Chapter Text
There was a place where Maya Fey had expected her first kiss to be, but it certainly wasn’t in an alleyway with a woman she barely knew, and there was a person she had wanted it to be with. Obviously, this didn’t exactly match the expectations.
Menia sucks on her bottom lip, pulling at the bottom of her sleeves and tracing her delicate, calloused fingers over Maya’s bracelets. The faint, rough touch on the inside of her wrist draws a ragged breath out of Maya, who can’t help but imagine another, more slender set of fingers. A pang of guilt washes through her, and she sighs, pulling back and reaching up to straighten her collar back out.
Menia looks up at her, smirking. “Now’ve I shown ya what?” she says, a callback to their earlier conversation. Something about... farming, was it? Was it farming or factory work? Hm. Maya can’t quite recall - the drag of their exchange had an amnesic effect on her memory, apparently. She laughs.
“I mean, I guess I can see the appeal now,” she says. Liar, her brain tells her. You’ve seen the appeal since you were eighteen. She ignores her brain. “Anyway, thanks for that. That was nice.”
Menia’s smirk softens into an amused smile. “Of course,” she says. “Lil’ baby dyke, are ya?”
Maya frowns. “What does that mean?” she asks. She’s heard that word, whispered at her from men on the street, strangers at restaurants, employees in stores. Looking it up, she’s found that it’s supposed to be offensive. The other word, the one that she’s not exactly comfortable with either, she’s heard whispered similarly to Nick, who was outed when his estranged ex framed him for murder in a high-publicity case that Shields defended.
“It means you’re just getting started,” Menia says. “Don’t take it too personally, but you’re inexperienced, hon.” As Maya splutters, Menia laughs and raises her hand to trace one fingernail, covered in chipped bright pink polish, over the contour of Maya’s cheekbone, who feels a tingling run along her cheek as the touch seems to linger. Maya blinks, and before she knows it, Menia is gone.
She stands there in the alleyway for a good long second, then slides down along the wall, folding in half and wrapping into her knees. She buries her face in the fabric of her leggings, wiping off the remnants of the other woman, and groans. Ugh. That felt damn good but, at the same time, so wrong, and the alcohol thrumming through her system won’t let her pinpoint why. She’s only been twenty-one for a few hours, but she’s already too drunk to think. So, she does the obvious thing, and lets herself fall sideways onto the freshly-swept concrete of the alleyway, gray with the dying light.
It’s an odd sensation - her head feels... pillowed? The concrete isn’t nearly as hard as she’d thought it would be. But she’s a bit drunk, so she doesn’t realize why until a moment later.
There's a hand under her head. She turns her face into it, smiling, and feels the other person’s shoulders hitch upwards. She hears herself humming and turns the other way to look up at the person’s face, and, yeah, she’s definitely more drunk than she thought, because her mind is saying that that’s Franziska von Karma’s face attached to the pale arm, and that absolutely is not true because that is definitely not actually Franziska von Karma, and if it is, well, she just fucked up.
“Maya Fey,” she thinks she hears Franziska say, “why does this always happen to you?”
“Whuh,” Maya replies, ever eloquent. Franziska shakes her head, nudging Maya back up against the wall. Maya misses the warmth of her hand, and tries to fall back over again, but Franziska grabs her wrists with one hand, pulling something from her waist with the other. The whip, maybe?
There’s a click. Maya looks down at her hands, then back up at Franziska with wide, pleading eyes. “I...”
Franziska’s just handcuffed her.
“Maya Fey,” Franziska tells her, sounding pained to have to say it, “you’re under arrest for the murder of Miss Menia Lyber.”
Maya doesn’t resist as Franziska helps her up, puts an arm around her waist. Franziska doesn’t mention it when Maya leans into her shoulder for “support”, her drunken wobble enough to make it believable.
Franziska leads her to a squad car, lights flashing. “You’re lucky I was here tonight, Maya Fey,” she mutters. “Any other foolish time, and the other fools on this foolishly foolish police force...” She grimaces. “Get in. I’ll call Wright for you, so he may defend you. Don’t expect me to go easy on prosecuting your case, though.”
Maya looks up at her, haloed in the glow of the sirens and the bar and the streetlights, and her eyes widen. “You’re... pret - pretty,” she stammers out.
Franziska moves back, as if offended, and Maya kicks the seat in front of her. “I - what a foolishly useless observation to make, Maya Fey. Of course I am. My appearance is perfect. Why would I not be pretty?”
“I’unno,” Maya says. She shrugs, leaning forward to brush a hand against Franziska’s cheek. She finds that her hands are cuffed, and motions for Franziska to come closer. Franziska does, and Maya swings her hands upward, getting them - miracle of miracles - on either side of Franziska’s face, and not hitting her. “Just felt like... you should hear it.”
Franziska sighs, moving away. “Keep your silence, Maya Fey. It’s less foolish than this foolish drivel.”
Maya watches, useless, as Franziska steps away, her head swimming from drunkenness and love. She’s in love with Franziska. It seems so simple, now, but in the morning, when her head is clear, she’ll deny it like nobody’s business.
An officer gets in the car. She stares out the window at Franziska, barking orders and lashing out with her whip at detectives, all the light shining on her like she’s the center of the universe. Like she’s the sun. Like she produces the light.
And Maya’s just the moon, stealing the light away and handing back a watered-down version of it.
But she knows what they say about hanging the moon. And while she wouldn’t let Franziska let her hang, she also utterly adores her.
The car moves on. Franziska is out of sight once more.