#poor klavier is straight up not having a good time right now

[planeoftheeclectic]

I really do love TFP so... ganbatte! If u can of course

Klavier managed to put his hand on the arm of the couch after a few attempts and made to stand. "It's fine, Herr Columbo, it's my responsibility now that--it's my responsibility to look after her."

"Sure, sure," Columbo said, gently coaxing Klavier back down. "And you've been doing a great job. She couldn't be in better hands."

"She could be," Klavier murmured, sinking back into the couch, "If I were better."

[snezfics-n-shit]

Whumptober Day 17: Dizzy

Fandom: Ace Attorney 

Characters: Klavier Gavin, Apollo Justice

Notes: Every so often, things that lost popularity back in the day end up returning and taking the world by storm once again. The Gavinners’ merchandise is no exception to that rule, but Klavier wishes anything else came back instead. 

     Klavier Gavin had questions. Correction: he had a lot of questions. Most of said questions were to be directed at the corporation holding rights to The Gavinners’ merchandise, and in a very disapproving tone at that. Why was he not informed of the band’s sudden burst of popularity years after having broken up? What even sparked this unexpected revival? Most importantly, why did this revival involve the re-release of probably the worst promotional product in the band’s history: the Guilty Love fragrance collection?

The fragrance collection was incredibly easy to recognize due to its selection of unique scents that seemed to be based on things that had no possible reference on Earth. It was like the manufacturers traveled to space and sniffed Neptune, or worse, Uranus and thought that made a fine scent for a cologne or perfume. Despite its distinguished qualities, Klavier didn’t even need to get a whiff of the scent to know just what was the most popular scent among the courtroom gallery. The moment he opened the door, he could feel his eyes burning. Wasn’t there some kind of policy against his fans watching his trials? There ought to be.

He had to put up with this for an hour, casually putting his hand on his face to pretend he was thinking when in reality he was hiding the fact his nose was running profusely. By the time the judge called for a recess, Klavier had no interest in getting a Guilty verdict for Jay Walker. He couldn’t even remember what the charges were. Around the halfway point of the trial’s first half, he gave up and just let Herr Forehead say whatever he wanted so this could be done and over with.

When Klavier finally left the courtroom, he couldn’t even enjoy the freedom as the excess fumes hovered over him in the halls. The worst part of the reaction was upon him, dizziness that made it hard to navigate the building. The first run of the fragrance collection was bad enough, but at least concerts could be scheduled at outdoor venues. Outdoor trials? Not exactly something that was done. He ran his hands against the walls to keep himself on his feet until he could find an escape.

The courthouse men’s restroom was a safe haven for him, thanks to gallery members being prohibited from entry. Once the room stopped spinning, he could comfortably stay there for the rest of the recess and maybe even find an excuse to leave early. He took a deep breath through his mouth, grabbed a paper towel, and let himself clear those awful chemicals from his system.

“Eehk’kcheuh!” That was a start. “Ih’kksssheuh! K’ktTCHEUH!” That last one echoed off the tiled walls. 

“I’ll just be a minute.”

Klavier heard a voice from behind the door. There was a hoarse quality to it, like how Apollo sounded after shouting too much in court, which was just about all the time now that Klavier thought about it. Maybe, if it was him, it might have been a bad idea to let him speak for about a half hour straight.

Klavier ran one of the sinks and splashed some water on his face. It wasn’t like he would be horribly embarrassed if someone saw him dripping as much as he was earlier, but he couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to see him like that for even a second. As a bonus, it looked like he was actually in the bathroom doing something other than standing around and breathing.

“Gavin?” Had Klavier still been watching the door, he would have recognized Apollo’s face as the defense attorney joined him at the sinks. 

“Deed sobethig, Herr Forehead?” Klavier turned away to blow his nose in a new paper towel. “Excuse me.”

“Are you feeling sick?” Apollo cleared his throat, sharing the quality of an old car Klavier heard occasionally in the prosecutors’ parking lot, just with less pleading to be put out of misery. “You don’t sound great.”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“Oh, nah.” Apollo shook his head. “Just from running my mouth at the trial today. That, and some kind of awful smell has been bugging my throat.”

Oh thank God, Klavier wasn’t the only person it bothered. Maybe if enough people were affected, he could finally petition for a recall like he wanted to years ago.

“I told them it was no good.” Klavier muttered to himself. “But to your question, nein. Some people with the rights to Gavinners merchandise decided to restock the old fragrance collection.”

“Because of that meme, right?”

“What meme?” 

Apollo dug in his pocket for his smartphone to show Klavier an image of Daryan stroking his unusual hairstyle, with captions that would make Klavier’s poor grandmother faint. 

“So,” Klavier lifted his arm to cover an oncoming sneeze, “Ei’kktchEUH! All this,” he gestured to his irritated eyes and nose, “because of a picture of Herr Amateur playing with his hair.”

“Yeah, I think it’s pretty stupid.” Apollo slid the phone back in his pocket. “So that’s what the smell was? What is it supposed to smell like? Some kind of flower?”

“When they pitched it to us, after the release might I add, they said it was based on ‘guilt.’” Klavier wasn’t sure if it was the lightheadedness or just him saying the pitch aloud, but what he just said sounded even more ridiculous than it did inside his head.

“‘Guilt?’” Apollo pressed a finger to his forehead, just as perplexed as Klavier was when he heard it. “The concept of guilt? Something intangible?”

“Ja.” Klavier nodded with a shrug. He gave up trying to understand the pitch after just a week post-launch.

“You know what?” Apollo sighed in resignation. “Why don’t we just ask the judge to call it a day?” He was going to be up all night trying to understand what guilt could smell like, wasn’t he?

“There is nothing I’d rather do right now. Just let the room stop spinning first.”

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Witches, Chapter 19: yeah there’s actually still one last little bit of investigation left in this case. I’m sorry too. Now who wants backstory for side characters in a DLC case!

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

----

For all her bluff and bluster about getting back to investigating in the face of Blackquill’s disdain, Athena doesn’t seem to have a clue what they should do next. She tromps in stocking feet back into the aquarium, Phoenix and Pearl trailing behind her, and stares at a poster on the wall with life cycle facts about penguins for five minutes before she suggests that they go visit Sasha, because if Blackquill was here, then he had to be done interrogating her, right?

Pearl remains behind at the aquarium to get settled in, and Athena complains the whole drive to the detention center because Phoenix made her put her wet shoes back on instead of driving barefoot. “I’m wearing tights!” she insists. “It’s not barefoot!”

“Shoes, kiddo.”

“They’re wet! It’s gross!”

“Should’ve thought of that before you threw a bucket of water at a witch.” Or whatever he is. Fae-adjacent, the same vague broad classification to encompass Phoenix and Trucy and Klavier and Thalassa. Apollo’s not quite there yet.

“Wicked witch of the bench afraid he’d melt if it hit him, you think?” She steps out onto the parking lot asphalt and winces at the tiny rocks digging into her feet. “Okay,” she sighs. “Shoes.”

As they wait at the detention center for Sasha to be brought out, Athena turns, very seriously, to Phoenix. “Alright, Boss, we’ve gotta cheer Sasha up! If you’re feeling bad about the investigation, don’t you dare show it!”

The door on the other side of the glass opens and an officer escorts Sasha in. She wears a grin on her face but has a wild look in her eyes. “Ahoy, me buckos! Worry ye not about me! My spirits be good and ol’ Prosecutor Nostache won’t keep me down!”

“Uh.” Athena blinks and turns to Phoenix. He shrugs. 

Sasha’s entire posture collapses. “Well that was an anchor,” she says. “Straight to the bottom. I wanted to make you feel better for all the trouble I’m causing…”

“We were hoping to cheer you up,” Athena says. 

“Maybe you both can just act natural,” Phoenix says. Not that telling anyone to “act natural” ever leads to any normal or natural behaviors. Certainly not if he ever told Maya that, though after the first time he learned to add the qualifier “act what might be natural for a human”. 

“Anyway.” Athena inhales deeply and the large, forced smile that she had put on calms down into something still friendly, still smiling, but closer to neutral, and much more natural. “What we’re here for, Sasha, is to tell you that we’d like to represent you in court tomorrow!”

