- Rating: Teen
- Warnings: depictions of alcoholism
- Genre: fluff, angst, romance
- Pairing: narumayo
Summary: In the first months of Phoenix and Maya’s legal work together, they’re both still living with the weight of Mia’s death. While Phoenix has tried to keep their relationship professional, he finally invites her back to his apartment one afternoon, so they’re not both spending the weekend alone.
November, 2016
Paperwork and minor legal counseling kept them busy in the month after Will Powers’ trial, as the weather became colder and the sky became greyer.
It was late in the evening on a friday night when Phoenix put the last stack of paperwork on the edge of the desk to be mailed in the morning, and picked up his jacket to head home for the night. Maya had just finished helping water Charley, the office plant, when she caught sight of him heading out.
“Heading home, Nick?” She pivoted to the closet, opening it to start the nightly routine of gathering the borrowed bed sheets and working the couch into something halfway decent to sleep on.
“Think you’ve got room in the budget for some ramen delivery?”
“Ramen again?” he huffed, running his fingers through his slick backed hair. “Don’t you have that enough?”
Well. It wasn’t like the office had a kitchen. And she’d been staying there since…
Since Mia had died. She felt the heavy weight of her death on her shoulders again…the hands of a ghost wrapped around the magatama at her chest. Every little thing here was a memory of the sister she’d lost while she’d wasted away in Kurain.
Burgers and ramen had been special treats on the rare moments she’d gotten to see her when she went with law school.
“You could order me burgers instead if you wanna,” she chirped, big smile forced onto her face to chase away the memories.
Phoenix huffed a laugh and leaned on his desk, crossing his arms.
“What do you even do all weekend when I’m gone? Just hang around the office and watch Steel Samurai and eat burgers?”
Maya put her finger to her chin in thought, tilting her head to the side.
“Sometimes I go get dumplings at the corner stall? Oh! Oh! I also do serious spiritual training.”
…by which she meant she sat around watching the Steel Samurai and snacking. It was important to enjoy the little things while you could.
“Spiritual training,” he drawled back. “Call me literal minded but that sounds pretty boring.”
“A layperson wouldn’t get it.” Maya stuck her tongue out. “I mean…whatta you do on the weekends, Nick? Review law documents? Practice yelling?”
He scratched his head thoughtfully.
“Well, not review law documents admittedly,” he murmured. Maya thought he looked a little annoyed– either about the question or his own answer to it.
Maya leaned forward as she tossed the blankets onto the couch, looking him over with her most serious stare.
“Do you sit around eating ramen and watching the Steel Samurai too?”
Phoenix grumbled his answer.
“You already know I don’t watch Steel Samurai. I watch movies, I guess. Read magazines. I used to go out some but lately….” Maya knew the expression that crossed his face. It was the knitted brow and little tug at his mouth that said he was thinking about Mia, too, and trying not to. “Lately I haven’t been very social.”
“Sounds like we’ve both got really thrilling social lives, huh Nick?” Maya looked away, her hair ornaments bumping gently against her chest as she sighed quietly.
“Sounds like,” he agreed. “Times are hard for a young working professional. And whatever you are.”
His stern expression twitched into a smirk.
“I’m a spirit medium, dummy,” Maya stuck her tongue out at him, before she laughed. “it’s a full time job, you know. Dealing with the spirit world.”
“Doesn’t sound very professional to me.” He was grinning now, and Maya was almost sure he was teasing.
Maya harrumphed, her cheeks puffing as she crossed her arms.
“Says the lawyer who shows up to work without evidence and needs MY spirit summoning to get through.”
“Hey I wouldn’t need your spirit summoning if these cases weren’t so– so…. bonkers,” he huffed, shaking his head. “Anyway… if you’re just going to screw around and eat burgers and watch tv– you wanna come over and do it at my place for a few hours?”
Maya blinked at him, a quick double take as her head snapped up.
“Wait, for real? Your place? Like…you actually have a house? I thought you just snuck back in the window and slept in the office proper.”
“And you didn’t think you’d hear me?” he asked, looking at her dubiously. “Don’t tell me you’ve been hearing activity from my office at night because if so we’ll have a problem.”
