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That night should have been memorable for many different reasons, almost too many to count, but it was one moment that truly stuck out in his mind.
It was after Godot had asked him out for coffee, to discuss the past. It was after they had a conversation that approached civil, after Godot began to talk about Phoenix's mentor in glowing terms that made him suspicious, and after Godot began to draw parallels between Phoenix and Mia, his voice growing ever lower and softer. It was after he began describing things, fantasies, thoughts he'd been having about him that he'd tried to deny, and after Phoenix realized that he was responding to what Godot was saying with more than just words.
After they left the cafe, after they headed back to the small one-room place that Godot was staying at, after Godot had swallowed several pills, weak on his feet but stubbornly refusing any kind of help or explanation for what the pills did.
It was before the two of them fell entangled on the mattress, fierce and unthinking. Before Godot had torn his clothing from him with a ferocity that drove him wild, that stripped every other thought away. Before he had his suspicions confirmed that Godot's mouth would taste like coffee, and before Godot thrust into him, panting and hard and confusing his name in every other breath with Mia's, and before Phoenix realized that he didn't care either way.
It was before the next morning when they woke up filled with regret, when they turned on each other to neither's surprise, when the shouting turned into a replay of what had happened the previous night, this time with an anger beneath that resulted in broken skin. Before Phoenix awkwardly slunk out while Godot's back was turned, making coffee with the one appliance in his tiny, empty apartment that worked.
It was after Godot sat down at the table after taking his pills, shaking and he laughed under his breath about how fragile it all was. The machinery that makes us work, the gears that keep us running, and how little time he had. The rickety clockwork mechanisms that kept his heart beating needed such care. Phoenix didn't know that Godot was in such bad shape, that he wasn't the immovable, unshakable pillar of strength he seemed to be in the courtroom.
The lightbulb above was dimming, dying, and Phoenix sat down across from him, a cup of coffee in hand that he didn't intend on drinking. Godot shivered and his words began to blur together, and he spoke again of the scrambled signs that tormented and confused him, how similar and different the two of them were, and what he wanted to do to Phoenix. Again, he felt that response down in his stomach, that curiousity and the allure of Godot, mysterious and strong and darkly handsome, was so difficult to resist. It always had been.
Godot stood, and Phoenix couldn't help but rush to his side when he nearly collapsed against the counter, and he guided him down to the floor in spite of how Godot tried to fight him off. Godot called him names, told him to mind his own business, shove him away but Phoenix wasn't that easily shaken. He'd always been very stubborn about that kind of thing.
It was this moment that Phoenix clearly remembered as he hovered over Godot, concerned that maybe the prosecutor would just up and die right there on the floor, and carefully noting the scent of coffee on his breath, a sign that he was still breathing. Godot reached up a trembling hand to the side of his visor.
"Give me a hand with this, will you, Trite?" Godot breathed, and Phoenix tried as best he could, although he wasn't familiar with the mask's workings. It took some effort but finally it gave way in his hands, and when he pulled it off, Godot's eyes were closed. Phoenix looked around for a place to put the mask before deciding on the counter and when he turned back to Godot, his eyes were open.
Seeing his entire face changed everything. That implacable wall that had always stood between them, that gave Godot that subtle advantage in all their interactions, was now gone. Godot was a man, just like anyone else, and his eyes were a startling blank grey. His pupils were faded, something cloudy and white behind them that made it clear enough that Godot wasn't about to see anything without his visor's assistance.
Godot lifted a hand to his face where his mask had rested and scratched lightly, a movement so casual after everything that it didn't seem real. He laughed, and it transformed his face - Phoenix could see now how each muscle moved, how crinkles formed by his tired, blank eyes. He'd grown so accustomed to that visor that this man almost seemed like a new person, someone unfamiliar and all the more intoxicating for it.
"Gets a bit stifling in there...hope you won't make me regret it, Trite."
Godot blinked, eyes tired and empty and he stared at the wall by Phoenix's head. Phoenix studied his face, his cheekbones, his forehead, the loose strands of his wild shock of white hair that fell across his dark skin, the temporary indentation where the mask had laid against the bridge of his nose, and most importantly those blind, grey eyes.
That was when Phoenix moved forward, gingerly, and pressed his lips to Godot's, and found that aside from the initial jerk of surprise, Godot did not pull away. A few seconds more, then Godot's hands knotted in Phoenix's jacket, brought him tight and close, and Phoenix stood awkwardly, bringing Godot up with him. His guide through the darkness as the two kissed each other hungrily, Godot following where Phoenix lead.
Then it slipped into before and after, but it was that moment that Phoenix remembered most clearly.