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Maya finds herself staring, again.
It’s weird, y’know. She’s never really been a starer. Not like aunt Morgan, who would sit across the room with an aura of something regal and contemptible, one side-eye eversharp as she elevated the bottom of her yunomi. Steady hands. Observing. Planning.
Pearly’s the same, just a slightly different flavour. Her big-eyed stare could go from wondrous to intense on a dime, depending on who it leveled itself at. There wasn’t a conniving bone in little Pearl’s body, though—more often than not, she was just taking it all in. The outside world she’d been deprived of for so long, always so vast and grand around her. Pearl had the heart of a scholar, always eager to learn, and so she stayed silent and watched. Intently. With purpose.
But Maya doesn’t stare. Maya just moves. Maya finds herself antsy in way of leaning back to observe the moment—no, she wants to be the moment. That’s what she does, more often than not—she lives, she breathes, she talks, she moves. So, naturally, when she’s just… staring, she can’t help but feel it like a veil across her shoulders. A disturbance in her natural processes, like a pulled muscle or an upset stomach.
What’s worse, of course, is that all of Maya’s staring spells as of late revolve around exactly one subject.
Across the cluttered table, now, Maya watches Franziska exist. The young medium had wanted, more than anything, to squeeze in beside Franziska, but then Pearl had disappeared, and everyone had gone on ahead of her and Nick, and… well, even in the shuffling bathroom breaks and drink refills, Maya just hadn’t worked up the nerve. Right now, she’s at the long, curved booth’s end with Pearl asleep at her side, enjoying the buffer from Franziska’s whip lashes that Gumshoe’s massive, hulking body provides.
She’s slow, Maya notices. Slower than usual, at least. Her racing mind takes a millisecond longer to register what’s being said to her, snap her arm forward in response. The bags under her eyes are bruiselike, dark, Maya feels a yawn crawling up her own throat just looking at them. She looks a little ruffled—haggard, rather. Flyaway hairs turn silver in the overhead light that illuminates their table. Her makeup is smudging at the corner of her eyes. She talks less and less, speaking primarily with bladed glares and sharp leather. Barely noticeable to anyone else, but Maya watches Franziska… a lot.
Why? Why is she different? Why are you so nervous? Why do you want her approval so bad?
She’s broken out of her dizzy thoughts by the sound of Nick sneezing. To her credit, Maya’s the only one who doesn’t jump several feet in her seat at the sound, nor does she feel the need to cover her ears and shield herself when the second, third, fourth, fifth outbursts follow. She’s long since grown used to those window-rattling things of his, far more deserving of a ‘shut up’ than a ‘bless you.’ Franziska, surprising no one, agrees with that sentiment—she’d raised her arm to flog him across the table the second she’d seen his goofy wind-up, the real miracle is the way she waited for him to finish.
“If you even so much as dare—” CRACK. “—to get your foolish germs anywhere near me—”
Nick’s ducked into a handful of napkins, right now, eyes shut tight in an attempt to stave off the ache—whether that be from the whipwounds or the sinus headache he’s clearly fighting is anyone’s guess. Maya stares a bit more boldly at the way Franziska’s lip curls in disgust when Nick gives his nose a violent blow, scrunches the napkins in one hand, definitely-purposefully uses that same hand to point and gesture aggressively at her.
“What’s the problem, von Karma?” he says. “Does the perfect prosecutor not have the perfect immune system?”
Edgeworth looks at Nick with the wrinkliest furrow in his brow that Maya has ever seen, as if to say, are you trying to get yourself killed? Seems like he hasn’t picked up on the weird vibe Franziska and Nick are giving off right now, like the two of them are in on some secret they don’t feel like sharing with everyone else. Some strange, awkward sort of truce—or as much of a truce as anyone can have with a person as abrasive as Franziska.
