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Phoenix Wright is a strange man, many would say — Kristoph among them. But the more time he spends around him, the more he realizes just how strange the other man is.
Kristoph has never once seen him without gloves on. Black, covering his hands as though they’re a second skin. The cloth, to Kristoph’s trained eye, looks expensive, high quality — a stark contrast to the rest of Phoenix’s wardrobe.
Along with the gloves, he always covers every visible inch of skin — the tease. Sweatshirt zipped all the way up to his chin, beanie tugged low over his ears. Only his face clear, though that too is hidden beneath his ever-present smirk.
When the two of them go out to dinner, Phoenix never once eats anything; in a way, defeating the purpose of them going out in the first place. This, though, Kristoph doesn’t mind. He doesn’t eat anything either — only ordering a glass of sparkling water for propriety’s sake. Nothing that would lower his inhibitions before the former ‘Ace Attorney’.
It feels like weakness to eat in front of this man who never feels the need to do so, neither desire nor necessity driving him. Almost as though he isn’t human at all.
They’re at dinner one Friday night, and Kristoph is watching Phoenix drink from a bottle of grape juice. He always brings his own, despite the fact that the Borscht Bowl Club sells them in spades.
It could just be a trick of the light, but when Phoenix tilts the bottle back, the liquid inside looks thicker and darker than grape juice should. Kristoph watches his throat — barely visible under the high neck of his sweatshirt — bob as he swallows. The motion is accompanied by a wince, a gritting of teeth, a clenching of fists — all so subtle that there’s no way Kristoph would have seen them had he not been looking. In less than a second, they’re gone.
Kristoph watches the smirk return to Phoenix’s face, and in that moment, he makes a decision.
“May I?” he asks, gesturing to the bottle of grape juice.
Phoenix looks amused. “I don’t think this is to your taste.”
He opens his mouth — to push further, to refuse to take no for an answer — but then the waiter arrives with the check and Phoenix stands, murmuring something about how he should be returning to the piano.
Kristoph watches him go, gaze traveling to the bottle still clutched in his hand. His fingers are wrapped around its neck as though it is a friend. A lover.
An enemy.
After that dinner, Kristoph starts paying even more attention to Phoenix — if such a thing were even possible.
He asks to sit in on one of Phoenix’s poker matches the next week. A bit of flattery does the trick; even at rock bottom, men are not immune.
The first step, he knows, is always to gather more information. Figuring out what it means, well, that’s the next step. You can’t build a case without first collecting all the evidence.
Before the game starts, Phoenix pulls a pair of gloves out of his pocket and slips them on. Maybe this wouldn’t even be worth batting an eye over — if it weren’t for the fact that he’s already wearing a pair.
Even his opponent senses something amiss, and for a man of his caliber, that’s saying something.
“Two gloves?” he spits out. “What’s that about, huh?”
But he should have known what Kristoph does: that getting answers out of Phoenix Wright isn’t remotely that easy.
Phoenix just shrugs. “Good luck charm,” he says. Nothing that would further incite any sort of suspicion, and so the subject is dropped.
Through the game, he touches the cards as little as possible, handling them by the edges as though worried they’ll explode. Or maybe, worried that he’ll explode.
That’s not a new behavior; despite the gloves, Kristoph has seen Phoenix still wipe the piano down thoroughly and disinfect it after every shift. And at this point, he’s in too deep to attribute all of the other man’s behavior to mere germophobia.
He wonders, for the dozenth time, how it is that no one else is seeing what he is. How it is that Phoenix shrugs his shoulders and bats his eyes and manages to get everyone to believe what he’s saying. It’s rather smart of him, is what Kristoph would say if he were feeling charitable.
And sure, Phoenix Wright may be smart — or maybe he has just managed to accrue enough streetsmarts and cheap tricks to masquerade as intelligence — but unfortunately for him, Kristoph is just a little bit smarter.
The next step of Kristoph’s plan is to go to Phoenix’s apartment.
He’d tried to invite himself over more than a few times before, dropping hints so obvious that he felt like nothing more than a teenage girl. Unfortunately for him, Phoenix seems to have plenty of experience in dealing with teenage girls, what with that daughter of his always hanging around.
“My apartment’s being renovated,” he’s said. Or, “I found some new evidence for one of my cases that I could use your help going over.”
Every single time, Phoenix’s face remains irritatingly blank. “Just bring your evidence to dinner and we’ll look at it together,” he says. Or, “Pity, all the hotels I know of in this area wouldn’t be good enough for you.”
Each response of his only makes Kristoph more angry. He can’t understand why this man seems to delight in acting like such a simpleton all the time — maybe for the sole reason of pushing Kristoph’s buttons.
