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The day takes a turn for the worse when Franziska gets her hand stuck in the tissue box.
Perhaps stuck isn’t the most appropriate word. It’s not as though she’s trapped in the maw of the feeble, cardboard thing… but it does latch onto her in a sense, the ferocity with which she shoves her hand within and paws at its empty walls. On a regular day, Franziska might look before she leaps—turn her head to face the thing, note that it has been thoroughly emptied, and move to acquire another box. Today she is not so lucky—moistened eyes laser-focused on the report she’s typing up, far too busy trying to chase the foolish dysfunction from her brain.
So, her hand plunges itself within the receptacle’s depths. She actually keeps it there for more than a few seconds, not really registering what’s happened. Other things take up space in her head—the pressing crawl of more wretched mess trickling down the back of her aching throat, a similar tendril threatening her ever-twitching nose, the absolute ordeal of typing one-handed, how the letters swim in her vision like badly-steeped tea leaves. Sue her for taking a moment to process the lesser details of this situation, for the dragging way she stutters her head to the side to look.
For a moment, all she can do is stare. A coping mechanism, perhaps, to stall reality from sinking in. Franziska, generally, isn’t a person who likes to stall in anything—but if she doesn’t today, she might end up shrieking white-hot fury at the top of her lungs, and she really doesn’t dare to try that with the overly-passionate nature of this head cold she’s nursing.
Instead, she grits her teeth behind her face mask, presses her eyebrows tight together, and throws the insubordinate thing against her office wall.
She has the mind, of course, to only growl a little as she does so.
Her personal office is woefully unprepared for this… situation. The single tissue box that lived on her desk—for guests, mostly—had been on the fuller side of half-full this morning, but with the way her whole face was oozing there was no scenario wherein it would be enough. There’s still the handkerchief in her breast pocket, of course, but at the rate things are going it’ll be unusable by midday, and then there’s the matter of her spare…
Her spare. The empty space in her pocket where it should be seems to riot for her attention—its lack of weight there a weight all its own. Already distracted from the hot, muggy fog rolling beads of condensation down the inside of her head, Franziska can’t help her mind from wandering down the thoughtpath.
Exactly two days ago, Franziska had barged into her little brother’s office in an attempt to retrieve some evidence from an ongoing case she suspected to be adjacent to the one she was due to work around the end of the week. She did not find Miles there, nor did she find the items she was searching for, nor was she able to locate her right mind the second she spotted what was there—one Maya Fey, fast asleep on her brother’s couch.
Not exactly what she was expecting, of course. But Maya had stirred with a groan so pathetic it was almost… cute, and looked up at Franziska with her eyes and nose all red and her hair all mussed up, and… well. Franziska was finding it harder than usual, in that moment, to disregard the budding feelings she’d been developing since corresponding more often with Maya Fey. She knew nothing of modern romance—dating, what a wretched performance it was, like networking (revolting) except with kissing thrown into the already-sordid mix? Franziska could think of nothing she wanted to take part in less, but…
Courtship, servitude, chivalry… those were things that came as naturally to the young prosecutor as the air in her lungs, the power in her stride, the lashing of the whip in her left hand. She could not envision herself going out to some low-brow restaurant with Maya and presenting personality to the girl as if it were unearthed from a professional portfolio… but she could easily see a world where she offered respite to that same girl in the throes of a nasty illness. Like a knight tending to their ailing charge, every chaste touch therein so purposeful, so precious.
Franziska could see herself on one knee, eye level with Maya, asking her how she had managed to fall asleep on the twelfth floor of the Prosecutors’ Offices, a place she had no real reason to be. Could see herself teeth bared as she cursed Phoenix Wright, both for dragging her brother away from his work and for fostering a workplace where his employees showed up sick. Could see herself brushing flyaway hairs from Maya’s sore-looking features, feeling the premonitory warmth building beneath her soft skin, cooing out a sentiment or two about how Maya really should be home and in a proper bed.
More than anything, though, Franziska could see herself slowly unwinding the admittedly absurd scarf around her neck. Something had gone awry with the air conditioning in the offices, and though October in Los Angeles was fairly warm, it certainly was not enough to justify the way the fans were blasting on all cylinders. When confronted Miles would simply rub at his temple and clench his jaw and give himself one of his world-famous stress headaches, moaning of contractors and phone tag and understaffing and a million other proverbial slices of Swiss cheese stacked uniform on top of one another. Somehow, looking down on their shape from above, every single scattered hole aligned so that one could see the wood of the table underneath.
