a/n: Hiya. Well, I couldn't let the month go by without doing a Lilith/Maya fic, now could I? It's March pretty much everywhere in the world right now, but dammit, Femslash February ends on my terms, not the calendar's. I swear I would have done more, but the flu kind of took me out for a week earlier this month. Also, I guess it's customary to put a warning for some light sexual content here. Anyway. Enjoy. Review. Rinse. Repeat.

Lilith can't close her eyes without being brought back to the volcano. If she ever finds herself free of distractions, suddenly she's hooked back up to the Vault key again, purple poison racing through her veins, contracting every muscle in her body, searing the backs of her eyeballs. Sometimes it takes her a while before she can snap back into reality. Memories the weight of boulders bear down on her shoulders, and too many times she's too weak to push them off.

She falls into bed each night exhausted, unsure if she should even beg for sleep to come. Sleep almost inevitably brings the nightmares. The sticky, uncomfortable heat of the volcano. The distant rumblings of a monster lurking just beneath the lava. Jack plunges the knife into her stomach over and over, her skin healing itself up as fast as he can wound her. The pain alone should be enough to wake her, but the nightmare only seems to end when the Warrior rears its gruesome head and the other Vault Hunters aren't there to stop it.

Usually, she's disgusted with herself for letting Jack make her his last victim. It doesn't matter that she's alive and he isn't: every time she wakes up in a cold, terrified sweat, she knows he's beating her. Sometimes, she considers herself lucky. Jack only had her for two days. He had Angel hooked up to that key for the better part of five years. She knows her suffering can't begin to compare what Angel went through. The thought isn't a very comforting one.

In her darkest moments, she's convinced she deserves the pain for not listening to Angel. She's convinced the nightmares are punishment for not being able to stop him sooner. She's convinced that every sleepless night is another chance to wonder why she couldn't do more to save more people.

Moxxi tells her the grief she feels over Roland will become easier to deal with, but it isn't him she mourns. She had time to do that while Jack had her. Two days had passed on the calendar between her capture and his death, but thanks to the sheer volume of the eridium he channeled through her, and the hell it unleashed on her brain, it felt more like months. She couldn't understand why the dirt over his grave was still fresh when she got back to Sanctuary. As far as she was concerned, he and Angel had been buried long ago. Getting over them wasn't as hard as she thought it would be, with the specter of her own death looming so close. She had to accept what happened to them as quickly as she did, or she never would have accepted what she had assumed would happen to her.

But ironically enough, when the Vault Hunters did show up and defeat Jack, it was Maya who apologized for taking so long; Maya, who knew Lilith hadn't even been held captive two whole days. It was Maya who said she wished they could have gotten there sooner, and it was Lilith comforting her, telling her it wasn't their fault, that it wasn't her fault. Lilith knew it was her own.

It was Maya who stayed with her after they went back to Sanctuary, instead of joining the party at Moxxi's bar. It was Maya's tub she soaked in that night, trying to take a quiet moment to relax. And when she closed her eyes, and found herself hooked up to the Vault key again, and the water in the tub started boiling around her as she tried to escape the memory, it was Maya who pulled her out of the tub and wrapped a towel around her, ignoring the burns and blisters on her own arms until Lilith was safely back in the present, in control of herself.

It's Maya who reaches out for Lilith when she wakes up terrified in the middle of the night. It kills her to listen to Lilith talk in her sleep, begging for the pain to stop, for the torture to be over. She tries to wake her up as gently as possible. One night, she had made the mistake of putting her hand on Lilith's shoulder to wake her; the redhead teleported behind her and put her in a stranglehold, her wiry arm clamping down tight on the sides of Maya's neck. It took a moment of desperate grabbing for Lilith to fully wake up and realize it wasn't Jack she was strangling. Mortified, she flung herself down onto the bed and began to kiss Maya's feet, apologizing to her and begging for forgiveness. Maya wasn't angry; just disappointed in herself for not knowing better.

The bruises and burns that Lilith's arm left on Maya's neck had gone away in just a couple days, but Lilith's memory of that night hadn't faded with them. Sometimes she thinks about it and wonders why Maya didn't just fling her off with a phaselock.

The nightmares get worse. On the lucky nights, it's over quick, and Jack just kills her. Other times, she's forced to watch as the Warrior reaches full strength, as it burns Axton with its fire breath or swats Zero into a lake of fire with its tail. The worst ones are when he uses the control collar to make her kill them herself. She fights it as long as she can, but it's only a matter of time until she's making Salvador disappear into another dimension, or electrocuting Krieg, or snapping Gaige's neck under her boot, all while trying to scream at herself to stop. Jack always saves Maya for last. Lilith doesn't always wake up in time to stop it, but whenever she does break out of those nightmares, Maya is there, holding her, comforting her, telling her she's safe.

