"Do vegetables...exist on Pandora?" Maya posed the question genuinely, reaching for her fifth slice of the dwindling mystery-meat lovers pizza and curling back into the plush faux-leather booth, folding the slice before trying to get all of the stray mozzarella in one bite. It was a good thing she'd abandoned counting calories on Athenas, her former diet of rice and kitchari may have been healthy but it was nowhere near as flavorful as anything that Moxxi had put in front of her since arriving in Sanctuary. She watched the grease pool in the cheesy crux with apprehension, wondering just what the price would be for something this good.
The other vault hunters were draped over the booth and table of their corner of Moxxi's with the exception of Zer0, who probably didn't need to eat. They were all solidly burnt out after a day spent in the Caustic Caverns and were unwinding in the pizza-afterglow, glad to be back above ground and breathe in cheap booze rather than toxic waste.
"Do cactuses count?" Gaige answered Maya from her spot on the floor, leaning on her robot and slowly losing screws through the wideset floorboards, fiddling with the metal of her arm after it had nearly been torn off by a thresher. "I've seen plenty of those."
Mayas nose crinkled at the thought of eating something that could electrocute her, but she'd seen stranger things in people's mouths on this planet. The man across from her in particular had eaten several worrying things in her presence this week alone, and for a second she was reminded of the thresher tentacles he had slurped down for lunch and how well those might be sitting. Krieg took up a solid third of the half-circle booth with his shoulder span alone but seemed unbothered by the tight squeeze. The pizza boxes stacked between them shielded his drink from view, an ice cold rakk ale with a comically pink curly straw poking out the glass and up under his mask. Maya finished her slice and indulgently licked her fingers clean, shifting in her seat as Ax and Sal scooted past her to stumble back to their bunks in HQ, the latter yawning 'g'night' as he went.
There's suddenly more room with only two of them sitting and Krieg grunts, moving from his seat hanging off the edge and sliding his drink towards his new spot stretched out over the bench seat. Maya mirrors him and gets more comfortable, nudging the pizza boxes away with a boot and kicking her feet up. Kriegs curly straw is just as effective horizontally and gets stuffed back in its place, but the mask shifts when he does it and Maya gets another brief peak at the man underneath.
If Krieg was aware of the exposure he wasn't bothered by it, blissfully exhausted and humming off-tune to the bouncing buzz of the clubs music while her eyes scanned him, curious. His chin is square and his jaw is sharp, nicks and scars trace the edge and sit below the line of his lower lip. It's full and defined and fumbling around the bright pink plastic, chewing on the straw like everything else he puts in his mouth. Maya tries not to stare but does anyway, hearing the plastic crack and thinking how sharp those teeth might be.
"I FEEL you~," Krieg drawls the words in a low melodic rumble without looking at her and Mayas cheeks heat up, coughing awkwardly at being caught and running a hand through her hair, turning away from him. He flashes a smile and the mask comes back down, clearly more amused than invaded. Krieg sits up proper and gets comfortable, splaying his arms out across the tops of the curved booth seats, drink in hand.
Maya cleared her throat and motioned vaguely at the ale, saying anything just to brush off her slight blush, "How-how do you drink that?" She's seen Krieg drink nothing but blood and alcohol for the past week and she was surprised she hasn't seen him wasted yet, knowing that booze on Pandora was safer than the water but 10x the strength of anything legal on any civilized planet.
Her psycho friend gave her an incredulous look as if to say 'how don't you?' and held his drink mock-daintily with his pinky in the air, "MMMmmm it takes more than puny pain-piss to marinate my temples, gotta get real NUMB if I wanna be juicy for the grill."
It was about as good of a response as she'd ever gotten out of him and Maya ruminates on the concept, fingering the rim of her lychee martini, wondering just how much more numb her friend could get. She noticed that he'd scooted closer, and in her effort to find a spot on the seat where the springs weren't poking her she had done the same. There were only inches of fabric between them and her head rested against the cushion under his elbow, blue fuzzy locks tickling his inner arm.
The pair enjoyed the moment comfortably unbothered by their proximity to one another and didn't realize the problem until they both reached for the last slice of congealed pizza and gracelessly bumped digits. Maya was faster and had her fingertips on the crust but Kriegs hand covered hers easily and it wasn't expecting deterrence, folding firmly over hers and covering her soft blue marks with his bloodstained palm.
As if the contact doesn't jolt her enough Maya felt a new wave of shock as Krieg yanked her hand to his mouth. He couldn't see with the mask pulled up to eat and didn't realize his mistake before his lips touched her skin, expecting pizza, and four of her fingers slipped into his mouth.
Krieg froze and Maya sucked air in through her teeth. Neither knew what to do and one of them was glowing neon in the others mouth. Mayas tattoos lit up when she was excited and she usually reveled in it but this was the one time she really wished they'd calm down.
He pulled her fingers from between his lips slowly and almost reverently and she got the answer to her unspoken question, feeling sharp canines drag against her skin without breaking it and shuddering at the contact, confused and feeling goosebumps. Krieg overturned her wet hand in his palm, earnest in his confusion over what the hell he just put in his mouth until realization struck him.
"I ordered extra kosher BACON, not finger-food!" Mayas fingers were probably the cleanest things he'd put in his mouth in a month and that wasn't the issue, the issue was her wide eyed shock locking him down and the beet red color her face was turning. She was too stunned to move and couldn't decide how to react, a deer in the headlights with her glowing hand still gripped in his palm and no idea how to talk her way out of a social situation like this.
