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It starts with a knock on Kristoph’s door.
He glares at the door — and whoever is behind it — for daring to interrupt his rest. A fever has him confined to the couch, even making him go as far as canceling his weekly dinner with Phoenix tonight. He’s already far more irritated than any person has the right to be; he’s missed his chance to gather intel on Phoenix, to find out how to further destroy him.
And now someone has the gall to disturb him?
The imbecile knocks again; Kristoph really has to talk to his doorman about letting trash from the street inside. Clearly, time won’t get rid of whoever it is. Fine. He’ll just have to do it himself, then.
“Just a minute,” he calls, the words further irritating his already sore throat.
He reaches out for his bottle of nail polish; even though it’s only a few inches away, the effort to grab it leaves him panting. His hands are shaking, but the polish is clear. The mistakes won’t show — and besides, he’s done this enough times that there shouldn’t be any mistakes to be shown at all.
Poor personal grooming is a sign of weakness; Kristoph is many things, but a weak man is not one of them.
When he’s finished, he caps the bottle before finally opening the door, ready to give whoever is on the other side a piece of his mind. All his words die in his mouth, though, when he’s met with Phoenix.
He’s got one hand in his pocket and a grocery bag dangling from the other, looking completely at home here at Kristoph’s apartment — except for the fact that he’s never been here before. Kristoph’s certainly never invited him, not now and not ever.
“Phoenix,” he says, inclining his head in greeting. “I thought we canceled today.” The words come out scratchy, only serving to emphasize his annoyance.
Phoenix, to his credit, doesn’t let his expression change — but that only serves to stoke the fires of Kristoph’s fury even more.
“Yeah, I know. That’s why I’m here.” Shoving past, he lets himself in.
Kristoph, with difficulty, bites down the immediate protest that rises up within him. If the man is offering himself up like this — offering Kristoph a chance to discover more of his weaknesses — by coming into his home, then who is he to refuse?
Besides, Kristoph has seen enough of him by now to know that when Phoenix wants something, there’s no stopping him from getting it. No one can stand in his way — except Kristoph himself, of course. He’s proved that already, to great effect.
Following behind him, Kristoph sits on the couch, doing his best to stay upright, even though his body demands for him to slump over. There’s no way he’ll be doing anything that undignified — especially in front of Phoenix.
He watched Phoenix unpack everything in that grocery bag of his: tea, soup, tissues, and some medicine.
A small of Kristoph — against his will, of course — can’t help but be touched. He hadn’t expected this. He doesn’t remember the last time someone had offered to do something like this for him.
Normally, he wouldn’t rely on someone else like this, but Kristoph is a scholar of many things, and psychology is one of them. He’s very familiar with the Benjamin Franklin effect, and he plans to utilize it to great effect. This, he thinks, is killing two birds with one stone — he’ll let Phoenix wait on him and manage to garner more trust with him in the process, all while hardly lifting a finger.
“You’ve come to play nurse, then?” asks Kristoph. His gaze slides over to Phoenix, who’s now in the kitchen, poking through the cabinets until he emerges, triumphant, with a mug for tea. He starts heating the water — in the kettle, Kristoph is pleased to see, not the microwave, God forbid.
“’Course,” says Phoenix. “What are friends for?”
“What indeed,” Kristoph murmurs.
Now that he’s accepted to himself that this is going to happen, he doesn’t have any more hang-ups — certainly not any that he’ll let openly show on his face.
While the water is heating up, Phoenix comes over and fusses over Kristoph a bit more — adjusting his blanket, his pillow, and pushing the table closer so that everything on it is within Kristoph’s reach.
“I learned from the best,” says Phoenix. “My ex-girlfriend.”
From all of his time spent with the other man, if there’s one thing Kristoph has learned, it’s that Phoenix is relatively reticent with information. He doesn’t talk about his past at all, not if he can help it. The few times he lets some information slip — any information, no matter how unimportant it may seem at first glance — it’s up to Kristoph to grab hold of that thread and follow it to where it may lead.
Kristoph lets his eyelids flutter closed, trying his best to appear sickly. Though that isn’t exactly hard to do, considering he does feel pretty pathetic, but he hopes that looking as sick and weak as possible will make Phoenix lower his guard — if it were ever up in the first place — and offer up more information.
“Ex-girlfriend?” he mumbles.
He hears the rustle of fabric as Phoenix reaches out, and then a cool hand presses against his forehead. With how hot and sweaty he is, it takes all he has for Kristoph to resist the urge to lean into the touch, to chase the coldness, to let it fight against the heat of his body.
“Yeah,” says Phoenix, after so long that Kristoph has nearly forgotten what they were talking about. “We dated a while ago, in college. She used to take care of me when I was sick.”
“Was she a good nurse?” Kristoph asks. He blames the bitterness in his voice on his sore throat; it isn’t as though he would have any possible reason to care about this ex-girlfriend of Phoenix’s, let alone all the ways she used to take care of him.