CRACK. “A fool who so foolishly insists upon showing up ill is more foolish than a fool who does not show up at all! You should have stayed in that hospital bed a few days more, spared us all the displeasure of looking upon your miserably pallid face.”
“You’re one to talk with your eyes all red.” Nick smirks at her. “You look like a strong breeze could knock you over. Maybe you should take a sick da—OW!”
“If the sheer amount of virus you are shedding does not make me ill first,” Franziska seethes, “your otherwise revolting presence is sure to take its place, Phoenix Wright!”
Maya stares. At the way Nick keeps poking her, at the way he smiles despite the fact that the response is always the same—him getting his shit kicked in by the girl half his size. Franziska wrinkles her nose every time he coughs, covers her mouth with every mighty sneeze, kicks him hard under the table when her arms get tired. With the way she inches further and further away from Nick at every ailing sound he makes, it almost becomes sort of a fun challenge—seeing how she manages to reprimand him physically, from a distance that keeps her safe from his germs.
Some time into this routine, Nick sniffles a gross, soupy sniffle and looks at her through bleary eyes as he’s rubbing at his nose. “You really aren’t even gonna go easy on me while I’m sick, huh?”
“Perhaps I did not make myself clear,” says Franziska right back, cracking her whip so hard that the drinks ripple idly on the table.
“This present treatment is because you are sick.”
Maya’s bed has never felt as uncomfortable as it does right now. Every angle feels lumpy, every positioning of the sheets imperfect and grating, every strand of her hair abrasive against the pillow, against her clammy cheek. The cushiony maw of it has been her prison for the last ten hours, evidenced in no small part by the wretched state it’s in—used tissues dotting every inch of it, blankets thrown haphazardly across, the fitted sheet pulling up off one corner. There in the popcorn ceiling, Maya tries to make out cohesive shapes—flash back to anywhere other than that night at Tres Bien, where she’d unintentionally gathered intel she’s burdened with now.
Rolling to her side, Maya feels the congestion shift in her skull, bump into the back of her eyes before sinking down into one nostril and damming it fully. The movement burns as it comes and goes, sparking into a horrible itch that builds and builds and builds, and the tissue box is far off on the other side of the bed, and all Maya can do is curl into herself and sneeze desperately and viciously into her bunched-up comforter. She doesn’t have to look at the aftermath to know how disgusting it is—it’s been like this all night, tossing and turning in her empty apartment in a desperate attempt to get even a few minutes of rest.
Looking past the cover of the blanket, she can see her phone flipped onto its back, in desperate need of charging. She can’t put it on the charger, though, because to put it on the charger would mean to touch it, and to touch it would mean to fight the biblical temptation to open and check it, and Maya’s not strong enough to resist or brave enough to face what she might find there.
Instead, Maya stares. Stares at her phone in a hell of her own making, breathing painfully through her mouth and running through invasive thought after invasive thought that tells her she blew her chances for good, flaking out the way she has. Downhearted, Maya lets her eyes flutter shut in resignation, trying to guide those thoughts toward anything but Franziska von Karma.
Franziska von Karma and her silky-rich voice. Franziska von Karma and her curving, enchanting accent. Franziska von Karma’s long, elegant fingers, her always-shimmery hair, her conniving half-smirk, her crystal-blue eyes—
Maya’s phone vibrates, several inches away. It tickles at her cheek, brights her eyelids in the split second before they snap open, before she dives for the thing and flips its pink finish back. In the haze of illness, her oversore eyes need a moment to adjust—she fumbles with the arrow keys, desperate to check her texts. At 2% battery, she’s on an unfortunate time limit, and so she races to her messages and selects the newest one without processing anything about it and sees—
Right. Just Edgeworth. Who was she to expect anything different?
Feeling twice as low as before, Maya replies with a simple ‘yeag’ and closes out of the window. Whatever plans he wants to make, they can wait until she’s done mourning all the face-sucking she’s not doing with his crazy-hot sister.
