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“I’m telling you, babe, the flight attendant’s hitting on me.”
The flight attendant is most certainly not hitting on Maya Fey. And, were Maya Fey of sound mind at the moment, she would easily realize that herself.
That’s hardly the combination of words Franziska would use to describe her right now, though. In fact, no one with fully-functioning eyesight would look at Maya and deem her anything other than a biohazard, at present.
The both of them had awoken so early that morning to catch this flight, it was honestly pretty easy to write off the rather slovenly way Maya looked as they left for their honeymoon. Despite rather intensive pre-sunrise training, the ability to awaken early and alert had never really stuck with Maya in her leisure time. She was always sleepy-eyed, her bedhead a mess of untamed baby-hairs and flyaways haphazardly shoved into beads and clasps. Franziska knew that she’d brighten as the day went on, as was often the case.
And brighten she did, though… that typically radiant glow was still quite dull in comparison to its usual shade. Not only that, but it came with the ever-present sound of habitual, incessant sniffling. Were it anyone else, Franziska’s whip-hand would be itching something fierce—she couldn’t stand repetitive noise like that—but because it was her wife, it mostly just made her heart ache to care.
Which was a little hard to do, when Maya refused to acknowledge it as anything that needed caring.
The first excuse had been given on hour one of their thirteen hour flight, where Maya had insisted she was just having trouble getting warm. This was more than a bit concerning, as the girl in question was in the thickest jacket Franziska had ever seen—puffy and pink, with even pinker and fluffier fur hemming its neck—and wrapped in a throw blanket. But, despite her notable cold tolerance, Maya was Californian at her center, and so Franziska had switched the cool air off and broken her own rules about PDA to cuddle close to her beloved.
When the next hour stretched on, and Maya’s sniffling got worse rather than better, Franziska broached the subject again—only for Maya to very defensively proclaim that the novel she was reading on her phone was getting to her. She went on to spin a tale about how romantic it was, and how much it reminded her of the two of them, and how she was just feeling sensitive from a lack of sleep, sue her for crying at a silly story, aren’t you some bigshot lawyer?
Though it was Franziska’s job to be suspicious, she did not enjoy being suspicious of Maya. For one, Maya had been cast under the weight of other peoples’ lack of faith in her good heart far too many times, and it was a vein of hurt unlike any other. Franziska herself had been one of those people, and she considered it her duty in life not only to love Maya Fey, but to love her so wholeheartedly that it some day balanced the cosmic scales, helped her to atone for fighting to put this beautiful thing behind bars or worse.
But, you know. Out of habit more than anything, Franziska’s eyes fall downward, to the fanfic Maya’s downloaded for offline reading. Within the smattering of words beneath the girl’s bitten-down thumbnail, Franziska zeroes in on several that are particularly and notably lascivious, and that’s her first clue that what Maya’s reading is probably not the kind of romance she claims. One would have to have their head screwed on backwards to get teary-eyed at a piece of fiction using such… crass terminology.
And then had come the trips to the bathroom. It was almost as if Maya was intent on spending the whole trip in there, and the frequency of these pit-stops was only increasing. While they’d started out opposite, Franziska had eventually gotten tired of pulling into the busy aisleway and just gave Maya the aisle seat. There’d been a quip about how Franziska had just wanted the window all to herself, which was met with a sharpened glare and a dry shuttering of said window.
Maya always came back from these bathroom trips with a slight spring in her step. Her hair was still a mess, her eyes were still tired—but the waterlogged look to her features would dissipate, the lethargic soreness to her movements settled down a touch. It was rather convincing, until she started sniffling again not ten minutes later.
Really, the whole situation was perplexing. Maya was not usually this stubborn, which is probably why Franziska was so resistant to the simple truth that her wife had gone and gotten herself sick. A sick Maya was usually a very cuddly, cavalier Maya—she’d laugh off her symptoms and crawl into bed to relax, shooing an overly doting Franziska away in a half-hearted attempt to mitigate contagion. That, of course, rarely worked—but it was fine. Franziska’s own immunity was more often than not steely enough to shrug off the kinds of illnesses Maya tended to catch.
The point was, it was an established sort of dance. A routine the two of them had fallen into. And this… was not the routine. Honestly, it was throwing ever-routine-happy Franziska off.
And so, here they were.
“I understand where you are coming from, Schatzi,” says Franziska, “but I believe she is simply doing her job.”
She isn’t.