It plays out the same way tonight as it has dozens of times before. Maya wakes up to the sound of Lilith's voice. The heat radiating off of her body is a little more intense than usual. Her first instinct is to reach out and touch her, but she doesn't need to be taught the same lesson twice. She hurries to the bathroom and pours a glass of water, then comes back and sits on the bed beside her.

"Lilith..." she whispers, careful not to make contact with her.

Lilith mutters something incoherent, her fingers twitching in her sleep.

"Lilith... it's me. It's Maya."

Still asleep, Lilith speaks, saying her name like a breath of hope. "Maya?"

"I'm here, Lilith." she murmurs, fighting the urge to reach out for her hand. "He can't hurt you anymore."

Lilith clenches her jaw, then awakens a moment later with a gasp. She feels Maya's left hand stroking her hair, and she inches forward, resting her head in Maya's lap.

Almost every time she closes her eyes, in her mind, she's back there, back in hell. But when Maya holds her, when she feels that soft, kissable skin on her own, she always stays with her. She can close her eyes and just lose herself in the darkness and relax, instead of seeing lava and those statues and...

In those fleeting moments of quiet, she can feel the weight being eased off of her.

"Thank you," she whispers, taking Maya's right hand in her left.

Maya gives it a reassuring squeeze, telling her I'm here for you without needing to speak the words. Lilith blinks out a silent tear before sitting up beside her, taking the glass of water already being offered.

"That one looked bad." Maya's voice is gentle and husky, almost apologetic.

She sighs. They're all bad. Some are worse than others, but they are all bad.

She leans into Maya as the blue-haired Siren puts her arm around her. She smiles. Whenever the weight seems like it's becoming unbearable, Maya is there for her. Never questioning, never probing for answers, never complaining. After all this time, she wonders if she has been taking her for granted.

Slowly, Lilith looks up into her eyes, and whispers, "I want to show you."

Maya remains speechless, so Lilith grabs her hand and squeezes it.

"I've kept it from you for too long. I owe you this much," she says, bowing her head. She takes in a slow, deep breath, then looks back up into silver eyes.

"Lilith..."

"I want to," she says. Her voice quakes with anxiety, but her golden eyes are determined.

Maya nods, then sits on her knees, taking Lilith's hands in both of hers. Her tattoos begin to glow brightly, bathing the dark room in a soft, blue glow. Lilith's Siren markings follow suit, brightening and dimming in time with Maya's.

Slowly, she feels herself dissolving, like someone is slowly erasing the borders of her skin. She can still feel Maya's hands on hers, but in the same way, she feels her own hands holding onto Maya's. A warm sensation starts filling her chest, and a slight tingling pours over her head, along her back, through her legs and down to her feet. She looks into Maya's glowing eyes, and feels herself staring back at her through those silver eyes.

After taking a deep breath, Lilith closes her eyes. She's hooked up to the key again, but this time it isn't a horrible dream of what could have been, it's a memory. The eridium burns in her veins, pounding hard against every artery with each heartbeat. Inside her chest, she can feel the Warrior stirring, and she fights desperately to keep it at bay, hoping she can buy just enough time to let the Vault Hunters come and stop him before it's too late.

Maya feels every twinge in Lilith's body as if it were her own. She can feel the heat of the lava lakes, the twitch of every muscle as the eridium courses through Lilith's body – through their body – even the discomfort of the lurking Warrior, rumbling in their chest.

She can also feel the despair, the helplessness, the dread over whether the Vault Hunters will make it in time, or what they'll find when they get there. But there's something unfamiliar there, something she's not felt before: not sadness, or dread. Defeat. She's broken. She's beaten.

She isn't afraid of dying. She's already accepted it.

Maya and Lilith both open their eyes as they let go of each other's hands. Maya's chest heaves as she struggles to catch her breath. Only a few seconds have passed, but even in that short span of time, Lilith's memories gushed into her mind as if a dam had burst. Every conversation with Jack that she'd previously only heard one side of, every developing realization Lilith had about him and Angel and the rest of them, every time she was stabbed with his pocketknife, everything that was burned into Lilith's memory, now played for her own.

She looks into Lilith's eyes like she never has before. Lilith has been a lot of things to her: a mentor, a rival, a friend, a lover. But she doesn't know what to call the woman sitting in front of her now. Lilith had given her a memory, entrusted a piece of herself to her.