And Maya knows. She knows she shouldn’t. She knows it isn’t going to make her feel any better… but if her phone is already in her hand, she might as well check. Get it out of her system, and get back to wallowing and eventually moving on.
An attempt is made to take a deep breath, but it really just ends up making her cough the second it hits her tender throat. Regardless, Maya powers through—clicking herself one down to the message she’d sent at six in the morning. There on the lip of her bathtub, hair dripping a puddle onto the failing bathmat as she shivered. Her clothes laid out on the counter in preparation the night before—she would not be late, she would not get distracted, she would impress the pretty girl with the eye for perfection, enough that maybe someday she wouldn’t have to.
So much for that.
Hovering over the send button for what must’ve been a good hour. Jaw set, face tight, trying not to cry—crying would just make the headache worse, and she only had enough tissues in the house for a breakdown or a common cold, not both at the same time. Poking and prodding at the phrasing, the word choice, the grammatical structure—things Maya never even dreamed of caring about before she met Franziska. Why do I care so much? Why do I want her to like me so bad?
A thirty-third readthrough. Above her, the failing bathroom fan stutters in tandem with her wavering heart.
And there at the top of her screen it remains.
Maya’s almost grateful for her dinosaur of a phone. If she lived in a world of read receipts, she’s certain her despair would be tenfold, right now. For so long she’d given Nick shit for that dilapidated brick he carried around, but knowing how anxious of a creature he could be, maybe he was just being smart. More likely, he’s just a notorious cheapskate, and skimping on tech comes with at least a few benefits.
Defeated, Maya snaps the thing shut and throws an arm over the pressure bursting behind her eyes. By now, the sunlight has crept in through her dented blinds, illuminating the offwhite of the walls and turning it into a sleep deprivation chamber. Maya knows she’s not going to be able to squeeze any more rest out of this day.
She should get up and fix her fitted sheet. She should get up and throw her snotty blankets in the wash. She should get up and plug her phone in. She should get up and answer her door.
Instead, she just lays there, an invisible weight balanced on her chest. The bathroom fan is still humming. The traffic outside joins it. The knocking at her door grows urgent, and in her head Maya wills the solicitor away. No one should be forced to see her, right now. She barely wants to see herself.
Gripped loosely in her fingers, then, her phone vibrates.
Another deep breath. Maya thumbs the thing open, poised there on her one-sided plea for even a modicum of Franziska’s time. She’s ready to hit the back button, certain it’s just Edgeworth following up, already having accepted her heartbreak when her eyes fully adjust again and—
Her phone dies.
“Shit!”
As Maya’s launching herself out of bed, she thinks there should be some sort of sick-day olympic event, where all the competitors are forced to do mundane every-day tasks just absolutely riddled with plague. She’s sure she’d kick ass at it, the way she’s stumbling through the ocean of dirty clothes and tissues, switching out her hoodie for one without crusty sleeves, throwing on her only clean pair of pyjama pants. She should brush her hair, she knows she should, but the brush is in the bathroom and the bathroom’s a distraction, and so she keeps her hair shoved into the back of the jacket and prays Franziska doesn’t care or notice and—shit, what is she doing? She’s going to let Fran see her like this?!
What’s ruder, Maya debates as she’s raking dead skin off a chapped lower lip, flaking out on the cute girl you’re trying to impress, or accidentally sneezing on her?
She trips on a stray soda bottle she’d left by the couch, nearly bangs her knee on the coffee table as she’s staggering. Finally arriving at the door, Maya stands on tiptoes to look out the peephole, and—Spirits, yes, okay, that’s just Franziska. Franziska is just at her house, now. Her house that is not at all prepped for guests with even the lowest standards, let alone the image-obsessed, high-strung, rich-bitch baddie that’s about to lose all faith in Maya as a potential romantic partner.
Rip off the bandage, then! screams the voice in Maya’s head. Let’s get this shitshow over with!