Well, if that’s what he’s doing, then Kristoph will just have to push some buttons of his own, won’t he?
Taking things into his own hands, he stops by Phoenix’s apartment one night.
They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. Living spaces, Kristoph has always thought, are more fitting.
To enter one’s space, to see where they live, how they let their guard down…it’s like peeling off someone’s skin and wrapping it firmly around yourself. Kristoph would rather slit his throat than let someone — especially Phoenix — into his own apartment. But it’s for that exact reason that he wants so badly to get into Phoenix’s.
More evidence, that’s what he wants: proof of life. Proof of existence. Proof of humanity.
There’s no way Phoenix can keep the act up 24/7. He can’t be wearing gloves all the time, refusing to touch anything — not in his own apartment, the one place where he should have the most desire to let his guard down and be himself.
Extending a hand, Kristoph raps firmly on the door. For a moment, nothing happens — and he catches himself wondering if Phoenix has somehow managed to see through his plan. But then he hears the sound of footsteps from inside, and Kristoph relaxes. Of course he hasn’t. There’s no way he could have expected this, no way he could have seen it coming.
The door swings open to reveal a cheerful-looking Trucy. It might just be his imagination, but the smile on her face seems to freeze in place when she sees Kristoph.
She must not have been expecting him, or any visitors at this time of day. That’s another reason why Kristoph timed his visit like this — just like people are more open in their own home, they’re also more open when they’re tired, late at night. Combining these two things, Kristoph thinks, is his best possible chance at catching Phoenix off-guard.
Smiling, Kristoph turns on the charm. “Well, hello, Trucy!” he says. “Good to see you. I hope you’re doing well?”
Trucy smiles back; she’s a good actress. Just like her father. “Hello, Mr. Gavin! Are you here to see my daddy?”
At his nod, she opens the door further and gestures him in. The first step that Kristoph takes inside, over the threshold, feels like victory — or at least, something close to it. But not yet. He mustn’t grow overconfident. There’s still work to be done.
The apartment’s hallway is long, and even though Kristoph doesn’t think there’s any way Phoenix could have heard him come in, the man himself still appears from the other room — as though he knows someone is here who shouldn’t be.
Kristoph studies Phoenix’s face greedily, looking for any sign of what he came here looking for: surprise or shock. Proof that he’s hiding something, that he’s afraid Kristoph will find it.
Nothing.
“Oh, Kristoph, I didn’t know you were stopping by,” Phoenix says. There isn’t a hint of annoyance in his voice.
Fine, then. If he’s going to ‘play it cool’, as it were, then Kristoph will do the same.
“Sorry for stopping by unannounced,” he says, “but I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d come say hello.”
Phoenix smiles as though he knows it’s a lie. Part of Kristoph hopes that Phoenix will call him out on it — will cast aside that mask of his and reveal his true face.
Instead, he says, “Hey, Truce, isn’t it past your bedtime?”
It couldn’t be more obvious that he’s trying to get rid of her, but Kristoph doesn’t mind. This could be beneficial for him; Phoenix would definitely be more open without that brat of his getting underfoot.
Trucy doesn’t seem to be on the same page. “No!” she protestes, “I wanna stay up with you guys!”
Kristoph twists his face into a sympathetic expression. “I know you do,” he says gently, “but listen to your father. Besides, if you want to spend time with me, I can stop by again like this more often.”
He looks at Phoenix, sure that this will be the thing that gets him to disagree — or agree, prompting Kristoph with a permanent way in. Phoenix just smirks, doing neither of those things.
When his daughter has disappeared, he turns sleepy eyes onto Kristoph. “I was just in the middle of watering my plants. Mind if I finish up?”
“Not at all,” says Kristoph, barely managing to cover up his surprise. Because if there’s one thing he knows about Phoenix Wright — and with all the work he’s put into this, he knows several — it’s that the man has the furthest possible thing from a green thumb. Kristoph has even heard him mention that he forgot to water Charley more than a few times.
Perhaps the plants are Trucy’s, then. The man will do anything for his daughter, Kristoph knows by now.
Phoenix tramps back in the direction he came from, without checking to see if Kristoph is following. He is, of course. There’s a door at the end of the hallway; a large padlock hangs from the knob. Kristoph’s questioning look burns a hole through Phoenix’s shoulder.
“Sorry for the security,” he says as he digs the key out of his pocket. “Trucy’s not allowed back here, and she’s gotten a little too good at slipping past me lately.”
Kristoph smiles indulgently at him; internally, though, he does a double take. The plants aren’t Trucy’s then, only Phoenix’s. What kind of plants could be important enough that his daughter isn’t allowed inside?