Lilith looks back into the deep twin pools of silver, reaching her left hand up to touch Maya's cheek. Maya had wanted to understand what happened to her ever since they opened the Vault, but it was only now that Lilith understood why. She had thought that sharing the pain with Maya would be too painful, too great, too overwhelming, but right now, the only thing she feels is relief.

The lights in their tattoos still swirl gently. She reaches her right hand out for Maya's left, looking longingly into her eyes. Neither of them need to speak another word. Maya leans in, and plants a long, wet kiss on Lilith's awaiting lips. Rivers of warm energy spill out of Maya's fingertips and sink into Lilith's skin, sending silken surges of sparks rippling down through her body.

They deepen their kiss and Maya gently peels Lilith's shirt off her body, bathing the walls and her own body in the cool glow of light spilling out of her tattoos. She guides Lilith down onto the bed, hands gliding over Lilith's skin, their connection allowing her to experience the sensation of trust and safety that Lilith feels in her arms. Lilith caresses the dimples on her lower back, then rolls her fingertips up along Maya's spine, relishing the smoothness of her skin, the softness of her breasts pressing against her own, but most of all, the knowledge that Maya feels as connected to her in the moment as she does to Maya.

The rhythmic glowing of their tattoos and the soft vibrato of the thrum of their tattoos are the only things out of sync. Their hands move and their bodies react before the other can mumble out a request of lower or softer or faster. With each caress, each stroke, each kiss and nibble, every arch of the back or bucking of the hips, they become more entangled in each other, and their minds become more intertwined.

The soft lights from their tattoos dance on the walls in time with the goddesses, pushing away more and more of the darkness. Lilith gazes up at Maya with a burning desire. The reflection of soft azure light dances in her eyes, and her smooth locks of hair seem to be an even more vibrant hue than usual, and the light bathing the room shines in her skin in the most impossibly graceful way.

Looking at her, feeling every movement and every emotion she feels as if it were her own, Lilith feels like she's truly seeing Maya for the first time. She feels as if she's the first person to ever see her like this, feeling and knowing her inside and out. She rides out the feeling of losing herself completely in Maya, waves of sparks rushing throughout her body, first blending the lines between them, then dissolving them completely. Lilith breathes her in, then whispers her name like a prayer.

Their tattoos emit a brilliant shine as she feels Maya's consciousness spilling into her own, first a little, and then all at once. Surges of electricity arc between their lips, their fingers, their toes, jumping from one body to the other and back again. It doesn't last for a second, or a moment, or even an eternity, because time doesn't mean anything to either of them anymore. It simply exists. Their hopes, their desires, their insecurities and fears, even their dreams are completely bared to each other, soaked into their skin and experienced as their own. She can feel Maya gazing into the darkness, seeing the nightmares, both real and dreamed. But then she feels Maya looking past those, back to other memories, happier ones, of Roland, and Angel, and Brick and Mordecai and Moxxi and Tannis and all the others. The things Maya knows to be most important. Lilith closes her eyes, allowing herself to become lost in their connection and the feeling of being completely enveloped by her lover. Wave after gentle wave of memories flood through her being. She recognizes some places and faces, and some she doesn't, but they're all familiar to her. She feels flashes of the stern, angry faces of Sophis and the other monks, and the furtive looks of her awed and fearful followers. She can feel the frustration with the other Vault Hunters because of their inability to understand her, but burning through all that are her own orange eyes, understanding, trusting, and empathetic. It was something she never felt before, the reason she left Athenas: she wanted to find answers, but more than that, she wanted to find somebody who could understand her, who had felt what she had.

A moan spills out of Lilith's lips in the form of Maya's name as the light from their tattoos gradually starts to dim. The high-pitched humming emanating from within them begins to die into a hush, until they can hear their own heavy, gasping breaths. Slowly, Lilith becomes aware of the sensation of Maya's body lying on top of her own. She can still sense the contentment and peace that Maya is feeling, but it exists more as background noise than her own emotion. Their minds had slowly and gently disentangled from one another, leaving a few sensitive connections intact. She lets out a satisfied hum, then presses her lips to Maya's in a slow, affectionate kiss.

"I love you," Lilith whispers, hoping Maya can feel how much she means it.

Maya smiles back at her, caressing Lilith's cheek with her fingertips. "I love you, too." She looks into her golden eyes and caresses her cheek. Through Lilith's body, Maya could feel she meant something more than what she had said, something that she still wasn't ready to admit: I need you.

Lilith closes her eyes and wraps her arms around Maya, trying to get herself as close to her as possible. She sighs, relishing the sensation of Maya's breath on her neck, her toes brushing against her legs, the gentle thumping of her heartbeat against her own. And for a wonderful moment, even if it would only last a night, she feels free of the weight of boulders bearing down on her.