Right. Sooner the better.
Puffing up her chest in an attempt to be brave, Maya clicks the lock and opens up the door. Franziska had seemingly been in the middle of texting again, her face twisted up in irritation and her teeth grit hard beneath her lips. For a second, she stays like that—but the moment she looks up and sees Maya there, every sharp edge melts off her features, like day-old snow that’s just met the sun.
Without thought, Franziska lightly drops the tote bags she’d been clutching—her heels clicking softly on the concrete as she steps one foot over the metal threshold. Maya barely registers the world around her when she feels a calloused palm touch her cheek.
There’s no way this is real, screams her heart, even as it’s beating its wings like a rabid hummingbird against her ribcage.
“Goodness me,” Franziska says softly, thumbing the puffy skin beneath Maya’s eye, “you certainly weren’t exaggerating, I see.”
Everything around them kinda… blurs into pastel-pink and glitter. Foggy, far-off lights, a springtime colour palette that should not exist in the greys and greens of the land of everlasting summer. Maya thinks she’s seen this in a shoujou anime before, the way the world slows and blurs into a physical manifestation of the love she feels in her every vein, too much and too intense to stay where it is. It bleeds out all around her, and she stares at Franziska with red on her face and a nervous flutter in her heart.
Before reality promptly sets back in, of course.
“Wait, wait, wait!”
Maya stumbles back into her messy apartment, trying not to whine at the absence of Franziska’s hand on her face. Around her, the room tilts on its axis, intensifying the pounding sensation in her head that sees her instinctively raising a palm to her temple. Still at the threshold, Franziska tips her head, concern woven in every line of her expression.
“You can’t—” Maya struggles, pulling herself out of her hand and looking back to Franziska. “I can’t—”
Words. Her mortal enemy. Their nasty shape twice as leaden and awkward on her tongue with the weight of the illness.
“It’s a bad idea for you to be here!” she settles on.
“Oh?” Franziska takes a hopeful step forward. “And why, pray tell, is that?”
“Franziska, I told you!” She angles herself away, hands crossed over her mouth, voice muffled, every inch of her reading I am dangerous. “I’m gross and sick! My apartment looks like a freakin’ crime scene!”
“I see no problem with that,” says Franziska, wholly unbothered. “In fact, I’d dare say I am more suited to navigate the bounds of that metaphor than even you, Miss Fey.”
“Not the point!” Maya says. “I’m sick! I’m contagious! You don’t want this, seriously!”
Franziska’s stance regains some of its rigidity, then—she pulls her legs back together, spine straight, arms crossed. “I think the sole authority on how I feel on the matter falls to me and me alone, Maya Fey.”
Her fingers slide up the bare skin of her arm, looking for a sleeve to nervously fidget with, finding nothing. Maya watches them struggle, realize, settle for a simple back-and-forth motion, like she’s scratching an itch that isn’t there. Looking off to the side, where the palm leaves shake above the cars zooming by, that stony exterior is betrayed ever-so-slightly by the almost shy aura coming off her.
“Unless… you are saying you’d rather… not see me.”
Shit.
“No, fuck, I—”
Dragging her own hands up her face, Maya tangles her nails in what can ostensibly be called her bangs and begs the spirits to pull her foot from her mouth.
“I have literally been laying in bed all morning moping like a baby because I thought we wouldn’t get to hang,” Maya says. “I just… I thought you wouldn’t want to see me.”
“Well, you thought wrong.”
Taking that as emphatic consent, Franziska snaps back into her domineering self and grabs wholeheartedly at the massive, overflowing tote bags she’s brought. With no more resistance, she strides past Maya, into the deplorable den of disease she is currently calling her apartment.