“What!” Sasha shoves herself backward from the sill, her chair screeching horribly across the floor until it gets stuck, and she still pushing tips herself and the chair over backwards, thudding out of sight to the ground.

“Sasha?” Phoenix asks. “Is - is something wrong?”

She doesn’t stand back up. Athena pushes herself up on the sill and presses her forehead against the glass, trying to peer down to see if she’s okay. “Pros - Prosecutor Blackquil s-said--” Sasha’s shaking, shuddering breathing interrupts her words. “Said that you w-wouldn’t show up. You’d abandon me.” She’s definitely crying now, loudly and messily. “And you’re here! You - you’re - you’re h-here. To rescue me.” She rights the chair, rubbing tears off of her cheeks and out of her bloodshot eyes. 

“No, Sasha!” Athena still has her face up close to the glass and she presses her palms up against it, too. “We would never! Even Prosecutor Blackquill should know that! I would never! Don’t cry!” The next loud sniffling comes from Athena.

Oh boy. 

“These are happy tears.” And Sasha is smiling, beaming really, even blinking furiously to stop further tears from falling. “I’m so so glad I met you both! For Orla and me a-and—” Another shaky breath stops her for a moment. “Okay. I’m okay. I’m okay! You’ve probably got questions, right? Fire away!”

What she tells them of cleaning the orca pool that early morning is a review of what they’ve already heard, up to the point that she readily tells them she was arguing with the captain. She talks more about Orla’s tricks, says that the calendar with the seven am meeting with the captain is definitely not hers, and when they tell her that they dropped off her medications - it was Fulbright who tasked them with this, but it still had to be cleared with the prison so that they know no one is trying to smuggle in something illegal like white powder (Apollo is way too straight-laced for an Anything Agency and it’s hilarious every time he smacks inconsequentially up against that wall) - she starts getting weird. Like she’s trying to distract them from the fact that she’s on medication at all, which isn’t really working. “Are you sick?” Athena asks. “Is everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s all just peachy!” Sasha says with false, feigned cheer; the fact that she couldn’t drum up a fish pun to use really seals it. (Wait, isn’t a drum a kind of fish? Why’s he know more about fish than flowers? And seals - god damn it.)

Athena stares doubtfully at her. Her shoulders slump. “I guess I could just tell you, huh,” Sasha says. “It’s for a heart condition but—”

“A heart condition?” Athena cries, her voice high and shrill. 

“—but it’s not that serious—”

“Not that serious!” Athena’s second echo isn’t quite as much of a piercing shriek, but it’s even louder, an angry yell. “It’s your heart! Don’t tell me not to worry!”

Sasha heaves a sigh. “This is why I don’t tell people,” she says. “Because you freak, and then I’m trying to reassure you that you don’t need to treat me like I’m fragile, and I’ve got to explain that I’m not dying, so on, so on.”

“Oh,” Athena says. “I’m sorry.”

“Nah, it’s okay.” Sasha shrugs. “I’m sorry for snapping at you like that. It’s not you. It just gets a little tiring going through the same song-and-dance every time I tell someone. Much less fun than putting on the same song and dance with Orla every show!” Athena laughs and Sasha sticks her tongue out at her. “And I’d just had that argument with the captain the other night, too. The one that came up in the trial this morning. He knew about my condition, and I’d told him that I’d scheduled the surgery that would fix it, and he was worried and he told me that’d been thinking, and he was taking me out of the show. You saw the new flier, right? That I’m not in it?”

Phoenix nods. 

“And it was supposed to debut yesterday. But I needed to go out there and perform yesterday. It was the anniversary of Azura’s death, and I had this crazy idea that I would go in front of the audience and tell them all that her death was just an accident, that Orla didn’t kill her, and now the captain wasn’t going to let me out there. So what I did” - her smile is somewhere between devious and sad - “was move the skull rock from the show stage. Put it back in the orca pool, figured the captain probably wouldn’t look there, and if he couldn’t find the major prop for the new show, we’d have to do the old one again, right? Marlon gave me a hand with it, while he was watching Orla at the stage pool.”

It was a bold plan, is about all Phoenix can say to that. “Azura is the orca trainer before you?” he asks.

“Yeah. Azura Summers. She taught me everything I know - she was a year older than me and we were like - anemone and clownfish. Remora and shark!” Phoenix doesn’t speak marine biology but Athena is nodding in solemn understanding. “She was a year older than me. She was the best - you ever meet someone and just, hit it off immediately, you just know that they’re someone who’s gonna be so important in your life?” Sasha stares down at her hands, fiddling with something. “And then she was gone.”

“That must’ve been awful,” Athena says. “Losing someone you loved, and then having everyone else say that your friend was the one that killed her, and no one believes you when you know otherwise.” She sniffs again. Poor girl and her sensitive hearing and hyperempathy. 

Sasha nods. “Azura was like family, since my own family was never exactly supportive of my career path.” And not that Phoenix wants to downplay the severity of family disapproval, how much of a mess of hurt their influence can make, but he can’t exactly say he’s surprised to hear that a selkie’s family might think that her getting a career with an orca was bad news. “I can only imagine what they’re saying now after the captain’s death now too.”

He doesn’t want to pick at a reopening wound, but he never knows what strange little pieces of information will help, and so he asks, “Were you and Ms Summers - involved?”

“Huh?” Sasha blinks at him. A moment later the meaning clicks. “Oh! No, she was straight. She had a boyfriend that I never got to meet, but I’d help her send him videos of some of our orca-training sessions, because I mean, getting to see your cute girlfriend hanging with a cute orca, what could be better?”

“Toss a cute penguin in there too!” Athena suggests. “And then you’re golden!”

“Athena, I love the way you think!”

Phoenix clears his throat. Something more for his “legal etiquette Athena needs to learn” list: the detention center is not a place for hitting on people. Or maybe it’s more Sasha hitting on her. Or maybe they’re just like this. 

Sasha’s face falls and her eyes turn downcast. “She had this matching charm with her boyfriend that I’d wanted to return to him after she died, but I didn’t know enough about him to find him, so I just hung onto it myself. Swore on it that I’d become the best orca trainer ever, for her.” She holds up the charm; it hangs from a cord with a bead strung on it, and looks like a little talisman or envelope one would find at a shrine. “Just like the captain always used her walkie-talkie after that. It had teeth marks from Orla in it, when she brought Azura back up from the water…”

Jack Shipley’s death must be like reliving a nightmare for her.

(But also, remembering the photo of the body, Phoenix did not see a walkie-talkie in the victim’s holder for it.)

“Wait, you didn’t even see her boyfriend at her funeral?” Athena asks.

Sasha shakes her head sadly. “She didn’t even have a funeral. We held our own memorial for her at the aquarium, but her family just sort of - showed up and took her away. I’d suggested that we get an autopsy or something done, to know how she actually died and that it wasn’t Orla, but we needed her family’s permission for that and they wouldn’t give it.” 

Her face is turned toward them, and her eyes are, or should be, but she has the spaced-out look of someone not seeing what’s right in front of her. “They had this huge row with Dr Crab about something, too. I wonder if that’s part of what changed him. He and Azura were pretty close, and he started acting so different after she died - talking about how he was going to euthanize Orla, when before he said he’d never do such a thing. He thought she did it! He still always keeps poison on hand, ready to put her down at any moment! If she’d been found guilty today he would’ve just done it, right then!”

Phoenix has a very good idea of who they need to talk to again, next.

-

Back at the aquarium, they find Dr Crab in his laboratory, with Pearl, who is holding a furiously a squawking Rifle in her arms. “—correct, she does hate me. Since this little annoyance” - Dr Crab gestures at Sniper, who is for once free of the nest of his hair and waddling about the lab - “imprinted on me right out of the egg, she thinks I stole her baby. I didn’t want to steal her baby! But I guess she feels like the human parents of a changeling would.”

“That’s very sad for both of you,” Pearl says seriously. Rifle’s wings flap against her hands. “Your job involves inducing animals to vomit a lot, doesn’t it?”

The doctor snorts. “Today’s just been a hell of a day.” He squints down at the strange machine in his hand, something too boxy to be a regular tablet, with a small screen that flips back on a hinge. “Now let me see if I can find out when she ingested that foreign object.”

