ailing attorneys

Run-of-the-mill, historically, was not a turn of phrase one would often place in front of a noun like homicide.

Yet still, Franziska von Karma found herself doing it far more often than was appropriate. There was simply no other way to describe the… the contrast of the cases that she worked back home, in big and underlined comparison to the ones that found her in the states. Here, there was always some wildly eclectic framing device or three—a flying killer here, a ceremonial sword there—Americans, as always, were incapable of being quiet. Even as they were lying, cheating, stealing, and taking life, they always endeavoured to find some foolish way to make themselves the center of attention.

Penciled in mid-way through her organizer—straight in the center of today’s handful of trials, investigations, and interviews—the case currently at her attention is neither run-of-the-mill… nor homicide, rarely enough. Its intricacies are strange, though, so very so that she finds herself stopping to have that oft-pondered thought, why are the people of this ridiculous country incapable of simply committing their crimes by the book?

Bioterrorism. By a civilian, no less—at least, that is what Franziska is attempting to prove. The defendant had fit the bill perfectly—a microbiologist with high clearance and a bad attitude, admittedly lacking in motive, but the night was still young. No deaths had resulted from the outbreak she’d been charged with, but the doctors interviewed had assured the court—that was due to a great deal of quick-acting and luck. Had even a few more minutes been allowed to elapse…

Well. They hadn’t, and Franziska wasn’t eager to explore such a macabre hypothetical.

Thankfully, she isn’t forced to—Scruffy nudges the door open right as her thoughts are wandering, awkwardly circling back on one foot to hold it open for the witness as she enters. One would think that, this far into things, he’d have learned to position himself correctly, but if one were to think that, it would become immediately clear they did not know the bumbling fool.

The witness moves slowly, not spurred by any sense of urgency. A lesser prosecutor might relax their shoulders, loosen their spine, read the absence of fear as a tell of guiltlessness—but Franziska is made of stronger starstuff than that. Unshakable suspicion, a sharpened sword, to be leveled toward all who enter her domain—regardless of how convenient it may or may not be for her case.

Right now, that sword points toward a rather plain-looking woman. Dark-skinned with golden box braids and fading, rectangular, thick-rimmed glasses. She’s still in her work clothes, despite having all the time in the world to change—a well-worn lab coat with stitching that frays around its deep pockets. As Franziska studies the lines of her face, the less-natural of them come into focus, first—indents across her nose, around her eyes, from where she’d no doubt had goggles, or some sort of heavy-duty mask pressed there for what must’ve been hours.

Leave it to the eccentrics of this wretched city to never fail in matters of consistency. When their names did not miraculously give hint to their job, one could rest assured their clothing would.

Alone, though, these indicators are hardly admissible in court. As it is, then, Franziska uncaps her pen and begins the motions.

“...we’re an easy scapegoat, prosecutor,” the witness is in the middle of saying, and Franziska doesn’t disagree. As convenient as it all is, though…

“Easy scapegoat, or the simplest answer,” she says right back, “the difference between the two, as I’m sure you can guess, lies in the evidence or lack thereof.”

“Right, right.” She waves a hand, unbothered by Franziska’s unmoving, interrogative glare. “We’ve got that in spades too, I can assure you.”

“Do not keep me on tenterhooks, then, Ms…”

She looks down at her notes, to ensure she does not disrespect the witness. Catching her vibe, the woman in question grins brightly.

“You can call me Cole.”

Colleen, her notepad says. Charming nickname, and Franziska can’t help the jolt of amusement she gets whenever she encounters someone else with a nobiliary particle sandwiched in somewhere. Pity this one’s French.

“Ms. Cole.”

“Just Cole’s fine.” A tip of her head, one which accentuates that sugarsweet smile. “I’m sure you know I haven’t been briefed on all the details. But this is a criminal case, yeah? I can hazard a guess we’re dealing with some serious viral damage here.”

“I’m not at liberty to specify,” Franziska says, “but I do believe you’re heading down precisely the line of questioning I’d hoped to lead you myself.”

“Mama always did say I was an overachiever.” Cole crosses her arms. Somehow, the gesture doesn’t have the usual effect of closing her off. “Cutting to the chase, though, our facilities don’t deal in anything that could do actual harm. If you do a walk of our lab floor, all you’re gonna find is a couple thousand strains of boring old rhinovirus.”

Aggravating, how the word rhinovirus almost makes her shiver. With a twinge of something hot creeping up her collar, Franziska shoos the inappropriate thoughts away, barking out at her meandering brain that they are at work, thank you very much.

“Yes, we did make note of that,” she says. “But our defendant said something else of note, and that something is actually my cause for questioning you today.”

For the first time since she’d entered the room, Cole looks caught off guard. Her laidback air wavers, she seems to tilt in her chair. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Franziska hears the scraping song of a blade being sharpened.

“You see, we pulled all of your records, and we noticed a great deal of funds in relatively consistent amounts that were…” she picks her words, “rather vaguely accounted for.”

Something breaks across the witness’ face. There suddenly, gone in a flash, kept under wraps. If she’d been dealing with someone other than Franziska, perhaps she’d have been luckier. With metaphorical sword in hand, the legal cavalier just barely grazes the skin of her throat.

Her target deflects. “I’d have to see those numbers to know what any of that—”

Those numbers hit the table before the sentence ends. With a papery thwap they sprawl beneath the leathery jet-black of Franziska’s glove, and all Cole can do is squint down at them performatively, playing her clueless part with admittedly admirable dedication. Her dark eyes don’t leave the page as she carries on, “Hm. Volunteer donations, maybe?”

“What a noble pursuit that would be, if only it were the case.” Franziska narrows her eyes as far as they’ll go, intent on boring silvery holes into the winding edges that tile the witness’ scalp. “I will reveal my hand for the sake of both our time, Ms. d’Fleau—we’ve been tipped off about the little biohazard black market you lot are running.”

There it is again, all but confirmation—the tensing of her shoulders, the biting of her lower lip. In the same split-second as before, it vanishes—quick-witted and eloquent, Cole snaps right back.

“Then you know for certain we have nothing to do with this,” she says, leaning toward her pursuer, rather than away. “So tell me, prosecutor, why am I being treated as a suspect?”

