Fic: Exhibit A, Phoenix Wright
Title: Exhibit A
Fandom: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Characters/Pairings: Franziska/Phoenix
Word Count: 3137
It was all a matter of perspective, really, she concluded in the end. Even in court, where truth at least was ultimate and transubstantial, perspective still remained the subjective trump card. Motives could be argued until everyone lost sight of what they were determining in the first place, and reasoning declared itself hazy by constitutional right alone.
It was the only excuse she had. It was the only excuse any of them had to explain why they did what they did.
++
He walked out of his office, mid-yawn and scratching at an obnoxious point behind one ear, only to do a double-take upon discovering Franziska von Karma sitting in a chair by the elevator, one leg crossed over the other at the knee and styrafoam coffee cup in one hand. He didn't need to breathe too deeply to know she had gotten the blend from Godot; he recognized it, the Malaysian beans ground up with the chili paste, much to his surprise. He hadn't pegged Franziska as the kind of girl who liked spicy foods.
He glanced down quickly at himself to make sure he wasn't naked (he felt like he should be) and then, when her gaze didn't waver, he demanded incredulously, "Are you ... studying me?"
She smiled, unapologetic. "Yes."
++
Maya arrived at ten (at least, she was supposed to, when really she came in about half an hour late for reasons she didn't think need explaining to him) and walked right by Franziska with the air of some small, vulnerable rodent marching past a fox.
"Nick, what's she doing here?" she demanded, her eyes wide, coming around to his side of the desk like it was a fort.
"Your guess is as good as mine," Phoenix replied in an undertone, throwing a quick look at the corner of the office, where Franziska transplanted herself and hadn't so much as budged since he'd opened the office at nine. She watched them, hands folded over her knee, and they stared back at her.
They blinked. She won.
"Talk about a pink elephant," Maya muttered derisively.
++
When he left for the night, he turned all the lights off, throwing her into blank darkness, and paused by the door for a noticeably long time. She stayed exactly where she was. He closed the door behind him without locking it.
++
As if she'd taken the place of Mia's plant, Franziska was right back where she had been in the corner of his office the next morning, and the only clue he had that she'd even left at all was the fact she wore a different beret and she had a fresh cup of coffee in her hand.
The third night, he stopped by the door, briefcase at his knee and hand on the doorknob. He turned his profile slightly, highlighted in sketchy silver by the moonlight, and said, "Good night."
"Same to you," she replied, and a thrill of hope ran down his spine: it was the first cordial thing she'd said to him in ... well, ever.
++
He got a case. Fortunately, it was not a particularly hard one; just a misunderstanding over a damage claim addressed to Maya's boyfriend by his landlord. The first morning of court, Phoenix poked his head out of the men's bathroom, toothbrush in one cheek and his tie half-on, since it had been on backward earlier. "So," he said to her, minty foam frothing about his lips. "Are you following me because you're trying to learn from me?"
She debated it, back to the men's sign and one boot propped up against the wall. "Yes."
"Okay, then. That changes things." His face took on a thoughtful gleam, and he closed the door again. She realized later that it was the first time he hadn't looked at her with disgust or confusion in ... well, ever.
++
Things escalated. What begun as a complaint posed by a landlord about damage done to the tile in the basement the defendant rented from him developed into a murder investigation, as removal of the tile for evidence lead to the discovery of a body beneath it, one that had died and was buried during the defendant’s term.
Court was suspended for the day while the coroners at the police precinct did their thing, and Franziska trailed after Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey through the steps of their detective work, through the crime scene, detention center, and everywhere else.
Phoenix stayed up in his office long after he sent Maya home to get some sleep, as seemingly unperturbed by Franziska's presence as he had been the past couple days, if not more so. He broke the silence only once, to inform her awkwardly that he'd be sleeping on the office couch in case he got a call back on any number of things he'd requested over the course of the day and she was free to go home if she wanted to.
She didn't budge, not even when he turned the lights off and reclined on the sofa, balling his blazer up underneath his head. He turned to face her, the light from the moon reflecting off the shine of his eyeballs. She sat still, waiting just as calmly in her chair like she'd grown roots, holding what passed for his gaze until she was absolutely sure his eyes slid shut and his breathing evened out.