He doesn’t really know what he’s expecting when Phoenix finally gets the door open. Is plants a euphemism for something?
But no.
The room, he finds, has been fully converted into an indoor greenhouse. There are potted plants lining almost every inch of the room, leaving just enough space to walk between carefully. Vines snake up the walls, and the entire room smells earthy in a way that isn’t entirely unpleasant. Overhead, bright artificial lights mimic natural.
It must have taken weeks to set all of this up — more care and effort than someone like Phoenix would put.
“This won’t take long,” Phoenix says over his shoulder. Silently, Kristoph stands in the doorway and watches.
As though everything else about this situation wasn’t strange enough, Phoenix does the unthinkable: he takes his gloves off.
There’s nothing really strange about his hands — they look normal, as does the skin covering them — but the part that’s curious is the action itself. If someone were ever to put gloves on, wouldn’t it be during gardening?
Grabbing a small watering can sitting in the corner of the room, Phoenix goes down the row of plants, methodically watering each one. Letting his hands trail over the leaves. Almost lovingly, like a caress.
Kristoph finds himself fascinated by Phoenix’s bare hands, by the newly exposed skin. He wants to take those hands. Wants to feel them in his. Wants to feel them around his throat.
It’s one thing to find that Phoenix is interested in gardening. Good at it, too, if the appearance of these plants — full and lush and healthy — is anything to go by. But more than that, it’s the way that he seems to love it that surprises Kristoph. He’s only seen this look on Phoenix’s face a few times before, and every time it was when he was in court.
He loves these plants the same way that he once loved being a lawyer.
An inexplicable longing floods Kristoph, a hollow pit in his stomach. Before he knows it, he has his own hand extended and he’s about to touch one of the plants when a sudden clearing of Phoenix’s throat stops him.
There’s still a smirk on the other man’s face, as usual, but something grave in his eyes.
“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” he says. “Some of these plants can be kind of…temperamental.”
Chastened, Kristoph draws his hand back, and even goes the extra step of putting both his hands in his pockets, something that he wouldn’t normally be caught dead doing. But he wants to fight off this weird temptation that’s taken hold of him in whatever way he can. Resist the urge to give into this vulnerability.
True to Phoenix’s word, he finishes up rather quickly. And while Kristoph doesn’t touch any of the plants, his eyes roam over them greedily, and he memorizes each and every one of their defining characteristics.
“Sorry about the wait,” Phoenix says, slipping his gloves back on. Transfixed, Kristoph follows the motion. “What did you need?”
“Actually,” says Kristoph, “I believe I got everything I came here for.”
Back at his own apartment, he spends all night neck deep in research. It takes him a while to track down all the plants that were in Phoenix’s apartment; he has nothing to go off of but the small glimpses he caught of them.
But Kristoph has always had a good memory. He has to, to excel in court the way he does. To crush his enemies the way he does.
Now, he finds, is no exception.
What he finds seems relatively straightforward, if such a thing could be said. It’s what the information means that he struggles with.
All of the plants in Phoenix’s apartment are poisonous. However, they can also be used as antidotes. The leaves of the foxglove plant, for example, can help with heart failure; belladonna is used to cure certain types of nerve agents and pesticide poisonings. Improper use of the same plants, though, can be fatal.
The sources all emphasize the same point: the dose makes the poison.
The ailments each plant is said to cure are too different, too varied. Which one could Phoenix have?
Maybe he’s growing them for Trucy? But no, if there’s any word that could be used to describe that girl, it would be healthy.
One of the reasons Kristoph is so good in court is that he isn’t afraid to see the darkest parts of someone else. Not when he’s done the same to himself time and time again.
It follows, then, that he has to consider the fact that perhaps Phoenix is growing these plants and using them not as antidotes, but as poisons.
Selling them? Or using them himself?
He finds no news, no recent deaths matching the symptoms of any of these poisons. A passing thought occurs to him: that maybe Phoenix means for these to be used on him, but Kristoph abandons it quickly. If that was the intention, then why take Kristoph into his greenhouse and show him everything?
Besides, he’s never even tried to offer Kristoph anything to eat or drink. If anything, it’s the opposite, with the way he wouldn’t even let Kristoph drink out of his grape juice bottle.
With no other directions to search, no other leads to follow, Kristoph abandons his research. It doesn’t stop him from wondering.
He wonders and he wonders — and the next time he sees Phoenix, he asks.
“Those gloves,” he says, the next time they’re at dinner together, “why do you wear them?”
Phoenix gives him a sideways glance. “You sure you wanna know?”
As though he thinks Kristoph couldn’t handle the truth.