“Hey, uh—”
Franziska isn’t listening. She’s on a mission to find at least one clean surface in the kitchen, and it’s clear that when she realizes there isn’t one, she’s going to make one herself. The piles upon piles of junkmail are thrown into the waterstained box Maya’s designated as a “recycling bin,” dirty dishes are slid across the unwashed countertops and into the sink to soak, the cupboards are thrown open and scrutinized to the highest degree. Franziska’s eyes as she scans them look no different from the ones she wears when she’s in court—narrowed, predatory, determined. Whatever shape her prey takes, she chases with all she has.
“Can I, like…” Maya hovers where the carpet meets linoleum, “make you some tea, or—”
“You may not.”
Franziska stops what she’s doing, turns to look Maya dead in the eyes. The tote bags stand forgotten on the kitchen floor, and even in the ugly overhead lighting Maya feels a little love-dizzy with how beautiful Franziska looks. She’d nudged out of her shoes in a well-practiced dance as she’d stomped inside, but still Maya can hear the clack of her heels in the back of her mind, uniform swansong, the beating of her heart. Franziska walks right up to her, snakes an arm around Maya’s back, frowns silently at the way the smaller girl shivers in response.
That hand inches its way up. Curls to cup the dip of Maya’s shoulder… and then Franziska has both her hands on Maya, and is forcibly turning the ailing girl around. From her backside, Franziska pushes, guiding her back into the living room like a misbehaving child.
“Sit.”
With that command, Franziska gently shoves her down onto the couch. Maya’s butt hits the cushions a little more roughly than she would’ve liked, jostling the ocean of sodden tissues that’s slowly formed there. Franziska has no reaction whatsoever to that—she simply grabs the purple throw blanket off the recliner adjacent, shakes it out with a powerful, precise motion, and kicks noncommittally at the second wind of used tissues that fall out of that. Maya’s still in the middle of processing how disproportionate the reaction is when she feels the impossibly soft thing fall over her shoulders.
“Make no more attempts to host me, Maya Fey,” Franziska instructs as she’s gingerly fixing, smoothing tangles out of the top of Maya’s hair, pulling the blanket closer to her neck. “If you insist upon doing me favours, then the only thing I ask is that you stay put and do not push yourself. You’re ill enough as is.”
“I’m not—”
“Less talking, as well,” interrupts Franziska. “Your voice sounds like it’s fading, a bit. I wasn’t sure if you had anything in way of lozenges, nor what your preferred flavour was, so I brought three bags—”
She’s halfway to the kitchen, presumably to grab all three. “You what?”
“It seemed a reasonable enough number, given the circumstance!” she says, snapping back up and looking over the kitchen bar with her cheeks all hot. “I have no qualms with going out to fetch you more.”
“No, wait, huh? What?” Maya’s head swims. “Did you go shopping for me? Is that what all that junk is?”
“It is not junk, it is every last sick day supply an ailing friend might need!” She hoists said supplies onto the finally-clean countertop. “I was unsure what medications you were running low on, so I went ahead and bought one of each. I also did not know what scent you preferred in your humidifier, or if you had one to begin with, so I’ve grabbed the whole of those as well.”
Maya stares. What else can she do? Franziska’s movements grow more frantic, as though she grows more and more unsure of what she’s saying with each word that leaves her.
“Now, food is a much more tricky hurdle to overcome—I’ve no professional culinary training and I wouldn’t dare disgrace a lady of your status with a sub-par meal. I figure perhaps we could order you something, of course I’d be the one paying for—”
“Franziska!” Maya stops her. “This is all—really, really kind of you, but… like… why?”
Halfway back to the living room with cough drops in tow, Franziska stops where she is. Her nose sticks high in the air as she speaks, in what Maya can only assume is an attempt to offset the embarrassed flush beneath her eyes.
“What do you mean why?” Franziska says. “Because you’re ill! Is it not customary to—to look after a sick friend?”
“Is it?” Maya wonders aloud, unsure herself. “I was planning on just vegging out until I felt better. I don’t think anyone’s ever played doctor with me before.”
