Work Text:
Maybe it wasn’t her week.
Maybe the last few weeks weren’t her week.
Maya could feel the tension building as the days passed- weeks that should have been perfectly peaceful and normal and nice.
And this one had started off with an unreasonably difficult fire, peppered by small things, mistakes she should have never made, her car keys forgotten on the kitchen table, a left face instead of a right, and the continuation of an argument with Carina that is quite possibly leading to the dissolution of their whole relationship and now her thoughts are racing and she’s spiraling a little bit and usually she runs when things get this bad.
She runs to clear her head.
She runs and runs and runs and runs, until her muscles are quivering and her lungs are heaving and her eyes feel like they’re going cross-eyed and then runs some more until she absolutely can’t anymore.
Except now the treadmill in the exercise room has an error message on its screen and nothing else Maya did really works quite as much as she hoped it would. Nothing ever really makes it better.
She’s her own worst enemy sometimes.
And maybe somewhere out there, there's a version of her that doesn’t self-sabotage in a better world where waking up in the morning doesn’t feel like a punishment and lifting a fork to her mouth isn’t some grueling task.
Jesus Christ, when did she get so morbid?
Maya swallows, pushes the feeling down, as she gazes at the blank television screen.
She’s fine.
Fine.
Everything is fine and she is fine despite the countless times her own mind has proven that statement very wrong. And there’s nothing wrong with her so shouldn’t be making such a big deal out of nothing, she just needs to pull her shit together but she couldn’t figure out how.
A steaming mug of … something suddenly appears in Maya’s peripheral vision.
She frowns, following the length of the hand and arm holding the cup out next to her, up to a shoulder to… Vic?
Vic is standing beside her with a faded Looney Tunes mug in one hand, cradling another orange mug in the other, and a beat too long passes before the blonde realizes she hasn’t actually said anything.
“Uh… what?”
She murmurs dumbly, blinking away her swirling thoughts as she cuts her gaze away from the faded Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam up to the younger firefighter.
Vic smiles, all toothy and bright, maneuvering around the sectional until she’s directly in front of the blonde now.
“It’s hot chocolate,” she chirps, shaking the mug out at her, and small curls of steam waft from the drink as it swirls a little at the brim. “Here, drink it before it gets cold.”
Maya blinks back down at the mug, then back at Vic.
“You… made hot chocolate?”
Vic squints down at her like she’s the crazy one.
“Yeah,” Hughes drawls slowly, “You know the drink? Milk, cream, cocoa, awesomeness. Mixed together. Hot Chocolate?”
“Vic, it’s the middle of July.”
Hughes rolls her eyes as she places the mug in her right hand and the blonde instinctively reaches out with her left to keep it from spilling.
“That’s seasonist, Maya,” the younger woman huffs, flopping dramatically down onto the sofa chair next to her. “Hot Chocolate can’t help when it’s born.”
To Vic’s credit the smell was delicious; creamy and chocolatey and something else; and the mug is so warm that she finds herself cradling to her chest as looks down at the fluffy marshmallows caught in the tide of smooth, thick, brown.
But a part of her doesn’t feel right about this.
“Well, are you just going to look at it or actually drink it?”
Maya can barely see Vic’s eyes as she peeks expectantly at the blonde from over her own mug, extending her legs until her black work boots are perched against the coffee table.
“Why does it feel like you’re trying to roofie me?”
Two could play at this game.
“I- Roofie? What? Who roofies hot chocolate?,” Vic shifts up, looking at the blonde incredulously, “If I wanted to go to prison, it would be for something cool, not loads of mini-marshmallows.”
“Uh huh,” she looks back down at the drink, at the dark chocolate smoothness, “Wait a second, is this home made?”
Hughes pauses, chewing thoughtfully on a marshmallow as she lowers the mug from her face, and her whole head is disappearing into the opening in her jacket as she slouches down again.
“Well, technically it’s beanery-made,” Hughes swallows the marshmallow, “The Polish hot chocolate packet market is weak.”
“So you’re roofieing me with homemade Polish hot chocolate. Got it.”
She’s only half-joking because Vic, along with Travis, has a reputation for being a Station prankster and they still haven’t lived the April Fool’s incident down and that had been two months ago.
“Wow… Can’t a hot chocolate just be a hot chocolate?”
Well… theoretically, but Maya can’t remember the last time Vic made hot chocolate, much less at work.
“I mean… just… why?”
Something flashes behind Vic’s eyes, but it’s gone before Maya can even take a guess at what it means.
“I made you hot chocolate because I’m your friend, Maya. Don’t make me regret being nice to you in your hour of need.”
Vic says flipping a middle finger up at her.
“My… hour of need?”
Maya echoes and she shifts on the sectional trying to connect her words to the mug in front of her.
“Yes, Maya. I’m not completely blind to the world around me. I can see when someone needs a pick-me-up,” Vic fishes another marshmallow into her mouth, nodding to herself as she motions towards the Looney Tunes mug, “Hence - hot chocolate.”
Alarm bells go off in the blonde’s head and her eyes burn a little as she looks away.
“What makes you think I need a pick-me-up?”
The coy deflection rolls off her tongue, light and easy, because sometimes it feels so easy, feels like second nature to deny, deny, deny.
She can’t let Vic know, can’t let her worry, can’t make her feel burdened to help. If Maya can’t handle all the things she shouldn’t feel on her own, then she wasn’t good enough for the help anyway. And maybe that doesn’t make any sense, logically, and she knows that.
Still, it doesn’t change a thing.
Vic blinks, undeterred, drums her fingers against the porcelain of her mug.