Currently, that hole took the form of a great handful of legal professionals bundled up and shivering in their offices. Franziska, ice queen though she was, was no exception. The culprit was the long hours that she worked, really—it was effortless to last in the chill for a few, but by hour number five she started to feel herself waning, and by number ten she’d genuinely worry about catching cold herself.
Which is perhaps why her immediate thought upon seeing Maya was to worry—what on earth was she doing, asleep in a place so completely inappropriate for nursing such an ailment? The freezing offices were also a blessing, though, because the lapse in proper temperature was the only reason Franziska had come into work with an extra layer and, most importantly, the scarf.
Back in the moment, Franziska could not help fiddling with that scarf. Maya had shivered in the cold and leaned into Franziska’s warm touch and made ten more jokes about her current state—same as ever, deflecting. Franziska would have half a mind to scold her for that, if the hypocrisy didn’t slow her tongue. Instead, all she could do was pull that scarf from her neck, lean in close to Maya, and push past the nervous tremble in her hands as she made her best attempt to wrap the eversoft thing around her.
The split second after that is one that Franziska surmises she will either look upon fondly for the rest of her life, or do everything in her power to forget. Impossible to tell, with the strange shape of her blossoming admiration for someone as chaotic as Maya Fey. There was something so childishly magical in the way the two of them had held the nervous eye contact, that afternoon—the scarf had been affixed, and Maya had all but melted at the warmth of Franziska that still lingered on it, and this gratitude took the form of her big brown eyes sparkling in wonder as she stared, chapping lips parted from congestion, into the shape of her angel in the office’s dim lighting. Franziska, though typically one who found eye contact purely adversarial, found the courage to stare right back—running her hand up Maya’s jaw as she did so, unsure of where exactly to place it. She could feel Maya’s hot breath puffing out vaguely on the heel of her palm, and it prickled goosebumps on her arms far more than the broken AC ever did.
For that impossible eternity, they just stared wordlessly at one another, deer-in-the-headlights with some sort of electricity crackling in the space in-between them. So archetypically romantic of an instance, Franziska was certain it was too marvelous and dreamlike to be true.
A thought proven to be correct, of course, the moment that Maya’s features wavered and crumbled, and she pitched forward to sneeze a truly wrenching sneeze directly on Franziska.
Here in the present, Franziska isn’t sure—even as she’s shivering through each terribly squeaky sneeze herself—if that interaction had endeared her to Maya even further. Objectively disgusting, with rather tangible consequences, and something that Franziska would not hesitate to flog anyone else over. And yet…
God, it was so cute that she just didn’t care. The way that Maya had pulled back, sniffled audibly, pressed her wrist to her chapping nose and grinned ever-so-smarmily. The way she had no qualms about how gross she looked, or acted, or was—the way she’d just turned the charm way up and asked Franziska so, you free Saturday night?
Absolutely not, on account of the fact that I will be burning the clothes you have just contaminated, is what her brain wanted to say. With Maya, though, it was always her heart that spoke first, and so all Franziska could do was duck down and laugh. Utterly, disgustingly smitten as she stifled those unseen chuckles into the fold of her palm, reached down into her skirt pocket, and pressed her spare handkerchief into Maya’s free hand.
Take care of that cold of yours first, she had told Maya, and once you’re fit to return this to me, I could certainly be amenable to… some sort of arrangement.
What on earth had come over her?
Whatever it was, she was paying for it now as the second of the two maladies took her. The handkerchief she does have will lose its use quickly, but if she’s lucky she can sneak out without much trouble and continue her work from home. Grocery delivery, then—she’d rather die than be seen like this.
On that thought, there’s a knock at her door, and it’s at that point that Franziska begins to revisit her childhood theory that Miles Edgeworth has some sort of extrasensory ability that allows him to detect exactly what actions to take at any given moment to ignite her fury. It’s quite remarkable, really—to think that he is always just out there in the world, carrying around the nuclear codes for annoying her in a way that transcends even her expansive vocabulary. She very briefly, very darkly wonders if it is hereditary.
