Chapter 5

Phoenix and Miles continued to watch Franziska, Larry, Maya, and Gumshoe on the dance floor. Franziska and Larry continued to be amusing to watch, while Gumshoe was also laughably awkward, standing there while Franziska tried to whip him into dancing too (but she missed more often than not due to her intoxicated state).

They were soon surprised to see Franziska attempting to climb up on a table, but she failed miserably, almost falling to the ground if it wasn't for Gumshoe hurriedly catching her in his arms.

"Franny!" Gumshoe cried, his nickname for her slipping out with his worry.

Quickly realizing his mistake, he was glad she was much too drunk to notice. When he placed her safely on the ground, she wobbled a little on her feet, finding balance rather hard to come by.

"Wha' fool turned up the heat in here?" she said in an irritated tone, reaching down with her hands, clearly intending to take her shirt off.

Gumshoe's eyes widened in shock, and he quickly took her hands in his before she could succeed and spoke nervously, "Okay, pal, I think this is enough. I should get you home."

At this, Larry was laughing uncontrollably, falling over yet again on the dance floor. Maya, on the other hand felt vaguely worried about Franziska, but she knew that Gumshoe would take care of her. Maya's attention was quickly taken away from Franziska when she felt her hand being tugged by Larry, who'd found his way off the floor and pulled her into his body.

"Dance with me, Maya." he said in what Maya liked to call his special "goofy yet sexy" tone that she had trouble refusing even when she wasn't a little drunk.

The fact that she was suddenly pressed against him probably didn't help her self control very much either. So, she moved with him to the beat of the music for a few moments, letting herself get carried away in the beat and the emotions being this close to Larry caused. Finally, he locked eyes with her again, and with nothing standing in his way this time, he leaned forward to press his lips against hers.

Maya felt herself beginning to kiss back, the stunning sensation from the contact of their lips burning its way through her body, but then it suddenly hit her how wrong it all was. They were broken up, and it wasn't right to be doing this. She quickly turned her head away before the kiss could go on any longer and stepped back slightly.

"Larry…we shouldn't…I…can't." Maya said softly, her voice easily expressing her disappointment with the situation.

With a look of exaggerated hurt at her refusal, Larry stumbled backward to put a little distance between them and said, "Umm…alright."

Feeling really guilty, especially with the way Larry looked at her, Maya quickly made her way off the dance floor and left Larry behind her. She sat down by Phoenix and Miles, roughly picking up her Long Island Ice Tea and hurriedly consumed whatever was left in the glass.

"Maya, take it easy!" Phoenix said in concern as he watched her shake her head as the alcohol hit her.

Maya ignored Phoenix and pointed to another drink someone was having and said, "Get me one of those!"

"A Vodka Martini? But Maya, you just had a Long Island Ice Tea! You really should slow down – " Phoenix tried to dissuade her from drinking so fast, but she hurriedly cut him off.

"We'll all have one!"

She didn't wait for his reply, and went straight to the bar, ordering three. Phoenix gave Miles a look, hinting that he should help him pay for the drinks this time, and since it was Maya's birthday, Miles grudgingly went along with it, walking up to the bar to pay the waiting bartender the price for the drinks.

Maya didn't even wait until Phoenix and Miles got their drinks from the bartender to start on hers, taking a huge gulp when she looked across the club to see Larry hitting on some girls on the dance floor. It didn't matter that the girls just seemed to laugh at his drunken attempt at picking them up, the act itself made Maya burn with jealousy anyway.

What to expect though? Larry's always been that way as long as I've known him. And I just told him that we weren't together…so I don't think I should feel like this at all. Maya tried telling herself, but even as she thought it, she wasn't convinced anyway, the next big gulp she took of her martini evidence of that.

Both Phoenix and Miles could tell that things with Larry still had her upset, so they tried their best to keep her company and to distract her from her problems momentarily, not wanting her birthday celebration to be dampened by them.