“Uh oh.” Maya said with a wide eyed, shocked expression…before she laughed weakly. “Nah, I haven’t heard anything. But…you’re really serious? I’ve never seen your place.”
“I know,” he said with a shrug. “I know we agreed that it would be awkward for you to stay at my place– frankly there’s more space here– but if you want some company you’re welcome to come over for a while.”
When Phoenix said ‘it would be more awkward’, what he meant was apparently that his nosy neighbor would assume that they were dating and make a whole thing out of it. At least, that was what he had stammered last month.
Maya bit her lip, feeling the slight heat of a flush on her face as she raised her fist to her mouth
“I’d love to. I mean…it gets kinda lonely in here, you know? Quiet. Just…you know. Me, the TV and the ghosts.”
“Tell me you don’t summon ghosts just to watch tv with you.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Maya said with a trace of a grin, “they get bored too, you know.”
“Yeah?” That look flickered on his face again for a moment and he pushed it away with a smile. He offered her his hand. “Well let’s spend some time with the living tonight, alright? Come on.”
Maya took it without hesitation, squeezing it tightly as she trotted up to stand next to him.
“You’ll buy me dinner too, right?” she asked with a big grin “for the living, I mean.”
He laughed and shook his head.
“Is all you think about food? –no Maya, I’m not going to let you starve, I promise.”
Phoenix’s apartment was a short train ride out of the city center to the outskirts of LA proper. It was one of those big, blocky pink concrete apartment buildings with fire escapes crawling like vines over one side of the building, and a pool hidden in the center.
“Sorry, there’s no elevator,” he apologized, leading her to the stairs.
“They don’t have elevators in Kurain anyway.” Maya laughed as she hopped up the stairs. She’d insisted on keeping her hand in his the moment they left the train…and the whole way through the ride, too. “Or cars. And only one train. It’s not like having to walk bothers me.”
He squeezed her hand, though he looked a little uncomfortable.
“Yeah, I keep forgetting things are so… simple, where you come from,” he murmured, hopping up the stairs. She watched him look this way and that– presumably on the lookout for his nosy neighbor. “You seemed a little twitchy on the train. No offense.”
“Simple?” Maya chuckled as she squeezed his hand. Isolated, cloistered, intentionally cut off from modern society. She guessed that you could call it ‘simple’. She couldn’t blame Mia for leaving.
“Yeah, I mean…it was crowded and LOUD.” She saw him grimace. Maybe she said that word a bit too loud for Phoenix’s liking, but the emphasis had to be made. “I felt like I was gonna be forced out the door by everyone if I lost vigilance for even a second.”
“I hate to tell you, Maya, that wasn’t even a rush hour train.” He shook his head and quickly fumbled with his keys in front of the door to the apartment on the long, second floor deck. The smell of chlorine and asphalt was carried on the evening breeze.
It was far from the scent of wildflowers and incense from back home…the smell of dirt and laundry hanging outside of houses out of time.
She leaned a little against Phoenix as he fiddled with his keys.
“…how…how do people survive rush hour??”
“You just sort of learn to live with it,” he shrugged. He pushed open the door, and with a look over his shoulder practically frogmarched her inside. “Pretend the other people aren’t there. It’s considered polite.”
Phoenix’s apartment was dark when she was pushed through the door, and the first impression she got was once again the smell– booze and laundry soap, and a hint of dirty laundry.
Maya stumbled into the room, looking around with a curious tilt of her head.
“It smells like an old guy in here.”
“Like an old guy?” he demanded, closing the door behind him with a solid click. “I’m what, maybe six years older than you?”
He flipped the lights on, and the apartment looked a lot like it smelled. There was a small living room area furnished in a mostly western style aside for the cushion seats and the low table, which had a few old bottles sitting on it. There was a tv, and some old posters on the wall.
There was a narrow couch– more of a love seat– jammed up against the ‘bar’ that separated the living room space and the narrow kitchen area. It looked like he didn’t have a kitchen table or chairs. He probably just ate in front of the tv.
Describing the place as cozy would be polite, but cramped would be more accurate.