On instinct alone Franziska holds the eye contact, stays precisely where she is. There are gears turning in her head, too, ones she is not so weak to let show on her face, the way this witness does. Instead, she brings her shoulders to her ears slowly, gradually, in tandem with the forced jut of her jaw as it sticks out. Making herself bigger, to offset the terror of new information as it washes around her.

“For certain, you say?” Franziska straightens herself out further, angling her head to one side. Elegance and curiosity maintained. “Do elaborate on that.”

“What, did she tell you the under-the-table stuff was pandemic-level? Dangerous strains?” Cole, too, angles one honey-yellow eyebrow up. “It’s nothing different from the stuff we need ID for. Check the whole facility if you want, wipe down every wall and petri dish. Hell, you can dance through the halls with a blacklight on if it’ll get y’all off our backs.”

“I can assure you, we will be doing… most of that,” says Franziska, and she does mean it. “Though I now find myself with quite a few more questions than answers.”

“I’ve got nothing but time, counsel,” and there’s that easygoing grin once more, “ask me anything.”

“I suppose I’m simply perplexed by the differentiation,” Franziska begins, “why, exactly, is there a secondary, secret market?”

“I mean, I kinda told you,” Cole gestures with her finger, as if attempting to point to the information still fluttering around the air, “we don’t ask for a clinical license.”

“...that’s all?”

“‘That’s all,’ she says! It’s pretty illegal, last I checked. But, I can assure you, no tangible harm.” When she looks back into Franziska’s eyes, her own are soft, deceptively honest. “The specimens we sell to civilians are in a pretty low concentration, too. Nothing you could cause a major or sudden outbreak with.”

Forefinger and thumb pressed to her chin, Franziska considers this information. A biotech lab that primarily sells harmless cultures to scientists participating in clinical studies, with a secondary underground market that does… the exact same thing? Attempts to order her thoughts don’t come easily—there’s a question, simple and burning, that holds like a fortress around the hypothetical narrative she’s trying to weave.

“...why?”

“‘Why’?”

“Yes, Ms. Cole d’Fleau, why?” And she’s back to her regular intensity, drawing back her sword. “What is the market goal, here? If not for nefarious purposes, then why on earth would regular civilians spend this much money—” she gestures back to the paper lying on the table, “—on live virus?”

“Oh, there’s a market for it, all right. I mean, just think about it…” Cole leans in again, “college students who need a few more days on that paper. Exasperated spouses desperate to avoid dinner with the in-laws. There’s a lot of reasons a person might want to get themself ill, but to be honest…”

A sweeping, silent, heavy look. To the left, then the right, as if the witness is making sure no one else besides the whole of Los Angeles’ law enforcement is listening. Her eyes rest back on Franziska in the center, who instinctively draws herself closer to this strange woman, glued to her even stranger words, and somehow… knowing what she is going to say next.

“...there’s no polite way to say it, Ms. von Karma. Most of our customers,” says Cole through a lidded-gaze, “are of a certain… sexual predilection.”

It’s not a wave of heat that crashes over Franziska, no glorious tsunami to knock her on her backside, no grasping undertow to drag her down. No, the sensation is more akin to a slow, torturous submersion as the sentiment swirls around her head, as the words coalesce and their meaning takes shape. She feels it start at her ribs and spread out from her center—through her extremities, across her torso, clear up to her temple. It’s horribly cliche, but she feels as though steam is due to whistle from her ears, any second now.

Working! We are working!

And she is most certainly blushing. Nothing suspicious about that, she reminds herself. The subject matter is precisely the kind that would make any… typical individual flush red. In more ways than one.

“My apologies if I buried the lede, there.”

“It’s quite alright.” Franziska clears her throat. “I’m familiar enough with a proper litany of what could reasonably be called paraphilia obscura.”

“Suppose that makes sense, in your line of work.” Cole relaxes in her seat, notably deflating, her puffed-up feathers laying flat. “Bet you’ve seen some wild internet searches.”

Franziska’s first attempt to clear her throat had done a good three-fourths of whatever she needed it to do, and so she forces out another, fist poised daintily at her lips, eyes fluttered shut. Mid-way through it all, she realizes she’s trying to shake the pink from her cheeks like some sort of broken etch-a-sketch, terrified of what that colour might spell out if her witness looks a bit too closely.

Somewhere out in the cosmos, in some impossibly distant timeline, there is a bolder, louder, much more foolish iteration of herself—one that dares to grin a devilish grin of her own, cast her own lackadaisical gaze toward the witness, and throw a massive battle-axe into the conversation in lieu of any sword.

Actually, says the anti-Franziska.

“Yes,” says the proper one, “Wild is correct.”

*** [ 00:00:00 ] ***

At the rate things are going, Franziska begins to worry she might leave a permanent indent at the edge of her bed.

With her internal clock the way it is, she knows that she hasn’t been sitting here for long. Still, it feels like hours as she stares down the massive box atop her dresser, willing it to bend to her the way everything else in life does.

Awfully cute, for what it contains. Gift wrapped like a twisted little birthday present, which… well, the metaphor fails as soon as she remembers that’s precisely what it is.

What a brand new feeling, purchasing a last minute gift. Of course, Franziska had a multitude of other, more well-laid plans in the chamber as the calendar crept forth—she would not be so careless as to forgo the utmost worship on her long-time girlfriend’s special day. No, Maya Fey deserved nothing but the best, and tomorrow, the best would consist of the works—dinner by the seaside, indulging in deep-tissue massages and a proper soak in the sauna, and a starlit walk on the private beach before returning to the little ocean cabin Franziska had rented. There, they’d curl up and watch Maya’s favourite of her samurai movies, and presumably make soft love by candlelight if the day itself allowed them the energy.

A rare feeling, indeed, for Franziska to learn that her perfect plans were, in truth, almost perfect. Not an issue, though, when the key to perfection was right there, across the impossible and cavernous divide between the bed and her oaken dresser.

Bravely, then, she rises, one foot in front of the other as she approaches it, carefully undoes the charming red bow they’ve tied around her spoils. Beneath her careful digits, the deviant little picnic basket reveals itself—stocked to the brim with a number of illicit supplies she can hardly muster up the courage to look at. Instead, she draws her attention to the envelope atop the metal cylinder, branded with soft purple lettering and sealed with a shining silver sticker.