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want to know.”
Slowly, Phoenix takes another sip of grape juice. His gloves, Kristoph can’t help but notice, are a different color today. Blue, instead of black — perhaps a tribute to his old suit. They’re bright, especially in the dingy light of the Borscht Bowl Club. It’s as though he put them on specifically to get Kristoph to notice them, to ask about them.
If that’s what he wanted, he got his wish, then.
“If you really wanna know,” Phoenix says finally, “then come over tomorrow night.” He stands, pushing his chair back; it scrapes loudly against the floor. “I’ll be waiting for you, Kristoph.”
Tomorrow can’t come fast enough.
Technically, Kristoph has a ton of other things he should be doing — there’s a large stack of case files on his coffee table, most of which are marked Urgent — but he doesn’t give a fuck about any of them. Not when he has something far more important to think about, to prepare for.
There is no ambiguity in what will happen tonight; it’s obvious what Phoenix was referring to. The fact that he always covers up every inch of his skin…the only way he could show the truth to Kristoph would be to show him everything.
Sex, Kristoph thinks, is the strongest way to exert power over someone else, to see them at their most vulnerable. It’s give and take — a consequence of the action requires vulnerability from you, as well — but some sacrifices are necessary.
Besides, he and Phoenix both knew this was coming, what with the way they always looked at each other. The tension between them that existed as a tangible thing, heavy and stifling.
This time, when he goes to Phoenix’s apartment, he’s invited. He’s wanted.
His steps are more sure, to the point where he’s nearly running to the door. The eagerness, he reminds himself, is only because he’ll finally learn the truth behind Phoenix’s strange behavior — and he’ll be able to use that truth against him.
Anything else is only a bonus.
Kristoph has barely rapped his knuckles against the door when it’s already swinging open. Phoenix looks the same as always, in his beanie and sweatshirt; some part of Kristoph is a little bit annoyed because he’d expected him to look different — to look like he wanted this.
“Trucy’s out at a magic show,” Phoenix says as a greeting, and holds the door open further for Kristoph to step in. No hello, no offer to take his coat. No offer of a drink.
But is it really such a surprise that Phoenix doesn’t know how to treat a man?
Fine, then. If he’s getting right to the point, then so will Kristoph. “You’re still wearing your gloves,” he says.
“Thought I’d wait for you to take them off,: says Phoenix, and there it is — those half-lidded eyes, that hint of a smirk. The first indication of what’s to come.
“Well, I’m here,” says Kristoph, and he follows Phoenix down the hall again. To his bedroom, this time. Though he can’t help but notice that the padlock is not on the greenhouse door — that the greenhouse is right next to his bedroom. He wonders if Phoenix falls asleep to the smell of poison every night.
Though, perhaps falling asleep next to Kristoph tonight won’t be much different.
Compared to the greenhouse door, Phoenix’s bedroom door doesn’t even have so much as a sliding lock.
When he points it out to Phoenix, the other man barely blinks. “We won’t need it.”
Kristoph takes that to mean Trucy won’t be back for a while.
“Sit on the bed,” says Phoenix, as soon as the door is closed. There’s a hard edge to his voice; unexpected, but not entirely unpleasant.
Kristoph doesn’t usually take such a submissive role in the bedroom, but he’s willing to indulge Phoenix for the time being — it’s worth it to discover all of his secrets, he thinks.
So he sits on the bed, and he watches as Phoenix finally, finally takes his gloves off. He’s seen these hands before, but never like this. Never knowing what’s coming.
“Disappointed?” asks Phoenix with a laugh, and Kristoph realizes that he forgot to school his face into a neutral expression. He does so quickly, even though it’s too late by now.
“Should I be?” Kristoph says, raising an eyebrow. He leans back on the bed in a way that he knows for a fact is enticing, and slowly, under Phoenix’s heavy gaze, he reaches up to unbutton his shirt, to loosen his tie.
There’s something strange about the way Phoenix is watching him, though. Contemplative. As though he’s still coming to a decision.
Desperately, Kristoph tries to regain control of the situation. He won’t have Phoenix backing out — not now, not when he’s so close to getting what he wants.
“Are you gonna stand there all night,” he purrs, “or are you going to touch me?”
“Only if you ask nicely,” Phoenix replies, but he still steps forward, still takes off his beanie and throws it in the corner, still unzips his sweatshirt.
Later — in the few moments he’ll have left — Kristoph will regret what he does next. Because Phoenix doesn’t actually touch him; Kristoph is the one who reaches out, grabs his wrists, places Phoenix’s hands on his chest.
And then, Kristoph is on fire.
