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Phoenix sat at the kitchen table, staring vacantly outside. The late autumn’s weak afternoon sun was just bright enough to be uncomfortable to his strained eyes, but not lively enough to bring any cheer to the dun colors that dominated the leafless deciduous foliage and single stone fruit tree visible from the window.
He pulled his beanie a little farther down, covering his eyes to shield them from the sun’s pale rays. Maybe it had been nicer earlier. If it had been, he hadn’t seen.
After dropping Trucy off at school before the sun had fully risen, he’d retreated back to his bedroom, where he’d spent the rest of the morning with the curtains drawn in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to sleep off congestion and a burgeoning headache before work. Even though he hadn’t slept well the night before, his attempt to nap was thwarted by his inability to control a torrent of intrusive, half-formed thoughts in his mind. When the digital clock finally blazed 12:00, and he hadn’t managed to claim even a few minutes of sleep, he forced himself out of bed and into the kitchen to wait for his daughter to get home from school. Phoenix had agreed to let Trucy walk home on her own when she insisted he was sick and needed to rest, and he was now extremely glad he had. His symptoms had intensified exponentially since that morning.
Phoenix quickly lost track of how much time passed since he traipsed into the kitchen as he waited for Trucy, still trying unsuccessfully to reign in his spinning thoughts. Ordinarily, he could contain and push aside thoughts that were not presently useful. Currently, though, the pressure in his head was making that an impossible feat. He tried to focus on what he would do when Trucy got home. He planned on asking her if she wanted pizza, and hoped she would as he really did not feel quite up to cooking.
The sound of the lock clicking and the door quietly opening did not entirely penetrate the hazy veil over his mind; it merely added to the white noise of discomfort that predominated his senses.
Briefly, Phoenix considered returning to the bedroom once he’d greeted his daughter and gotten her dinner sorted. He had a few more hours before he had to be ready for work. However, the memory of his prolonged, futile attempt to descend past the haze surrounding his thoughts in order to sleep made him disinclined to leave the wooden kitchen chair. He did not want to return to the amplified misery of having absolutely nothing to distract him from the foggy headache, the raw pain of his throat, and his own continuously spinning thoughts. Trucy would probably want him to go over her homework, and while he didn’t think he would be terribly useful in catching any mistakes, it would at least be a distraction. Perhaps he’d have her read the assignments to him, so he wouldn’t have to use his aching eyes.
“Hi Papa!” a sprightly voice lit up the room.
“Hey sweetie,” he responded automatically, not moving his beanie up. A welcome rush of contentment at the sound of her cheerful voice washed over him.
He heard her little boots tromping across the kitchen, and familiar arms wrapped around him in a fond embrace. A smile stretched across his lips. No matter how wretched he felt, Trucy could always make him smile. Phoenix pulled his hands out of his pockets and returned the hug.
“How was school?” he asked perfunctorily.
“Good!” Trucy responded with ebullient glee. Phoenix could perfectly picture her blazing smile despite his eyes being covered with knitted, blue yarn. “We learned about tectonic plates today!”
“Oh, really?” He abstractly wondered if she would get to make a paper mache volcano like he did when he was in elementary school. “Anything else?”
“I got a ride home!” she announced energetically, and he could feel her bouncing up and down on her heels.
“Really?” he asked, “Who gave you a ride home?” He would have to remember to thank whomever it was at the next open house.
“I did,” a familiar, low voice spoke and Phoenix startled, almost falling out of the chair.
Phoenix adjusted his hat, barely overcoming a wince as the sudden intrusion of light sent a spear of pain through his head.
“Mr. Edgeworth!” Trucy declared happily. “He said he’ll read over my homework, too! Like you usually do! I told him you can’t today because I got you sick.” She guiltily looked at the floor.
“No, sweetie, don’t feel bad,” Phoenix said, giving his daughter another quick hug. “I always get sick this time of year,” he assured. “Remember last year? I got a cold then, too.”
“It’s true. He gets sick every year,” Miles confirmed, and then added, “It’s because he drinks grape juice straight out of the bottle.”
