Summary: Maya takes a day to read, she and Lilith talk about hair and clothes and their shared identity crises
Lazy days were far and few between on Pandora. On their downtime from missions the hunters often licked wounds and drank in Sanctuary but sometimes there weren't any broken bones to set or split heads to drink off and they could rest easy. Maya relished the day to its fullest, oscillating between sitting positions on the second floor with an open book, or three or four, for hours, moving with the sunlight as it traveled in an arc. It was almost evening when she looked up from the paper in a daze. The last bright light before dusk sliced across the preface of her third ancient anthropology textbook and Maya blinked, unsure of how the time had gotten away from her.
She closed the book in her lap, rubbing the fatigue from her eyes with one hand as the other fumbled for the bookmark on the floor.
Her fingers touched the frayed edge but it was pulled up and away from her hand. Maya frowned and squinted, looking up into Liliths face poised above her. Lilith inspected the worn piece of fabric before offering it to her siren sister on the floor. "Looking for this?"
"Mm-hm." Maya accepted it and covered her yawn, sticking the bookmark in the cover before placing the book on the mountainous 'to do pile' at her side. Lilith seemed satisfied to shuffle papers on the rooms main desk and Maya didn't mind the company, sighing at the two piles of books on either side of her and wondering just where she was going to put the growing stack of 'done'. She put a finger on her lower lip and tapped absentmindedly, considering the possibility of leaving them in Zer0's closet in the bunkroom. It wasn't like he used the space and hers was practically overflowing with imported textbooks ever since Tannis gifted Maya her monthly academic journal subscription.
Maybe Krieg wouldn't mind the clutter in his space, she posed, but quickly shot the thought down, shuddering at the possibility of his bloodied axe being tossed on top of her precious books and staining the pages red. Hard no.
She worked down the list of vault hunters and available closet space in her head, fingertip coming away from her lower lip blue with smudged lipstick. She wiped it off on her pants and reached into her bag next to her, looking for a tool to start her only other goal of the day. The other hand rustled the overgrown patch of hair on the back of her head, pulling at the strands that had grown just a touch too long. Maya fished her pair of scissors from the bag and took a clump of hair in her grip, thinking that while heartbreaking, it might be best just to send the finished books back where they came and snipping off a handful of blue.
Lilith picked her head up from the desk at the noise and looked down in horror as Maya haphazardly snipped and chopped, not even looking in a mirror as she lopped off handfuls of her own hair.
"What are you doing? Maya!" Lilith grabbed the other sirens wrist as she was about to cut off another clump and Maya was jerked away from her contemplation, blinking with surprise and only hearing half of what Lilith said.
"Huh?" She lowered the scissors and her brow wrinkled with annoyance at Liliths grasp, yanking herself free before turning to her, "I'm sorry, do you need something?"
Lilith opened her mouth and closed it, not knowing how to respond. She shook her head, "If you wanted a haircut you could have asked, you know. I mean, look at what you did! Look at your hair!" She opened her pink heart-shaped compact and shoved it in Mayas face. The blue siren wanted to protest the rudeness of the gesture but realized it was opportunity to appreciate her work. She took the compact from Lilith, making a point to do so politely.
Maya considered herself in the glass, scrunching her face and angling to look at her uneven patch of fuzz, twirling the long ends of her bangs around her finger. The back of her head was short and fluffy again and that was what she was going for, so she she smiled and clacked the compact closed. "I like it."
Lilith did a double take before smacking herself on the forehead. "Maya…" She pulled the hand down her face and gave her siren friend a strained look. She took the outstretched compact back and set it on the desk, looking away and trying to think of a way to explain hair etiquette to a woman that spent the past twenty-seven years of her life shaved bald.
Maya didn't see the problem with lopping fistfulls of hair off her head. After all, it was her head and who cared what she did with it? She knelt next to the desk and watched Lilith with lukewarm interest, wondering why she was so concerned. Her eyes flicked back and forth between her friend and the compact before deftly snatching it from its place. She lowered back down to the floor and leaned against the desk before opening it, smiling at her own reflection and inspecting her handiwork. It looked great.
"Hey Lil," Maya interrupted Liliths train of thought and she looked down at the siren using her mirror, "You wouldn't happen to have any, like, extra closet space, would you? I need it."
The question came out of nowhere but Lilith perked up, mind immediately jumping from hair etiquette to fashion and hopeful for a new opportunity to help her friend. If Maya wanted to expand her wardrobe, Lilith wasn't going to stop her. "Yeah, I mean, of course!"
Maya shrunk back from Liliths volume and was surprised she seemed so excited about storage space, but she offered a small smile as the other siren crouched down next to her and opened her echonet. The smile faded when Lilith took the scissors from her hand and pointedly placed them on the table above, out of Mayas reach.
Liliths tone was excited but her eyes said business. "I have all the room you need. You know, for your closet. Tons of room." The echonet in front of her displayed a womens clothing website and Maya raised an eyebrow, not really seeing how that had anything to do with what she was asking. Lilith continued, seeing her sisters confusion. "Are you buying from online or...? Please don't tell me you're buying anything from Moxxi, believe me, her clothes look fun on the hanger but they're hard to pull off anywhere but a stripclub."