“Hi Mr Nick!” Pearls releases Rifle to the ground and the penguin makes an immediate beeline for Dr Crab’s shins. Absorbed in whatever he’s looking at on his machine, he doesn’t seem to notice. “Watch the penguin vomit! It’s for Sniper to eat!” She directs his attention to a pile of, yes, penguin vomit, that he doesn’t want to consider any further, but that Sniper is pecking at. “Mr Doctor told me that mama penguins partially digest and regurgitate fish for their babies to eat, because it’s easier for them to eat that mush!”

“You two seem to be getting along well,” Phoenix says. “You and Dr Crab, I mean.” They already knew that Pearl hit it off with Rifle, somehow. 

“Rifle ate something she shouldn’t so I was helping him get that out of her.” Pearl gestures now at the corner of one of the lab tables, where an object, familiar though it’s partially covered in mushed-up fish, lies. Phoenix takes a few more steps forward. The mess doesn’t smell as fishy as he expected, or perhaps he’s lost all sense of smell, and yes, whatever it is that Rifle ate looks a whole hell of a lot like the little talisman Sasha had, that once belonged to Azura. And there was supposed to be a second one, that Azura’s boyfriend had, wasn’t there?

“Excuse me, Dr Crab?” Phoenix says. He grunts. “Can we take a look at that charm that Rifle swallowed?”

He grunts again. Phoenix decides that’s a “yes”. Investigations don’t get anywhere fast, otherwise. He gingerly picks up the cord on the charm and lets it dangle. Yeah, that’s definitely the same thing as—

“Hey! What are you doing with that?” Dr Crab snaps out of his reverie, with all the anger of a man who’s only just realized something is happening that he would’ve liked to have stopped sooner. “Put that down! That’s Azura’s!”

Phoenix drops it back on the table. Dr Crab, with no regard for penguin barf, snatches it away. “What the hell was it doing in Rifle’s stomach?” He drops it back into the pocket of his lab coat.

“Would this one happen to have belonged to Azura’s boyfriend?” Phoenix asks. 

“I don’t make it a habit to discuss the affairs of the deceased! Especially not with you people!”

Bit of a fraught subject, there. Sasha did say that they were close. “Yesterday was the anniversary of her death, right?”

Dr Crab’s sigh sounds more like a growl. How close is Phoenix to being kicked out of the lab? “That’s right,” Crab says. “A year since the orca killed her.”

“You really think Orla did?” Athena asks. “I don’t believe it!”

“And I was there, Ms Lawyer. I saw Orla bite her. Maybe she didn’t mean to kill her, who’s to say - but what I do know is that Azura is dead.” The point he puts on his last several words closes down the topic even more firmly than his outraged yelling did. Satisfied that he’s shut Phoenix up - for the moment, because Phoenix refuses to be done until he’s run out of questions and he’s still got plenty - he returns to studying the data on his machine.

Who knows what might be important information for a trial? “So what’s that there?” Phoenix asks.

“Monitoring system. Collection of medical records for all the creatures. Between it and the cameras I can monitor them all constantly, twenty-four/seven. Company secret, that’s all I’ll tell you.”

“Really?” Phoenix asks. “Aren’t medical records just like - past exams and stuff? How can you get present, constant data from that?”

“Good point,” Crab says, after a slight pause. A sneered, thin smile stretches out across his face. “I can see there’s no fooling you.”

“Are you trying to fool me?” Phoenix asks.

The two Psyche-Locks that clang into place answer that question for him.

“You tell me,” Dr Crab says.

“Clearly,” Phoenix says.

“Excuse me, Mr Doctor?” Pearl asks. She scoops Rifle up into her arms to stop the penguin from resuming an attack on Dr Crab’s shins. “Mr Nick is a very good lawyer who always finds the truth but he needs to know everything he can to do so. Even if you don’t think your monitorings have anything to do with the case, it might be the information that Mr Nick needs to bluff himself into a better position to win!”

Dr Crab stares at Phoenix, his eyebrows raised. Phoenix wishes Pearl had found any other way to phrase that. “And it would be very kind and helpful of you to do,” Pearl adds.

The lab is far from silent - the hum and murmur of computers, Rifle’s struggles to break free and attack, Sniper eating, Athena cooing at Sniper. But it still feels quiet and empty as Pearl waits for any response and reaction at all from Dr Crab. He says nothing. She narrows her eyes, glancing from Rifle to the floor, like her next step in convincing him will be to sic a penguin on him.

Instead she simply readjusts her hold on Rifle, pulling the penguin up further in her arms, and says, much more seriously, no longer with any sort of pleading edge, “You asked for my help to examine Rifle and I gave it to you, remember? It was just a few minutes ago, right before Mr Nick came back, but I didn’t just offer that on my own.”

“Son of a bitch,” Dr Crab hisses. “That’s exactly what happened, isn’t it? I asked her if you could grab her for me and - damn, now I owe you, don’t I?”

He and Athena both glance over at Phoenix’s sharp intake of breath. Pearl doesn’t do this; she cares about human standards of fairness and tends to cancel debts made out of careless words of people who don’t know better and don’t know what she is. This situation, this case, she thinks is desperate. And Dr Crab saw what she is. It’s fair. 

Pearl, unblinking, hollow-eyed, nods. “And I think you should answer Mr Nick’s questions about your monitoring,” she says.

Dr Crab shakes his head. “Well,” he says. “Shit. I got careless and that’s on me - to the victor go the spoils. So if I answer whatever questions our Mr Lawyer here has about my monitoring equipment here, then we’re settled, yes? No debts after that.”

“No debts after that,” Pearl agrees.

They both wait for Phoenix to say something; it’s a bit tricky, he thinks, to follow up a top-tier negotiation such as Pearl’s. “So. Twenty-four/seven monitoring. How’s that work?”

“It’s an ecological data organization system developed in Europe. Teleobservation Realtime Pertinent Data Organizer, TORPEDO for short.”

Phoenix decides not to try and suss out how well that acronym actually fits it, and not just because the whole name has already been ejected from his brain and he couldn’t repeat it back if he tried. Tele-pertinent real-time data what? 

“It records information on its subjects constantly - heartbeat, vocalization, movements, temperature, and so on - through sensors placed on or near the subject. All that gets sent to me and my equipment here. Rifle has her sensor attached to her flipper ID tag.” Pearl takes Rifle’s wing in her hand and holds it out to examine the tag in question. “For Orla and the fish, it’s attached to the side of the tank. Now here we go, what’s it say about Rifle’s feeding?” Dr Crab glares down at the terminal in his hand. “Four am on the nineteenth is when she swallowed that. What a weird time. And - shit, Orla didn’t eat at all that night until the next afternoon.” He shakes his head. “What is going on here?”

“Maybe that’s why Rifle wouldn’t eat my fish but Orla would.” Athena sounds slightly cheered at the prospect that it wasn’t her causing personal offense to Rifle - Rifle just wasn’t hungry. 

Phoenix clears his throat. “Why keep it a secret?” he asks. “This monitoring system - it’s clearly helpful and it’s not like we’re competitors trying to come in and steal your secrets.”

“Let me preface this by saying” - nothing good ever starts that way - “that this system has been tested rigorously and approved as safe and legal in many countries. Just not this one.”

Ah, that would do it. “You’re breaking the law?” Athena asks, startled. 

Dr Crab grimaces but it ends as something more like a grin. “That’s why I keep this terminal with me at all times. Lucky, else the police might’ve been poking their noses into it yesterday. None of the rest of the crew knows - keeps them safe from the legal repercussions, but I had Jack’s permission for this. He felt, and I agreed, that giving the best care possible to our animals was more important than legality.”

“But - but you’re breaking the law! And that’s—” Athena sputters, searching for a solid objection. “That’s breaking the law!”

Yeah, she’s a smart kid but hopefully she’s not going into a trial without a co-counsel any time soon.

“And if breaking the law betters the lives of our animals? Are we supposed to just sit and wait for the law to change, when in the meantime we can have more information and act quicker to help them - to save their lives?”

