Authors Note: Reposting this because the first go around was full of errors.
Summary: Krieg and Maya loot a chest. Maya touches meat-muscles.
Goliaths blood still flowed from the corpse at the vault hunters side, oozing around them and pooling around the prone psycho on the ground. They were both caught up in their tender moment, one still reeling from a concussion, and didn't seem to mind the mess. Maya snapped out of it and turned away from him when she felt something wet seeping into the fabric of her pants from the ground. She wrinkled her nose lifting herself up and out of the puddle; pants stained deep rusty red and thoroughly soaked. Blood, she'd discovered, wasn't that hard to get out of clothes if you knew what you were doing, but even then she knew her pants might be a lost cause. She tucked the thought away for later and extended a hand down to help her friend.
Krieg took her lead and pulled himself up, shaking his head and squeezing his eye shut, trying to walk off the first blunt trauma of the night and taking it in stride. Maya kept close with her hand tucked into his, hovering at his side in case he stumbled. He straightened and she turned away, giving his hand a squeeze before letting it drop. Krieg cracked his neck and stretched, joints popping one by one in a sickeningly satisfying wave. He rotated a sore arm in its socket and tidied himself up, re-adjusting the straps on his mask and feeling his pant pocket for his comb, habitually brushing it over his bald head.
Krieg finished and mumbled something about being the second prettiest, bloodiest glow stick, waiting patiently next to Maya as she examined the Dahl chest the Goliath had dropped. It'd abandoned the thing before the fight and sadly it hadn't landed nicely, looking like a crushed soda can on one end and flipped over on the wrong side. Maya considered the chest critically with a hand on her chin, pacing around it. There was really only one option. "We're gonna need to lift it."
Krieg stared at her from the other side, cocking his head curiously and flicking an eye up and down her crossed arms. Maya had biceps of steel and siren strength to back them up, and she wasn't about to let him try to lift this on his own. Badass psycho or not, he wasn't going to be much use to her if he tore his arms off. He seemed ready to protest but shrugged, holstering the axe and bending at the knee, ready. "Lemme see those bulging murder-muscles, sweetmeats."
Maya shook her head and laughed at the nickname, crouching to mirror him and getting a grip on the underside of the chest. "Oh I'll show you muscles, meathead. On three-"
She counted to three and they heaved together. Maya stood firm and gritted her teeth against the strain, digging her heels into the packed snow and grunting. Krieg had an easier time of it and Maya felt him taking more of the weight, thinking how nice it was to have a human forklift as a friend. Their efforts paid off and Maya jumped back as the chest was flipped over, flinching from the sound it made when it hit the concrete a second time. She slowly opened her eyes and was surprised not to hear a ruckus stirring, glad to see that the Rats in the area had been cleared away earlier.
And to the victors go the spoils, she thought, joining Krieg on the opposite side, "Pound it." She held out her fist and he bumped it with his, reflecting the wiggle of her fingers and simultaneously going 'boom'.
Maya rocked back and forth on her heels excitedly as the Dahl chest yielded with a 'swoosh', knowing damn well that Goliaths always stashed the good stuff. She wasn't disappointed. Krieg spoke and she gasped, both blown away by the spray of loot within. He purred with satisfaction and whispered the words into her ear. "Sunset colors..."
Their starry eyes reflected the purple and orange in the chest, a ripe metal sunset bountiful and glowing and all for them. They shared a stunned look, faces lit up like vault hunters on Mercenary Day, and Maya dug in. Krieg was relieved she couldn't see his dopey grin as he watched her, but he couldn't help it. He loved how giddy she looked with a new gun and her tattoos glowed bright, adding her splash of blue to the warm colors against their skin. She hesitated before expectedly snagging the closest smg, turning it over in her hands. They were her favorite and he knew, but it was still cute how excited she'd get over a new one.