Franziska takes a deep breath, feeling a coward as she nervously thumbs the embossing. Its foggy finish casts an off-blue silhouette of her upward, translucent and wavering in tandem with her racing heart. With one final, slow inhale, she digs her finger beneath the lip and tears the thing open.

The letter that greets her is just as professional as all the service had been, thus far. Company letterhead, tasteful fourteen-point serif, each word just navy enough to look black in the dim light of her room. For petty criminals, they certainly knew how to keep the image clean. Regardless, of course, of whatever insanitary things were wriggling around inside the metal.

Formerly criminal, she reminds herself. Or… soon-to-be, while the patents and proper paperwork struggled to find the proper hands. It’s the day after Thanksgiving—the ugliest and most reprehensible of the American holidays—and she’s been here long enough to know that means it is now the season. The one where nothing gets done in a timely fashion, regardless of its importance, regardless of any birthdays she might need that swiftness in preparation of. There’s an extra jolt of adrenaline, knowing this purchase remains illicit, regardless of her vested interest in helping it be less so.

However it goes, she’d rather like to visit again.

Beneath her barely-trembling thumb, the letter begins—

Treasured client, Thank you for choosing Virlosity for all your delightfully off-color needs. Please re-familiarize yourself with the fine print below to ensure your commission has been tailored to your proper liking. Once reviewed, follow the instructions on page two carefully to ensure the full effects desired. Failure to do so may result in dulled or less-than-favorable results. If you are in any way unsatisfied, please reach out to your viral artist at 213…

The fine print below reads like sordid erotica. Franziska forgets to swallow as her eyes scan it. By the time she does, all the moisture in her throat has traveled elsewhere.

Focus. The instructions, then.

When she uncaps the canister, she almost feels witchlike, staring into the freezing tendrils of smoke that pull off the dry ice. Inside is a little glass pipette of sorts, some kind of cross between a baster and… those nasal sprays Franziska’s seen on drugstore shelves before sheepishly averting her eyes. Everything’s very predictably clinical, and like anything clinical, she feels immediately as though she’s holding onto moulded silicone and shining lubricant rather than medical instruments.

The window of time between yanking the plug from this tool and inoculation is small, conveniently spurring her on and chasing away any hesitation she’d certainly have had otherwise. Why on earth she’s so reluctant, she hasn’t the faintest clue—she likes this. Despite biology, evolution, and proper sensibility, she likes this. More importantly than that, Maya likes this, a fact she’d been simultaneously elated and terrified to learn on that fateful night out all those years ago.

Whatever trepidation is left vanishes at that thought. This is for Maya, and there is no turning back now. The door is locked, the blinds are shut, there is no chance of being caught with her proverbial hand crammed down her skirt. Gently, then, she slides the pipette into one nostril, closes her eyes, and inhales.

Deeply, and with purpose. Somehow, this simple action feels like the most filthy and depraved thing she’s ever done. With heat kissing her cheeks, Franziska gives it another good squeeze, and this time the scent of something offwhite and sterile fills her senses, impossible to place. Swallowing thickly, willing residual nerves away, she switches sides and repeats the process, breathing as intently as she is able, desperate to get her money’s worth.

Eventually, the odd smell fades. In its place, the gentle florals of her and Maya’s shared apartment return, and she places the pipette back into its canister with her every artery abuzz. There’s a foolish urge to skip as she places everything back in the basket, and then places the basket inside her suitcase, and then places her suitcase deep within the closet.

R0: 3.5 Onset: ~24 hours from inoculation. Special requests fulfilled: high end of R0 for easy person-to-person infection; maximum concentration of viral load to ensure infection is emphatic; symptomatic focus on nasal hyperreactivity; client expressed worries of “impenetrable immunity” when referring to herself, in addition to aforementioned precautions, we have modified an uncommon serotype of rhinovirus that the general public are not likely to have had previous exposure to. Symptom profile: Body fatigue and general malaise will set in within…

*** [00:12:37] ***

The infernal ringing of her emergency alarm wakes her, for what is—and she is counting—the third time in her entire life.

There begins the scramble to silence it before it wakes Maya, who Franziska’s momentarily forgotten is the second deepest sleeper she knows. After she’s managed to swipe the horrible cacophony away, she takes stock of the girl still snoozing beside her—features peaceful, arms splayed out, snoring just inaudibly enough for it to be adorable rather than detrimental. Safe, whispers the voice in Franziska’s head, and she extricates herself slowly and carefully from their shared bed with all the grace of… well, an Interpol agent.

The unspoken agreement of several years passed remains. If there is to be breakfast in bed, it will be from a box, and Maya will sooner die before she complains, or teases, or makes any note of Franziska’s prevailing inability to cook, which she’s since learned any layman would simply call average. That first year, it took a full hour for Maya to convince her that she was not just speaking mindless flattery, no, it was actually very impressive that Franziska had managed to get the yolk that runny and the white that stiff, truly. As she’s messily cracking the things and pulling shellbits out with a scowl, the memory of it alone is all that keeps her going, through the culinary unfamiliarity and through the… twinge that reverberates dully in her sluggish arms.

It doesn’t feel much different from the occasional flare-up in her bad shoulder, but she hears it like a herald all the same. With it comes a sort of giddy anticipation, a promise of what’s to come that aches in tandem with the newborn sun. Once that first light breaks blue and bright across the morning sky, Franziska feels it in full—a telltale burn that pulls at her eyelids, begs her to return to sleep and give her immunity the advantage. There’s still time, it reminds her, to get a head-start on things.

Petulant as ever, she straightens her spine and carries on with her work.

Maya rises slowly, grinning that award-winning sleepy grin, nearly toppling the tray with the ferocity with which she pulls Franziska in for a kiss. Chapped lips, morning breath, hair ratty—Franziska has the thought that she’s never seen her so beautiful, just as she had the last morning, and the one before that. She devours her french toast and hash browns with a typical lack of any reverence, far more concerned with getting everything in her mouth as quickly as possible than any of Franziska’s attempts at deft handiwork. This, too, is the highest compliment either of them can think of—second only to the way she saves the eggs for last.

Franziska’s nearly done with their suitcases by the time Maya’s sipping her cooled tea. All the… extras that the lab had sent, buried in the bottom under what may be one too many button-downs. It may be a risky move to place her spare handkerchiefs in the netting-pocket that crowns it all, but with everything that’s about to happen she has a feeling she’ll need them sooner, rather than later.