Franziska blushes deeper, stomps forward, all but throws the medicine on the coffee table, along with a fresh box of tissues she’d tucked beneath her arm. Sitting on the couch alongside Maya, she moves her hands in a desperate attempt to stave off whatever emotions are clawing at her insides to be let free.
“Being left alone to waste away,” she says as she’s tearing the bag open, “is not conducive to recovery. Especially not without proper medication.”
“I mean hey, I supes prefer this alternative,” Maya sniffles, curling tighter into herself, “but it’s literally just a cold, Franziska. It’s chill.”
“It is not chill.” She pulls the cardboard tab off the tissue box, slamming it down on the coffee table beside the lozenges. “I’ve never known you to back down in regards to anything! The only virus that could dream of laying a spirit like yours low must be of the particularly insidious variety!”
“That’s not—”
Maya pulls her hands out of the cover of her blanket to plant them, once again, firmly against her eyes. A bid to hide from the world, perhaps—to hide from the hot girl who’s in her house trying to nurse her back to health, who she’s somehow convinced to do that with sheer inelegance alone. Who she is, for some reason, trying to get to leave. What is wrong with her?
“Franziska,” Maya says, finally, “I was just trying to impress you.”
The girl in question stops all her furious handmoving, blinking a few times, as if that will somehow hone both her ears and her recall.
“What…” she says, brow scrunching with a fraction of the ferocity Maya’s used to, “what do you mean?”
“Are you for real gonna make me say it?” Maya asks. “Ugh, whatever. Look, I just really want you to like me, okay? I watched you give Nick all that shit when he was sick in February and I didn’t want you to think I was irresponsible for meeting up with you anyways.”
Processing, Franziska is quiet for a moment. Then, without another word, Maya feels the couch cushions shift underneath her, dipping with the obvious weight of Franziska sitting down.
“You…” Franziska says, and her tone sounds… almost touched, “were trying to impress me?”
Curious enough to find her own courage, Maya peeks out of the crack in her fingers, offers a timid nod. “I wanted to try and hide it from you. But I figured it was better if you thought of me… as a polite coward, instead of a reckless fool.”
Franziska’s facing forward, her palms flat and loose against her thighs. They’re the first indication of what’s to come thereafter, the way her fingers curl into fists, the tension living there before anywhere else. It spreads up her arms, onto her face, wrinkles all her features before… dissolving. Her face cracks, her expression softens, and Franziska pitches forward to laugh.
This sound—this beautiful, brilliant, precious rarity of a sound—is what pulls Maya out of the cover of her hands, lifting her heart to such giddy heights that she almost forgets she’s supposed to feel ill. Franziska’s laugh is a stuttering thing, barely contained in the curve of her fingers, aching to sound more ladylike and airy than it’s meant to. Maya doesn’t have the mind to be worried or offended—all she wants to do is trap that laugh in a little music box and carry it around in her pocket forever.
“I’m sorry for laughing,” Franziska says, running entirely opposite to her thoughts. “It’s just… horribly amusing, isn’t it?”
Maya blinks at her, still feeling like she’s mountain-climbing, sky-diving, somewhere high-up where the blood thins, the heartbeat races. “What is…?”
Franziska looks at her, smiling softer and more earnestly than Maya’s ever seen. Not the smug grin she wears in court, not the bravado she dons like armour. Something else entirely, inspired and grateful.
“We’ve switched places.”
“We…” Maya lets the words roll around her stuffy head, “have?”
Franziska nods. “As soon as I got your text I will admit I was disappointed. I’d missed you more than I knew what to do with. As I thought of you, naturally I thought of what traits I so admire in you… and I suppose I endeavoured to emulate them, as well.”
“That’s why you’re acting all overdramatic about me being sick?”
“Overdramatic! Bah.” Franziska waves a hand. “Spontaneity. Affection without bounds. When plans go askew, you simply charge forward regardless. I… wanted to impress you, too.”