“But…” Athena glances to Phoenix for backup she won’t find. Not that he’s not a hypocrite, but he’s not going to step into this debate just to be one. It’s disconcerting, again, every time he realizes that part of Athena’s admiration of him comes only from the fact that she doesn’t know him as well as Apollo does. She’s arguing against the logic that bore him his ace in the hole. And he can’t blame her; it took him a long, bad time to get there. “You’re just - twisting it around, now.” But she looks rattled, not sure how to square this away with the foundation of her career. 

“Dr Crab,” Phoenix says. “I might need to use this information in court tomorrow. But that would obviously cause serious problems for you and the aquarium.” He isn’t asking permission, but this isn’t quite an apology, either. It’s just a statement of what it is, regrettable, inevitable.

“You’ve gotta do your job, Mr Lawyer, and I do mine.” Dr Crab shrugs, more resigned than bothered. This must be a prescient concern, for however long it’s been since they installed this system at the aquarium. Maybe it’s even a relief by now, to no longer be hiding. “I stand by my convictions and don’t have regrets, and I hope you won’t, either. I can’t blame you, or her, for that.” He nods at Pearl. 

“I appreciate it.” Nice to not have a witness biting his head off, even if in this case it would be - not deserved, he’d like to think, but understandable. 

“Hmph. Any last questions on that or can I—”

A loud peeping begins, like the chirps Sniper made but louder and constant. Dr Crab frowns and slips a phone out of his pocket. “Hello? Crab here.”

 “That’s a ringtone?” Pearl asks. “That’s adorable!”

“I don’t think Maya’s gonna let you change mine,” Phoenix says to her. 

“I didn’t think that Dr Crab liked the penguins that much,” Athena whispers. “But I guess he’s just a big softie, really!”

Were he actually listening to them Phoenix has no doubt the doctor would consider those fighting words. As it is, his fighting words are for whoever is on the other end of the line. “Son of a bitch, you people again! What more do you—”

He storms from the lab and slams the door behind him. Athena looks at Phoenix. He nods. She creeps closer to the door to listen, crouched with her ear by the crack where it closes, though Phoenix isn’t sure she needs to be that close to actually hear. “He’s saying that Orla was found not guilty,” she says, “and that should be enough - stop harassing him, he knows that - if it comes to it he - Mr Wright!” She tried to spring back up but smacks her head against the bottom of the doorknob on her way up, and wincing and grumbling to herself, stands tall again. “He said - that if he has to he’d euthanize Orla!”

“No!” Pearl gasps. Rifle wriggles around in her arms and Pearl sets her on the table. “She’s not guilty! In a court of law! She can’t be punished!”

Knowing that the whole orca pool can function as a faery ring makes Phoenix even more nervous that she’s going to commit larceny as soon as anything starts seeming tense. Grand Theft Orca. This is not something he ever thought he would have to consider. 

The door swings violently inward, banging hard into Athena’s shoulder. She stumbles away, cursing under her breath again. Phoenix picks out pieces of several languages. (He really should ask her how to say “fuck you” in German. It would be funny.)

“Where’s my goddamn calendar?” Dr Crab storms back in, sweeping a dozen takeout containers from the desk in front of the largest screen into the trash can strategically positioned right next to it. A few fliers for the orca show drift to the floor. “Son of a bitch, where did I leave it this time?”

“Calendar?” Athena perks up. “It wouldn’t happen to be one of those cute penguin ones, is it? Mr Rimes found one in the nap room and—”

Dr Crab snatches it away from her and scans the mess of his desktop for a pen and scribbles something on it. “Yes, that’s mine. It was a gift, all right?” He sighs. “From Azura. She designed the calendars for this year and this was the prototype.”

“Oh.” Athena’s smile vanishes. And then, seeming to take a cue from Phoenix’s line of questioning of Sasha back at the detention center, she asks, “Did you and Ms Summers happen to be, erm, romantically involved?”

“Of course not!” He bristles at the suggestion, almost weirdly defensive, so while he sees no Psyche-Locks, Phoenix still won’t take it as the end-all-be-all. Maybe he’s defensive about the calendar for what’s written on it, that meeting with the victim at seven am. Could he, at that time, have committed murder? “Were I even so inclined to partake of ‘romantic feelings’” - he doesn’t make them with his hands but Phoenix can hear the air quotes - “I certainly would not involve myself with—” He stops. He glares at Athena and Phoenix in turn. “What business of yours is it, anyway?”

“I just heard a lot of sadness in your voice when you mentioned her, and the calendar,” Athena says. “And I wondered—”

“She was a good friend and now she’s dead, of course I’m sad!” Though he’s probably not sad now, just mad at them and their prying questions. “How can you possibly think that’s related to your defense of Sasha, or do you like using the excuse of being lawyers to pry into people’s personal lives?”

Seems like it’s time to redirect; this thread when pulled on isn’t going anywhere good. “Your phone call just now - what was that about?”

“Heard all that, did you now?” Dr Crab sighs. Phoenix skips the part where he clarifies that Athena did, because she has better hearing than the human and fae also in the room. “That’s the Center for Dangerous Animal Control, insisting that if Orla ever attacks anyone again, we’d better not bother with this rigamarole and just put her down immediately.”

“But that’s not fair!” Athena has her fists raised, ready to fight the shadowy specter of this vague organization. “Did you agree to that?”

Dr Crab is quiet for a very long time. “Sometimes,” he says finally, “unfortunately, things happen. As a veterinarian, I am prepared to do whatever needs to be done.”

“Sasha says you keep poison on hand to always be prepared to put Orla down!” Athena levels the accusation with fury that Sasha would be proud of. 

Dr Crab reaches into one of the pockets of his lab coat and pulls out a tiny plastic bag that contains within it a red and yellow capsule. 

One that looks exactly like that they found mixed in with the contents of Orla’s stomach.

Phoenix is very, very glad they didn’t show it to him. 

“That’s awful!” Athena says. “How dare you!” She’s livid enough that Phoenix isn’t sure she realizes this pill is like the other one, and while that’s something they’re going to have to work on - making sure she’s clear-minded enough to make all the connections that matter, for now she’ll have him or Apollo with her, and Phoenix is just glad she won’t blurt it out to Dr Crab. He wants to keep this one close to his chest until he sees the best opening to play it. 

“Sasha thought the same thing.” Dr Crab drops the pill back in his pocket. “When security around Orla was tightened last year, she insisted that I not be given a key card to access the orca pool room. Thinking, I imagine, that the chances of Orla having a medical emergency when either she nor Jack were here to let me in were lower than the chances of me doing something to her.” He huffs derisively, Athena still seething.

“Dr Crab, I have a last question for you,” Phoenix says. “This - Center for Dangerous Animal Control.” Or however the words were ordered. “Ms DePlume told me something interesting earlier today.” That the Center had made this same demand a year ago, and for some reason relented, but the aquarium has been making large monthly payouts to someone or somewhere ever since. Phoenix repeats this fact to Dr Crab’s expressionless face, and adds, “It’s clear that there’s something going on behind the scenes here, and I suspect that it has something to do with this murder.”

“Do you.” He’s good at responding by saying nothing, but any words at all are sometimes enough to trip the trap, let Phoenix know exactly how much a witness is hiding.

Five Psyche-Locks this time, the appearance punctuated a moment later with loud footsteps and a louder yell. “Dr Herman Crab! Sorry to interrupt, but Prosecutor Blackquill wants to speak with you!”

“Son of a—” Dr Crab punctuates his speech by smacking his calendar down hard on the the table. “What the hell else could you possibly have to ask me?”

“We were hoping to have Mr Rimes testify at tomorrow’s trial, but we’ve been having some trouble getting him to cooperate. As such, Prosecutor Blackquill would like to call you instead!”

“Hmph.” Crab takes a moment in which he clearly is sizing up and assessing Fulbright, deciding whether he can get out of this and if he wants to tangle with Blackquill in that way. Surprising that he didn’t manage to coerce (or threaten) Rimes into talking and has to go for a backup. “Fine. But I’m not giving my opinion on what happened. I’ll tell you what I know, but I’m not taking sides.” He turns to Phoenix. “Until tomorrow, Mr Lawyer.”