When they finally arrive, the train station is the quietest Franziska’s ever seen it. This late into the morning the commuters have all reached their destinations, and it’s nothing but the screech of their rolling luggage and Maya’s meandering chatter as far as Franziska’s ear will reach. Uncharacteristically, she’s suppressing the urge to shiver in the November chill, and doing a less-than-favourable job at it, the way Maya notices her fiddling with the buttons on her long black jacket. The birthday girl all but swats the metal things out of Franziska’s slipping fingers, fussing gleefully all the way as she draws the garment closed and closer.

“You losing your ice powers, Fran?” Maya teases. “Never thought I’d see the day…”

“From the odd bout of California chill?” And Franziska offers a smile of her own. “What a cruel twist of fate that would be.”

“For you, maybe,” Maya leans in closer, breath hot against Franziska’s collar as she whispers, “I think you look pretty cute, your nose all pink like that.”

Her cheeks wear that same colour a moment later. Maya likes that too, if the kiss she plants against one of them is anything to go on.

A rush of wind hails the train, and in its roar Franziska does allow herself to shiver in the cold, just this once. It’s not enough to get her nose running—to both their chagrin—but that is all fine and good, for now. The creaky way her bones settle as they wander into the corner of their car is enough of a promise to cling to. All in due time, it ensures.

They’ve only been at the beach house for thirty minutes before Maya’s outside, her sandals thrown haphazardly against the deck chair and her feet plunged into the crystalline sea. There’s a deeply ironic quip stuck on Franziska’s tongue about recklessness and catching colds, one that ends with Maya raising a playful eyebrow back over her shoulder before diving in, fully clothed. Instead of any of that, Franziska unpacks their things from the warmth of the bedroom, looking both ways like a misbehaving child as she shoves every handkerchief she owns in her pockets. Anxiously, she eyes the wall clock, its novelty crustacean limbs tick-tick-ticking their claws toward the 24-hour mark. Provided that their reservation is not plagued by the foolish American tradition of doing nothing on time, they should be seated and eating right about…

*** [ 01:00:14 ] ***

Franziska sniffles around her fork.

Most surprising of all is how involuntary it is. With how she’d been checking and re-checking and triple-checking the clock, she’d thought that the first twitch of her nose might register as… anything, really. Instead, Maya had started moaning around her burger, and Franziska had gotten a bit too distracted, and had neglected to let the golden-brown surface of her baked macaroni cool before hastily plunging its steaming shape into her mouth, and by then the sensation of her tastebuds screaming had become much too loud for her to notice something as menial as…

She sniffles again, this time as she’s swallowing. There’s a foolish urge to blame the tears in her eyes, but when had those gotten there, come to think of it? A result of burning her mouth like an excitable child, or a product of the incessant, sudden, needling—

Buzzing. Her sinuses are… buzzing.

For some reason, the natural emotion that comes alongside this is panic.

Even in the private booth, beside the crackling hearth, these lodgings aren’t exactly… isolated. They’d come at peak hours, and the place isn’t packed, but there are more than a few patrons seated in the… blast radius, so to speak. Not to mention anyone who might need the booth when they’re done with it, and if Franziska were to request it be properly sanitized, the whole game would give itself away far too quickly for—

“You know you can’t be making that face in public, babe.”

She chokes down another mouthful of pasta. Maya’s finished her food—of course—and is looking at her dreamily, brown eyes lidded and lustful as she props herself up on her palm.

“What face?” 

“That scrunchy-nose thing you always do when you’re fighting off a sneeze.” Maya dares to invoke the word. “The one that drives me crazy—”

“Be quiet,” shushes Franziska, her whole face burning in tandem with her rioting airways. “Have some decorum, Schatzi. Should you really be talking such filth in a fine establishment like this?”

“You’re the one being a tease.”

“I cannot control what my respiratory processes are doing.”

“God, I know, it’s so—”

“Perhaps you ought to lighten up on the pepper,” she deflects, pointing at the sad remains of Maya’s burger, nothing more than some crumbs and a toppled toothpick-flag. “I daresay you overseasoned on purpose.”

“Um, objection, counsel,” Maya crosses her arms brattily, “since when do spices set you off?”

“Since you decided you needed half the blasted bottle, I’d wa-hhehy-ger!”

Shamelessly, then, she pulls her spare napkin off the table and bothers her twitching nose. Narrowed eyes misting, breathy half-gasps that seem intent to cry wolf… but, no, not here, not now. Maya likes a slow burn, Franziska knows she does—the longer she can drag it all out, the more her ravishing will matter come sunset.

Still, there’s no harm in playing up the flicker of those embers as they crawl. Franziska sniffles more emphatically this time, clearing her throat as she does so, loosing a tired sort of half-moan that tells of exasperation and discomfort. Maya’s eyes go alight all the same, hungry for the same relief Franziska’s intent to fight.

At onset, respiratory symptoms will present as typical rhinitis, starting with minor rhinorrhea and slowly becoming more aggressive over the course of…

*** [ 01:01:02 ] ***

Only when Franziska settles into the face cradle does she dare to think that maybe, perhaps, she has not entirely thought this through.

Blissed out on the table beside her, Maya’s humming tantalizing little noises of pleasure into the snow-white fluff that frames her angelic features. They’re distracting, of course, but not nearly as attention-grabbing as the tangible tendril of hot moisture that’s rolling down Franziska’s right nostril, seesawing her breath. She sniffles once, twice, thrice, doing all she can to muffle the sound into her own cushion, but it only works for a while before the twinge ignites twice as fiercely, barbed and ticklish. Her eyes water, and her nose drips down onto the leather arm-rest, and she swallows hard and presses her tongue to her teeth, nose wriggling as she fights it with all she is.

“...don’t think I’ve ever felt this much tension in a client before,” Franziska’s masseuse—a criminally cute older woman with big, round glasses—is in the middle of saying. “You sure came to the right place, dear.”

“Oh, don’t tell her that, she loves winning at stupidly arbitrary things,” says (a drooling) Maya with a snicker. “She’ll be back in a year trying to break a world record.”

“Mighty hard to top this, I worry.” A palm rolls hard into Franziska’s lower back, and it takes all her willpower not to lose focus. “Whaddya do for a living?”

Franziska sniffles wetly and clears her throat. “Criminal law.”

