doors, he should have known whatever poor fools resided inside were in for a lashing if they didn’t give her the answers she desired.
As a prosecutor it is Miles’ job to be nosy. And he is doing a great many favours, chauffeuring his sister around like this with little to no complaint. It’s for this reason that he doesn’t feel bad when he cracks the window just barely to listen in.
He can’t make much out over the sound of the construction nearby, making the ground hum ever so slightly. He’s been trying to ignore that bit, because it’s making his stomach feel more than a bit sour, but the sound of it seems to amplify its pull. Miles is about to regret this decision, roll his window back up, accept his karma—but then, as if reading his thoughts, all noise ceases for a moment. The drills in the distance stop, the cars on the overpass around the bend simmer down, and Miles hears shouting and whip cracks that stop just as abruptly.
Hm. That’s not a great sign.
A few minutes pass. The construction starts back up. Miles shutters his window, swallowing thickly and breathing deep when a particularly violent tremor rumbles underfoot. It’s not a panic attack, that would be too convenient—he knows how to deal with those. This halfway, anxious feeling is a lot less palpable, and he’s so focused on chasing it away he doesn’t even notice that Franziska’s exited the building and is now stomping back toward the car…
Empty-handed.
Ah.
On instinct, he unlocks the door, but it’s a useless thing to do with the way she looks ready to tear the thing from its hinges, crush it into scrap metal like one might crumple up a tissue. True to form, Franziska pulls his car door shut with a violent slam, trembling like an angry chihuahua with seething, unchecked rage.
“Using context clues,” Miles says, “I can hazard a guess that they had no leads for you.”
“The damned fools!” Franziska spits, slamming her gloved hand hard into the car interior. Just barely missing the window, which is bulletproof, but Miles can’t say for certain that it is also Franziska-proof.
“Can they not just make more?!” she continues. “Can they not just accept my money?! I told those tepid fools I’d pay any price, and all they did was prattle on about class-action lawsuits and FDA approval, what kind of foolishly pathetic—this is America, Miles! You weak-willed reprobates are supposed to prioritize money over human life! That’s your whole thing!”
“Yes, indeed,” he says, unphased. “It’s a wonder your compassion and world-famous silver-tongue didn’t charm them.”
“If going to the source yields no results, then—” Franziska sputters, furiously turning her head away from Miles as she continues to shake, “it’s… unacceptable, unforgivable, that they’d dare say no, that they’d dare send me away when I—”
Her voice breaks. Something watery takes its place.
Oh.
“I—” Franziska curls into herself, “I—”
The way her shoulders shake shifts into something rougher, more jagged, less contained. Franziska has this habit of hiding herself away when she cries—bangs dipping over her eyes, head bowed away from anyone who might see, both arms curled around her torso like she’s trying to hold herself together. A broken sound, then—a whimper she keeps behind her teeth, refusing to let it truly escape.
“Franziska.”
The many tones in which Miles utters her name all carry their own meanings. They speak this succinct language, breathed in single words and gestures, honed to perfection after years by each other’s sides. In this instance, her name is spoken softly, nearly below his breath. Incoming, it says, a gentle warning before he makes contact, placing a palm on her good shoulder and giving it a firm squeeze. Franziska, in response, balls up further—desperate not to have him see her like this, despite how unremarkable it is.
“Would you like to tell me what’s wrong?” asks Miles.
“No,” Franziska mutters indignantly, sounding like she did when she was much smaller. Regardless, he feels her soften beneath his fingers, shuffle messily in his palm as she struggles to paw her tears away. Remembering there’s a pack of opened tissues in the glove box, Miles pulls off her and leans across the divide to unearth them, poke their shape at her side until she grabs half the pack and wipes at her running nose.
Sputtering, body-shaking sobs turn into muted, hitching breaths. Hijacked every so often by those inelegant hiccups Miles knows she hates the most. Franziska has never been a pretty crier, and she’d flay him to thin slices if she knew how truly endearing he found it. It takes a while, for her to feel ready enough to speak—and when she does, her voice is still waterthin and forcing strength, trying far harder than it needs to.
“I can’t do this,” Franziska says.
“And what’s that?”
“You know very well what I mean!” she yells. “Courtship. Romance. Care. I—I’m not—these hands of mine aren’t meant to dote, Miles. They’re good for little more besides violence.”
There’s silence, then, save once more for the purr of drilling, the occasional, off-beat roar of a car engine. Outside the window, the heatwaves blur far-off on the horizon, making the blacktop look liquid and dreamlike. Miles stares long and contemplative at his sister, and she clutches at her midsection and tries to ignore how piercing and judgmental his eyes feel.
“Franziska,” says Miles after a long moment, reaching over to lay his palm at her arm once more, “you don’t believe that.”
Loudly, conspicuously, her breath skips again. She can feel herself choking on it, like it’s an expanding balloon lodged somewhere between her heart and her throat. It dams up all the feelings, every passing emotion feeling squeezed out, forced.
“You know as well as I how fiercely that devotion of yours burns,” Miles carries on. “Tell me, what in life have you ever done without dedicating all you are to it?”
