Work Text:
Phoenix fumbled with the doorknob, trying to touch it as little as possible. His hands were practically throbbing from how hard he’d slammed them down earlier. Not to mention that they looked rather purple as well. Phoenix hisses through his teeth as he accidentally presses up against a particularly painful spot. Feeling ever regretful of his actions prior, he finally manages to open the door and exhales gratefully.
You know how he gets all in the moment when he’s defending? Well, he does that as usual, but sometimes, he gets reaaally pumped up. Like, even more than he should be. Phoenix gets the whole case figured out; he could tell the court what the criminal did step by step during the crime scene. The prosecution says an entirely incorrect “contradiction”, and…
“OBJECT- OWWW!” Next thing you know, Phoenix is blowing on his reddening palms to try to ease the pain while visibly tearing up. Then, he shakily attempts to act like he’s fine and continues to explain what his objection was all about.
And what you get afterwards is a poor man trying to fight back the pain until he finally gets to go home. This whole incident happens to him quite often, all repeating and turning out the same way.
I’m assuming you get what’s going on here, right? That whole shebang happened to Phoenix once again. That man never learns anything…
Phoenix steps inside and uses his foot to close the door behind him. He moves the light switch to “ON” using his elbow and kicks his shoes off near the door.
Trucy comes out of her room, rubbing her eyes with her sleeves. She’s wearing a cute nightgown that’s slightly wrinkled, which makes sense because she was laying down, after all. “Daddy? Are you okay? I heard you having trouble with the front door again.”
“Daddy” blushes. “No- I mean, I’m perfectly fine, Trucy. I just, uh, dropped my keys.”
“That’s what you say every time.” She finally puts her hands by her side and opens her eyes. Trucy’s eyes readjust and focus on Phoenix’s hands. “Oh, come on. You did it again? ”
“Trucy, I don’t know what you expect at this point.”
“That’s true…” She motions for her dad to follow her. “Go into the kitchen with me. I’ll get you a bowl of ice water to stick your broken hands in. Soak them while I fix you dinner.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know the drill...and hey, they aren’t broken!”
“Same thing.”
“Don’t make me ground you.”
“Because I said your hands were broken? I was just stating the facts, oh dear father.” She fluttered her eyelashes at him and held her hands together innocently.
“You hush your mouth, young lady.”
“Okay, okay. Whatever you say, dear father.”
“...Never say that to me again.”
Phoenix slouched in the chair that was pushed up to the kitchen table. His hands were soaking in the freezing cold water, and it’s as much of a horribly awful feeling as it is relieving. He has to take them out every few seconds so that they don’t freeze off, but then they start to hurt and he drops his hands down again.
Trucy gets finished making ramen for her father and pours it into a big bowl. It’s not the good kind of ramen; it’s the one that comes in a package with the packet of “flavoring”. But hey, it’s edible, and Phoenix is hungry.
She quickly carries the bowl over to the table and drops it like it’s hot, because it was indeed hot. The ramen ended up heating the bowl faster than she’d intended. Trucy gets a fork out of the silverware drawer (which was often times more plastic than metal) and uses it to pick up some noodles by swirling it.
“Thanks, Truce,” Phoenix says with a smile.
“Yeah, whatever, Pops. Now open up!” She zooms the fork towards his mouth.
“Pops?” He ends up choking as soon as he’s done speaking due to a swarm of noodles being forced into his mouth. “Haaaahh!” That roughly translates to “hooooot!” which probably means that the noodles are of a high temperature. Too high for the mighty Phoenix’s liking.
“Ugh, I’ll get more ice water…” Trucy angrily stormed off, although it was obvious that she was messing with him.
This time, the water was served in a cup that was generously garnished with a swirly-straw. How fun!
“Open up!” Trucy says once again.
“Please stop saying that-” And once again, he chokes due to unwanted objects entering his mouth. This time he sucks on the object, grateful for it’s magical burned tongue-relieving powers that flow from it’s rod. Awkward phrasing aside, his mouth feels better. He can’t say that for long as the straw is soon replaced with more way-too-hot noodles…!
After a night of struggle and pain, Phoenix is full and healed enough to be sent off to bed. Trucy gathers the bowls and cup, tosses them into the sink without care, and goes to help her father stand up.