Maya sniffles, for what is most certainly upwards of the 100th time that hour alone. These are no longer delicate, unassuming, cutesy sniffles that one might see on a tissue commercial—they are afflicted, and thick, and accented by spotty mouth-breathing which contributes to a perpetual aura of germs floating around her stuffy head. It’s been a while, after all, since she’s run to the bathroom to pretend she’s doing anything other than blowing her nose unattractively and stifling sneezes into her fuzzy collar.
“Dude, she’s offered me, like, seven cups of tea,” Maya says, voice quickly going hoarse. “I’ve been watching. She’s not talking to anyone else that much. What the fuck.”
Yes, because you look like the walking dead, is what Franziska wants to say, except that is not the truth. The truth is that Franziska slipped this stewardess a frankly absurd amount of money when Maya was in the bathroom and all but demanded she give her poor sick wife this treatment. Maya would have to break eventually.
“Are you hurt that I do not feel threatened by this?”
“No!” Maya says. “Just, like. Damn. Am I hot right now?”
‘Cause I don’t feel very hot, she does not say, and yet Franziska hears it.
“As your wife my opinion on that matter is notably biased.” Franziska crosses her arms. “Perhaps you ought to just accept the tea. You were complaining of the cold, earlier.”
“C-Cold? I wasn’t—” the panicked look in her eye vanishes, “—oh! Right! Yeah, um, it is pretty chilly, still…”
It is not. The temperature is moderate, and no one besides Maya is bundled up like this. Regarding her on the tail end of that thought, Franziska wonders who she thinks she’s even fooling… the excessive cold-weather gear, the bags hung under weepy eyes, the bright red beacon of her quickly-chapping nose—she looks like the physical manifestation of the common cold. Like an image you’d see on an internet article reporting on a particularly virulent flu season.
Franziska averts her eyes when Maya’s face begins to scrunch with more ticklish irritation. The hope is that this kindness will see Maya just sneezing, like a normal person, but this late into the flight there is absolutely no way she’s doing anything other than doubling down. Honestly, it’s quite technically impressive, the way she somehow manages to stave the impulse off, albeit with that itchy sort of discomfort written all over her face.
“…wait, shit, I just remembered I left something in the bathroom!”
Of course she did.
“I’ll just order that tea for you.”
“RightthanksIloveyouberightback!”
Her voice travels up, up, up—and then the bathroom door is slamming, unbeknownst to half the plane, all dead tired and buried in their headphones. Perhaps it’s to cover the ferocious sound of Maya’s sneezes, but then again, despite her volume she was oddly adept at stifling the things until they were nearly silent. A rare thing, but certainly not unheard of.
Trying to brainstorm her next move in this game of 4D chess she is having with her wife, she stares for the umpteenth time into her carry-on and begs it to provide more answers. There’s pain meds, of course, but she’d already snuck some of those into Maya’s trail mix, and somehow Maya was out-of-her-mind enough that she hadn’t noticed or hadn’t cared. If only she’d had the forethought to bring proper cold medicine, instead.
It’s a sort of coping mechanism, the way Franziska lets her mind wander. She recognizes that this pointless fretting is edging dangerously close to one of her thought spirals, and so she repeats her little mantra about letting Maya do whatever foolhardy things she wants and tries to zone out to the sounds of the plane as it groans in its steady ascent-descent.
The engine’s incessant, even with her headphones half-on. Franziska wonders how the hell anyone is meant to stand it. Years of flying—long flights, last minute flights, grueling flights—and she’s still gotten no better at handling it. Even just the rustling of fabric as people shifted around in their seats made her feel itchy, and the horrible coagulation of smells was not much better. She’s honestly a bit jealous of Maya and her undoubtedly dulled senses right now—what she wouldn’t give to not have to breathe in the scent of canned air and hand sanitizer right now.
On that thought, Franziska finds herself gazing at the golden ring on her finger. A simple thing, smooth and rockless—as fond as she was of jewels and flair, she’d wanted something that stood as a plain contrast to the frilly, over-the-top regalia she wore in her day-to-day. Perhaps with some unpacking—years of self-reflection and therapy—she might come to the realization that her love for Maya is different, the one thing she refuses to wear a mask for. Right now, though, she just knows that the ring is perfect, as perfect as any other part of her.
She’s only been married for a few days, and in that time she’s spent an inexplicable amount of it just gazing at the mirrored finish, the inscription on the underside—may death never part us, written in gorgeous, looping Khurainese.