“All of that is different.” She wipes at her eyes again, finality clear in the gesture. “Protection is simple. I find the problem. I eradicate it by force. That’s not… I can’t—”
“This is no different,” says Miles, gesturing vaguely toward all the supplies in the back. “Haven’t you done more than enough? Why all this?”
“More than enough is hardly enough. I have to be—”
“You don’t.”
This time, it’s not her shoulder that he squeezes—his hand is on her arm, a perfectly ironed blouse beneath his palm. The way Miles puts the pressure on his thumb as he gives her another is deliberate, measured. The both of them, of course, know exactly what she was going to say.
“Haven’t we…” he picks his words carefully, “moved past all that?”
“This is different.”
“You do keep saying that,” Miles notes. “Explain, then. What is so different about it?”
Almost shyly, Franziska looks at him sidelong out of the corner of her eye. Her lips twist and tremble with no rhythm, as if physically fighting her own loosening tongue.
“Maya Fey.”
There is a quality to Franziska’s voice that her brother, in all his years beside her, has not heard before. There’s no real word nuanced enough to properly designate the song of it—it’s a sigh of relief and anxiety all at once, fluttery and weighted and significant and light and all in all, a walking contradiction. Franziska, as she speaks it, sounds as though she is flying through clear blue skies, awash with freedom… and she also sounds as though she has just, for the first time, looked down and realized how it might feel to fall from that soaring altitude.
And Miles, emotionally inept as he might be, understands.
“Franziska.”
“I do not deserve someone…” she pauses, reels herself back a touch, takes a deep, uneven breath, “I want to—so bad, Miles—I want to be worthy of the love that seems to pour off Maya Fey like an everlasting fountain.”
“Franziska—”
“Let me finish!” she growls. “I am in shambles, you fool, at least allow me my dramatics!”
It’s an idiot’s move, but he can’t help but smile. Her self-awareness, despite everything else about her that points to the contrary, is very cute.
“You cannot fathom how incredible she is,” says Franziska, swallowing in a bid to keep the tears from creeping back into her voice. “You haven’t seen how beautiful she looks in the morning when her hair is a mess and she’s half asleep, or the grin in her voice when she’s talking about those foolish shows you two watch, or the light in her eyes when she’s about to cause trouble. I can’t compete with—there’s no way to even hold a candle to her radiance.”
It’s futile, trying to keep her overflowing heart in check. Another few tears slip down Franziska’s rosy cheeks—alarmingly quiet, gone in a flash. She shoves the palm of her hand beneath one eye, pressing far too hard, as though she’s trying to erase the mere idea that it was ever there. Outside, the sound of machinery stops once more, and the pair can hear the offbeat, low rasp of crows cawing loud across the parking lot.
“I do not deserve Maya Fey, Miles,” Franziska says. “And sooner or later, she is going to realize this fact for herself.”
Miles gives her the illusion of thought. Perhaps it’s a bit cruel in its ingenuine nature, the way he pretends to pause and ponder these words. In reality, though, he knew exactly what to say to her the second she started speaking.
“Love does not care what you do or do not deserve, Franziska,” he tells her, still tracing his thumb across her arm for effect. “It follows no line of logic and no invisible metric. It simply is.”
She scowls at him, with her whole face, as though she knew he was going to say that. As though she has played this argument out in her head, with herself, a million times and counting. A scoff, then, venomous and childish.
“Wretched thing,” she spits.
“Sometimes, yes,” Miles says. “But regardless of whether you believe you deserve it or not, Miss Fey has chosen you. If she truly is as amazing as you say, you’d certainly do well to trust and accept her judgment.”
Franziska’s white-knuckle grip on her sleeve loosens. She, of course, would never debase herself by admitting that Miles Edgeworth is right about anything. That is alright, though—he has a feeling that, regardless, he’s managed to get through to her. She takes a deep breath, an attempt to snap back to her wits. Miles is unearthing his phone, then, mindlessly tapping around the screen.
“Now, let’s see if we can’t try one more thing…”
Too curious to register him changing the subject so suddenly, Franziska curls around his shoulder. “What is that?”
“That,” he says, pinching at the thing to expand an image, “is someone a mere fifteen minutes away claiming to be selling a crate of this elusive ramen.”
“Wh—” Franziska yanks his phone from his hand, and Miles makes one of those undignified noises he’s so foolishly fond of, “where did you—?!”
“There’s a few apps I use for the buying and selling of merchandise. It’s surprisingly effective in situations like this.”
“...your foolish little samurai men are on here, aren’t they?”
“Leading question,” Miles deflects, placing one hand back on the wheel. “I’ve already sent a message. You said any price, so I hope you meant that.”
“Bah. The investment is priceless,” Franziska says, distracted by the sound of her own phone ringing once more. Miles starts driving as Franziska’s frantically picking up, and out of the corner of his eye, he watches something beautiful happen—on the other end, Maya breathes a croaky hello, and Franziska seems to deflate with relief. The tired, scared look in her eye, it leaves entirely.
“One more detour,” says Franziska, “and then, I promise, you’ll have me for the rest of the weekend.”