“Franziska?” he calls when she does not respond, too sluggish of mind to remember to speak. “Are you in?”
If only she had thought ahead. Kept the lights low. Arrived in disguise. Not whipped the reception desk on the way in, when the greenhorn intern sitting there had asked if she was feeling alright. If only Franziska could steel away into some dark corner, lock her door, keep out of sight while she closed up the last of these three cases, prepared for her next handful. But no, of course Miles was conveniently unavailable when she needed him, appearing only when she didn’t want to see a single soul.
Bracing herself for the inevitable verbal chess match, Franziska straightens her spine, sniffles emphatically, clears her throat, and stuffs her dwindling bag of lozenges back into her briefcase.
“You may enter.”
By some miracle of the fates, the cold has not yet taken up residence in her voice. The slight rasp that edges in is unassuming enough, and the illness is so miserably drippy that there’s no chance of congestion blunting her speech. Still, she’s careful to enunciate every word, well aware of Miles’ annoyingly well-tuned ears.
He arrives with little fanfare, holding a near-busting manila file, papers and plastic bags poking out of its sides. There’s a moment of pause when he finally looks from the object to her—god, she wants to throttle him. No doubt, he’s processing the state of her, using his divine powers of logic to do unheard-of things like think. Franziska can see as he registers the room in small bursts: her in three layers, still battling the air conditioning’s brutal assault. The way her fingers seem to stutter over the keys as she types. The office wastebasket, its contents a sea of white as anything there before is buried beneath a near-box’s worth of sullied tissues. Most conspicuous of all, the face mask digging scars into her ears.
At the very least, he does not notice that box itself, currently toppled on its side near the far left wall. Little victories.
“...have I come at a bad time?”
“Why on earth,” Franziska stops typing solely to level an acrid, red-rimmed gaze at him, “would you ask something quite so foolish?”
“You’ve a rather… gloomy air about you, is all,” Miles says, gesturing vaguely with the file. “Perhaps I’m imagining things.”
“Perhaps you are,” Franziska replies curtly. “Now, to what do I owe the displeasure?”
“That evidence you were curious about.” He holds the massive amalgam of data up toward the light. “I think I’m just about done with everything here, noteswise. Assuming you still need it, that is.”
“Leave it on the side-table,” she commands, sniffling once more, desperate to bat away the hot sting of tears that pool in her eyes. “Your tardiness notwithstanding, I’m sure there’s plenty in there worth adding to my case tomorrow.”
Miles is sliding the file into place on the table when she says it, and it gives him more pause, as if he’s contemplating what to say next. He always moved so slowly, an almost lethargic way about him, but when he observed it almost took on a predatory sort of aura—like a panther crouched down in the tall grass, the crawling drag of its eyes upon what it sought to make its lunch. Franziska could see him doing it now, out of the corner of her eye as the world slowly got blearier and blearier.
“You’re standing trial, then?”
“No, Miles Edgeworth, I was actually thinking of sending your dog to prosecute for me.” She glares at him, wrinkling her nose behind her mask as the prickle there flares high and fierce. Absolutely not. “Again, must I ask about the foolish flavour of your inquiries today? Has something come over you?”
“Just a rather pressing fascination regarding why you’d want to,” he crosses his arms, “given that you seem rather ill.”
Her eyebrow twitches.
“Come off it,” says Franziska, now having stopped typing entirely to sharpen that glare of hers to a razor-edge. “I’m perfectly healthy.”
“Are you?” he asks. “Why the mask, then?”
“Preventative,” she lies. “Your foolhardy reliance on air conditioning has doomed us all. With the faulty temperature in this blasted building, it’s only a matter of time before we all start taking ill and dropping like flies. I do not intend for my own wings to lose their luster when that time comes.”
“I see.” Miles shuffles his weight vaguely. “The layered getup as well, then?”
“You do have a brain after all.”
“And the…” he looks conspicuously to the not-quite-overflowing wastebasket, unsure of how to phrase gratuitous amounts of snot generously, in such a way that won’t see him lashed at.