“Really?” Trucy’s eyes widened.
“No,” Phoenix rolled his eyes, and immediately regretted it, as even his eyeballs ached at this point. They felt too hot, uncomfortably burning in his skull. “Mr. Edgeworth is joking. It’s because I got really sick once when I was a kid because I didn’t get all my shots on time.”
“Oh! So that’s why I have to get a flu shot every year,” Trucy said, pointing a finger at her shoulder, where she had received her inoculation weeks ago.
“That’s right,” Phoenix confirmed, without nodding his head to prevent any unnecessary movement. “You get your flu shot every year so that you have less of a chance of getting sick, and if you do get sick, it won’t be as bad because the shot protects you from the worst parts. That way, when you’re old like me, you won’t get sick as often.” He gently tapped her nose and she giggled. “Isn’t that right, Edgeworth?”
“Yes, that’s exactly correct,” Miles assented.
“Yay!” Trucy threw her arms into the air joyfully. She paused, and then asked, “But you’ll be okay, Papa?” a tentativeness crept into her voice again, “Even though you didn’t get your shots on time?”
“Of course I will,” Phoenix assured, ruffling her hair. “Now, why don’t you go start your homework? You can show Mr. Edgeworth how good you’ve gotten at math.”
“Okay!” She agreed, snatched up her backpack, and bounded away to her room.
Once she was out of earshot, Miles asked, “And did you get your flu shot this year, Wright?” His eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“No,” Phoenix admitted. “Trucy got hers during her annual checkup, and once she was vaccinated, I kept forgetting about it. I would have gotten around to it eventually. Mine didn't seem important.”
Miles huffed out a sound equal parts exasperation and concern. “Your health is important, Wright. You don’t look like you have a cold. You probably contracted influenza somewhere.”
“I know,” Phoenix said, and slumped forward onto the table, closing his sore eyes again. His next words were muffled against the sleeve of his hoodie, “I used to always get flu shots at work, when the courthouse had those yearly pop-up clinics. It’s so hard to remember, now.”
Phoenix heard Miles cross the kitchen to the countertop, tinker with something, turn the tap on and off, and then light the stove’s burner.
“Next year, if I hear you’ve forgotten, I’m going to tell Miss Fey,” Miles warned.
“No, Maya will kill me,” Phoenix whined, pulling his hood up over his head, as if to add a little extra protection from Maya’s theoretical disapproval.
“Perhaps that will serve as enough motivation for you to remember,” Miles retorted. A little more softly he asked, “You’re not going to work tonight, are you?”
“I was planning on it,” Phoenix pushed himself up a bit to look at the prosecutor. “I already took two days off when Trucy was sick.”
“I’ll call in for you,” Miles replied. “I’m certain they won't want to violate any health codes by having employees working while sick in a place where people presumably consume food. Especially when they are notified by a city prosecutor.” He stepped away from the stove and back towards Phoenix’s half-slumped form.
“Please don’t get me fired,” Phoenix said, smiling wanly before letting his head fall back into his arms. “I already do enough of that myself.”
“None of that. For now, we can take your mind off it.” A sharp pain blazed in Phoenix’s shoulders as fingers dug into his taut muscles, but before his sluggish reactions could fully form a protest, the pain eased and palpable relief spread from the point of contact.
Miles’s lips twitched into a smile as he watched the tension abate from Phoenix’s shoulders as he worked, mindful of the amount of pressure he used, watching the subtle, instinctive way Phoenix moved back to impale knots in his muscles on Miles’s fingers, or pulled forward when the muscle finally loosened and was delicate and sore from the process. “How does that feel?”
Phoenix closed his eyes, the intensity of relief making him do no more than warble in response. Pain drained away, the sensation feeling almost fluid, as if Miles had tapped Phoenix like a maple tree and was drawing the discomfort out.
After several minutes, a soft whistling pierced through the lazy silence. Miles stepped away from Phoenix, swiftly removing the whistling kettle from the stove.