She uncrossed her legs and stood, contemplating removing a cushion from one of the other sofas and smothering him with it, if only because she felt that's what you were supposed to do when locked in a dark room with people like a sleeping Phoenix Wright.
There was only one place in the whole office she hadn't had the opportunity to search yet.
++
The contents of Phoenix Wright's briefcase didn't surprise her for the most part: the court record, plumped up with evidence like a turkey dinner, she set aside without touching. The wrinkled, yellowed clippings from various newspapers detailing all the important trials of his life -- Dahlia Hawthorne's trial, Mia Fey's murder trial, the Edgeworth trial, the Kurain trial -- only set a cold, dead weight in her stomach. She idly flipped through a heart doodled for him by the inartistic Pearl Fey, mismatched photographs, coupons for fast food places and Godot's coffee, and --
-- and Mia Fey's last will and testament.
It looked so innocuous that she'd misjudged it for some other kind of statement. Incredibly short and looking almost like it'd been written in a hurry on the pleas of some second party, the document was straight-forward: Fey and Co. Law Offices would go to Phoenix Wright to do with what he pleased, while her apartment and all her personal financial assets fell to Maya, should she choose to become an emancipated minor. The total sum actually made Franziska's eyebrows jump up her skull; Mia'd been a clever investor and an ace attorney in her day, and her life insurance created a pretty comfortable cushion for her sister. She didn't have to work full-time as Phoenix's assistant if she didn't want to, and Franziska had no idea she'd done it out of choice.
The document was signed by Marvin Grossberg, but there was one simple request written right underneath the signature in a different ink, like it’d been added later.
And please, someone tell Nick that he is loved and he knows what he's doing, as often as you possibly can. I'm not sure if he knows.
++
The autopsy came back the next morning with a shaky approximation of the date of death (if only we had more time, they grumbled, but everyone ignores them because they say this all the time), but it worked out, because between the autopsy report and the landlord's testimony about suspicious activity around his house, the date of death landed on the Wednesday of the week Larry Butz had undeniably and most certainly been in Kurain Village, meeting Maya's family and celebrating the longest-lasting relationship of his life, and therefore was neither guilty of murder or being a slob (at least, in this instance.)
The fact that Phoenix Wright pursued it down to the last wire, long after he'd already proven Butz innocent, to find who the real murderer was (the landlord's cousin, who wound up being Dee Vasquez's son and thus the heir of her mafia connections, and who used the landlord's house as his base during holiday breaks) didn't leave its impression on Franziska, because he was simply being tidy and she never expected anything less of him.
The fact that the moment the Judge pronounced not guilty, he didn't look at Butz or at Maya or even Edgeworth in the prosecution chair, grinding his teeth, but craned his neck to find her, did.
++
Maya hailed a cab with her foghorn voice, and when she went ignored, she chased after it, the ends of her bow trailing behind her.
Larry watched her make an idiot of herself and then caught the next one. While they waited for Maya to make her sheepish return, Phoenix turned to her suddenly, "You're coming, right?"
Franziska's brows flew up. "Why should I?"
"To celebrate," he said, like he made this offer to the prosecution all the time. Actually, she amended, he probably did; the defense always had the obnoxious tendency towards chivalry, or he simply forgot about winning or losing the instant he left the courtroom.
Later, sitting in a booth at the cheap diner Franziska passed on her way to the bank once a week and listening to Larry Butz and Maya Fey justify their relationship ("The age thing isn't as important as everyone makes it out to be," Maya said flippantly. "The only people who are more clueless about themselves are each other. I think it's the only reason they're still in love," Phoenix said in an undertone, dry as sandpaper.), Franziska pushed her basket of fries to him, muttering something about Americans and their trans fat.
"Thanks!" Phoenix smiled brightly, popping a fry into his mouth, only to spit it right back out because she neglected to warn him they were still piping hot. She waggled her finger at him, lips straining. He shoved her shoulder.
++
Manfred von Karma pushed at the buttons of his orange-and-black stripped overcoat until they all lined up neatly down his chest without creasing, spare for the bulge at his midriff. Security glass separated them, but he didn't lift the phone to speak with her.