"That's not what I-" Maya sputtered and recoiled, trying to move away from the screen and from the rush of information. Her brow furrowed and she tried to explain but was shushed by Liliths finger in her face. Maya swatted it away. "I'm not- I don't need clothes, Lilith."
The other siren pulled her hand back and whined at being swatted, closing the digiscreen and turning back to Maya, "But wh-but why else would you need my closet space?"
"For books."
Lilith glared. Her disappointment was palpable. Maya picked up the bookmarked textbook, holding it in front of her and between them, forcing a nervous smile as she was grilled by an unhappy Firehawk. "I need somewhere to put my books. I'm uh, out of space in my room-and everyones elses- so, like…" Liliths scowl deepened and Maya averted her eyes, running her free hand through her newly chopped hair and accidentally rustling stray hairs onto her friends shoulder. "Is that a yes, or a no, or…?"
Lilith bit the inside of her mouth and looked at the fallen blue locks on her shoulder, briefly considering lighting her friend on fire for being so intelligent but so, so dense.
"It's a no, Maya." Maya slumped down against the desk defeated and placed the book back in its pile. Liliths frown dissipated, more incredulous than angry. "Why do you even have all these books? Like, where on Pandora did you find these?" She picked a random book from the pile, inspecting the cover and flipping through to the index. It was a textbook of all things and that just made the situation more confusing. They were all textbooks, Lilith realized, scanning the spines of the scattered books laying around the room. Maya shrugged, still groggy from reading all day and not emotionally prepared for an interrogation.
"Anthropology?" Lilith asked, realizing a pattern and posing the question more for herself than Maya. She turned back and saw that Maya had snuck the compact from her pant pocket and was admiring herself, again, prodding the bags under her eyes and pouting. Lilith closed it with a hard clack and a dry look, taking it back. "Ok, why anthropology? Why are you reading all of these? Maya, have you been sitting here all day?"
"It's interesting, I like reading, and yes, in that order." Maya answered the questions curtly, hunched over with a hand on her cheek and still stuck with the predicament of where the hell to put her book collection. Or at least the to-do pile. "What did you do today?"
Lilith bristled. She didn't expect to be put on the spot and after grilling Maya for reading all day she didn't want to admit she herself had spent most of it watching truxican telenovelas with Mordecai and Tina.
"Researching." She lied, "Researching the enemy, actually, bandits and stuff. Hyperion too." Maya nodded and accepted Lilith's answer, rising from her spot on the floor and stretching. Lilith breathed out and was relieved the matter wasn't going to be discussed further, feeling ashamed for criticizing Mayas studies after reflecting on just how unproductive her own day was.
"Is it that ugly?"
"What?" Lilith looked up at Maya from the floor. The other siren had somehow gotten her hands on the compact again and Lilith wondered how she was so good at pickpocketing for a former monk. Maya was unpleased with her reflection this time though, fussing over the fuzzy spot with a worried expression. "What, your hair? No! It looks, uh, fine! It looks great for a-you know for a..." For a butcher.
Lilith gestured vaguely, trying to find kinder words. Maya tilted her head and finished the sentence for her, "For a DIY?"
"Exactly."
"I thought so too." Maya sighed and leaned against the desk, handing the mirror back willingly this time. Lilith accepted it and stood up next to her. There were still stray locks dusting Maya's shoulders and Lilith brushed them away, a gesture which Maya either didn't register or didn't mind. Usually she was uncomfortable when touched by anyone and Lilith was reminded that she'd grabbed the woman's wrist earlier. She flinched at the thought, hoping it didn't bother her that much.
Maya's thoughts weren't on Liliths touching or the problem of her book collection, but she looked down at the latter anyway. Why was she reading all these books?
"Lilith," Lilith tore her attention away from her own social anxiety and looked up at Maya as she spoke, listening. "You have a doctorate, right? What did you research? For your thesis, I mean."
Lilith definitely wasn't expecting that question. Any mention of her useless doctorates was usually met with fire and acid but she cooled herself and considered Maya's query, knowing that her pseudo sister intended the question innocently.
"Which one? Molecular Biology or Biochemistry?" If she thought hard enough she could remember what the hell she wrote her thesis papers on, but that seemed ages ago and it never helped her anyway. Mercenaries didn't need degrees and she realized when she became one that she'd wasted six years of her life and thousand of dollars in tuition. At least the debt collectors couldn't reach her on Pandora.
"Something about...about…", Holy shit, she was actually remembering, "-'the environmental adaptations of bioluminescent invertebrates across Dionysius and it's moons', I think?" Lilith rubbed her temples, not entirely sure, "Yeah, yeah that sounds about right."
Maya was impressed to learn her friend held not one but two doctorates and felt a pang of jealousy. Even though she'd surrounded herself with books and academic papers since adolescence she never actually attended a university. Hell, she never went to highschool either but from what Gaige had told her it was less of a place of learning and more like a breeding ground for herpes and 'capitalist slave indoctrination', whatever Gaige meant by that.