Krieg turned back to the loot and matched her enthusiasm, pocketing a purple Jakob's hand cannon before reaching for a rare and shining Maliwan shotgun. His eyes nearly bulged out of his head once he realized what it was, the Maliwan Vitriolic Plague in all its corrosive glory, red letters on the side reading the legendaries calling card phrase, 'Bring out your Dead'. Krieg nearly spit and shot his hand out to grab it, only to meet the sirens grasp on the weapons shell and have it grabbed back between them.
We really need to stop doing this, the voice echoed in his head, looking down at their joined hands wrapped around his shotgun. Krieg gave a weak tug, meeting resistance. He wasn't quick to give this one up and was unsure how to tell her that without being lit on fire.
Maya squinted up at him and gave her own tug in response, eyes flicking between him and the gun, apparently just as conflicted as he was and twice as stubborn. "I uh, I have a thing for Maliwan. And acid damage. So like..." She yanked again. He didn't budge.
"And I like my treasure like I like my baby-steaks, raaaare..." Krieg retorted, giving his own tug. Inwardly he wanted to cave but on the outside he was dead-set and locked in place, listening to the rush of frantic suggestions being whispered in his ear, a whiny noise like a buzzing fly. The sirens poor attempt at persuasion was deaf to him. Ok, so shotguns might be our thing but stop being a baby, drop it, give it to her, apologize, offer her the pistol, stop staring, do something, say something-! Krieg shook the thoughts out and snapped back to reality, overwhelmed and still undecided. Luckily something on her shoulder caught his eye and he leaned in to get a better look at the Torgue assault rifle hanging from its strap.
His free hand pointed at it. "Nnng - I wanna see explosions of RED. You can keep the pungent green and gorey grime but only-" Maya glanced at the Rifle, and then back to him. He smiled under the mask and felt good about the bargain, "- if you wanna trade."
"Deal."
POV SHIFT … … … … … … … POV SHIFT
They swapped weapons and both got what they wanted. Krieg held the KerBlaster like a newborn, running a finger down the metal casing reverently and beaming. It was a decent long range weapon and he was in dire need of those, especially if he was going to stay close to the siren the whole time they were in the Fridge. The other weapons were divided evenly and once the chest had been picked clean Maya sat down on its edge, swapping her gear and comparing stats on her digiscreen.
She swiped through the options and quickly finished but kept the blue screen displayed in front of her, pretending to be paying attention to it and watching Krieg from the corner of her eye. He was still busy and Maya could have sworn she saw the veins in his neck popping as he growled at the screen and mumbled numbers to himself. His back was to her and she was sure that he wouldn't catch her peeking, but she kept her wits up and turned back to her echo whenever he moved.
Her eyes flicked back and she trailed them down his shoulders, frowning at the oozing Rat bites that marked his body. Usually his wounds healed easy, but Maya saw that it wasn't blood but something purple bubbling from the festering bite. She closed the screen and got to her feet, sneaking up behind him and inspecting the cuts while he remained absorbed by simple math.
The bite mark was inflamed and red, oozing purple goop and pus. Rat teeth poked out in several places where they'd been lost in the battle, embedded in the festering skin. Her concern deepened. Maya studied the wound, more intrigued than disgusted, and reached out her gloved hand to prod the surrounding area, only to see more of the liquid seep forth from the bite. "Huh. Gross."
Krieg jumped when she touched him and grunted in surprise, whipping around to face the siren with a shocked expression. Maya put her hands up in front of her, "Just me, don't worry. You're hurt." He relaxed but fixed her with a dry look that seemed to ask 'When am I not? '
"Turn back around. Let me see it." Krieg obeyed, turning and allowing her eyes to travel his body freely, enjoying it more than he let on. She wasn't reckless enough to touch the wounds themselves but he felt her fingers examine the area around them, running the fingertips down his skin and prodding, trying to see how deep his damage was and how inflamed the area had become. It must've been bad, he figured, seeing as she lingered there touching him slowly, methodically. The hands of a healer at work. Or maybe just wanted to touch him.
Stop that, Krieg shook his head, suppressing a shudder and feeling a pang of heartache, Can we go one hour without falling for her? Stop jumping to conclusions and be a good patient.