Franziska has barely finished bidding her thanks and farewells to Miles when Maya tackles her to the ground. She tries with all she is to hold her own, but there’s bags in her hands she would not let her brother help her with, throwing her off balance and weakening her grip. Maya doesn’t seem to care as the two of them go toppling over, spilling groceries all over the threshold—she’s too busy burying her face into her girlfriend’s neck, bearhugging her with a ferocity Franziska’s never seen before.
“I want to kiss you so bad,” Maya whines into her collar. “I want to kiss you forever and ever and—”
She stops. Looks at the little wooden crate, inexplicably waiting in the apartment hallway, like a parcel waiting to be lugged inside. Beneath her, Franziska is still cringing from the impact of hitting the ground. Maya ruffles her brow.
“Uh, what’s goin’ on over there?”
She nudges her chin in its vague direction. Franziska blinks one eye open, smiling despite the pain.
“That is a crate full of several weeks worth of that discontinued ramen of yours,” Franziska says. “I’m… very sorry that I took so long, but I was looking for a way to—”
The sentence is cut off by Maya crushing their lips together.
Franziska makes a startled half-squeak, and then Maya’s fingers are tangled in her hair and this is not a regular kiss. There is nothing chaste or innocent or cutesy about this, Maya’s kissing her hungrily and filthily and is definitely about to take her right there in the doorway. Or she probably would, if she didn’t have to pull away jaggedly and roll off her girlfriend and to the side to bury a pair of vicious sneezes into her hoodie sleeve.
“Bless you, dearest.”
Franziska says it breathlessly, inching herself onto her forearms while Maya makes a noise of vague disgust.
“Fuck. Shit. I forgot I was a biohazard.” Maya wipes uselessly at her nose. “I just—are you for real? You can’t be serious, you found it?”
“Apparently it was pulled from shelves after a rather fascinating class-action lawsuit.” Franziska pulls herself to her feet, finally, dusting off her skirt and offering Maya a hand to hoist her up as well. Worryingly, she sways a little on her feet.
“Dreadful things, class actions are. Such long, tedious proceedings for what ultimately amounts to pennies. Though, knowing this company’s history, probably well worth it.”
“Yeah, Edgeworth keeps telling me shit burned a hole in his esophagus or something,” says Maya. “Skill issue.”
“Weak constitution,” agrees Franziska. “Speaking of…”
Gently, then, she lays the back of her hand across Maya’s cheek, frowning.
“That fever of yours hasn’t budged an inch, has it?” Franziska says. “Why don’t you settle back down on the sofa, I’ll put the kettle on.”
Smiling serenely, Maya leans into her touch. “Mmm. Okay. Can we watch TV?”
“Of course, Schatzi. Anything for you.”
Less than an hour later, Maya resides in a veritable nest of blankets, a proper cold pack affixed to her head. The humming chorus of a trio of humidifiers pulses easy oxygen into the apartment, moisture rolling down the windows and eucalyptus on the air. A nostalgic burn of spice on her tongue complements so impossibly the perfect texture of the noodles, and she chases the fire away with more tea.
Most importantly of all, though, Franziska’s jagged nails are scratching at her scalp, massaging away the stuffy headache and lulling her to sleep. She’s right there on the edge, but buzzes back awake when Franziska shifts beneath her to grab at the tissue box on the side table and silently offer a handful.
“Thanks,” Maya says, dealing with her now-streaming face. She must’ve been sniffling quite a lot, too unbothered to notice. “I forgot ‘too spicy’ was even a thing.”
“Seems so.” Franziska curls her hand back around Maya, giving her crown one last scritch before resting her palm on the dip of her beloved’s waist. “Enough of that mythical concoction and I’m sure you’ll scare the illness away in the blink of an eye.”
“I still can’t believe you did that,” Maya sighs adoringly, hanging off Franziska’s hip like polished leather. “I’m sorry I kissed you. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Worry not, dear one,” Franziska proclaims, “my immune system is phenomenal. I’ve not fallen ill in over a decade, and I do not intend to start today.”
“Wow, really?” Maya angles her head up. “Not once in that long?”
“But of course,” says Franziska, lying. “Any pathogens who dare even gaze upon my form are promised a mouthful of whip.”
Maya laughs, then snorts, then buries her face in the comfort to stifle another coughing fit. It’s really not a great sound, and she can feel all the unpleasantries of it shifting and ricocheting around in her chest. Franziska tuts in that cute way she always does, or rather has been an awful lot in the past 24 hours. They are fledgling and new, and Maya would be lying if she said she wasn’t a little shocked at just how tender and doting and soft a woman as sharp and icy as Franziska von Karma could be.
So often people talked about the terrifying wrath of the kind. Never did they speak of the priceless compassion of the angry.
“You’re something else,” Maya says, with a song in her voice. “I love you, Franzy.”
From where it’s gingerly rubbing circles across Maya’s hip, she feels Franziska’s hand stutter, stiffen, nervously fumble. A moment’s pause while the television fills the silence, and then one more before her digits resume their errant affection. Still on the verge of drifting, Maya closes her eyes in satisfied anticipation.
“And I love you, Maya Fey.”