He raised an eyebrow, and she replied without inflection to her voice, "I've found out that he should have been a detective. He's clueless about law, even now, but he will always find the truth and he will always have the evidence to prove it handy. Incontrovertibly."
Her father's eyes narrowed with a faint, confused flick.
Again, she heard the unasked question. "He won't say it, but all the evidence points to Miles. As a detective, he would have been able to work with Miles, but as a lawyer, he would have been able to confront him. His goal is and always has been to discover what happened that turned Miles from the defense attorney's son to prosecutor."
Manfred's lips quirked without humor, and he spreads his hands out, palms up.
"Yes," Franziska planted a hand on her hip, scorn in her eyes. "Yes, here you are."
++
"You know, if you hang around us any longer, you're going to start acting like us," Phoenix told her laughingly, giving his pen a fierce shake to determine it truly was out of ink or if it was just trying to fake him out.
The thought struck her suddenly: he could almost see the way it materialized in her head, flaring up in the irises of her eyes like kerosene. She stretched herself up onto her tip-toes to reach him across the expanse of his desk, palms on his papers and balance uneven. It took her two tries to connect, because, misunderstanding her intentions, he dodged.
Her lips were smooth and cool from her chapstick, but they parted quickly to where it was hot and slick underneath. He made a noise in the back of his throat that probably would have been some kind of sarcastic commentary if she hadn't muffled it. As he hadn’t been kissed in longer than he would like to admit, he let her draw him up slowly out of his chair so he was easier to reach, and at the first electric touch of their tongues, the kind she felt down to her toes, he grabbed her by the back of her neck, fingers fisting in the hair there.
"And here’s exhibit A," he mumbled, surprised.
++
"I have the feeling I've seen her somewhere before," Larry said blankly, and then it struck him in the next heartbeat. "Oh! Her! But, hey, Nick, what about her whip?"
"You learn to duck."
++
"Good-bye, Mr. Wright," she said just outside the defendant lobby, startling him out of whatever reverie he went into just before a trial. "You're on your honor to do your best."
"Huh? Wait. You aren't coming?"
She cocked at eyebrow at the presumptuousness of his remark. "No. I have an appointment." The temptation to add, "My life continues on outside of you," bridled up underneath her skin, so she crossed her arms over her chest, fingers fisting in her sleeves to reel it back in.
"Are you lying?" he blurted, one hand still on the door and the rest of him twisted to face her.
"No."
They stared at each other. His hand dropped back down to his side. Apparently still in the mood to be frank, he frowned at her, "If you're not there, then what's the point? I think you're the only one who listens to me anymore."
An instant, painful anger flared up from some point in her belly she didn't even know existed, and before she was really aware of herself moving, she had her whip in hand and she took a step forward, her heel striking the linoleum hard enough to spark. In the interest of self-preservation, he snatched at her wrist, bringing her close enough to wrestle with her.
"How dare you?" she gritted her teeth, trying and failing to wrench herself away. The tail of her whip fell uselessly against the line of her body as it curved with her exertion. "How dare you turn this around on me? How dare you need me?"
He backed her up until her heels hit the wall. The only sound besides the buzz of the overhead pan light was their breathing; hers harsh, his barely there. His mouth moved, forming over soundless exclamation marks as quickly as his mind turned her words over and found its objection. His hands moved from her wrists to her shoulder, pinning her back so hard she flinched.
"I really do have an appointment," she informed him in a much calmer tone, and her stomach did a very visceral flip when his eyes flicked down to watch her lips, like she was standing on the edge of something and imagining a fall. "And I don't usually miss them."
"Court's supposed to start in a few minutes," he replied, and kissed her.
++
In the interrogation cell, Manfred von Karma drummed his fingers on the table, slowly and methodically.
The chair across from him remained empty.
++
"Excuse us a moment," Maya's voice made no apologies. Bug-eyed, she grabbed Phoenix by the cuffs of his sleeves and pulled him a safe distance away. She smiled with all her usual warmth at a couple as they squeezed past them to get into the booth behind them, but her face when she turned it to him was stark white.
Now that she had him, she didn't seem to know what to do with him. She peered so closely he fought the urge to check and see if he had something on his face, and finally, she hissed, "Hey, Nick, are you still in there? No, you must be the evil robot clone. I know it. Don't worry, Nick, I'll get the real you back, I swear!"