“Womp womp,” sings Maya, and the masseuse bellows out a charming laugh.

“Certainly explains the knots,” she says, “not to mention that cold you seem to be coming down with.”

Funny how Maya has no biting quip for that. Franziska can feel her eyes, regardless—burning two blazing pinpricks into the side of her head, desperate to wriggle her neck through the face cradle and gaze upon Franziska’s twitching, irritated features. Why on earth was this happening, anyway? The timing was all wrong, the fine print said the sneezing wouldn’t start until much later, and yet—

Another ticklish wave, like crawling electricity, surges red-hot behind her eyes. Franziska wrinkles her features, shooing it away. “I haven’t the foggiest idea what you mean by any of that. I feel perfectly fi—hii—ihne.”

Masterful boast, prosecutor. Well done.

“Ain’t that always the way?” says the younger girl, tending to what Franziska can only assume is a dangerously horny Maya. “A number like this is gonna increase your circulation. Sometimes that’s all the immune system needs to realize there’s work to do.”

“Suppose it could just be the usual, too,” says Franziska’s own attendant, “the cradle can make your nose run something fierce on its own.”

Poised there against it, she tries not to zero in on phrases like immune system and nose run and every other distracting, prickly, flustering adjective that amplifies the heat burning across her every nerve. Maya’s quiet beside her, still, either because she’s reframing all those twinges at dinner, or because any words she tries to form will come out as a broken moan. Either way, Franziska’s battle against her buzzing nose comes to a head when those proverbial red-hot spines roll jaggedly on a shaky inhale and—and—

“E-Excuse me, I—”

Desperately, she raises the back of her hand, right as her masseuse pulls off her hiking shoulders—

“i’itschieww! t'shiew! hih—! hih'tsCHU!”

Somewhere in the midst of things, one of the two of them had grabbed her the tissue box, at the ready for—presumably—exactly this. They’re polite enough not to linger as it’s placed on a little rolling table, within reach, polite enough not to look, as Franziska does, at the glitter of spray that’s now coating the arm rest. Awash with shame and toothless relief, she stares at her wavering reflection in the night-sky of it, jet black and dotted with infectious stars.

A deceptively quiet moment of peace follows, dizzy-headed and bleary-eyed. Then, of course...

Just as the tickle had dissipated, it returns with a vengeance, its nettles twice as barbed.

Franziska pulls a handful of tissues from the box with one, two, three broken and shaking inhales.

As soon as she hears the sound of shuffling paper, Maya bites back a moan and blames it on the massage.

Paroxysmal sneezing will begin at hour three and be the primary symptom for the duration of the illness, though other respiratory symptoms like sinus congestion, pain in the throat, and minor laryngitis are likely to result…

*** [ 01:03:00 ] ***

“Heh—hh’isSHU! Hi’dtCHU! Hih—”

Millions upon millions of stars shining overhead, and Maya hasn’t even the proper sense to look up. Franziska managed to find them some mythical California seaside with a negligible amount of light pollution, and all Maya’s even paid attention to since they got out here is—

“hi’dtSHIEW! h’HISSHIEW! Ih!—IISSCH'EEW!”

“Fucking—god, Franny, what the fuck?”

Ruddy-eyed, Franziska rises from the cover of her handkerchief, tears streaming down her cheeks. The coastal winds have them both frostbitten, looking a little red around the ears, but Franziska doesn’t need to gaze into the shop windows back ashore to know she looks the worse of the pair. She’s only got her hand off her face for a moment before Maya’s kissing her, kissing her, kissing her—hot and heavy, desperate with want, rolling her hips against Franziska’s awkwardly jagged bones. She needs to blow her nose badly, but it’s clear Maya disagrees—her septum shining with moisture as she pulls away, mess that’d been gleaming on Franziska’s face mere moments ago…

Hypocrite she is, Franziska isn’t looking at the stars, either.

Another spate of sneezing takes her—three, four, five, six drawn-out, wrenching outbursts. Never in her life has she felt anything quite like this—they're not minor, crawling irritations she can easily stifle or shoo away, but full-body events that tear through her with reckless abandon, their sheer power impossible to hold back or contain. It's as though she's locked in a cage match with the virus itself, bent beneath its knee and gasping for air as it declares to the screaming crowds its intent to turn her as helplessly contagious as possible.

She's in the middle of trying to regain her footing when Maya grabs her handkerchief hand with fierce intent. Digits locked around Franziska’s shaking wrist, forcing her to let them out, uncovered, into the nighttime air. Figures she'd be on the blasted germs' side. Somewhere along the way Franziska loses herself in the event of it all, unable to control where she aims, or what her hands would even want to do, or who she is and how she got here. Only when she feels Maya’s thumb graze her lip do the sensations of humanity return to her, poised there in the warm palm of the most beautiful girl she’s ever seen.

Maya smears the wetness away, only for Franziska’s dripping nose to undo her work immediately. The birthday girl looks starstruck, despite the lack of attention she’s given to the cosmic cauldron of light above.

“Gesundheit, beautiful,” is all she can say.

“Danke,” Franziska mutters on instinct entirely, giving her aching nose a vicious blow. Maya rakes the chapping skin off her lower lip, her eyes black in the night.

“I’m just… like…” she fights the English language in an attempt for words, “How are you sick right now?”

“I’b dot—” she pauses to blow her nose a necessary second time, “—I’m not ill, Maya Fey.”

“Bullshit you aren’t, listen to you!”

“The—hhey—h-had some incredibly pungent scents crammed into the infernal humidifier in that spa place, you know how I g—ih—et’sSSCHIEW!”

“Fuck,” Maya gasps out, once more, as Franziska fails to contain the spray within the useless cloth in her hand. “I almost want to believe you. There’s gotta be a catch, right? Even if you are sick, how did you get sick like… like this?”

On cue, Franziska sniffles with the most miserably sodden air she can muster. The shape of it gums up her throat, quickly hoarsening from all the abuse and cold air, and she can’t help but think how much better it would be were she to just let her nose run freely, safe in the dark and away from the world. Maya so loves the game of it, though, the attempts to wrangle her body for control, just as much as she adores the loss of it, too.

Franziska wonders if she might enjoy hearing the answer. That fateful night—when they’d serendipitously run into one another at a late-night event for their kind to mix and mingle—they’d talked for hours about all the particularities of… it. Maya was driven so wild by the bigger picture—desperate to follow the map of infection, to know precisely how many beautiful strangers she’d shared her malady with.