He moaned and rubbed his chest, trying to massage away the feelings burning holes in his heart and not having much luck. "Ugh, oh doc, can't you just rip it out …"
"Rip what out?" Maya asked, coming back around to face him, "Are you hurt here too? What hurts?" She brushed his hand away and laid hers on the spot. It was on his left breast, over his heart, and her concern turned to worry, not seeing a wound anywhere and suddenly unsure of how far the infection might have spread. Was it in his blood? Was it hurting his heart? "We should sit you down."
"Blue…" Krieg protested weakly but Maya ignored him, leading him to the Dahl chest and sitting him down in the snow next to it, positioning herself on the edge to get a better vantage point and going to work on the bites on his back. She pulled out her med kit and focused healing waves of magic in her palm. Rubbing alcohol tingled on his back and Krieg sucked air in, tense and cold and thankful that alcohol couldn't freeze.
The cold vanished as Mayas magic hit his skin in waves, feeling like warm water and seeping heat back into his muscles. Krieg melted, tension chased away by her sweet touch and muscles loosened by the heat. He didn't realize he was moaning until it was too late, but if Maya heard she didn't care. She was absorbed in her work, and worst of all, actually concerned that he might be hurt.
Tell her we're gonna be fine. Tell her we're used to being eaten alive. "I'm a three layer beef cake, baby," He moaned, eye rolling back in his head, "-it'll take more than a few hungry rodents to take a slice out of this bakery boy…" Maya took into account his dismissal but was still set on what she was doing, yanking Rat teeth out of him and tossing them aside into the empty chest. There was a pile of them.
" Very hungry rodents, I'd say..." She muttered, extracting an incisor the size of her finger and examining it briefly before adding it to the others. Aside from the bites Krieg was looking fine, Maya realized, and was reminded that she set him on fire earlier. The thought stopped her in her tracks and she pulled back from him. Her eyes scanned him for burns but found none, not even a blister. Weird.
"Hey, I wanted to ask since we have a minute," Maya started, leaning to speak in his ear and get his attention before returning to her work, "How do you do that?" She motioned vaguely with her hand, really trying to say 'how the fuck are you alive' without being rude, "-that thing with the fire. Like, how are you not a psycho flambe right now?" He stilled and thought, and Maya wondered if even he knew.
"What are you?"
POV SHIFT … … … … … … … POV SHIFT
'What are you?' Kriegs shoulders dropped when she said it and now he bristled at her touch, newly aware of the situation. She was removing human teeth from his infected pus filled wounds and he was sitting there enjoying it like a happy idiot, thinking it wasromantic . He was fooling himself with delusions of Maya wanting to touch him, denying reason like some psychotic lovesick animal. He shook his head, knowing exactly what he was. Just answer the stupid question.
"I'm made of fire." He offered dryly, voice flat and irate, answering her in a mocking tone. "I snort kerosene for breakfast and I eat coal for lunch. I piss gasoline and I keep lit matches in my underwear. Wanna see?" He glanced over his shoulder at the siren and she averted her eyes. She removed her hands from his back and he sighed. Oh great. Now we both feel like shit.
"Sorry." Maya apologized, speaking the words into his back. "I didn't mean it that way, but I went too far with that one." Krieg wanted to pick his axe back up and slam the blunt end into his temples. Why are you such an idiot? How many smacks until we black out so she can leave us here? A warm hand between his shoulder blades pulled him back to reality and he turned back to her again. Maya gave him a strained smile and looked back down to where she was touching, continuing her work. She was silent for a moment. "...forgive me?"
We don't deserve this. We don't deserve her.
He nodded in response, resting a hand over the toe of her shoe and giving it a gentle squeeze, an affirmation that she'd been forgiven since his tongue was too stupid to say it. Maya breathed out in relief and Krieg smiled, tilting his head back and staring at the pile of teeth filling the chest. He needed to find a way to answer her original question without being an asshole.