-

Neither Trucy nor Apollo notices when the office door opens. Trucy has her laptop in her lap and is furiously scrolling, glancing between the screen and the notebook Apollo is still trying to write it. It’s a silent and periodic scuffle between the two of them as Trucy grabs it and yanks it toward her to check something, and Apollo pulls it back to continue writing. Phoenix shudders to think how unreadable his handwriting is from this. “Commonly for a number of heart conditions,” Trucy mutters. “Is this relevant, Apollo?”

“Of course it is!” He reaches across her keyboard and turns her screen toward himself. “Go back to the book - the picture. If she had a heart condition and a physically intensive job—” He taps his pen against the screen. “There’s no visible injury, look, wouldn’t you think a killer whale could cause some damage—”

“Oh! You think that—”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, guys,” Phoenix says. “What are we working on?”

They shriek in tandem, Apollo flinging the pen and Trucy knocking the notebook to the floor and almost dropping her laptop. Athena claps her hands over her ears, belatedly, and braces herself against the doorframe. “Yes, we’re back now,” Phoenix adds. “What’ve you got?”

“First: the capsule!” Apollo moves his hand like he means to gesture with the pen to the capsule in a bag on the coffee table, except the pen is no longer in his hand, so he’s just sort of waving, and his voice still as enthusiastically loud as ever. “It’s a sleeping drug! That’s the brand name on it, ‘3 Zs’. The Shipshape Aquarium vet recently bought a bunch of it from Hickfield Clinic - it’s meant for people, but apparently would work on other mammals.”

“A sleeping drug?” Phoenix repeats. 

Apollo nods. 

That had been Phoenix’s first thought, when he first saw that capsule, but Dr Crab called it poison - sure, enough of it could certainly kill, but he’s a veterinarian. He’d be legally able to get some kind of actual euthanization drug instead of trying to overdose an orca on sleeping pills - if that was actually what he intended with it, and not something else. Why pretend it’s poison?

“And the other thing - Shipshape Aquarium had the woman who died last year, Azura Summers, right?” He doesn’t wait for Phoenix to confirm he knows and barrels on, “She was getting medication prescribed by Hickfield Clinic to help her manage a heart condition.”

“I found an illegal download of that writer lady’s book!” Trucy pipes up. Bless that girl. 

“A heart condition?” Phoenix can’t do much but echo right now, but his mind is racing. What was Apollo saying when they walked in? Jack Shipley removed Sasha from the show for fear that she would come to harm because of her condition - theoretically, that could’ve already happened. “Do you know what the medication she was on was called?”

“Uh…” Apollo glances down at his notebook. “I wrote it down? It’s like—”

Phoenix takes the notebook from him. The writing is exactly as messy as he imagined, jagged pen lines trailing off across half the page when Trucy grabbed it. “That’s the same medication that Sasha is taking,” he says to Athena. 

“So what’s that mean?” she asks. 

“I have no idea.” That’s a hell of a coincidence, but he doesn’t really see how it could be anything but an unfortunate coincidence, even as a man whose policy is to not believe in coincidences. Orla isn’t on trial now, and wasn’t on trial for Azura’s death, either, yesterday. But maybe this information could offer some reassurance, and closure, to Sasha and the rest of the aquarium crew. “But that capsule, now that’s something. Nice work, Apollo.”

Apollo gives Phoenix a wide-eyed, startled look. Has Phoenix really complimented him so rarely?

“Where’s Pearly?” Trucy asks. Her face falls. “Did she go back home already?”

“She’s staying at the aquarium to help out with Orla, with so many of the staff dragged out to testify and everything.” There she goes again, slotting herself perfectly, naturally, in somewhere, like she’s meant to be there, so that no one even questions letting a strange little faery girl in so far behind the scenes. 

The only thing to put him slightly at ease is that she said she would be ready to call in, from the aquarium, through video phone during the trial tomorrow, which holds the implication that she’s not going to spirit Orla off to the Twilight Realm in the middle of the night to keep her safe.

Though she didn’t promise for sure that she wouldn’t, so he should probably call her and extract that promise from her, before he ends up defending in a case of orca larceny. 

[crackmadhi]

Loss

Loss. Loss. Loss. It was the one thing that followed me everywhere. The only constant I had ever known.

When I was three, my dad left for the Iraq War. A year later he was reported dead. It was the only time I did not cry after losing someone.

In the following five years my mother started dying. She coughed and coughed and two weeks before Aura turned eighteen she stopped forever. I was nine and I did not sleep for longer than five hours in one go since then.

I got older and when I turned sixteen Aura took me to her work place, the Space Center, where I met her colleague and my future mentor Metis Cykes and her lovely daughter Athena.

As I became a prosecutor at the age of twenty, I met the young police officer Robert “Bobby” Fullbright. He was ecstatic to work with me and made me feel welcome in a work space, where everybody was questioning my worth and usefulness. A place where the law and justice were about to break after the disbarment of a defence legend.

I thought I could help. I could catch the Phantom on my own, restore the reputation of the prosecutor office.

The Phantom did not let me.

At the age of twenty-one I lost my mentor, my freedom and innocence, my credibility, my profession and passion and the love of my sister and Athena.

At least that was what I believed back then. Yet I was given a chance to at least unite one last time with my work as a prosecutor. I was twenty-eight and I was a dead man walking. I had no hope left for salvation. Secretly, I might have longed for it, but I had no strength left to wish for it any longer.

I did not count on the grieving hater of my sister, the desperate rage of Justice and the loving courage of Athena. And I did not take to account that Phoenix Wright’s bottomless faith in his clients and the unshakable will to peruse to truth of Miles Edgeworth would work in my favour.

Neither did I think that Fulbright, the man who had continued to come and talk with me, had been dead for more than two years. I did not understand how I had not noticed it, how I had been tricked, how he could had been dragged into this.

Three years, even a bit more, had passed since they freed me. I got used to the freedom and the separation from my sister. I got better. People knew more about me, I opened up…

But still… Fulbright was not leaving me. I reached the point, where I could see that Metis death was not my fault, but why, why had I not noticed sooner that I was no longer talking with the real Fulbright? What had I missed?

It hurt. It hurt so much. So much I still have not talked about the man with anyone. Anybody else, but him.

Wednesday, 8 May 2030

It was a Wednesday evening and I was about to finish my paperwork for the day. A weird feeling, as if something was poking my lungs, had haunted me for the last half hour and I felt somewhat nauseous.

The brainless routine while filling in papers did not distract me from it. In fact, it made it even worse, as my thoughts started to wander, and I heard his voice chanting his fucking maxim.

In justice we trust! In justice we trust! In justice we trust! In justice-

“Fuck! Stop it!”, I shouted and interrupted the voice in my head.

Tiredly a threw my pencil on the desk and stood up. Aimlessly I stood up and wandered over to the tall bookshelf, filled with books Klav had given me in order to make the place look homelier.

I felt like he failed but took one out and opened it at a random page. State law. Great. The words did not stick. My eyes flew over the pages and left me clueless.

… could be interpreted as …

What? When did I say that? It must have been over a decade ago. It was to him. But why? What reason could I possibly have had to –

The book was lying on the floor now. I moved away from the shelf, felt my hand gripping the skin on my skull. Did I start hyperventilating?

… Don’t worry! I’m not …

I almost fell down. I gripped helplessly something to hold on. Probably it was one of the shelves. How could my voice only sound so young? Why did I remember this conversation only now? I had forgotten about it. It had no importance, I wanted myself to believe.

… Justice.

Justice?

Yeah. Funny isn’t it? …

It hit me straight in the face. My stomach ached horribly. I dropped down on my knees hitting my right hand on something.

My limbs suddenly became heavy, so heavy. Everything was numb. I – I felt like I watched myself cowered on the floor from the other side of my office.

That should have made me panic. At least I thought I should panic. Yet I did nothing like that. I saw myself crying, no weeping loudly. Unable to move, to stand up or to do anything other than that.

Was I disassociating? Great. That would be a first. Maybe it was a reaction due to the shock? The realization that there actually had been a way for me, and exclusively me, to figure out so much sooner that the Phantom and not Fulbright was standing in front of me?

Terran could be alive. My sister would be free, and Athena would not be traumatized. Dear god, why was I so oblivious?