It was, of course, a beautiful sentiment. If Franziska’s research was correct, it was a prayer reserved only for the most important people in a medium’s life. Where others said until death do us part, Maya’s people, as always, chose to fight the very notion—taking that devotion long past the grave.
Truthfully, Franziska still couldn’t believe it—that someone as dedicated, beautiful, enchanting as Maya Fey had chosen her.
Overhead, the intercom calls for everyone to return to their seats, and with it comes the beguiling enchantress in question—all but shambling down the aisle like some sort of snotty zombie, falling back into her seat aggressively. It’s clear she did not clean herself up nearly as much as she wanted to in there—there’s an unattractive spot of moisture still clinging to the underside of her nose, rivaled only by the reddened rims of her eyes. Overcome with affection, Franziska snakes an arm around Maya’s waist, pulling her in a little closer as she sips at her warm tea and shoves her tray-table back up.
“I’ve never been more elated to be out of the air.” Franziska sighs, leaning into her. “I can’t fathom what it is, but this flight has been exhausting.”
“Oh yeah?” Maya says, voice congested and rough. “Me too. I’m…”
She hesitates. Franziska raises an eyebrow.
“...like, really tired.”
Close enough.
“You had an early morning.” Franziska raises her free hand to scratch at Maya’s scalp, and the girl gives her a hoarse little hum of delight. “It’ll be nice to get to the hotel and just sleep.”
“Pfff. What happened to immediate unpacking and a tour of the facilities? Weren’t we going to scope out the pool and restaurant at that fancy-schmancy place you got us?”
“I changed my mind,” Franziska says simply. “Plans are well within their right to divert, Maya Fey.”
“Maya Fey-von Karma,” she corrects. “Also, who are you and what have you done with my wife?”
“Bah,” Franziska scoffs into the shuttered window, and Maya giggles through the ache in her throat and nuzzles further into her.
“Well, if you say so.” Another sniffle, quieter this time, as if she’s holding back. “Just, uh, y’know… wouldn’t want to throw you a curveball and ruin our perfect honeymoon.”
Oh.
Was that what this nonsense was about?!
For the love of—
“Do not be ridiculous, Schatzi.”
Franziska leans down ever so slightly, cupping Maya’s clammy cheek in her hand. Mouth half-parted and eyes big and watery, the treasure in question raises her gaze to meet Franziska’s, spots of colour blooming dark on her cheeks.
“There is no curveball, no disaster, no act of any god that could wrest away this precious time with you.” She says it with utmost romantic intent, every word falling out of her like a crackling hearth on a biting, frigid eve. “So long as we’re together, dear one, I promise you I shall cherish this week foremost amongst the most valuable memories I have in this lifetime and all that follow it.”
As the plane is descending, then—as the turbulence kicks in, shaking the very walls around them, as the other patrons hold tight to their armrests—Maya and Franziska are staring at one another, ever-so-wistfully into each other’s eyes. The scene is something right out of a rom-com—disgustingly sugar-sweet, all sparkling irises and flushing cheeks, featherlight thumb-touches and romantically charged thunderclaps that crackle softly in the air between their lips. Held gazes and unspoken promises and—
And Maya’s traitorous biology.
She’s so taken with this moment they’re having that she hardly has time to anticipate or plan for the onslaught as it crawls red-hot and barblike up her sinuses. With her face firmly in Franziska’s hand, still, there’s nowhere she can really angle herself but forward, and so that’s exactly what she does—completely at the mercy of this annoyingly loud virus, she jolts forward and sneezes a wrenching sneeze directly on her soon-to-be-ex-wife.
Ah, well. They had a good run.
And… Franziska, for some reason, is unphased by this.
There’s a shiver of revulsion that tingles up her spine when she feels its concentration of microbial misery misting her collar, but she’d already been clutching her handkerchief in one pocket, waiting for the proper moment to offer it to Maya. Unceremoniously, she drags the thing down her neck and tries not to implode in the (occasional) pressure chamber that is marriage—to her loud, obnoxious, uncouth, beautiful wife.
“Whoops, sorry,” Maya says, knuckles glistening unattractively as she bothers her nose. “Uh, think I’m coming down with something.”
With the most world-weary and endeared sigh she can muster, Franziska lets her wrist fall limp, loosening her grasp on her handkerchief as she gestures it to this ridiculous girl she is utterly, completely, unabashedly in love with.
“Yes,” says Franziska—
“I gathered.”