“You—but—” The words race unevenly inside the bounds of Maya’s skull. “Shit, Fran, you’ve already impressed me enough to last a lifetime!”
Despite the way the flush across her pale complexion deepens, Franziska tries with all she is to remain steady and strong. “The feeling is quite mutual. Let’s stop pretending then, yes? You needn’t hide away from me in order to win my favour.”
At that, Maya frowns. “Yeah, but… I still don’t wanna get you sick. No matter how much I dig seeing you in my house.”
“Hm. Well, that stands to reason.” Franziska presses her thumb and forefinger to her chin, staring down at the pilling carpet in silent contemplation. “So long as we’re committed to playing to one another's sensibilities, I suppose I can allow you one last caution if you can allow me one last gale to throw it to.”
“Uh… that’s a lot of flowery language, and my brain matter is, like, 87% snot right now,” says Maya. “Can you translate whatever you just said into idiot?”
Franziska slides closer to Maya, cupping her face in one hand, the same way she had on the front porch.
“I shall do you one better.”
Everything happens a bit too fast for Maya to process, then—the other hand sliding up her leg, unsure of what it wants to do. The way Franziska tilts her head, flutters her eyes shut, draws Maya’s face closer. The way that, despite having no idea what she is doing, Maya instinctively knows to tip her head to the side, let her own eyes close, touch her lips to Franziska’s own.
Thoughts stop happening at some point, and the shreds they’re torn to make little sense. Is she being kissed? That’s cool. How does one be kissed? Maya has no clue. Maya would have no clue if this were just some pretty girl—but it’s Franziska von Karma, and she super has no clue. Holy shit. Franziska’s kissing her. Is this real?
The pressing need to breathe is what pulls them apart—Maya’s airways protest, and the big gulp of air she takes as she’s pulling away from Franziska catches and turns into a decidedly unsexy coughing fit. Which reminds her of the current circumstances, which she’d totally forgot, because Franziska von fuckin’ Karma just kissed her, completely unbothered by the fact that she was—
“Dude!” Maya says the second she is able to regain some precious oxygen. “Okay, like, that was awesome, but do you have a death wish?”
“Maybe so,” Franziska says, face beet-red and fingers nervously tucking her hair back into place. “In any case, if I’m to be ill it’s now inevitable, so you can stop all your anxious whinging about infecting me.”
With that, she smooths her skirt out and stands back up, bending over to slide the supplies across the coffee table, closer to Maya. Another bout of adjusting her blankets—this time, with prolonged eye contact that makes the both of them feel more than a bit boneless. The fluttering, girlish emotions tickle at Franziska’s breastbone, disrupting her focus. It isn’t until her left hand brushes across the swell of Maya’s neck that she’s able to hone back in on the more pressing task at hand.
“I must insist you rest,” she says, but it comes out far less firm and commanding than she wants it to be. “And take me up on my food offer. Perhaps something warm to soothe that sore throat you’re nursing.”
Slowly, the stars crawl back into Maya’s eyes, bubbling up and bursting into themselves like a boiling pot of the cosmos. This is real. Like, real-real. This absolute fanfiction fodder scenario is playing out, right now, in her apartment—the girl she’s maybe had a crush on for the better part of a year has more or less broken down her door and forced her way inside her shitty apartment, all in the name of doting on her thoroughly until she’s feeling better.
“You were being legit?” Maya asks. “About letting me order takeout?”
Hand still poised there on Maya’s throat, Franziska nods. “Whatever you’d like, Maya Fey. If there is anything else you request of me, as well, I would be more than charmed to do it for you.”
“Anything?” says Maya, low-voiced and dreamy-eyed, her breath still ghosting Franziska’s collar.
“Anything.”
“If that’s the case…”
Staring. Maya’s staring, again. Intense, unflinching, captivated. This time, however, Franziska stares right back.
“Would you mind plugging my phone in?”