Phoenix sighed. "I'm fine, Maya."
Her eyes grew wider. "But you were kissing her! I saw you. You were ..." she made some kind of gesture with her hands he did not want to translate. He rubbed his forehead, embarrassed. "Not that I'm against the idea of you dating, but Nick, she and her brother have both tried to get me jailed before! And she's my age! That's just ... gross!"
He exhaled quickly through his nose, not quite a snort.
As ever, Larry chose the complete inopportune moment to crop up. He seized them both by the shoulders. "Come on!" he exclaimed, face guileless. "Come sit down! Godot's going to read from his poetry book 'cos it just got published and all; it'll be a hoot. You don't want to miss it!"
He steered them back towards the booth, and Phoenix took the opportunity to lean close to Maya and bump her shoulder. "Hey," he said. "Trust me, because you're the only one I trust to catch me if this all goes to pieces. Okay?"
She smiled at him, already won. "Okay!"
++
In the whole city, there was possibly only one place that Franziska never expected to wind up (jail was even out of the question, because a von Karma prepares for everything, including incarceration.)
She would tell you what Phoenix Wright's bed was like if she paid the slightest bit of attention. Her mind fizzled uselessly inside her skull, beginning thoughts and abandoning them as soon as his hand stroked a path from her breast down the curve of her hip, lingering maddeningly on the hem of her skirt and the buttons of her blouse, and she felt the explosions of sensation down to the ends of her fingers every time his tongue probed practically down around her tonsils.
He broke away from her, not without some difficulty, and said thoughtfully as if continuing another conversation, "You still haven't told me what you've learned from all this time you've spent following me."
"Is that what's been on your mind this entire time?" she said disgustedly, and his sheepish grin gave her her answer.
Aggravated, she let her head fall back onto the pillow, and he followed in interest of pressing his mouth curiously to the pulse underneath her ear.
Smiling slim and predatory, she hooked her heel around the back of his leg, flipping them over so she could settle low onto his hips. He propped himself up on his elbows, eyes fixed patiently and unwaveringly on her face.
"I'll teach you," she decided, and leaned down to meet him.
Fandom: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Characters/Pairings: Franziska/Phoenix
Word Count: 3137
It was all a matter of perspective, really, she concluded in the end. Even in court, where truth at least was ultimate and transubstantial, perspective still remained the subjective trump card. Motives could be argued until everyone lost sight of what they were determining in the first place, and reasoning declared itself hazy by constitutional right alone.
It was the only excuse she had. It was the only excuse any of them had to explain why they did what they did.
++
He walked out of his office, mid-yawn and scratching at an obnoxious point behind one ear, only to do a double-take upon discovering Franziska von Karma sitting in a chair by the elevator, one leg crossed over the other at the knee and styrafoam coffee cup in one hand. He didn't need to breathe too deeply to know she had gotten the blend from Godot; he recognized it, the Malaysian beans ground up with the chili paste, much to his surprise. He hadn't pegged Franziska as the kind of girl who liked spicy foods.
He glanced down quickly at himself to make sure he wasn't naked (he felt like he should be) and then, when her gaze didn't waver, he demanded incredulously, "Are you ... studying me?"
She smiled, unapologetic. "Yes."
++
Maya arrived at ten (at least, she was supposed to, when really she came in about half an hour late for reasons she didn't think need explaining to him) and walked right by Franziska with the air of some small, vulnerable rodent marching past a fox.
"Nick, what's she doing here?" she demanded, her eyes wide, coming around to his side of the desk like it was a fort.
"Your guess is as good as mine," Phoenix replied in an undertone, throwing a quick look at the corner of the office, where Franziska transplanted herself and hadn't so much as budged since he'd opened the office at nine. She watched them, hands folded over her knee, and they stared back at her.
They blinked. She won.
"Talk about a pink elephant," Maya muttered derisively.
++
When he left for the night, he turned all the lights off, throwing her into blank darkness, and paused by the door for a noticeably long time. She stayed exactly where she was. He closed the door behind him without locking it.
++
As if she'd taken the place of Mia's plant, Franziska was right back where she had been in the corner of his office the next morning, and the only clue he had that she'd even left at all was the fact she wore a different beret and she had a fresh cup of coffee in her hand.
