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Packed as her schedule was, with multiple trials, a bonus investigation, and the associated paperwork for both, today was meant to be, though exhausting, a perfectly satisfying workday Franziska could be proud of.
Instead, she had spent the day surrounded by more fools than usual, who’d needed to be whipped into shape more literally than figuratively. Namely one fool — Name: Scruffy; Occupation: Detective, presumably, underneath all the lashmarks she’d given him today alone.
But that was that fool’s own fault, for breathing down her neck all day in concern, for no good reason! So what if getting through her trials today had necessitated shoving lozenges down her throat as if they were candy, lest her voice fray and crackle and die out before she could enact her perfect justice? Or if by the time midday came and went, her sinuses had finished filling themselves with who-knew-what, and thus informed her of such via a dull ache between her eyes she had to consciously keep from wincing at? That didn't mean she deserved to be plagued by that kicked-puppy aura of his. She was already being plagued by whatever fool illness had miraculously managed to carve a chink into her constitution, and that was quite enough, thank you. It wasn't like she was going to die.
She could have made it through the day and then some, and she would have, if not that one moment of weakness. She remembered it vividly: Sitting in Scruffy’s beat-up car, having just concluded an investigation that had taken longer than it had meant to because American police officers were foolish fools of the highest degree; soaked head to toe from the persistent rain the dreary clouds had been pouring onto Los Angeles since the sun rose up from behind them, because she had discarded her umbrella to crawl on the asphalt to stretch a hand into the gap underneath a row of benches for the evidence she’d seen a flash of out the corner of her eye. Evidence the police had missed, because see her earlier point.
With drooping eyelids she had been picking at the wet gravel caught in the fluffy edges of her coat. From the driver’s seat, Scruffy had asked where to next. There had been a few possible destinations on Franziska’s mental to-do list, truthfully. But the way her sinuses had been pulsing in time with the throbbing starting up behind her temples threatened to derail every thought, rendering it difficult to pull her focus away from the wet hair sticking to her forehead and how her nose had begun dripping with more than just rainwater and how even through she was out of the rain and had removed her gloves her fingertips were chilled cold, that chill beginning to spread through her wrists and down her arms.
So she had clenched her fists, and stealthily cleared her throat. What had come out in an unsteady voice, though, was not the desire to go back to her office to log the evidence she'd found, nor an order to drive to the Detention Center for the interrogations this new evidence required by consequence of existing; it was instead some remark about getting a change of clothes and drying off.
And Scruffy, that — that, that, THAT —! — in his...finite wisdom, had decided to, in a move his peers would likely put him on suicide watch for if they knew of it, interpret what she'd said as a request to drive her home. No matter how she’d snapped at him for it — physically once, the edge of her whip catching his cheek and causing him to swerve as he sped around a corner; verbally, mostly, with both threats to cut his salary so low he would be paying the precinct to let him work for them and threats to tear him limb from limb with her whip alone; physically, once more, when she'd heard her foolish brother's name amidst Scruffy's pained mutterings. To give him a miniscule amount of credit, the car didn't swerve this time.
Unfortunately, she wasn't able to terrorize him for long, because not only did her voice give out pretty quickly, but she'd run out of lozenges. So she had to settle for adding “utter fury” as a second reason she was shaking uncontrollably in the back seat. Her eyes were hard, reflected in the rear-view mirror and in the way Scruffy's shoulders were tensed by his ears, and her handkerchief was pressed to her face, since she refused to sniffle about her running nose one way or another. Because then she would have to kill Scruffy, and Miles would be absolutely insufferable about it. Although it might be worth it anyway, seeing as he had noticed her shivering and had turned on the heater as subtly as he could. Which was not subtle at all. If only they weren't both in a moving vehicle...
By the time they arrived at Franziska's apartment building, the effort not to sneeze had made her eyes wet, too, in addition to the rest of her still being damp and cold. She blew past Scruffy, seething, whipping him twice more for good measure as he stepped a foot out of the car to presumably treat her like an invalid by helping her to the door or something similarly foolish. What on earth had come over her, that she would sabotage her own work ethic as she had done? For something so trivial and childish as “wanting to be warm”? Had she lost her mind? There was no way anything warm or otherwise was meant to get in the way of her doing her job!