"I…" He started and stopped, not sure how to word his true feelings about fire. He wanted to say that Hyperion slagged him until he stopped caring and he lit himself on fire for fun, but it wasn't backed up by any memories and was more of something he just told himself to feel better. Krieg switched gears, trying to conjure up the 'why' rather than the 'how' drumming his hands on the edge of the chest, lost in thought.
Maya flicked the last tooth towards the pile and let her powers do the rest, massaging the white light into his muscles and moving down from his shoulders. While they talked and looted darkness fell in the cragged Fridge and Maya looked towards the sky, only partly visible from where they were sitting, a cracked dome of ice acting as a ceiling in most parts. There were some stars, and moonlight shining from Elpis bathed the area a cool blue.
"Hnnnng, I lied! I'm not really made of fire," Krieg spoke up and Maya was pulled away from the sky, cocking her head at his obvious statement. He seemed genuine in his delivery and she couldn't tell if he was joking again or not. "-but I wanna be."
"You...want to be made of fire?" Maya repeated, unsure of how that explained anything.
"YES!" Krieg nodded vigorously, turning towards her triumphant and confident in his answer. "Because fire is life and life is pain," he got closer, as if telling a secret even though he was shouting, "-burning seething pain that fills us up and spills out our screamingsockets- the blood, the screaming, the teeth -" He motioned wildly to the pile, smacking his chest for emphasis as he shouted, "they will NEVER, ever end, BUT they'll burn away and be swallowed by fire, all of them, into a burning pyre to putrid humanity!"
"And we," Krieg took a knee and placed a hand over his heart, knelt down before her, "-you and I, we will BE fire, inside and out! A saccharine smoldering SYMPHONY alone in the stars and we, will be, ETERNAL! "
He panted and stared up into her face with crazed eyes, still on his knee before her and speaking his truth, screaming it and declaring it and begging to be understood. No confession he made would matter when Pandora burned and it didn't matter now either, but he waited for an answer anyway.
The siren was stunned to silence looking down at him but somehow put her hands on his shoulders, trying to get a grip on him before he got ahead of himself and lit himself on fire to prove his point. Krieg accepted the gesture and put his hands over hers in turn, not really knowing what she meant but accepting the gesture as being something good. His heart was still pounding from the screaming or her hands or maybe just her eyes on his and he moved Mayas hand to feel it, pressing her hand to his heart and grinning.
"There ! That's where my fire burns. Feel it, feel the burning, melting goodness! Know by what SMOLDER and with what art you twist the sinews of my heart." Maya did feel something. She felt his heart pounding and felt his whole body throwing heat like a furnace, and something told her it wasn't the infection. She felt something click in her mind, understanding how he worked in a way, how he operated day to day and constantly burned himself without dying. He wasn't just fireproof he was fire prone, hot from the inside out and burning to get it out instead of in.
"Oh…" Maya breathed, understanding him through his prose and hoping she wasn't jumping to conclusions for the sake of a crush. She looked down at her hand, the gloved right hand that lay over his breast, and marveled as it soaked up his heat through her armor. Something wasn't right about that, feeling him through the glove. She wanted to feel him completely- with nothing in between them.
Krieg looked visibly disappointed when she withdrew her hand from its place above his heart. He wondered what he did or said wrong and felt stupid for grabbing it in the first place, kicking himself and ready to pull away-
-before her left hand took its place.
It was freezing from clinging to the frozen metal of the Dahl chest and Krieg shivered, as much from the cold as from the skin-to-skin contact. Blue tattoos glowed hot and vibrant with undulating blue lights, and her healing magic shone through, pressed firmly over his heart and warming him, soothing him. It was her own fire, bubbling out from her skin and washing over him. Maya might even be his favorite fire, he thought, feeling the blue flames light up his heart and knowing it was true. She cleared her throat and he looked up from her tattoos, realizing that they'd gotten closer again.
"I, uh," Maya composed herself and smiled down at him, confessing a secret of her own with her hand over his heart. "I like fire too, you know. Especially yours."