I felt so devoid from emotion and started to drift away even further. Taka was in the room and screeched at me. My poor girl tried to pull me out of my turmoil, but it was an impossible task.

My crying continued, and I tried to remember if I had ever cried this loudly. No memory from such a thing crossed my mind.

A knock. Apparently, it did not startle me. I kept on sobbing, no reaction whatsoever.

The door was opened. Nahyuta came in. They had wanted to ask something but stopped as soon as they saw the scene in front of them.

“Simon?”, they said panicking and kneeled before me. With one hand they tried to keep Taka away from them and with the other they carefully touched my knee.

No reaction whatsoever. I did not even feel it.

“Simon? What happened? What is going on?”, they went on asking.

It had no use. They kept saying my name. After some time, I did not know how much later, steps followed. Someone entered. They were probably alarmed by Nahyuta’s cries and wanted to check onto the situation.

Von Karma and Klavier.

“What-? Nahyuta Sahdmadhi, what am I looking at right now?”, von Karma said furiously, while gripping her stuffy cravat thingy.

“I don’t know!”, Nahyuta answered teary. “I already found him like this! He- he doesn’t respond at all! He is like this for several minutes now!”

“Why didn’t you get someone in that case?! What fool-”

“Bright”, I completed breathlessly.

All three stared at me. I even I stared at me. I was surprised that I was even able to say a thing.

“Holy mother! Simon! Please, tell us what is going on! Or at least try to do so!”, Nahyuta now said.

They had let go of my knee and were crying now. I lifted my head a bit. Their eyes were so strikingly green, unique in their colour. Not like Fool Bright’s.

Thank god not like Fool Bright’s.

I had slipped back into my body, but everything was still so heavy and numb. I tried to lift my hand a bit, to reach for Yuta, to tell them they should not worry.

My body failed me. They saw it. It made Nahyuta stop crying, because now they must have realized that I was trying. That I was actually responding to their pleas.

They and Franziska started talking about moving me over to the couch, Nahyuta breaking of then and when to tell me I was doing good, as I slowly stopped sobbing. Until Klavier shrieked and pointed at my right hand.

“He’s bleeding! Oh god, his hand is full of blood!”, he exclaimed and jumped over to me. Decidedly he grabbed my hand and looked at it highly concentrated.

I did not even realize that I had been hurt. Must have happened when I fell down.

“Okay it’s not too deep, some of the blood has already dried and we still need to clean it. Please, Frau von Karma, do us the favour and get the first aid kit. We’ll try to seat him on the couch, while you’re at it.”

Von Karma did not contradict and was gone. Immediately Klav and Nahyuta tried to help me stand up. I tried to help them support my weight, but it was not much help. They were struggling to carry me but finally managed to get me on the couch in my office.

I now sat there and saw Taka hopping towards me. I had regained some control over my senses and knew I was the only one in the room, who would care for the poor, helpless animal. So, I cleared my throat and murmured, as it was the only thing I managed to do: “Window. Taka… wants… out…”

It took a moment before either of them understood what I wanted from them, so I had to repeat myself several times. Finally, Nahyuta got it and went to the window to let my beautiful bird out. At least on of us should be able to enjoy their freedom, I mused.

Von Karma came back and handed Klavier the kit. He opened it and laid it next to me on the couch. Nahyuta volunteered to fix my hand up and was assisted by the rock star.

They started with cleaning the wound and warned me carefully that it would probably hurt. I nodded absently but I felt no sting, as the cloth with the disinfectant on it touched my skin.

My lack of reaction might have bothered Nahyuta, but they did not let it show as they went on nursing me. Silence lurked in the air. It let me slide back to my thoughts on Fulbright. To the talk we had about eleven years ago. It had only been a stupid chat, not more than the exchange of unimportant stories. To think that this once so playful and light conversation would bring me such great turmoil. It was ironic.

“Do you know what happened, Simon? Can you tell us?”, Klavier asked me and handed me a glass of water.

I took it with my left and took a sip. Only now I started to realize how dry my mouth was and noticed the dried tears on my cheeks. A tissue was given to me and got to clean my nose. I started to feel like myself again, still somewhat off.

I took a deep breath, looked up and said with a weirdly peaceful smile: “I guess, I was disassociating due to shock.”

Von Karma and Nahyuta looked worried, while I saw anger arise in Klavier’s eyes. I did it. I actually used up Klavier’s apparently endless patience. He was done with my shit.

“Himmel, Simon! What the fuck fucked you up so badly? Stop this whole thing and follow your own fucking advice for once in your life! You might not believe it but it’s actually work- “, he started lamenting heatedly but was dragged back by Nahyuta and von Karma.

They pulled him outside of the room. I straightened up and folded my hands in my lap. Deep breath. I would not talk with him. Not here.

My strength had returned to an extend that it was possible for me to stand up and walk on my own again. Softly, I rose and snuck to the door. I heard them talking by the left side of the door. I know where they stood talking, they did not see me exit. I went in the opposite direction and took the stairs to leave the prosecutor's office.

Link to the fanfiction on ao3(there are 8 chapters)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16073606/chapters/37531937

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

I think this is nominally incomplete, but it’s from October and I’m never going to finish it, but I reread it and still enjoy some of the jokes in it so.... I figured other people might get some enjoyment out of it.

Summary: Some defense attorneys, prosecutors, and detectives get together and while drinking make poor conversational choices that vacillate wildly between commiserating over personal trauma and making bad jokes. So, the usual.

-

“You know,” Kay says, frowning in concentration as she attempts to affix a fourth paper umbrella in her hair, “what always bums me out about these big get-togethers is I always start thinking we should play some super-fun drinking games and then I realize that would be terrible, because, like, ‘Never Have I Ever’ always turns into weird sexscepade confessions and that’d be horrible enough if Mr. Edgeworth was just our boss, but he’s like, our dad, so we can’t do that.”

Everyone takes twenty seconds to absorb what she has said. “There are things I don’t want to know about any of you,” Apollo says. “Especially not Mr. Wright.”

“Because he’s our dad,” Athena adds. She is lying on the floor with her chin propped up on her arms. “Also it’d be mean to play drinking games with me here not being able to.” Her glare turns from Phoenix to Simon. “American drinking laws are stupid.”

“You say to a room full of prosecutors and detectives,” Apollo says.

“No no, she’s right,” Klavier says. “I got my badge in Europe and then came back and they would let me stand in court and prosecute a trial but not buy a beer.”

“Franziska complained all the time about that,” Edgeworth says, with a small smile that is almost fond as he contemplates the dregs at the bottom of his wine glass. “In the interest of full disclosure, she complained about everything in America. She still does, actually.”

“I can see why she would,” Athena says. “I liked Germany. I didn’t actually drink a lot there, though.”

“You are smarter than I,” Klavier says. “I lost about a month somewhere in Germany.”

Phoenix coughs and sets down his glass, which is pint-sized but filled with wine. The only condolence for Apollo, and from the expression on his face, Edgeworth as well, is that he isn’t drinking straight from a bottle. “A month?” he repeats incredulously.

Klavier nods. “I had just taken the bar; I had nothing to do but wait for my results. What else was I supposed to do?”

“Not that?” Phoenix asks. He looks somewhere between impressed and horrified, which is strange for Apollo to realize; he can’t usually read his boss’ emotions from his face. “Anything but that?”

Klavier shrugs. “Ja ja, but I never got arrested or woke up anywhere unfamiliar, so I think I did fine.”

“Did you wake up with that horrible accent, though?” Blackquill asks, smirking slightly, and without looking bats Athena’s hand away from his drink.

“Ooh!” Athena says, pushing herself up into a sitting position. “You know, that’s actually happened! There’s been cases where after a traumatic brain injury, a person has recovered to speak with an entirely different accent that they never had before. So you could have--”

“I’m sorry to dampen your excitement, Fraulien, but I have never had any traumatic brain injuries.” Ema mutters something and Klavier, staring at the glass in his hands, says, “Ach, we’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, and I will amend my statement to ‘not that I know’ because Kris could have dropped me down the stairs when we were young and I can never know for sure now, because what I am sure of is that even if the answer is no, if I asked him now, he would say he did.”