Her rage, boiling over, propelled her into the building and up the elevator and down the hall to the front of her apartment door. And it fully boiled away, when, upon stepping inside, she registered noise from beyond the entranceway — the television, playing broad yet subdued orchestral music that brought to mind paragraphs of exposition and the cheery voice that had it memorized and could recite it on command. Slowly, Franziska closed the door, spotting wooden sandals laying haphazardly on the floor as she turned to do so.
Ah. There was a warmth that could be considered worth it, wasn't there?
With that realization came the wave of fatigue Franziska had been fighting and diverting nearly all day. Through it, she managed to put away her umbrella. And take off her coat, and bend to remove her boots. She also managed to completely lose her balance doing so, sitting heavily on the floor with a thump and slumping the rest of the way to the floor.
Franziska blinked at the rug fibers under her face, wincing as the dripping from her nose changed directions. The handkerchief she’d been clutching in her hand rested at the edge of her peripheral vision, but reaching for it felt like more effort than it was worth. An idle thought arose in her mind, then, a memory of an evening after a date, the sun setting over the horizon as her and Maya walked hand-in-hand through a park, the other of Maya’s hands waving around in the air as she explained the concept of “Floor Time” to her nonplussed yet horribly fond girlfriend. Franziska huffed, suppressing a cough. Perhaps she’d been a bit too hasty in calling it foolish back then. Or maybe not — it would be better for her to stand, now, lest she sank through the floor out of sight. She had better things to do than lay about.
Franziska heard the footsteps before she saw them — hurried bare feet slapping on hardwood, a sparkling bracelet wrapped around an ankle. Franziska closed her eyes against the clacking of beads, and when she opened them again Maya had lowered herself to the floor. Squirming to face Franziska, Maya stared at her, examining her face. Franziska stared back.
Maya’s lips quirked. “So,” she said, eyes warm and soft and amused and concerned, “You come here often?”
“.........No,” Franziska replied, the driest any of her had been in hours. Lifting her head, her gaze at Maya came out more like a glare, with the effort to hold herself together, and while such a look had had every fool who had witnessed it today skittering like ants, Maya only half-stifled a coo and shuffled closer to put a hand to Franziska's forehead.
Maya chattered on as she fussed over Franziska, and Franziska tried to pay attention to what she was saying, she really did — and Maya’s offhand mention of that lake monster nearly managed to bring her the needed focus for its absurdity — but in the haze settling around her shoulders it was enough to hear her beloved's voice wrapping around her heart, turning it to mush. Such internal gooeyness begged to be expressed, of course; in this case, it did so not via any sweet nothings or flowery words, nor by an attempt to alleviate Maya's concerns about her health, but through an involuntary pitch forward that preluded a mucus-lined sneeze directly into Maya's hair.
Maya examined the results with a critical eye. 6 out of 10, she rated it aloud, a little unimpressed, and Franziska changed her mind about not sinking into the floor past-her was a fool that sounded like an amazing idea, actually —
Maya wiped her hair with a hand, her hand on her shorts, and sat up. Franziska clawed her way upright to join her, fingers bunching up the rug, shoulder lightly throbbing in protest from both the effort and the time it had spent squished into the floor. Maya reached out a hand to help her; Franziska sagged into the space it left behind, because she was tired, and Maya was warm. Maya made an unintelligible noise and kissed Franziska loudly and messily on the temple, and it was just about the only Wet that had been tolerable all day.
Eventually, when the kettle on the stove whistles, Maya and Franziska will quickly and laboriously get to their feet, respectively. Having woken up earlier than usual this morning, Maya had watched Franziska bustle around getting ready for her day with half-lidded eyes and a vague sense of foreboding. So she'd spent her free time raiding cabinets and closets for the sick-day supplies Franziska had bought in a flurry way back when, after that first time Maya had gotten sick in her apartment had revealed the dearth of them, and metaphorically crossed her name on them out to put Franziska's name all over them instead.
(Uh, not the spicy ramen, though. That one was certainly not going to be of any help here. But that just meant more for Maya, and she could hardly complain about that.)
Franziska will finally get to change clothes, and as she shuffles out of the bedroom a warm mug of tea will be pressed into her hands with a smile. She’ll be herded to the couch to rest, the TV switched to play episodes of The Cobalt Crusader, the protagonist’s likeness in plushie form on one side of her, her and its (if Maya had her way) girlfriend on the other, dinner nearly finished and the promise of ice cream in her near future, the feeling of being warm and known and loved near-palpable in the air.
For now, though, Franziska and Maya sat on the floor, curled into each other, hand in hand — no less warm, no less known, no less loved.