It’ll come in handy, he reminds himself. It’s about gathering as much information as possible. It’s all right if he doesn’t know exactly what to do with it just yet. He’s good at making plans, at playing the long game. And that’s all this is: a game.
Phoenix laughs. “I don’t know if you could say that,” he says, and the kettle interrupts him. He moves back to the kitchen to finish making tea, Kristoph watching him through half-lidded eyes. He seems awfully comfortable in Kristoph’s home.
Seeing him like that, Kristoph is reminded of the reason he never invited Phoenix over — why he never invites anyone over. Even Klavier, he prefers meeting out somewhere or at the prosecutor’s office.
Inviting someone into your home is letting them into your space. It’s letting them find proof of your life and your existence, proof that you’re human.
Even now, when Phoenix occupies himself by poking around the kitchen, looking for something or the other, Kristoph’s skin crawls. It’s just temporary, he reminds himself, as though soothing an angry animal. He’ll let the man do whatever it is that he came here to do, he’ll thank him, and he’ll send him on his way. It’s as simple as that.
“But…you said she taught you a lot,” says Kristoph, struggling to sit up as Phoenix approaches, steaming mug in hand. As though it’s second nature, Phoenix puts the mug on the table and adjusts the pillow behind Kristoph’s neck so it’s easier to sit up.
“She did,” says Phoenix, and there’s some kind of barely hidden humor in his voice, some kind of inside joke that Kristoph is not privy to.
He smarts at the abrupt dismissal, the end of the conversation. As usual, despite the fact that Phoenix ostensibly came here to help take care of Kristoph, he does things according to his own whims. The conversation starts when he wants it to, ends when he wants it to. He hadn’t even asked Kristoph how he took his tea, just barreled past and done whatever he wanted.
The touch of honey he’d added to the tea, though, is actually delicious; the hot liquid is bitter with rage in Kristoph’s mouth, even as it soothes his sore throat.
Yet another bluff that somehow managed to end up working for him. What, Kristoph wonders, was the point of even bringing up that asinine story about his ex? Just to rub it in Kristoph’s face that there’s more he doesn’t know about Phoenix’s life, that information will only come his way when Phoenix wills it?
“How’s the tea?” asks Phoenix.
“Too sweet,” Kristoph grumbles. It’s petty of him to lie like that, but he can’t deny that it feels good to. Or at least, it would feel better if that ever-present smirk on Phoenix’s face would move, twitch, vanish, do something other than fucking mocking Kristoph like that.
“My bad,” he says, hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. “Guess I’m too used to making it to Trucy’s taste.”
Kristoph takes another sip, and now he’s lucid enough to remember exactly why he wants Phoenix out of his apartment. This is precisely why he always limits their dinners to a certain amount of time. He needs ample preparation time as well before, to be able to handle Phoenix Wright. He didn’t have that today, with the way the man had literally barged into his apartment like this.
“Anything else you want to make for me?” he asks. “Anything else your ex-girlfriend taught you?”
“Just one thing,” says Phoenix. He jerks his head toward the coffee table. “Take your medicine.”
Kristoph turns bleary eyes toward the table. The sooner he does what Phoenix says, the sooner he can get the man out of here and get some well-deserved rest.
“Coldkiller X,” he reads off the label on the bottle. It sounds familiar, but for some reason, he can’t quite put his finger on it; his fever-addled brain refuses to cooperate, all but screaming for more rest. He looks to Phoenix for something — an explanation.
“It was on sale,” is all the answer he gets, accompanied by a shrug. Of course it was. Of course Phoenix can’t be bothered to spend any more money than necessary on Kristoph — a fact only proven by his willingness to let Kristoph always pick up the check at dinner.
“Open it for me,” says Kristoph. “I don’t want to smudge my nails.” He sounds petulant, a spoiled child — not unlike Klavier did when he was young — but he doesn’t care. That’s what Phoenix deserves, not politeness.
“But of course,” says Phoenix, and steps up to do as told. He smoothly opens the bottle and taps two small white pills into Kristoph’s outstretched hand.
Without hesitation, Kristoph swallows them down, following with a swig of tea. He opens his mouth to send the other man away, but for once in their life, they seem to be on the same page.
“I’ll let you get some rest, then,” says Phoenix.
With the last of his strength, Kristoph opens his mouth to say thank you, but the words stick in his throat, not unlike the honey in the tea. His eyelids begin to fall shut. It’s true what they say, then: that medicine truly is potent.
Only too late does he remember where he’d heard the name of it before, in conjunction with that of the man before him. Only too late does he remember the significance of Phoenix’s ex-girlfriend.
“I…you…” He makes to get up from the couch, but a hand pushes him down roughly. And his eyes are closing. His throat, sore once more, begins to close. He can’t get up. He can’t move. He can’t do anything.
“Sleep well, Kristoph,” Phoenix murmurs, and the door closes firmly behind him.