“As steely as I can be i-in the frigid cold,” Franziska begins, her breath seesawing a bit as she struggles to reign her traitorous sinuses in, “I’d be lying if I said the current circumstances aren’t doing even me i—in—”
That steeliness holds on until the very last syllable, waiting on her punctuation to let itself crumble. An attempt is made, of course, to remain graceful despite—swivel to the side in her office chair, press the back of her hand oh-so-daintily to the hill of her mask as she crushes a pair of forceful sneezes into it. Thank god for that mask and all it hides—the hot moisture she can feel spilling onto her lip, searing a twin trail in tandem down the back of her throat. Every hole in her face feels utterly waterlogged.
“Gesundheit,” Miles mutters dryly, as he always does.
“Schnauze.”
“...Verily,” he says, turning on one foot to take his leave. “Well, if there’s anything else you require of me, Franziska, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
“How generous of you.” Truly, what she wants most is for him to leave so she can wipe the wretched sludge off her face. “Perhaps you could get me on the phone with whichever bumbling fool is in charge of the AC. Something tells me I’d do a far better job at motivating them than the foolish likes of you.”
“Well, whether you’re correct or not, I sincerely doubt doing so will change the circumstances at hand…”
As he’s nearing the door, Miles looks over his shoulder, in that annoyingly smug way he always does.
“...on account of the fact that they fixed it yesterday morning.”
The door is shut before she can scream. Ever the bastard, he just had to get the last word, every damn time.
Franziska cracks her whip so loud she swears the windows rattle.
Gumshoe is hiding behind a potted plant when they find him.
At this point, Maya really isn’t surprised anymore. With all the nonsense she’s seen since hanging around Nick, she wonders what kind of goings-on could still manage to shock her. All things considered, the biggest, burliest detective she knows cowering like a sissy behind a ficus she isn’t entirely sure is real isn’t even in the top ten. Especially given the fact that they’re, like, 78% certain that the murder weapon in the current case they’re working is a deflated pool toy.
The precinct is noisy with chatter as ever, but still Gumshoe insists on keeping his voice down, crying for the pair of them to do the same.
“Do I dare ask?” she hears Nick say, half-paying attention as she reads fliers and volunteer events tacked-up across the hallway corkboard.
“Nuh-uh! No way am I even sayin’ her name!” Gumshoe whisper-cries. “It’s like a summoning ritual, pal! The second I open my big mouth—”
“I can take a few guesses, judging by the high notes you’re wailing,” Nick says, “does it start with an F and end with a whip-crack?”
“I told ya, pal, keep your voice down!” He barrels out from behind the bush, massive index finger pressed firm against his mouth.
“Think I’ll survive,” Nick replies. “It’s not like she ever switches the artillery up, anyways. Maybe I’ve just lost my mind, but I think I’m kinda getting used to the whip.”
“Oooh! Or you can use me as a shield!” Maya pipes up, throwing her arms out enthusiastically. “She wouldn’t whip me anyways. Due to my girlish charm and legendary rizz.”
“Your wh—”
“Hey, don’t be so sure…” Gumshoe says, rubbing at the back of his head. “Look, she’s on a real rampage today and she’s taking no prisoners. I’d get in and out quick if I were you.”
“Please, it’s just Franziska.” Maya waves a hand. “She’s always prickly. What’s up her ass that’s making today some note-worthy exception?”
“I-I ain't at liberty to say!”
“Well, that’s a little disconcerting,” says Nick. “If it’s tightened up even Loose-Lips Dick over here…”
“Y'know, I resent that, pal!” Gumshoe raises his voice, ever-so-slightly. “I help you guys outta the goodness of my heart, not—”
He pauses, then, eyes wide—like a wild beast that’s just honed in on the distant sound of thunder, pupils thinning there in its head.
“...did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Maya tips her head to the side, and as if to answer her call, the noise in question picks up—the unmistakable, deafening, furious clicking of Franziska’s heels against the tile floors.
“Y-Yipes!” Gumshoe shoots out from behind the bush, looking both directions in an attempt to figure out which way to run. “I’m outta here, pals! See ya later!”
It almost seems like he’s going to make it unscathed, but he’s five feet down the hall and Franziska’s whip is six, ostensibly more with the way she throws her whole arm alongside it. Ever the sharpshooter, she gets a pretty good hit on his leg that makes him stumble and skirt to the right a bit, but to his credit he keeps on running.
“Sorry, Ms. von Karma, sir!” he cries as he goes. “I, uh, gotta make copies of those reports you requested, no time to chat, bye!”