The third night, he stopped by the door, briefcase at his knee and hand on the doorknob. He turned his profile slightly, highlighted in sketchy silver by the moonlight, and said, "Good night."
"Same to you," she replied, and a thrill of hope ran down his spine: it was the first cordial thing she'd said to him in ... well, ever.
++
He got a case. Fortunately, it was not a particularly hard one; just a misunderstanding over a damage claim addressed to Maya's boyfriend by his landlord. The first morning of court, Phoenix poked his head out of the men's bathroom, toothbrush in one cheek and his tie half-on, since it had been on backward earlier. "So," he said to her, minty foam frothing about his lips. "Are you following me because you're trying to learn from me?"
She debated it, back to the men's sign and one boot propped up against the wall. "Yes."
"Okay, then. That changes things." His face took on a thoughtful gleam, and he closed the door again. She realized later that it was the first time he hadn't looked at her with disgust or confusion in ... well, ever.
++
Things escalated. What begun as a complaint posed by a landlord about damage done to the tile in the basement the defendant rented from him developed into a murder investigation, as removal of the tile for evidence lead to the discovery of a body beneath it, one that had died and was buried during the defendant’s term.
Court was suspended for the day while the coroners at the police precinct did their thing, and Franziska trailed after Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey through the steps of their detective work, through the crime scene, detention center, and everywhere else.
Phoenix stayed up in his office long after he sent Maya home to get some sleep, as seemingly unperturbed by Franziska's presence as he had been the past couple days, if not more so. He broke the silence only once, to inform her awkwardly that he'd be sleeping on the office couch in case he got a call back on any number of things he'd requested over the course of the day and she was free to go home if she wanted to.
She didn't budge, not even when he turned the lights off and reclined on the sofa, balling his blazer up underneath his head. He turned to face her, the light from the moon reflecting off the shine of his eyeballs. She sat still, waiting just as calmly in her chair like she'd grown roots, holding what passed for his gaze until she was absolutely sure his eyes slid shut and his breathing evened out.
She uncrossed her legs and stood, contemplating removing a cushion from one of the other sofas and smothering him with it, if only because she felt that's what you were supposed to do when locked in a dark room with people like a sleeping Phoenix Wright.
There was only one place in the whole office she hadn't had the opportunity to search yet.
++
The contents of Phoenix Wright's briefcase didn't surprise her for the most part: the court record, plumped up with evidence like a turkey dinner, she set aside without touching. The wrinkled, yellowed clippings from various newspapers detailing all the important trials of his life -- Dahlia Hawthorne's trial, Mia Fey's murder trial, the Edgeworth trial, the Kurain trial -- only set a cold, dead weight in her stomach. She idly flipped through a heart doodled for him by the inartistic Pearl Fey, mismatched photographs, coupons for fast food places and Godot's coffee, and --
-- and Mia Fey's last will and testament.
It looked so innocuous that she'd misjudged it for some other kind of statement. Incredibly short and looking almost like it'd been written in a hurry on the pleas of some second party, the document was straight-forward: Fey and Co. Law Offices would go to Phoenix Wright to do with what he pleased, while her apartment and all her personal financial assets fell to Maya, should she choose to become an emancipated minor. The total sum actually made Franziska's eyebrows jump up her skull; Mia'd been a clever investor and an ace attorney in her day, and her life insurance created a pretty comfortable cushion for her sister. She didn't have to work full-time as Phoenix's assistant if she didn't want to, and Franziska had no idea she'd done it out of choice.
The document was signed by Marvin Grossberg, but there was one simple request written right underneath the signature in a different ink, like it’d been added later.
And please, someone tell Nick that he is loved and he knows what he's doing, as often as you possibly can. I'm not sure if he knows.
++
The autopsy came back the next morning with a shaky approximation of the date of death (if only we had more time, they grumbled, but everyone ignores them because they say this all the time), but it worked out, because between the autopsy report and the landlord's testimony about suspicious activity around his house, the date of death landed on the Wednesday of the week Larry Butz had undeniably and most certainly been in Kurain Village, meeting Maya's family and celebrating the longest-lasting relationship of his life, and therefore was neither guilty of murder or being a slob (at least, in this instance.)