The siren felt almost childish for clinging to books and journals without ever having had experience in an academic setting and somewhere in her heart she knew that she was only interested in Anthropology because of her own inexperience with culture and human society, having never actively participated in either by choice and yearning to find something she could speak to.
While Maya was lost in thought her friend was waiting for a reply and she shook her head to focus, "You're very disciplined." Maya blurted out, looking down and meeting Liliths eye, "I could never do something like that. You should feel proud."
Lilith snorted a laugh at how wrong her friend was, "What are you talking about? You could run scholarly circles around me. I mean, I haven't written or read a paper in almost a decade and just-just look at all this."
She waved at the mess of books on the floor and the two towers of textbooks in their sorted piles, "You're doing all this research and reading just because you want to. That's amazing!" The words got a smile out of Maya and Lilith continued, "If you wanted to you could probably write a whole book yourself, or a thesis, or whatever, on all of this."
Maya perked up, lifting her chin from her palm at the word 'write'. "I…" She started but stopped, closing her mouth and shaking her head.
"You? You what?" Lilith prodded, sensing a breakthrough.
"I do want to write a book." Maya admitted it with effort, doubting herself.
"About what? Anthropology, or?"
Maya turned to Lilith, certain this time, "About sirens, Lil." Lilith froze and closed her mouth, a bit taken back by the admission. Writing a book about sirens, for a siren, for other sirens, or for herself, whatever way she intended it, would be huge. Maya seemed confident in the idea and she continued, "What else would I want to write about? What else could possibly be more important?"
Lilith stared into her eyes with a pained look. "No no, I understand. It is important. It's just," Tannis was the chief -and only- expert on sirens and the vault and Pandora, and she was currently spinning herself around in a desk chair one floor below them, speaking nonsense into an echo recorder and periodically vomiting. "It's just that it would be hard, is all."
Maya breathed out, "I know that."
The two stood in silence for a moment, unsure of how to continue and watching the last slice of light against the floor, playing off the books and casting twin shadows from the stacks, the two pillars of darkness landing at their feet. They were standing on untouchable columns, both of them, and Maya looked down and tried to find meaning in that. Lilith spoke first.
"Hey," She set a hand on Mayas shoulder and the other turned to face her. "I said it would be hard, Maya. Not impossible." Mayas face cracked into an amused smile, gentle and small but growing. She covered Liliths hand with her own, looking down at the familiar marks that colored her friends hand. Her finger brushed against them, trailing them for a moment and feeling a strange emotion that went beyond camaraderie, feeling a connection written in their skin that she hadn't felt before.
"You're right." Maya moved to hold Liliths bare hand in her left, reaching the two hands out in front of them and watching the sunlight pass through Liliths fingertips, the sun behind the blue of her skin. Lilith didn't mind but was surprised by this much physical contact from someone as reserved as Maya. It ended as quickly as it began and Maya dropped their hands at their sides and let go, seeming satisfied and maybe even comforted.
"Only thing left to do is research it, find the four other sirens, journey across the galaxy, open and uncover the secrets of all the vaults, and not kill myself trying to cram it all into one book. How hard could it be?"
"Maybe you could write a series?" Lilith proposed, assuming that she would complete everything else on the insane list beforehand.
Maya shrugged, nudging the spine of a book with her foot and trying to make her done-pile stand straighter. Lilith smirked at the attempt, wondering how much nudging the stack could stand before it collapsed into a colossal jenga pile, trying to imagine Mayas frustration. She knew one thing though, and it was that the books had to go.
"So remind me, how many of these would I be holding onto for you?" Lilith asked and Mayas head turned, eager at the proposal. Her boot nudged too far as she did and sent the done-pile toppling. She exhaled an exasperated sigh and Lilith tried to cover her snicker, failing.
"Could you hold...all of them?"
"No."
"Half of them?"
"Also no."
"What about," Maya stepped forward and bent down to pick up the three-foot tall stack of books that was her to-do pile. She gasped in air and took the weight into her arms, turning back to Lilith only a little bit red in the face, "What about just these?"
Lilith wanted to refuse again but didn't know how much farther she could bargain, considering dumping them all on Brick for a laugh and watching Maya pile them onto the main desk. Blue looked back at Red and smiled, pleading, caressing the pile up and down and almost begging Lilith to help her.
"Please?" Lilith hated getting puppy-dog eyes. She sighed and lowered her head, rubbing her eyes before speaking.
"Only those. Period. No more. Ever." She didn't want her base in the Firehawk den to become Mayas one-stop library and was firm in keeping the space her own, but Maya seemed to respect her boundaries. Mostly.
"Awesome!" Maya reached out and grabbed Liliths hand, pulling her in for a surprising yet thankfully brief embrace before releasing and turning back to the books, "I promise, I finish these by next week and then I won't order any more. Promise." She held out her pinkie and Lilith cocked an eyebrow at the gesture before exhaling, wondering just what she was getting herself into before reaching out to pinkie-swear with the only woman on the planet that could do such a thing and still be taken seriously.
"Promise."