“We will see precisely how much foolish chatting you do when I whip you so hard it knocks that foolish tongue from your foolishly foolish head!”
She barks the threat so hard her voice nearly gives out on the last syllable. Perhaps mercifully, she does not give chase—merely stares at the hulking shape of the detective as he disappears from view, cursing him with her eyes and coiling her whip… imperfectly.
Hm.
Alright, so maybe Maya was too fixated on Franziska’s big, powerful arms to notice the rest of her. She couldn’t help the way her eyes tended to wander, had made peace with just getting really good at hiding it. The point was, she was way too focused on Franziska’s humongous, sexy muscles to notice the far more obvious details of her appearance, currently—most notably of all, the fact that she looked kind of dead.
The face-mask conceals a great deal of the finer details, but the state of her eyes more than carries the weight of them—she looks so sore. She looks like she’s been crying for ten hours straight, all red and watery above the dark circles. Her shoulders are slumping almost imperceptibly, there’s a few strands of silvery hair that refuse to lie flat on her otherwise pristine bob, somehow her waistcoat looks… crooked, but not enough that anyone would really notice without concentrating. Suddenly, the hoarse quality of her voice reads less as a result of her screaming too loud and more…
Wuh-oh.
Getting a cute girl sick probably isn’t conducive to sleeping with her, is it?
“It would be just my luck that you show up,” says Franziska, her weepy gaze pointed squarely at Nick. “Always a thorn in my side, aren’t you? Have you come to canoodle with your opposing counsel like always?”
It’s not just her whip that Nick is getting used to, it seems—he doesn’t even flinch a little at that. “Well, that case is just about wrapped up, so unless you want to canoodle with m—ow!”
“How’s that for a loving caress?!” Though Maya can’t see it, she’s sure Franziska is baring her teeth. “Do not tell me that you are working the River Floze case.”
“Hm. Yeah, okay,” says Nick. “What would you like me to tell y—fuck! Cut it out!”
“I should have known the second I saw you talking to that useless Scruffy detective.” She looks off to the side balefully, as though she cannot even bear to acknowledge the idea.
“Since when is that a bad thing?” Nick sounds genuinely curious. “Aren’t you the one who’s always monologuing about how hard you’re gonna throttle me?”
Franziska’s shoulders hit her reddened ears, her arms instinctively half-wrapping themselves around her torso. “I—! Um, I—I will, Phoenix Wright, you—you mark my words, I shall see to it that your foolishly guilty client is—squashed beneath the mighty hammer of justice!”
“That hammer’s looking more like a squeaky toy right about now.” He grins at her, taking a bold step forward. Normally, Maya kinda loved when the two of them got like this, content to just sit off to the side and munch on her proverbial popcorn, but…
“How dare you!” Franziska croaks, stomping forward herself, until their foreheads are nearly touching. “You ought to tell me how those foolish words taste when I force you to eat them in court come morning!”
“Sure, if you can manage it,” says Nick. “But last I checked, I don’t think I ever remember losing to you.”
Sparks crackle and spit high in Franziska’s foggy blues, their heat so palpable it’s a surprise the moisture there doesn’t evaporate. She looks less like she’s going to whip him and more like she’s going to strangle him, but Maya finds it’s not fear for her bestie’s life that sees her sandals singing their wooden tune against the linoleum.
“Nick! Give it a rest!” She forces herself in-between them, palms flat on his chest as she shoves, makes the distance return between them. “You can’t be mean to her today! Not when she has the sniffles!”
“I—” Franziska chokes out from behind her, the ruddy colour around her eyes spreading to every last inch of her face. “—am perfectly healthy, and perfectly capable of besting your pet fool in a match of wits.”
To Maya’s chagrin, Nick snickers a bit. “Right. I don’t think Franziska von Karma gets the sniffles, Maya.”
“So you are capable of semi-intelligent thought,” Franziska agrees, glaring daggers over Maya’s shoulder. “Even if a von Karma could fly low enough to take ill, I certainly would not refer to such an ailment with so much juvenility.”
“Hey! I just thought of a great idea!” Maya feigns her usual bubbliness. “Nick, why don’t you go get me a hot crepe from the cute little cart down the road?”
He blinks. “What? Get it yourself. Why?”
“Because if you don’t I’m gonna dip and leave you here!”