“You know, Kay, that this is realistically where ‘Never Have I Ever’ would end up,” Ema says. “The personal trauma shit, like ‘never have I ever had someone close to me turn out to be a murdering bastard.’” She doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes and instead stares at the floor. “Ah shit I can’t even say that. That one’s happened to me too. Fuck it.” She throws her head back and drains a third of her glass.

“Would that be a shot for each murdering bastard, or just one for all of them?” Klavier asks.

“At that point you just start drinking and don’t stop,” Phoenix says without lowering his glass from his lips, apparently taking his own advice.

“Define ‘close’,” Apollo says.

“We’re lawyers,” Sebastian says. “Why don’t we just all argue about the definition and never get anywhere with it?”

“He was your boss,” Klavier says brusquely. “That’s fuckin’ close enough.” The harshness of the words doesn’t match the way Klavier’s weight leans against Apollo’s shoulder or how his hand shakes just slightly, knuckles too white curled around his shot glass.

“Is ‘close’ in this case simply to be understood as figuratively referring to emotional connection,” Blackquill says, “or would a literal meaning as in physical proximity at length apply as well?”

“When you’re splitting hairs like that just join the rest of us in being drunk and depressed,” Ema says.

“Are we actually playing now?” Kay asks. “Because this is like a super fucked up way to play if we are.”

“Let’s not even bother with the ‘never have I ever had someone I loved be murdered’,” Apollo says. He hadn’t wanted to get drunk tonight, and instead just sit back and watch whatever unfolded, but he’s thinking he might want to change those plans.

“Everyone loses on that one,” Kay says, reaching over and gently patting Apollo’s head, which he thinks is a gesture of sympathy as best as she, pink-cheeked with unfocused eyes, can manage. And he thinks he is just tipsy enough that it actually feels like a comfort. “And the grand prize, ‘never have I ever had someone I loved be murdered by someone I was close to’, because that’s like… aw shit that’s me isn’t it.”

“Depending on how you define your proximity to Ms. Yew, or Shih-na, or whatever you should like to call her,” Edgeworth says, and it’s probably not coincidence that he is now finishing off his wine, after Kay has said those words. Everyone knows the story of von Karma.

“Again,” Blackquill says, his chin resting on his hands, his elbows on his knees, “how are we agreeing to define ‘close’ and does it apply retroactively, in that they only came in close literal proximity to you long after they committed the murder of that particular--” This time he is not quick enough to stop Athena from snatching away his glass and draining the contents.

“Gross!” Widget cries, and Athena sets the glass back in front of Blackquill with an expression of profound disgust twisting her features. “What the hell is that, anyway?” she asks.

“You were duly warned,” Blackquill replies.

“No,” Athena says. “You told me it was illegal, not that it was disgusting.”

Phoenix is laughing at her, his glass untouched on the floor for the past minute. Kay raises an eyebrow. “What, the unluckiest man in the world can’t drink to that?”

“I can’t, actually,” he says, “though not for lack of trying on my ex-girlfriend’s part.”

“Is trauma crossing over with sexscepades now?” Ema asks. “I’m gonna need to be super more drunk if it is.”

“Me too,” Apollo says, staring at the empty glass in front of him. He hadn’t wanted to refill. Now he thinks he needs it. Klavier offers him the remains of his drink. Apollo accepts it.

“It was not a… a…” Phoenix props his chin up on his hands. “Well, depends on how you’re defining it, and whether ‘my college girlfriend was actually twins, one of whom was evil and wanted me dead and tried to frame me for murder when her good twin, who’s a sweetheart other than having a dire blind spot where her sister is concerned, spent eight months trying to convince her not to kill me’ counts as such.”

“Wait,” Ema says, reaching for Kay’s drink, as Edgeworth stands and leaves the room, “you were dating both twins, and you thought they were the same person?”

“They fully intended to convince me they were the same person,” Phoenix says. “And it took me six years and an attempt on my best friend’s life to find out otherwise.”

“Why’d she -- they -- whoever -- try to kill Edgeworth?” Sebastian asks.

Phoenix coughs. “Erm -- my other best friend, Maya. It’s a long fucked-up story that’s incoherent enough when I try to tell it sober but it ended with me cross-examining a dead woman and the prosecution indicted on the murder charges that had been leveled against my client.”

“What,” Athena says.

“I was there and can corroborate,” Edgeworth says, reentering with a new glass of wine.

“Wait,” Klavier says. “When was this?”

“It’s…” Phoenix frowns, staring at Edgeworth. “It was February, so… nine years now.”

“Was that prosecutor Coffee Dude?” Klavier asks.

“Coffee dude?” Apollo repeats. Klavier’s accent has been slipping in and out all night but hearing him utter the word dude is still absolutely jarring.

“Eloquent as ever, Gavin-dono,” Blackquill says dryly.

“I don’t remember his name because I was a self-absorbed piece of shit who’d just joined the office but: Eine, I remember the news article, and Zwei, I remember him taking the pot out of the coffee machine in the break room and drinking directly from the pot.”

“Oh yeah that’d be him,” Phoenix says.

Blackquill frowns. “This prosecutor you speak of -- about my height, white hair, blind, and able to be convinced to punch another inmate for the price of half a cup of sludgewater prison coffee?”

“Oh my god,” Phoenix says.

“Simon,” Athena sighs.

“I did not say that it was I who convinced him to do such. For all you know I may have been the victim of the punching. You assume the worst of me, Athena.”

Apollo snorts at that. Phoenix is rolling his eyes and Edgeworth coughs.

“You met him in prison?” Edgeworth asks, sitting back down next to Phoenix. “I suppose you must have, if you know him, because he was arrested in February and you joined the office in -- May?”

“April,” Athena corrects.

“Right when everything went to shit,” Klavier says.

“In February a prosecutor was arraigned on charges of murder; in March, another prosecutor committed murder in the office, and the chairman of the Investigatorial Committee was convicted on counts of murder and forging evidence since he was Chief Prosecutor -- you forget, again, that in no point in our lifetimes has ours been a functioning legal system.”

Something about the way Blackquill says it, and the way that Klavier responds with “Bleh,” makes Apollo think it’s a conversation they’ve had before.

Sebastian is staring at his hands.

“And that’s when Mr. Edgeworth gave up his badge for two days and I fell off a building and got amnesia,” Kay adds. “And then we caused another international incident. Not totally in that order.”

“What,” Apollo says.

“Oh god I remember half of that,” Ema says.

“You left out the part with the assassins,” Sebastian says.

“I’ve always believed if you’re not in court it’s sometimes better to leave out details in the retellings, and nothing here is dissuading me of this notion,” Phoenix says.

“So what did you leave out of your little sexscepade story?” Kay asks

“Kay,” Sebastian says, “I am begging you to stop saying that word. I will pay you.”

“Hey Chief, I think that’s Prosecutor Debeste saying I should get a salary raise.”

Edgeworth places his face in his hands.

“I left out the part where I fell off a bridge, my murderous ex-girlfriend was my best friend’s cousin, and Edgeworth --”

“Continue leaving out any further part of this involving me,” Edgeworth interrupts.

“Fine.”

“Boss, how are you still alive?” Athena asks.

“That’s a case that’s going to go forever unsolved,” Phoenix replies.

“Can we do ‘never have I ever had a near-death experience’?” Athena says. “Or any significant physical injury on the job. How many shots would you have to take for that one, Boss?” Phoenix is muttering under his breath as he starts counting on his fingers. Apollo can’t make out the words but Athena almost immediately objects -- “Wait, did you say tazed?”

“Tazed, blunt force head trauma from a fire extinguisher, fell off a bridge, that one thing from before I was a lawyer doesn’t count because you said ‘on the job’, hit by a car doesn’t really count under that definition either -- I think that’s it.” He stares absently into space. “Actually, no, it was sort of related to the job so in hindsight, add ‘getting smashed with the man who got me disbarred’.”

“Take another shot for tonight, then,” Klavier says.

Phoenix rolls his eyes. “Klavier, shut up,” he says, and Klavier recoils in surprise, blinking a few times. “I mean the one with ill intentions and a penchant for poisoning people. God there’s so many ways that could’ve ended with me dead over a bowl of borscht in that hell restaurant.” His eyes go unfocused staring at some point over Apollo’s head. “You know what’s another one of the super fucked up parts about that?” He doesn’t wait for anyone to ask before he continues, “I don’t even like borscht.”

