Work Text:
Phoenix gets off the phone with the first chiropractor that showed up on Google maps after typing "Los Angeles chiropractor cheap" into the Bing search bar of his office computer.
"We were young once, right?"
"Maybe you were . I still am."
"Thanks, Maya."
He can see the top of her hair, lounging on his office couch, from his desk at the back of the office.
"You can always count on me, Nick, your permanently young and beautiful best friend."
"Oh I'm sure I can."
It feels a little like a scene from a decade earlier, except this time Maya will return to her village as its leader, and Phoenix will stay here with just as many real, adult responsibilities.
“Found it!”
The door to his office swings open when Trucy walks in, nearly knocking over Charley.
“Trucy! Careful.”
“Oops! Sorry, Daddy! But look!”
She shakes a pair of silk scarves at him from the doorway like they’re a winning ticket. They’re scarves.
“I thought I lost them in Khura’in, but I guess I didn’t pack them at all.”
“You didn’t pack anything.”
“Guilty!”
Maya watches the two like a tennis match, suppressing a laugh.
“Can I see the trick?”
“Hm?”
“The trick. With the scarves.”
“Why of course, madam!”
Trucy brings out her performer persona in an instant. She’s good at switching masks like that. It makes Phoenix a little nervous. He watches her trick- for the millionth time- and he’s proud the same way he was the first time, the second, and so on. Maya’s impressed too, but the difference is that Phoenix knows all the secrets by now.
“What’s the trick?”
“No trick. Only magic. Besides, were there any tricks, and there aren’t, I would be forbidden to reveal them, of course.”
“Of course.” Maya nods solemnly.
Phoenix watches his life mesh in front of him. He’s twenty five then thirty five. In this same room like he’s stuck on it. Like it’s stuck on him.
“Are you hungry, Truce?”
“I could eat.”
“You could?”
“Perhaps.”
“Feeling peckish?”
“A smidge. Perhaps.”
Maya’s tennis-eyes must get whiplash because she doesn’t let this go on very long.
“Well I for one am very hungry. And I seem to remember someone promising me a meal, say, two weeks ago.”
-
Maya had talked about Eldoon’s back in Khura’in, but it’s late, and Phoenix isn’t sure he has any more reminiscing left in him tonight, so he doesn’t mind missing out on that interaction. The three wind up at the In-N-Out closest to the office. Maybe this city is a reminiscing minefield. Anywhere he goes with Maya is like walking over live explosives.
Phoenix pays for three meals (four burgers) with his credit card and tries not to wince thinking about the cost of plane tickets and healthcare.
They sit in a booth near the back to eat and watch the sun go down over LA.
“Nothing beats the taste of home. That’s what I missed the most.”
“The most?”
“Maybe after Pearly.”
Trucy puts ketchup on the lid of her drink to dip her fries in. It’s a gross habit. It’s endearing. Maya used to do the same thing when she was a teenager. Maybe they’re all secretly blood related too.
“Finish both of your burgers, Maya. I didn’t pay for you not to eat them.”
“Some big city, hotshot lawyer. Can’t even afford an extra burger. Trucy, how is this man paying to raise you?”
“He’s not. Daddy if you’re worried about it, just ask Miles to pay for a chiropractor.”
Maya bursts out laughing, holding her stomach and all. Trucy has got to quit reading his mind like this.
"Trucy. It's not nice to use people you love for their money."
"Huh? But that's what I do to you, Nick!"
"Exactly. I said it's not nice."
Trucy giggles with Maya next to her. One day she's your best friend. One day she's your daughter's weird aunt. One day it's ten years in the future. Ten years. It’s that sneaky little number that sounds a little better and a lot more daunting than seven.
"Wait a second, Nick. What was the part about people you loveee ?"
She draws out the last syllable like she's teasing him over a crush.
“I’m not using him for his money.”
Trucy butts her head in past Maya’s.
“I wish you were! I could go to some fancy private school and live in a big house if you were.”
“Trucy.”
Trucy sticks her head out a little less. Maya giggles.
“Who raised her, Nick?”
-
It’s late, dark out by the time they get back to Phoenix’s apartment. He pulls the living room lamp’s chain and it’s warm and yellow. Maya will stay for a few days before she heads back up to the mountains.
Trucy kicks her shoes off by the door and doesn’t take them to her room. She throws her jacket on a chair instead of a hanger. Her suitcase is abandoned outside her door. She comes back to show Maya the trick with the coins and old Coke cans, then, in a startling display of maturity, follows her trail back to the front door to clean up her mess of belongings and put them away in her room.
“I’ll sleep on the couch, Nick. So you don’t throw your back out again.”
Trucy re-emerges quickly again this time. Phoenix expects to find her things in a pile by the door rather than put away. Better in her room than out here.
“Can we watch a movie? With all three of us? I wanna rewatch Big Trouble in Little China.”
" One of us has school in the morning. So one of us should be getting to bed."
"But it's the last week of school."
" Exactly why you can handle it."
There’s a bit of grumbling when the puppy-dog-eyes don’t work, but then she’s off with a few goodbyes and little argument. She’s a good kid, even if she wants to think she could ever be difficult.
“She’s tall, Nick. And old. When did that happen?”
“I think around the same time we got old. She’s not tall.”
“Taller. I’m not old.”
“Pushing thirty.”
“And who’s already past thirty?”
“You wound me.”
Phoenix looks past her. He looks down the hallway where Trucy made her exit. Stage left.
“She keeps doing all this growing up behind my back. And the worst part is that that’s the only thing she’s doing behind my back. She won’t even give me any good reasons to get mad at her.”
“She’s a good kid. You did a good job. Raising her and everything.”
“I don’t know what I did. I think that’s all her.”
“Whatever you did, it was the right thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Maya’s staring past him too. At the floor or her feet. Something playing in her mind, behind her eyes.
"Am I doing the right thing? Becoming Master?"
"The right thing for who, Maya?"
She gives a dry chuckle with no humor.
"Right."
"Yeah?"
"No, like. You're right. I don't know what I want. How come you figured it out?"
"Figured what out? I'm as lost as you are."
"You're a father for Christ's sake. You've got this awesome boyfriend. You've got employees. When did you get so old? "
He kicks her in the shin. She punches him in the shoulder.
Maya sits back, slumps down in her chair and sighs a long nasal sigh.
“Maybe it’s a little late to ask if this is the right thing.”
“It’s never too late.”
“It’s a little late.”
“Eleven-thirty.”
He doesn’t know what else to tell her.
“Wanna watch Big Trouble in Little China?”
“I do.”