“Wh—Maya, you’re holding, like, half our evidence—”
“Sure am!” She smiles big. “Oh, hold up, all those pieces of evidence are speaking to me now… I can hear their little voices… ‘Niiiick! We require creeeepes!’”
“Fine, fine, whatever.” He seems to roll his whole head alongside his eyes as he swivels on one heel. “But only because you’re still on the tail end of Those Dreaded Sniffles. I’m gonna be right back to starving you on Monday morning, mark my words.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Maya calls after him, standing tall on her tiptoes and waving vertically, with a flat palm—up, down, up, down. “I’ll be sure to pilfer your snack drawer tomorrow!”
Nick says nothing more to that, simply throws his hand vaguely, with his back still facing her—yeah, yeah, the gesture says wordlessly, and Maya stands there in a not-quite-comfortable sort of silence with an uncharacteristically wordless Franziska, waiting for his back to disappear from view.
Finally, she loosens her stance, sighing a heavy sigh that signals something akin to relief.
“Sorry about him.”
Franziska tilts on one heel, a bit—her head going sideways along with the motion. “He seems no more insufferable than normal.”
“Yeah, well, y’know…” Maya nervously turns to face her, “I just figured you could use a break today. You really don’t look well.”
“I—” Franziska protests again, her well of excuses beginning to run as dry as her overall battery, “—already told you, I’m perfe—ctly—fi—ine—”
Voice going breathy and high, she does all she can to wrangle her airways, turns to the side, flaps a hand before her face, scrunches her eyes shut tight in pure concentration of will. Holding back here at the peak of her illness is wholly futile, though—and Maya watches, tenderhearted with concern, as Franziska’s eyes fill with anguished tears and she sneezes urgently, viciously, shuddering through all four of them and struggling to remain upright.
Maya’s body moves on its own, but wasn’t that always the way? Affection seemed to bubble up inside her and out through chaste touches, here and alongside everyone she loved. With Franziska, there was always a barrier of sorts to push past—an aura hovering around her that hissed don’t touch me. Sick and imperfect and human like this, though, it’s like that spiky shield was never there to begin with.
Her hand finds Franziska’s shoulder, trailing it down gently to where her free arm presses against her midsection, half-tensed and limp at the forearm. Up close, the smell of someone desperately trying to contain an illness wafts off her—the sharp scent of alcohol sanitizer and menthol cough drops, unmistakable for anything else. Maya can almost see the thoughts debate themselves in Franziska’s bleary blues—she sits there in quiet agony for a moment deciding on if she should dare sniffle in the aftermath.
“Is that really your best impression of someone who’s fine?” Maya says with a bittersweet smile. She steps a bit closer to Franziska, who meets the softness in her eyes with a gentle look of her own.
“It’s nothing worth noting, Miss Fey,” she says, and the congestion rounds itself notably on every dull consonant. “With my bulletproof constitution I will be far less… impresentable in due time.”
“Y’know, I don’t remember you saying anything about impresentability when I sounded like dogshit,” says Maya with a sarcastic flourish of one hand. “You were pretty sweet with me. Nary a comment about how gross I was.”
“That’s—” a hissing stammer, flustered and precious, “—that is because there is precedent, you are always true to yourself. And plenty… plenty beautiful, regardless of if you try to be.”
“Damn, you’re really just wooing me on the clock, huh?” Maya grins a sleazy, ladykiller grin.
“It is a statement of fact.” Franziska straightens her spine, as if to punctuate this point. “I hardly see how it registers as flirtatious.”
“Yeah, you would say that.” She rolls her eyes, digs around in her obi. “And this?”
Before her, Maya proffers the scarf from before. Fur-lined, dark grey, impossibly warm. Franziska casts her eyes upon it, resting limply in-between the two of them like a fuller, stranger thread of fate. For a moment, she just looks at it, brow knit weakly in thought—then she’s turning off to the side, the tiniest shade of a far more healthy-looking pink asserting itself across her ears.
One wonders if that mask is to protect anyone other than the tight-lipped woman wearing it.
“That was flirting.”
Maya nearly chokes on her own spit. Never mind.
It’s a struggle not to pitch forward giggling. Instead, the young medium keeps it to a far-more restrained snicker, taking a now-emboldened step forward. She’d been hoping, but it’s awfully nice to hear it said out loud. Of course, there’s nothing left to do for the woman named Karma than the obvious.