“It certainly would be picturesque, no?” Instead, Franziska smiles through the red spots chapping atop her lip. “Really, though, I think it’s the lingering flora—hahhh—”

Shuddering, harsh, viciously the words are stolen from her lungs. Were she able to see through the ordeal of it all, she knows she’d see Maya leveling her that look, those eyes, the ones that wordlessly keep the score. A tally, a decibel record, a proper spreadsheet of every last sneeze she’s dared to let loose around this girl. One that Maya would point to with a long, metal stick—ah, ah, ah, you can’t fool me. You only sneeze like that when you’re coming down with something, babe.

Maya draws closer and kisses her, instead. “Maybe. It does seem way too dreamy to be true… hottest girl I know with the grossest head cold I’ve ever seen, all the time in the world to ravish her…”

A playful tap on the nose spurs forth three more wrenching sneezes. Everything’s so sensitive, Franziska feels like even the most featherlight touch could set her off. It’s terrifying, it’s wonderful.

“Bless you, bless you, bless you,” says Maya in a voice dripping with desire. Franziska makes another attempt to raise her sodden handkerchief to her face, but Maya snatches it from her hand and crams it in her back jean-pocket, snickering like she’s post-coitus, stealing a cute girl’s panties. She frowns performatively when Franziska pulls out another spare, but it’s only there for a second before her expression shifts with realization.

“You did plan this!” Maya points at her chest, bitten-down fingernails knifelike in the night. “Alright babe, spill. What’s the trick, here? Are you doing lines of pepper when I’m not looking?”

“You’ve not taken your eyes off me,” croaks Franziska, “since we left the spa.”

“How can you expect me to?” She’s pouting that adorable pout, now, cheeks blown out and fuzzy brow bothered. “Seriously, is it magic? ‘Cause I swear on Mystic Ami’s ancient ass that I tore through every text on hand looking for a ‘make hot girls sneeze a bunch’ spell, and I can pretty confidently say that my ancestors were freaks but not freaks like that.”

“It is not magic,” says Franziska, struggling to rein in another fit. Maya bites her lip hard as her nose twitches once, twice. “It is perfume and cold air.”

“You’re up to something and I know it.”

“Yes, yes, you’ve caught me red-handed,” or perhaps red-nosed, “I called ahead and paid those poor masseuses exorbitant amounts of money to ensure we’d be doused in only the most allergenic of scents.”

“There’s no punchline there,” Maya rightfully points out, “you would legit do that.”

“Please, dearheart,” Franziska’s vision begins its watery waver once more, feathery tendrils crawling behind its shape, “I do have some dignity I’d like to maint—aihhhn—!”

The resulting fit bends her double, a desperate and uncontrollable thing as it tears explosively through her chest and scrapes its jagged way out. Even with her handkerchief, she’s forced to suppress a shudder of revulsion when the moisture soaks through to her hand.

Famous last words, she knows Maya would say, were she still somewhere on planet earth.

At client’s request, these sneezing fits will be sudden, powerful, intractable, and difficult to control. Please review prior warnings about ethical practice and quarantine accordingly.

*** [ 01:04:13 ] ***

Franziska shivers in the sauna and knows she’s lost the battle.

“Tell me,” Maya laps her tongue across the newborn love bite, deep red and indented as Franziska chokes back another moan, “where you got this.”

“I don’t know what you’re—ah—!”

“Stop lying, Franny,” says Maya as she pulls her fingers out, torturously slowly, pumps them back into Franziska’s soaking core without a shred of urgency or need. Franziska shudders and squirms beneath her, struggling to draw the muggy air into her protesting lungs. “You went out and caught that cold just for me. I wanna know where from.”

“There is no cold,” she says through a voice that’s failing quickly, “A von Karma’s immune system is pe—ehrr—fehhh—”

Maya’s eyes go pitch with want. She pins Franziska’s left hand against the weeping wood, puffs her half-bare chest out, presenting her a canvas. Across it, Franziska’s poised to paint a scene unmatched, her whole torso shaking as she lurches back, gasping, gasping—

“—EE'SSCHIEW! heH’ITSCHU! E'ESSCH! ii’ISSHHIEW!”

—then forward, every last sneeze an eruption as it leaves her. They’re terrible, unseemly, contagious things—urgent and hoarse, far back in her sinuses, sounding of nothing but infection and inflammation. Each one comes with less relief than the last, catching on her oversensitive airways, buzzing and rooted somewhere too deep to extricate. To even sniff back the mess as it leaks down her face would reignite the tickle, to even think the hypothetical has her—has her—

Maya’s hips grind hard against her, and through bleary eyes Franziska finds the time to admire how beautiful she looks like this. Her kimono slipping off one shoulder, her dark nipples taut beneath what’s left of it, the glistening landscape of sweat and spray soaking her deep brown skin. Between the heat of the sauna and intensity of Franziska’s fits, it’s impossible to tell where Maya ends and she begins.

A moment of respite, where her oversore nose allows her the privilege of keeping her eyes open. The temptation to rub at it, soothe the ache away is biblical, but, no, she keeps looking at Maya, who's red-faced and breathing heavy for reasons all her own. Hungrily Maya dives back in, thumb slipping over Franziska’s swollen clit, moaning around a nipple as she takes it in her mouth and sucks hard. The fever amplifies every touch, she realizes a second too late, as she’s squealing beneath Maya’s fingers and coming for the fourth time in twenty minutes.

“Listen to you,” Maya purrs in her ear, “you don’t fess up soon, you’re not gonna have any voice left…”

“I’ll manage,” whines Franziska, still just riding out her climax on Maya’s drenched digits. “Nothing a good cup of tea won’t fix.”

“Oh yeah?” Maya curls her fingers up again, and starbursts dance behind Franziska’s stinging eyes. “Will your miracle tea fix the fever you’re running, too?”

“I’m not—ahh~!”

“Of course not, it’s just sooooo hot in here.” She moves down, down, trailing scorched kisses on Franziska’s stomach, her thighs. “Y’know, your little lie would fly a lot easier if you hadn’t shivered in the middle of it.”