On the way to his car, Detective Gumshoe had to support most of Franziska's weight, worried that if he let her walk on her own, she'd end up falling over. They finally made it to his car, which was a long and arduous process thanks to a drunk Franziska either trying to whip him or kiss him (and both at times) as she stumbled along beside him. He was thankful that she got into the car with little trouble, deciding that he needed to take her home right away so that she could sleep this off.

The drive to her apartment was quiet enough, since she started to doze off on the way back. Gumshoe felt a little sad about having to wake her up when he pulled into her apartment complex, giving her shoulder a light shake after he'd parked his car. With his arms around her, they stumbled their way up to her apartment, the detective not exactly wanting to leave her alone in this condition, knowing that she would probably have quite the headache the next morning.

I'm definitely not looking forward to her feeling so bad tomorrow with her holding on to her whip! Gumshoe thought to himself, but he could not make himself leave, his want to take care of her stronger than his fear of the lashing he might receive due to her foul mood the next day.

He gently took the apartment keys from her after few clumsy attempts to unlock the door, and then unlocked it himself. After leading her inside her immaculately spotless living space, he tried to lay her down on the big couch in her living room, but she did not allow him to.

"C'mre, fool!" Franziska said with a smirk, or what would be closest likened to a smirk in her drunken state, and she threw her arms around his shoulders, pulling him close to her.

Gumshoe could smell the alcohol on her breath as she tugged him into an uncharacteristically sloppy kiss. For just a second, Gumshoe found himself unable to resist her advance since any kisses from her always felt so nice. He let her continue to kiss him, and he felt her clumsily trying to slip her hands under his coat, but her coordination was still so bad that she kept missing.

This caused him to pull back slightly, trying hard to keep his thoughts straight as he said, "Franny…we-we shouldn't…"

He was thankful that she'd dropped her whip when she threw her arms around his neck with the look she gave him at his refusal.

Stumbling backward slightly, she looked at him with an accusatory glare, poking his chest and saying, "Y're lucky…'m in no mood…to punish…"

Gumshoe noted that the slurred tone of her speech took away any threat they would have carried had they been said sober, and this coupled with the way she was swaying on her feet made the whole tirade seem rather ridiculous. But, he knew more than well to keep all these thoughts to himself, and he quickly focused himself on catching her before she fell again.

" — punished later…sleep — " she mumbled incoherently into his chest, her eyes closing, and her body finally falling fully against him.

The detective let out a small sigh of relief, just glad that she'd finally fallen back asleep and that he was saved from any further drunken advances from her, really because he wasn't sure how much more he'd have been able to refuse her. He carefully scooped her into his arms and lay her gently on the couch. Then he ventured into her bedroom and fetched a pillow and blanket for her, trying to make her feel as comfortable as he could on the couch.

When he finished tucking her in, so to speak, he just looked at her for a moment. Her head had lazily rolled to one side, and her body was splayed awkwardly across the couch, but he just kept looking, deciding that she still looked beautiful. He also realized that he'd never had a chance to just study her like this, with her eyes closed and her face having a strange peaceful quality about it that he'd never seen when she was awake, and it was something about this sight that made him decide that he probably loved her even more now than he did before.

He then took a seat in one of the arm chairs beside the couch and continued to watch her, reflecting on their relationship. He knew quite odd in comparison to the ones that most people had, but, as he quickly reminded himself, most people weren't Franziska von Karma either. She approached everything in her life with a harsh passion, including him he supposed, and this made her stand out in his mind as long as he knew her.

When they first met, he wondered how anyone could stand being around her for more than a short period, if at all, but over time, he got to see the real person under that hard and severe exterior she erected to block herself from the world. He knew that, some how, he'd become one of the very few people that had managed to do that, and this made him feel special.

The last thought he had before he drifted off to sleep was that, even if his relationship with her seemed strange to a lot of people, he really wouldn't have things any other way.