Some of the pain seeped back when Miles’s fingers left his shoulders, but it had been at least temporarily deadened by the prosecutor’s ministrations. He opened his eyes, and found a glass of iced, dark amber liquid in front of him, with an identical one in Miles’s hand.
Miles was watching him—observing him. There was always something different about the way the prosecutor looked at anything when it was fully engaging his keen mind, but the glint was tempered with a softness that Phoenix did not currently have the capacity to think about in depth.
The drink looked like one of many served at the Borscht Bowl Club. Phoenix picked up the glass and took a sip, bemusedly expecting the cloying sweetness of soda or perhaps even the sharp bite of alcohol. Instead, the refreshing tang of freshly-brewed tea met his tongue.
“It’s jasmine,” Miles said, taking a sip from his own glass. “I would have given it to you hot with honey, but I know you don’t like drinking hot things when you have a sore throat.”
Phoenix smiled softly in response, “I didn’t when I was a kid. I can’t believe you remembered. Despite possible evidence to the contrary, I am an adult now, and I won’t fuss over drinking hot tea when I’m sick anymore. This is still better, though,” he took a sip of his tea to demonstrate his approval. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Miles said, gently touching Phoenix’s hand. “How could I ever forget anything about you when every detail is so captivating?”
Phoenix laced his fingers through Miles’s, “You know, no one will ever believe you’re the sappy one.”
“Good,” Miles’s face broke into a smile that crinkled the edges of his eyes and Phoenix felt his heart stutter. The brilliance of that smile could still turn him into jelly. He’d worked all the way through law school to see that smile again, and never regretted his decision for one moment.
The prosecutor, completely unaware of what he’d done, simply pushed two pills across the table towards Phoenix, “Now take those for the fever I know you’re running.”
“Anything for you,” Phoenix said, and removed his hand from Miles’s briefly to make a heart shape with his hands before he complied by taking the pills off the table and swallowing them with a mouthful of tea.
Miles shook his head and chuckled, “This is why no one will believe you.”
Phoenix smiled and laced their fingers together again. They continued to drink their tea in pleasant silence.
When Phoenix had nearly finished his tea, Miles inquired, “How have you been sleeping lately?” Phoenix could hear the coiled concern in Miles’s voice, and all the other questions Miles was refraining from asking while Phoenix was ill and not in a proper state to respond.
Phoenix broke eye contact and looked out at the autumn world now bathed in sunset’s orange hues. He instantly regretted the action, as gazing into the setting sun’s light caused pain to spill back into his head. It made him wince and the aching amplified as reignited tension undid some of Miles’s previous work. “Not well,” the memory of his miserable failure at sleeping earlier that day was all too fresh in his mind.
When he overcame the sudden onslaught and opened his eyes, the kitchen curtains were drawn and Miles was next to him. Miles took him by the arm and led him out of the kitchen. Phoenix allowed himself to be steered towards his bedroom, rendered fully cooperative by the enervation following the sudden resurgence of pain, and complete trust in Miles’s decisive action.
Phoenix was deposited on his bed, and Miles smiled as Phoenix finally regained his bearings.
“I’m going to help you sleep, and then I’m going to go see how Trucy is doing with her homework. Put your head down and relax,” Miles said, and, once again, Miles’s hands descended upon Phoenix’s shoulders. The effect was even more profound than before, as a lingering feeling still hovered from the first massage and he was able to fully relax on the bed. His usual intrusive thoughts were glossed over by the sensation of Miles’s fingers cleverly seeking out his most tortuously stiff muscles.
As Phoenix’s back began to unwind again, this time more thoroughly than the first, Miles gradually used less pressure, until he was softly running over the freshly loosened and sore muscles, preventing them from knotting up again.
A different sort of daze was now hovering over Phoenix’s mind. Instead of the overwhelming discomfort and sharp exhaustion that prevented his mind from controlling disparate thoughts, a cloudy, soft sleepiness enveloped him. He did not even notice when the gentle touches ceased, the light was flicked off, and sleep claimed him at last.