The fact that Phoenix Wright pursued it down to the last wire, long after he'd already proven Butz innocent, to find who the real murderer was (the landlord's cousin, who wound up being Dee Vasquez's son and thus the heir of her mafia connections, and who used the landlord's house as his base during holiday breaks) didn't leave its impression on Franziska, because he was simply being tidy and she never expected anything less of him.
The fact that the moment the Judge pronounced not guilty, he didn't look at Butz or at Maya or even Edgeworth in the prosecution chair, grinding his teeth, but craned his neck to find her, did.
++
Maya hailed a cab with her foghorn voice, and when she went ignored, she chased after it, the ends of her bow trailing behind her.
Larry watched her make an idiot of herself and then caught the next one. While they waited for Maya to make her sheepish return, Phoenix turned to her suddenly, "You're coming, right?"
Franziska's brows flew up. "Why should I?"
"To celebrate," he said, like he made this offer to the prosecution all the time. Actually, she amended, he probably did; the defense always had the obnoxious tendency towards chivalry, or he simply forgot about winning or losing the instant he left the courtroom.
Later, sitting in a booth at the cheap diner Franziska passed on her way to the bank once a week and listening to Larry Butz and Maya Fey justify their relationship ("The age thing isn't as important as everyone makes it out to be," Maya said flippantly. "The only people who are more clueless about themselves are each other. I think it's the only reason they're still in love," Phoenix said in an undertone, dry as sandpaper.), Franziska pushed her basket of fries to him, muttering something about Americans and their trans fat.
"Thanks!" Phoenix smiled brightly, popping a fry into his mouth, only to spit it right back out because she neglected to warn him they were still piping hot. She waggled her finger at him, lips straining. He shoved her shoulder.
++
Manfred von Karma pushed at the buttons of his orange-and-black stripped overcoat until they all lined up neatly down his chest without creasing, spare for the bulge at his midriff. Security glass separated them, but he didn't lift the phone to speak with her.
He raised an eyebrow, and she replied without inflection to her voice, "I've found out that he should have been a detective. He's clueless about law, even now, but he will always find the truth and he will always have the evidence to prove it handy. Incontrovertibly."
Her father's eyes narrowed with a faint, confused flick.
Again, she heard the unasked question. "He won't say it, but all the evidence points to Miles. As a detective, he would have been able to work with Miles, but as a lawyer, he would have been able to confront him. His goal is and always has been to discover what happened that turned Miles from the defense attorney's son to prosecutor."
Manfred's lips quirked without humor, and he spreads his hands out, palms up.
"Yes," Franziska planted a hand on her hip, scorn in her eyes. "Yes, here you are."
++
"You know, if you hang around us any longer, you're going to start acting like us," Phoenix told her laughingly, giving his pen a fierce shake to determine it truly was out of ink or if it was just trying to fake him out.
The thought struck her suddenly: he could almost see the way it materialized in her head, flaring up in the irises of her eyes like kerosene. She stretched herself up onto her tip-toes to reach him across the expanse of his desk, palms on his papers and balance uneven. It took her two tries to connect, because, misunderstanding her intentions, he dodged.
Her lips were smooth and cool from her chapstick, but they parted quickly to where it was hot and slick underneath. He made a noise in the back of his throat that probably would have been some kind of sarcastic commentary if she hadn't muffled it. As he hadn’t been kissed in longer than he would like to admit, he let her draw him up slowly out of his chair so he was easier to reach, and at the first electric touch of their tongues, the kind she felt down to her toes, he grabbed her by the back of her neck, fingers fisting in the hair there.
"And here’s exhibit A," he mumbled, surprised.
++
"I have the feeling I've seen her somewhere before," Larry said blankly, and then it struck him in the next heartbeat. "Oh! Her! But, hey, Nick, what about her whip?"
"You learn to duck."
++
"Good-bye, Mr. Wright," she said just outside the defendant lobby, startling him out of whatever reverie he went into just before a trial. "You're on your honor to do your best."
"Huh? Wait. You aren't coming?"
She cocked at eyebrow at the presumptuousness of his remark. "No. I have an appointment." The temptation to add, "My life continues on outside of you," bridled up underneath her skin, so she crossed her arms over her chest, fingers fisting in her sleeves to reel it back in.