Franziska doesn’t shy away when Maya loops the scarf around the back of her neck, only tenses slightly as the girl gets to work fastening it. Up closer, she can see the thin sheen of sweat glistening on the ailing prosecutor’s forehead, barely visible where her bangs have come ever-so-slightly out of place. It was always kind of a marvel, that even on her worst day, Franziska’s slip on control took the form of these blink-and-miss-it details, unknown to the wider world. Despite her perspiring, she’s been shivering just barely, ever since she’d slowed down, stopped running, coiled her whip and hung it on her good shoulder. Maya certainly cannot have that.
And it is quite endearing, the way Franziska simply allows it all to happen. None of the hissing and spitting Maya sees when anyone else dare comes near—no, Franziska… welcomes these shaky, heartsoft touches. That sentiment flutters like a songbird around Maya’s ribs, crooning its melody with such vigor it vibrates there in her chest.
“In case it wasn’t clear,” Maya says, “so is this.”
“I—” Franziska swallows, wincing a bit, “—y-yes. Thank you.”
Another shit-eating grin. “‘Thank you’? You really know how to charm a girl, Franzy.”
Maya can see her cheeks bunch up at her eyes, knows she’s doing that cute thing beneath her mask where she hardens her jawline, tries to look firmer. “It is working. You are charmed.”
“Yeah,” says Maya. “I am.”
Finally, then, the handkerchief. Freshly laundered, of course, and tucked away in the little side-pocket Maya had sewn into her obi, the same place she kept snacks and, occasionally, Nick’s stolen debit card. Deliberate in her movements, Maya takes Franziska’s hand in hers, first. Gently, then, she transfers the soft thing back where it belongs—its golden-threaded vK monogram shimmering as the light catches it, right before she closes Franziska’s hand around it.
“Well, I’m still good for Saturday,” says Maya, “but I think you should probably spend date night with a lovely lady by the name of Coldkiller.”
Franziska sniffles a miserably waterlogged sniffle. “We’re acquainted. At this juncture I find her a touch too... uncommitted, for my tastes.”
“Sucks to be her,” says Maya. “Y’know, maybe it isn’t so bad that I’m the one who got you sick. If I can’t catch what you have, then it wouldn’t be too risky to do something like… just spitballing here… show up at your house at four o’clock Saturday afternoon with chicken soup and lotiony tissues?”
That crease in Franziska’s brow has always kinda given Maya a headache. Especially right now, when she already looks like she’s been battling one all day. Those bags beneath her eyes really could use a couple thousand kisses, if she just plays her cards right…
“You’re sure?” says Franziska. “I… cannot be confident I will be the most excellent host.”
Maya nods. “Perfect looks good on you, Franzy, I know you know that. Between you and me, though…”
With the thinnest flicker of hesitation, Maya raises one arm. There, where Franziska’s silvery crown does its best to stay perfectly flat, perfectly cropped, perfectly in shape—the shorter girl stands on tiptoes, places a flat palm on Franziska’s head, and gives it a gentle ruffle. Betraying everything she is, Franziska speaks not a single noise of complaint—merely squints her tired eyes closed and dips her head forward a bit, feeling endorphins spring from Maya’s touch.
“…I think you’re pretty cute like this.”
Maya’s foot works like a pivot-point as she turns, annoyingly identical to how Nick had earlier. Staying on script, then, she waves the way he had, too—but with a playful look over her shoulder, a coquettish smile barely hidden by her long black hair.
“See you on Saturday!” she calls, then adds, “Oh! And in court tomorrow, too!”
And there she goes, hips swaying, beads tinkling, sandals clunking unevenly on the ground. Professional though she is, Franziska wonders how on earth she’s to focus at the bench with the sound of that lilting voice echoing everlong in her ears.
She walks back to the offices. Up the stairs, down the hall, to the furthest corner of her own private office, away from the thin walls and faulty doors. Balefully, she pries off her sodden mask, looking anywhere but at it as she tosses the thing in the bin, stomps it down thoroughly with one heel. As noiselessly as she can muster, she presses her returned handkerchief to her face and finally, blissfully clears herself out.
More than able, then, and with no small amount of reverence, Franziska takes a deep breath.
Woven imperfectly around her neck, Maya’s wafting scent remains.