“Like alcohol and soap,’ Maya stuck her tongue out at him playfully, “that’s what the old guys who didn’t leave the village smelled like.”
“Alcohol and soap!” he moaned. “This is why I had you staying at the office, you know.”
He fussed around the apartment for a moment, grabbing the old bottles and tossing them in the sink.
Maya wandered around the small , cramped little apartment, picking up bottles to look at them and looking over the TV with a growing grin.
As much as she teased…she kind of liked it. It looked lived in. Like a home, even if it could use a bit of a lighter touch. Maybe a little cleaning.
She wandered up to a poster to look it over with a grin.
“So I didn’t razz you about this place? And here I thought it was ‘cause your neighbor was a gossip who’d talk. Hey, how thin are these walls, anyway?”
She went to knock against it.
Phoenix winced and ran over to grab her wrist.
“Please don’t do that, Maya. Look, this is the best place I can afford you know? And my neighbors will talk if they see you. Mrs. Jenson will ask if she’s invited to the wedding.”
Maya grinned over her shoulder at him.
“Oh hooo~~” “Nick! I didn’t know ya cared.” She batted her eyelashes playfully. “What color dress should I wear? Should I go traditional Japanese like they do it in Kurain , or should I throw tradition to the wind and go for onna those frilly bastards?”
Phoenix made a choked noise and flushed, taking his hand off her.
“You’re ridiculous, you know that?”
He didn’t say no.
Maya turned with her hands folded behind her back, leaning forward enough to look up at him with a huge grin.
“Sometimes. My sister said it was my best trait. So is that a yes for the traditional angle, or a yes for the western style?’
He made another choked noise.
“It’s yes for sit down while I order dinner,” he grumbled. “Wedding dress– as if I could afford one.”
“I could sew it by hand you know.” Maya sniffed pridefully as she plopped herself down on the couch. “I made these robes myself.”
She gestured down to her outfit, and Phoenix, who had been moving to grab the phone, looked back over his shoulder.
“What– seriously?”
“Yeah,” Maya laughed cheerfully. “It’s important to be able to make your own clothes, you know? Kurain is very traditional like that. It’s kinda a right of passage to make your own when you’re old enough to manage a needle and thread. My first was a disaster. Nearly fell to pieces.”
He cradled the cordless phone on his shoulder as he came and set down on the other side of the couch, seeming to make sure he was against the arm, rather than touching her. They were still in quite close quarters, however.
“Yeah? How old were you then?”
“Like six? My Aunt said I was a disgrace for not gettin’ it right the first time…but Mia helped me fix it.” She leaned on the arm of the couch to look over at him with a grin. “After that? I had the best robes in the village. Probably. I mean, it’s my opinion at least. I made these like… maybe a year ago?”
He looked at her with a mixed expression that she couldn’t quite read on his sharp, handsome-ish face.
“Damn, you probably could make a wedding dress huh? Alright, zip it for a minute. I’m gonna order dinner.”
Phoenix dialed the phone, calling up the same burger joint that they usually ordered from at the office.
Maya let her feet sway, scuffing against the carpet as she watched Phoenix calling out to the burger shop, her smile tugging at the corner of her lips.
She’d met him on the worst day of her life…and yet she couldn’t help but be happy every time they sniped and joked back and forth. Their playful banter, getting a rise out of him, it was one of the ways she wanted to pay him back for everything he’d done.
On top of it all, he really was handsome, at least to her..and now she’d finally gotten invited to get a little closer to him. The idea of the wedding dress flashed through her mind, and she felt her face heat up.
She could, easy. Look up a pattern in a book, give her a week or two and she’d have the best damn dress you’d ever seen for her wedding.
Easy.
She turned a little redder at how well she could picture it. Back home in Kurain the women outnumbered the men..and the head of the family was expected to take a lover to continue the main family line…
It was something she hadn’t given much thought to, yet. Every second she could avoid the fate her aunt and the elders had in store for her…the responsibility of her inheritance and the weight of the power she was supposed to wield, the better.
But that being said–if she had to bring a man home to the village…
Nick was a pretty good pick. Hell…maybe he’d even convince her not to go back.