“Well, you’ve skipped team brunch for four of the last five shifts now, the treadmill might have to go to Grey-Sloan since it’s been beaten into submission, you’re staring into the middle distance of the game room instead of, I don’t know, playing a game, and we’re eight hours into shift, you haven’t mentioned Carina’s name once when she’s ninety-five percent of all anything you ever talk about-”
“Alright, alright, jeez, you’re looking into it too deeply. I’m fine.”
Maya says because that’s what she’s used to saying and she watches Vic watch her.
“I am, seriously. I just needed some time away from you bozos.”
She reiterates again and Maya doesn’t know who she’s really trying to convince, Hughes or herself.
“Okay.”
Vic chirps like she doesn’t believe her at all.
Maya's eyes are burning again.
Shit, there must be dust in here or something.
The blonde can still feel Hughes’s gaze and she lifts the mug to her lips purely out of spite.
It’s slightly spicy, thicker than a normal hot chocolate, and very rich, but not too sweet like the super sugary ones at Starbucks. It flows perfect and smooth down her throat, and of course, it’s fucking delicious.
She pauses after the first swallow, letting the feeling, the warmth settle.
Asshole.
She takes another sip.
Then another.
Then another.
Feels the steam leave her mouth when she lets out a shaky breath.
It’s fucking delicious, but still Maya doesn’t quite understand.
But it doesn't matter.
Because she’s fine.
Fine fine fine
Fine.
“I…” Vic starts, propping herself halfway up on one elbow and squinting not really at Maya, but somewhere past her. “I don’t think you’re okay.”
So even, calm, perfectly practiced, like she’s been thinking about saying this for a while.
Maya struggles to blink away the burn and swallow the lump of not chocolate wedged up in her throat.
Why is Vic even doing this?
Vic’s fiance died. Her best friend died. Fuck, Vic almost died.
And somehow Vic is the one making hot chocolate and telling Maya she thinks the blonde is the one that isn’t okay.
She wants to deny, deny, deny, because she’s fine but she tastes salt on her tongue instead of chocolate and everything suddenly feels heavy, like lead.
“And it’s okay not to be okay, because what even is okay sometimes, but you don’t have to pretend to, you know, be a caricature of whatever okay is supposed to be. Because pretending you know makes it worse sometimes-”
Vic is rambling, tripping over her words, no longer as calm, as even, her foot bouncing anxiously against the table and it’s this Vic that Maya is used to, but still her fingers are trembling and they blanch and turn white with the way the blonde has them pressed against the mug.
“- and I don’t know… I don’t want you to feel like you have to pretend or something if you aren’t okay for real. Because… I mean we’re friends and it’s shitty to have to be okay when you aren’t and you’re around friends. It… isn’t fun.”
And Maya supposes that’s why Vic is reading her for filth.
Because she gets it.
She’s always kind of understood.
More and more, as the world is reinventing itself, the alternate decisions and could-have-beens probably pop up for Vic like they do her and she can’t help but wonder what would have happened, if self-sabotage wasn’t a thing, it’s like missing the things that she never did, melancholy and irrational homesickness for a place she didn’t and don’t ever return to, and things that she didn’t think she had lacked in the first place, only to find out how substantial of a gap with the things had been when finally left—
The feeling is probably buried under Vic’s skin just like under Maya’s own.
“You don’t have to be okay.”
Vic’s words drift into the air above them.
“I’m… fine.”
She whispers, but it feels all wrong when she says it. Doesn’t come out light and easy, like a mere denial, now it just sounds like a lie.
“Well… Maybe… N-No… I don’t know.”
She corrects, tries too, and she doesn’t like the way her voice shakes a bit, the way the words wobble and it feels like a confession, like it’s something more serious than it sounds. She wants to take it back once it’s said, like somehow she can shove it back in her mouth and stop a heavy thought in its tracks.
But she can’t.
And now it’s out there like a petri dish under a microscope.
For a long moment neither of them say anything and Maya blinks ferociously and takes another sip of the warm drink to avoid all the worst case scenarios spiraling in her mind from what she’s just said.
“Maya…” Vic says softly, at last, and Hughes doesn’t sound like she’s trying to defuse a bomb, so that’s something. “We can talk about it if you want, I’m pretty good at listening.”
The gesture is heartwarming, but Maya is not ready for this, not ready for it at all. Not ready to get peeled back and poked and prodded, not when she feels like she hasn’t slept in days, not when the klaxon could ring at any moment.
She doesn’t know if she’s ready for that.
Or ever will be.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
She whispers, using the heel of her left palm to rub away at the salt that refuses to go away.
“Okay, that’s cool.” Vic says breezily, “I’m better at not listening.”
Maya feels her own mouth twitch into something of a watery smile at the non-sequitur response, and she can’t help but feel a little surprised.
It’s not like she thinks Hughes was going to ask invasive questions or run down the hall to Ross and spill all the beans, per se, but there’s always this little irrational fear that if she peels the walls away then she’d be forced to admit her fears and anxieties and every bad thought she’s ever had.
She glances back at Vic over the rim of her mug, but Hughes is looking at her boots now, just as lost in thought, if not more.
“How about we just sit here instead?,” Vic murmurs over her empty orange mug. “You can finish your hot chocolate and I can tell you how it’s superior to literally any other drink on this planet.”
Maya blinks, once twice, still kind of stunned that she was backing off, but she looks at the hot chocolate, the marshmallows floating in the tide, drinking it, that’s something she could do.
“Y-yeah. Uh… Yeah, that sounds good.”
She brings the mug to her face again, feels the heat rise up, pressing like a cocoon against her skin.
“Hey.”
Vic looks up at her.
“Thanks,” Maya says, and means it, “for the hot chocolate.”
Fin.