“The—haah—temperature change—”

“Nothing shuts you up, huh?” says Maya as she’s pulling her lips off Franziska’s still-shaking leg. “Not the sore throat you’re pretending you don’t have. Not this—”

Flatting her tongue, she licks a hot, slow stripe up the length of Franziska’s aching core. Ravenous for more contact, Franziska’s hips buck wantonly, she whines a high-pitched and bottomless whine as Maya locks her lips around her clit and sucks. A residual, burning sort of pain makes itself known in her overworked throat—but it’s snuffed out by the wildfire of crackling desire, drawing all her attention back down to Maya as she… pulls away.

The warmth she leaves behind quickly goes cold. Unprettily, Maya wipes at her gleaming mouth with the sleeve of her kimono. She’s grinning that demonic, coquettish grin, the desperation in her eyes betraying the control with which she carries herself. Franziska breathes heavy through her mouth, teeth bared, too caught up in the euphoria and sudden lack thereof to swipe the twofold lines of moisture off her own lip.

“Tell me,” Maya commands. Franziska sticks her jaw out, eyes deadly and sharp.

“I’ve told you everything I kn—AH~!”

And if that’s the wrong answer, Maya certainly has an interesting way of telling her so. Before Franziska can blink, Maya’s back between her legs—lapping hungrily, like she’s starving, like this is the last meal she’ll ever devour. She slides one finger into a writhing, wanting Franziska, wasting no time in pulling her back up, up, up until all that exists is the white-hot point where their bodies connect. A dragging, reverent swipe of Maya’s warm tongue pulls her ass off the sauna bench, arching her back and wordlessly begging for more pressure, more speed, more, more, more—

Just as she’s about to unfurl, Maya stops again. The gravelly gasp that leaves Franziska’s lungs is primal, barely her own. It trails off into another pathetic, needy whine, and when she brings her glassy eyes back down to her tormentor, she sees Maya slowly licking her fingers with an impish glint in her own. Beneath the skipping rise and fall of Franziska’s sweat-and-mess-soaked chest, the wicked thing swipes her tongue across a swollen lip and grins with all her teeth.

“Well, I guess if you’re the picture of perfect health,” says Maya in a tone that’s low and warning, “you don’t have anything to share with me, huh?”

And she straightens herself out, as if about to stand, signalling clearly—we’re done, here. With her freckled chest still bare, nipples still pebbled and flush with arousal, infectious spray still shimmering across her perfect tits—Maya crosses her arms and recuses herself with a no-nonsense air settled firmly atop her shoulders.

For one long moment, they remain at a standstill. Franziska, with her tender, still-running nose stuck high, making every attempt she can to look down upon Maya, slovenly state be damned. And Maya, of course, who holds her sick darling’s gaze with the same lack of fear she always has, since the very day they met courtside.

Oh, how the tables have turned, and oh, how they’ve not shifted at all. Once more, Maya’s wings beat their song against the jailbars. Once more, it is Franziska who is truly living entrapped.

Half-naked and knelt down at Franziska’s foot, there is no question as to who is in control.

“Okay,” Franziska rasps miserably as she breaks the staredown, looking off to the side at nothing in particular. “I’ll… concede, fine. Some stray pathogen endeavoured to have impeccable timing, it seems.”

Maya’s arms stay crossed, but Franziska does not miss the subtle way the corner of her mouth crooks upward. When she opens herself back up—tips her head, flutters her lashes, softens her eyes—her hair spills, a silky curtain of black tumbling over her shoulder. It sticks and tangles in the wetness on her collar, and Franziska politely averts her eyes and resists the urge to press her thighs together.

“Impeccable is right.” That hungry look returns, and Maya wiggles vaguely upward on her knees, just enough to trace her knuckles across Franziska’s cheek, down to the swell of her throat. “Poor baby, you’ve felt rotten all day, huh?”

The urge to lean into the caress wins out. Franziska shuts her eyes slowly, cherishes the warmth, plays up a sniffle that’s equal parts derisive and pathetic. “Only physically.”

Her rheumy gaze drags back open as she says it. Maya holds it, looking smitten as she kisses Franziska—her feverish cheek, the side of her lips, just shy of where she’s supposed to.

“I can fix that.”

Teasingly, she traces her thumb across a candy-pink nipple. Franziska bites back a juvenile squeak, airless and losing its body in her windpipe. Maya tuts, brushing a silvery lock of hair behind her sick darling’s ear.

“Something tells me you're reluctant, though,” says Franziska with a knowing smirk.

“What can I say?” Maya kisses her again, long and slow and deceptively chaste. “I love you like this.”

“I’d be quite the hypocrite if I claimed I didn’t feel the same of you,” says Franziska, mirroring the gesture as she cards her trembling fingers through the tangles in Maya’s hair.

“You can tell me all about it in a day or two.”

Another languid drag of her thumb—this time, Maya aims it toward the rivulet of moisture clinging stubbornly to the tip of Franziska’s nose. As if the overactive appendage is listening in, she feels its wretched membranes quivering at the sudden contact. The irritated buzz that’d died down for a spell reignites itself twice as fiercely, not with a steady climb or simmering burn but sudden and fiercely, shivering through Franziska’s body and—and—

“EE’HESSSCHEW!”

Ears ever-pricked, Maya hears those hijacked breaths and presses herself close. Franziska’s losing herself in the dull, exhausting ache of the fit as it tears through her, but she somehow finds half a mind to draw one hand around her beloved’s backside and hold the two of them steady as she rears and hitches and crumbles into herself.

“ESSCHHIU! EE’IITSHU! HI’HISSHIEW!—‘TCHU! Y'IIESSCHIEW!”

Scraping her throat, ricocheting explosively from the bottom of her lungs, horribly untamable things. Three, four, five, six minutes pass before she’s done, before she’s able to draw another breath into her lungs, before the itch decides to abate once more. Even then, it’s lingering somewhere behind her eyes, waiting for the cooldown to end. If only Franziska were more right-brained, she’d dare write a poem about the priceless sight that follows—how she pulls off of Maya’s bare and gleaming chest, a clear thread of moisture hanging between them like a revolting, sordid string of fate.

It feels like desecration of something beautiful, the idea that Franziska might have to wipe her nose.

(She lurches forward and sneezes four more times, instead)

A low to mid-grade fever is to be expected at the peak of illness, but this will vary greatly depending on personal immunity.

*** [ 01:06:07 ] ***

Somewhere in a bleary, sweat-soaked haze, Maya dresses her.