“My lord, please don’t break my dishes!” Trucy ignores his pleas and scoots his chair out from underneath the table. Well, it was more like pushing the table forward instead of pulling on the chair because Phoenix is hea-vy!
With a grumble, the injured man stands up and stomps towards his room. Trucy follows after him once she returns the table back to where it originally stood and flipped the lights off.
“Nakey time!” she cheers, unbuttoning his suit eagerly.
He exhales harshly. “Child, you’re going to be the death of me one of these days…”
Phoenix slides his arms out of his suit, tosses it wherever, and allows Trucy to undo and remove his tie. Then comes the unbuttoning of his shirt, which, like his suit, gets thrown away to who knows where.
Uh oh, here comes the “fun” part that Phoenix always “enjoys”. “Trucy, please be careful- JESUS! ” Trucy pulls his pants off without even undoing them in such a way that Phoenix feels quite abused. He looks down and prays that his boxers are still on, and to his great surprise, they somehow are.
“Done!” Trucy says way too energetically, purposely trying to fluster her father. It works, to his dismay.
“Just...go back to bed, Truce.”
“And?”
Sigh. “And you’ll get to stay home from school tomorrow.”
“Yaaaaaaaaay! ” she exclaims, happily skipping off to her room.
“How does that kid have so much energy?” he asks himself before falling onto his bed and promptly passing out.
The next day is filled with the same sort of struggle with Phoenix not being able to do anything himself because his hands are broken- ahem, “out of working order but should be mostly better by tomorrow so you’d better not get used to this, Trucy”.
The poor girl has to help her father do everything, and the poor man can’t do anything. Trucy is thankful that she gets to skip school again, though. I mean, would you rather do math or take care of your pained father? That answer is obvious, unless you like math, then the answer would still be considered obvious but your poor ol’ father gets to suffer all day. But sweet lil’ Trucy Wright is not the biggest fan of math, and therefore, would rather take care of her pained father.
But the day has to end, and when it does, Trucy is forced to cope with the fact that she will return to school the next day. Phoenix passes out again, Trucy stays up all night practicing magic tricks because “sleep is boring”, and the next morning comes soon after. A little too soon for that rising magician.
An exhausted Trucy sluggishly gets up out of bed after slamming off her alarm and somehow manages to properly dress herself. Now in clothing that would pass by the school’s dress code, she walks into the kitchen that is filled with the scent of bacon, eggs, toast, and pancakes.
“Mornin’, Truce. Here’s your payment for all your hard work yesterday.” A nice replacement of the usual bowl of cereal, indeed. And it seems that Phoenix would’ve had to wake up early to make all of this in time, and it makes her feel nice that her father cares about her this much to give something back.
Would be nice to get this every day for suffering through school, she wants to say, but she’s a nice girl (sometimes). So, as the nice girl she is, Trucy says “thank you” and gives her father a big hug before sitting down at her usual spot at the table.
Before her sits a plate covered with a hearty meal, one suitable for a growing young lady who needs her nutrition. And before Phoenix even has a chance to sit down, Trucy has gobbled up her breakfast and is off to do the other steps to her morning routine. Phoenix is sad to be alone to eat such a feast, yet is happy that his daughter is responsible enough to do these things on her own now. It would’ve been fun to see who could eat the fastest, though. But whatever, Phoenix doesn't care. He doesn’t care at all! Waaaaahhh!
A honk of a horn, and they both know that the bus has arrived.
“Bye, Daddy!” Trucy runs to give her dad a kiss before dashing out the door.
“Have a nice day at school…!” But she was already gone.
It sometimes saddens him to see her go off all on her own, that she isn’t a little kid anymore. But Phoenix remembers that it’s good she doesn’t need his help as often and that she’s becoming an independent young woman...and it’s even better because now she can take care of him when he nearly breaks his hands off, which happens too often for the principal to be okay about. We don’t talk about that, though. Shh...
Another long day of work has come and gone. Phoenix opens the door, somewhat able to ignore the incredible pain that courses through his hand with all the other incredible pain across his body. He enters, closes the door, turns the lights on and kicks his shoes off. Then, he waits.
Trucy walks out of her room shortly after in a cute yet wrinkled nightgown, rubbing her eyes. She puts her arms down, lets her eyes adjust, and focuses on what seems like hundreds of red marks on his hands and face alone, all appearing to be caused by a whip.
“von Karma?” she asks.
“von Karma,” he replies.
Here we go again…