Klavier coughs, or at least Apollo thinks it’s a cough, but it also sounds like a laugh and a sob intermingled.

“You exasperate me,” Edgeworth says to Phoenix. Phoenix flops over into his lap like a particularly boneless cat.

“Here’s ‘take a shot if your older sibling is or has ever been in jail,” Ema says dryly, emptying her glass and then laying backwards on the floor. “Welcome to the shit club, boys.”

“I think Herr Samurai and I need more alcohol for this one,” Klavier says.

“Then go get us some,” Blackquill says.

“Sometimes I feel like I am the only one doing the work in this relationship,” Klavier says.

Athena chokes on air.

Edgeworth sighs. “You both know what I am going to say.”

The response comes in near-unison from the three other prosecutors and two detectives. “Dollar in the jar!”

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

ch 18 replies

@runningwolf62​

KAY.

Kay please I beg you, act like a normal human being for three- I can’t finish this I love her so much.

Kay: “He’s super cute” Klavier: “When did you see him?” Kay: “I stalk him with my Murder.” Sebastian: “Can you stop calling it that?” Kay: “My council.” Klavier: “Can you stop stalking him?” Kay: “No.”

Kay: “My homebirds”

Sebastian: “I am begging you to stop.”

Dammit now I want to write the inevitable conversation between Kay and Klavier about her doing this. Poor Klavier. Poor Apollo. 

It’s a bleak thought, that Phoenix might be expecting otherwise.

Gee, not to name names EDGEWORTH but I wonder why Phoenix is so worried.

Phoenix: -desperately tries not to get attached to people because he has a valid fear of losing them given all of the fae shit that surrounds him-

also Phoenix: -gesturing at Vera and Klavier- “I guess I’m their dad now I have no choice in this matter I have to do this”

Him?

HIM! I love that you have Larry greet Mia- oh my god I just had a thought about Larry and Mia, after she defends him Larry gives her that statue/clock and like holy shit that’s a lot of work and look just saying, to a Fae the statue probably has more value than money.

For Nick DAMN IT Phoenix who likes to eat, he’d prefer money.

Mia’s like “This debt is repaid in full” and Phoenix is like “WHAT no it’s not? I need money for rent?? Chief are you serious--” 

“Yeah,” Apollo says, “that’s kinda how I greet my best friend, so.”

Hey Roddy I’m going cry now.

I’m crying inside every damn time too, like I know I made a lot of jokes about Clay dying especially with the Bullshit Defense AU but I am. genuinely. fucked up about it in this one.

I’m so proud of him. Also super pleased we pulled him out of the dumpster and turned him into someone worth throwing in AUs.

WE CAN REBUILD HIM. And we have. I loved your idea about him getting to mentor Vera, and then it fit just as perfectly in this AU what with the angle of Misty also having been fae, so it’s just.....our boy is here! And we’re proud of him!

“Are you the friend whose mentor was one of the fae?” Apollo asks at the closest thing to a lull in the conversation; Trucy is laughing while Phoenix and Larry glare at each other in mock anger about a joke Apollo didn’t catch, off a discussion about shapeshifters.

APOLLO YOU CAN’T JUST ASK THAT. Also :3c

Look I’ll tell you right now, it was another furry joke. It’s always furry jokes.

Anyway Apollo might have been scared a bit by Iris, but so far his “asking people things straight-out” hasn’t gone wrong. Like he knows Larry is human, what’s the worst that’ll happen? Blackquill will probably put the fear of god into him except as I write that, no, he won’t, because Apollo will just not ask him and instead go straight to Klavier to ask “hey what the fuck is up with this prosecutor” and while Klavier does try and stick to a stance of “not airing out people’s shit unless it’s super important”....it’s Apollo. He broke that rule of his for Apollo first thing by talking to him about Phoenix. Apollo is never going to learn his goddamn lesson about asking this sort of question. Phoenix and Klavier are both going to advise Apollo to make a deal with someone for the Sight because they figure that course of action is less risky than Apollo continuing to do as he does. Apollo’s gonna ask Ga’ran flat-out. Apollo doesn’t given a shit.

“That’s me,” Larry says. “Unless you’ve made other unfortunate artist friends while I’m not looking, and that’s unlikely, since the only friend you’ve made in the last seven years was a mortal enemy.”

“Look at you,” Phoenix says dryly. “You’ve learned how to use logic, even though I have made friends, thanks.”

sdkjfdklsfk ROAST HIM LARRY.

Phoenix is like “Excuse me, I’ve befriended Athena” “She’s your daughter’s age” and honestly he’s thinking about Lamiroir too, although she still is an “unfortunate artist friend” actually, just not the same type of artist.

AW YEAH EMBARRASSING STORY HOUR!

I’m never getting over the concept of “Larry accidentally became a witch and never realized it”. like I’m just. That one is gonna be the funniest part of this entire damn AU isn’t it. Everything I write for it going forward, and I used the best joke in the trilogy material that’s just tangential to this story.

Larry is meeting with his agent – apparently he hasn’t been home in a while, has a lot to catch up on,

:3c been touring in Europe or something Larry?

:3c you know where he’s been.

You know having Mia call Apollo puts the fear of God into me. Didn’t help my cheerful music I was listening to ended right before this scene so uh yeah.

Mia manipulated your music to get the proper dramatic effect.

Trucy’s expression tells him that she has definitely had Eldoon’s this early in the morning at least once before.

PHOENIX WRIGHT FEED YOUR DAUGHTER ACTUAL BREAKFAST.

You think he or anyone can stop Trucy?

“Like most magic, it depends.” Klavier’s eyes have a vacant, absent look, one that glamour can’t hide. “The scar on Kris’ hand, though – that was iron. I don’t suppose he ever forgave me for it.”

EXCUSE ME WHAT.

Klavier accidentally whacked his brother with iron and left a scar and honestly? That’s probably not the wildest shit that happened in the Gavin household, especially that first year after Klavier arrived back. Like. Listen. There’s Kristoph, who’s just had a world-shaking revelation about himself, and he’s also going “shit, can I use magic now? Can I learn magic?” and probably attempts some stupid shit that goes terribly, also let’s be real he probably put Klavier up to it with the iron thing, like Kristoph touches some himself and he’s like “okay, that just makes me feel sick, okay” and then a different time it leaves a little burn that fades in a day and then Klavier just whacks him and that’s how they both learn that none of this is fixed effects. Also while Kristoph is having his crisis, Klavier is like a goddamn....feral child, like not really but he’s still emotionally maladjusted and has no understanding of human social mores or human technology, plus his glamours, means that like, shit, the coffee maker made an unexpected noise and now we can’t find Klavier, because he probably ghosts away from anything that frightens him and it’s like when your hamster escapes its cage because you can’t find the damn thing except instead of a hamster it’s a 10-year-old child who’s still practically invisible and it’s like. it’s like trying to coax the hamster back out. Kristoph just. sets out a box of poptarts. ducks behind the couch. waits. It’s fucking remarkable that neither of them accidentally died in the fucking free-for-all of the adjustment period. 

Honestly now I’m realizing I need to include a scene where Klavier recounts some absolutely batshit childhood anecdote and he’s like “haha you know how it is growing up” and Apollo who’s remembering like 87 near-death experiences with Nahyuta is like “yep” and Phoenix is like “No?? No??? Are you two okay???”

It took me a minute to figure out that was Athena he’s on the line with.

I figure I should start including her a little bit before she actually arrives. Poor girl wants advice for taking the Bar and Phoenix is like “Yeah, I don’t know what to tell you, it was literally just luck that I passed I’m almost positive”

Oooh love how you describe his not quite invisibility.

A great chapter, good luck with your school work!

Thanks!

God your “murder” joke is so good I’m still just. Kay. Kay. I love Kay. I figured out how to get her into one of the next two chapters -- not sure how the three big events I have planned will fall in the next two chapters -- because I love her. Apollo is still not gonna learn she’s a shapeshifter from that, though, because that’s hilarious.