"'Finger-food'? What the hell are you two talking about-" Gaige popped her head up from the floor at Kriegs exclamation and two in the booth froze, still hand-in-hand and still glowing and Gaige seemed to understand the situation faster and more clearly than they did. Her eyes got starry for a second and realization dawned, giving them the kind of look that you would give your teachers after catching them sneaking kisses in the school hallway, surprised that they were allowed to do that and feeling let in on a secret. "Ohhh…." Her fingers drummed on the edge of the table and she smiled mischievously in an awful teenager way, "I see what's going on."
"No," Maya made an effort to pull her hand away from Kriegs and keep her voice steady, pointing an authoritative finger at the girl, "No. No you don't. It was an accident."
"What was?" Gaige asked through a widening grin and Maya suddenly realized that the mechromancer hadn't seen her fingers in the psycho's mouth and breathed a small sigh of relief, not prepared to explain how that happened without exploding. Unfortunately it was Gaiges specialty to jump to conclusions for laughs and especially wrong ones and she decided to fill in the blanks, "Did I, interrupt something?"
Krieg piped up while Maya sputtered trying to speak without screaming, "I SUCKLED at the teet of blue hatred and tasted the knuckle of fire and they exploded in my hand with bouquets of blooming red!" Maya whirled back on him and mouthed 'not helping!' with a hand clenched around his wrist, trying to shake some common sense into him before Gaige latched onto whatever was happening and made it into a running joke. The girl had seen Axton kiss his turret once and it'd become a recurring joke to call him 'turret-humper' so Maya really didn't want to imagine what kind of moniker this would produce.
"Ooooh, 'bouquets of blooming red', what a poet." Gaige was having too much fun with this one. Luckily she rose from the floor and shut up before Maya combust into flames, "I think I'll leave you two be, don't want to ruin the mood." She wiggled her eyebrows on the word 'mood' and snatched the last slice of mystery-meat lovers pizza from the box in front of them, turning and walking out of Moxxi's with a bounce and a hum and leaving as the victor of pizza-finger debacle.
Maya stared straight ahead at the now empty box and steamed in her seat, thinking about how all of this happened just because she'd wanted a sixth slice of pizza and considering how fast it'd kill her if she leapt of the edge of Sanctuary to escape ever looking at Gaige or Krieg again. The latter was inevitable though, because her hand was still clinging to his wrist.
She quickly let go but her hand didn't stray far, letting it lay flat on the wooden table next to his still clenched fist and staring at their hands to avoid eye-contact. Her tattoos were normal again and she thought that maybe if his hands weren't so ridiculously huge he wouldn't have scooped hers up so easily. Maya compared them in the awkward silence, his broken and scraped knuckles against her soft and branded skin. She couldn't avoid him forever and definitely not now and Maya sucked air, eye-contact or not, "Krieg I-"
"I'M SORRY." Krieg interrupted her and nearly slammed his forehead into the table, bowing it low when he apologized and startling Maya with how fast he spoke, "I didn't try to taste your boiling blue GUTS and and I'M SORRY for igniting your pretty pasty cheeks - I just wanted to fill my guts with meaty miserable mystery and I TOOK IT BLINDLY. SORRY."
Maya was taken aback at the apology and closed her mouth, forgetting whatever she was about to say and letting his words sink in. His eye was closed when he shouted them at her but it cracked open now, looking up at her from his place with his head on the table. Maya realized from the new angle that his whole face and neck was red. She'd never seen Krieg blush or express any indicator of shame or inhibition and it was shocking, but a little bit comforting.
They were alone in the booth without drinks or pizza or annoying teenagers and Maya heard the club music again, buzzing over the sound system and echoing normalcy back into the situation. Something calm settled between them and her blush faded a bit, eyes averting from his and looking back down at their hands next to each other on the table, conscious of how close they were still sitting even with plenty of room on each side of the booth but unable to move away.
"I-um," She wasn't thinking. She couldn't. Her hand lifted and hovered over his for a moment, tentative and gauging his reaction before gently resting over his closed fist. "I...accept your apology," Kriegs hand opened and Maya refused to guess what kind of look she was getting from him, letting her fingers brush inside his calloused palm and settle into the cup of his hand, breathing out the words, "Thank you."
Krieg lifted his head from the table slowly and she watched him carefully rise from the corner of her vision, gentle as if trying not to scare her off. Maya found the nerve to look at him but he'd been transfixed by the gesture, staring wide-eyed at their intertwined hands and completely still. His thumb twitches and his fingers bent to touch her, cup her hand in his and marvel at the disparity in size between them. His digits cast a shadow in the dim light of Moxxi's but the scene isn't dark for long, blue light slowly trickling back down her arm and into his palm, casting soft light on Maya's face and Kriegs mask as they watched.
Neither of them knew what to say again but this time the silence was sweet instead of suffocating and they both wanted to enjoy it for as long as it would last, confusing and new and accidentally good.
Maya relaxed her head against the psychos shoulder, watching her own neon glow cast shadows as it undulated under her skin, a purple-ish blue aurora that existed in the palms of their hands and only for them to see. Krieg was rapt in awe, unmoving aside from breathing, somehow still afraid that it was all about to end. But it didn't.
Her fingers traced the lines of his palm in a circle and she spoke into the muscle of his shoulder, blue lips brushing his skin. "You know…" Her voice trailed off and Maya tried to decide just what to say to make the moment last a little longer, or maybe hours longer, alone with him and their private lightshow and without any more distractions, "...we could just get another pizza."