"Are you lying?" he blurted, one hand still on the door and the rest of him twisted to face her.
"No."
They stared at each other. His hand dropped back down to his side. Apparently still in the mood to be frank, he frowned at her, "If you're not there, then what's the point? I think you're the only one who listens to me anymore."
An instant, painful anger flared up from some point in her belly she didn't even know existed, and before she was really aware of herself moving, she had her whip in hand and she took a step forward, her heel striking the linoleum hard enough to spark. In the interest of self-preservation, he snatched at her wrist, bringing her close enough to wrestle with her.
"How dare you?" she gritted her teeth, trying and failing to wrench herself away. The tail of her whip fell uselessly against the line of her body as it curved with her exertion. "How dare you turn this around on me? How dare you need me?"
He backed her up until her heels hit the wall. The only sound besides the buzz of the overhead pan light was their breathing; hers harsh, his barely there. His mouth moved, forming over soundless exclamation marks as quickly as his mind turned her words over and found its objection. His hands moved from her wrists to her shoulder, pinning her back so hard she flinched.
"I really do have an appointment," she informed him in a much calmer tone, and her stomach did a very visceral flip when his eyes flicked down to watch her lips, like she was standing on the edge of something and imagining a fall. "And I don't usually miss them."
"Court's supposed to start in a few minutes," he replied, and kissed her.
++
In the interrogation cell, Manfred von Karma drummed his fingers on the table, slowly and methodically.
The chair across from him remained empty.
++
"Excuse us a moment," Maya's voice made no apologies. Bug-eyed, she grabbed Phoenix by the cuffs of his sleeves and pulled him a safe distance away. She smiled with all her usual warmth at a couple as they squeezed past them to get into the booth behind them, but her face when she turned it to him was stark white.
Now that she had him, she didn't seem to know what to do with him. She peered so closely he fought the urge to check and see if he had something on his face, and finally, she hissed, "Hey, Nick, are you still in there? No, you must be the evil robot clone. I know it. Don't worry, Nick, I'll get the real you back, I swear!"
Phoenix sighed. "I'm fine, Maya."
Her eyes grew wider. "But you were kissing her! I saw you. You were ..." she made some kind of gesture with her hands he did not want to translate. He rubbed his forehead, embarrassed. "Not that I'm against the idea of you dating, but Nick, she and her brother have both tried to get me jailed before! And she's my age! That's just ... gross!"
He exhaled quickly through his nose, not quite a snort.
As ever, Larry chose the complete inopportune moment to crop up. He seized them both by the shoulders. "Come on!" he exclaimed, face guileless. "Come sit down! Godot's going to read from his poetry book 'cos it just got published and all; it'll be a hoot. You don't want to miss it!"
He steered them back towards the booth, and Phoenix took the opportunity to lean close to Maya and bump her shoulder. "Hey," he said. "Trust me, because you're the only one I trust to catch me if this all goes to pieces. Okay?"
She smiled at him, already won. "Okay!"
++
In the whole city, there was possibly only one place that Franziska never expected to wind up (jail was even out of the question, because a von Karma prepares for everything, including incarceration.)
She would tell you what Phoenix Wright's bed was like if she paid the slightest bit of attention. Her mind fizzled uselessly inside her skull, beginning thoughts and abandoning them as soon as his hand stroked a path from her breast down the curve of her hip, lingering maddeningly on the hem of her skirt and the buttons of her blouse, and she felt the explosions of sensation down to the ends of her fingers every time his tongue probed practically down around her tonsils.
He broke away from her, not without some difficulty, and said thoughtfully as if continuing another conversation, "You still haven't told me what you've learned from all this time you've spent following me."
"Is that what's been on your mind this entire time?" she said disgustedly, and his sheepish grin gave her her answer.
Aggravated, she let her head fall back onto the pillow, and he followed in interest of pressing his mouth curiously to the pulse underneath her ear.
Smiling slim and predatory, she hooked her heel around the back of his leg, flipping them over so she could settle low onto his hips. He propped himself up on his elbows, eyes fixed patiently and unwaveringly on her face.
"I'll teach you," she decided, and leaned down to meet him.