Tenderly, carefully, in that sugar-sweet, man-handly way only she could. Franziska drifts in and out of a strange sort of half-sleep as the two of them ferry themselves back to the guest room, bundled up and shivering while they curl outside and around the deck. Patient and protective, Maya holds tight to Franziska’s struggling hand as she stumbles jelly-legged up the steps, pulling her forward and into the warmth that awaits.

Some thirty minutes later, Franziska startles herself awake with another sneeze, then another. Vicious, heavy, miserable things that edge their way out of her and leave a throbbing sort of thrum high in her nasal passages, stretching back behind her eyes and into her head. A sister to the pounding heartbeat of her sinuses, she supposes as she’s trying her damnedest to rub the ache and its heat from its home on her cheeks.

Maya saunters around the couch-arm like a playful housecat, batting her sluggish digits away. That’s certainly for the best, Franziska thinks as the pain settles deeper, its roots crawling in-between her protesting joints. Maya’s technique is improper and slipping and what she might describe as vibes-based, and like everything Maya does, it feels like pure bliss.

A jagged rub shakes something loose. Maya must see it on her face before Franziska feels it, because she pulls her probing fingers just barely down, careful not to jab her sick darling as she dips once, twice, three times more.

Misty-eyed and squinting, she still doesn’t miss the way Maya’s face goes red, the way her legs press into themselves, the way she… swallows the lingering desire that blackens her eyes. Paying no mind to the glint of mess on her palm, Maya simply presses a heartsoft kiss into Franziska’s cotton-dizzy, feverish temple.

“Gesundheit, baby.”

“Inappropriate response,” Franziska says through what’s left of her voice, “you’ve never once wished me in good health.”

“Shit, izzat what that means?” She smiles that lopsided smile. “Gesundharm then, or whatever.”

“I absolutely refuse to dignify that with a reh-heh!—EE'ISCHH’iew!”

“Y’know what? That’s fair.” Maya plants another kiss, this time into the side of her nose, some subtle prayer of gratitude. “You’ve given me more than enough attention today.”

“Let’s not get hasty now, I’ve got plenty more left in me, you know.” And she straightens herself out, as if to prove her fitness. Traitorously, her breath catches on what’s meant to be a sharp-and-prim inhale, and all her attempts to make the resulting cough sound ladylike… mostly just settle upon her an air of foolish pity.

Warm fingers cup her face again, and before she can register it, Maya’s brushing away a stray tear. “Fran, this has already been the best freakin’ birthday of my life. I think I’ll survive if we spend the rest of the night just, like, watching a movie.”

“What a fine coincidence,” says Franziska, preening through her reddened features, “I just so happened to have pre-emptively ordered Samurai Summer for your viewing pleasure.”

“Bro, no fucking way!” And Maya dives for the TV remote. “How’d you know that’s my fave?”

“I did consider if The Sniffling Samurai might be more appropriate, but…”

“Oh, man, don’t get me started,” says Maya as she’s shuffling around, then, no doubt taking stock of snacks and blankets and pillows. “Top ten pieces of media that made me feel like I had to lock the door as a kid.”

“Do I get to know the other nine?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, pervert?” The lowlight hits those charming gaps in her teeth. “Maybe later, I gotta see what kinda primo shit you got in these cabi…”

As she’s opening them, the sentence trails off. A gradual realization, then—right. Indeed Franziska had ensured that the beach house would be filled to the brim with all of Maya’s most favourite treats, but she’d also utilized the leftover space to stow away those lurid items banging around the bottom of her suitcase, knowing she—the both of them, rather—would need them for later.

Slowly, silently, Maya begins to turn on one foot, back around to where Franziska’s passively convalescing. Those eyes of hers are back, then—the ones she wears behind closed doors, intent and perceptive, eager to draw the truth out of whatever they fall on, by force.

It’s a rather beautiful moment suspended, really. Outside, the black waves churn, crashing rhythmically across the offwhite sands. The sounds of the city are far-off and muted, tourist chatter and cars rumbling across the winding overpasses. Lit warmly by one single standing lamp and the clashing glow of the TV’s home screen, all Maya’s features—even in their sternness—look soft and beautiful as she stands in front of the wellspring.

Bursting from the basket are wellness teas, cans of broth, lotioned tissues, several different kinds of cold medicine that—Franziska’s gleaned from knowing Americans—all do different things. Were she to place these items upon the conveyor belt at any grocery store, there would be no ambiguity as to why she was purchasing them—the cashier would search for the telltale swell of her throat or ruddy patch beneath her nose, wearing the same interrogative eyes as Maya.

Just, well, without the drooling, starved animal aura that followed.

Picking up their conversation from earlier, what Maya says is, “Stray, huh?”

Just about nothing gets past a Fey, Franziska’s learned. Even if it did, there’s very little that can get past Maya.

Primly, practiced, Franziska lets her eyes fall shut. This time, she is careful to breathe around the sore irritation blooming new in her throat.

“Don’t you think I would tell you, if I knew?”

“Well…” she hears Maya’s footsteps draw closer, closer, “Clearly, it was on purpose.”

Her quest for food abandoned, then, Franziska opens her eyes to find them nearly nose-to-nose. That world-famous, icy-glare she so often leveled toward suspects and witnesses hardly packs its usual punch as the fever melts at its edges.

“What I want to know, Ms. Perfect Immune System,” domineering as always, Maya slots Franziska’s chin between her thumb and curled fingers, “is how.”

And oh, isn’t that just terribly fair? How often had that perfect immune system Franziska so boasted about in public driven the both of them mad in their private lives? How many times had Franziska hovered just a bit too close to a sick witness, or allowed her handwashing habits to fall slightly to the wayside during a rotten flu season, or showed up to personally procure Miles’ biohazardous caseload when he was too ill to work? How many reckless attempts to sicken herself—the way Maya so often did for her—had ended with little more than disappointment as the three-day window came and went? And how many times had her and a miserably ill Maya stayed up into the hours of the night, ravishing each other in an attempt to break that flawless streak of health?

Perhaps it was something cosmic, the answer to all those frustrations falling neatly into their hands. Fate, or luck, or… well, karma.

Still just poised there in Maya’s steady grip, all Franziska can do is bat her rosy eyes and smirk.

“Even if I told you, I doubt you would believe me.”

***