It takes him a moment to even notice that anything is wrong — and in that moment, he still thinks he’s won. That he’s gotten everything he wanted, everything he spent so long fighting for.
When the pain kicks in, there is no slow build. There is no sweeping realization. There is only burning and suffering and agony. His fingers tighten around Phoenix’s wrists, as though his body cannot decide whether to draw him closer or shove him away, whether to demand answers or an antidote.
Someone screams; it doesn’t sound like him, but it must be. Kristoph cannot remember the last time he screamed.
His vision goes fuzzy, and it’s only then that he realizes Phoenix has already removed his hands from Kristoph’s chest. The pain still persists, though. He cannot tell if it’s getting worse.
When he grows silent, out of breath and flat on his back on the bed, he sees Phoenix looming over him, almost curiously.
“I’ve never done this before,” says Phoenix. “I mean, I know how it works in theory, but…seeing it is something different. Does it hurt?”
“What…what did you do to me?” Kristoph gasps out. He tilts his neck as far as he can to look at his chest, certain that he will see the source of the hurt — blood, maybe, or a hole carved clean through him — but there is nothing. His skin is as smooth and unblemished as ever, not a single mark to be found.
Phoenix perches on the edge of the bed, crossing his legs as though there is not a man in pain next to him. Or maybe because of that.
“It took me a while to figure out the dosages,” he says. He gestures a lot with his uncovered hands as he speaks — Kristoph tracks the motions with his eyes, wary of the threat they pose. “I didn’t have anyone to teach me this stuff, not like she did.”
The words drift in and out of Kristoph’s mind, and he tries to summon the energy to reach up and grasp at them.
“I’ve heard all that stuff about fate,” says Phoenix, having the nerve to look bored now. "About how you have two paths in front of you or whatever. I always thought it was just something people said, but in my case, it was true.”
“What were they?” Kristoph manages to ask. Maybe if he keeps Phoenix talking, he can use the information he’ll give to turn things around and regain his upper hand. A proper turnabout, just like Phoenix used to pull off.
(Though maybe that’s what this is. Maybe Kristoph never had the upper hand in the first place. Maybe the Ace Attorney had pulled his greatest turnabout yet.)
“The standard ones, I guess.” Phoenix shrugs. “Good and evil. Light and dark. Or, in my case, poison and antidote.”
And then all the pictures and images of the greenhouse plants come back to Kristoph, because that’s the exact question he’d been asking himself: poison or antidote? He inhales, and he thinks he really can smell the dirt, the leaves, the poison from next door.
“I went to go see Iris in prison,” he continues. “Oh, you don’t know who that is, right? She’s my ex-girlfriend’s twin sister.”
He speaks as though it’s for himself, as though he doesn’t care whether Kristoph understands it or not. As though Kristoph is nothing more than an afterthought.
“She’s pretty much cured at this point. She’s been at it for a long time, though, I guess. She asked me a bunch of questions, like if I was sure I got the right plants. If I was sure I wanted to do this.”
He looks down at Kristoph, then, like he’s forgotten he’s there. “Hey, Kristoph, you listening?” Reaching down, Phoenix runs a finger down his cheek. It should be an intimate gesture, the touch of a lover — and technically it is intimate in the way it burns a path down Kristoph’s face, ripping through his skin and muscle and bone.
He doesn’t even have the energy to scream anymore. Instead, he just moans weakly.
“Good, you’re listening. I did all of this for you, you know. The least you could do is listen.”
Kristoph tries his best to keep his eyes open, searching around the room for anything he could use as a weapon. He finds nothing, so he realizes that he’ll have to rely on his best weapon: his words.
“For me?” he says. “Oh, Phoenix, you shouldn’t have.”
Phoenix laughs. It sounds exactly like his usual laugh, free and unrestrained, which makes it all the more terrifying.
“So, she asked if you were sure,” says Kristoph, trying to get him back on track.
“Yeah,” says Phoenix, and suddenly his gaze looks very far away, like he’s transported into a memory. “And she knew what she was talking about, obviously — she’s cured now, but she wasn’t always like that. She was like me, once.”
Realization hits Kristoph. “The plants… they weren’t an antidote?”
There is fear in his voice.
“No,” Phoenix says with another laugh. “They could have been, I guess, at the right dosage. But you know me — never had the patience for all that methodical stuff.”
“So what did you tell her?”
His face hardens, eyes filling with anger. With hatred. “I told her that I’d never been more sure of anything in my entire life.”
Kristoph is many things, but he is not stupid. He is still a man.
And a man knows that there are certain times in life when you have to beg.
“Please, Phoenix,” he says, speaking quickly, “it’s not too late. You don’t have to do this.”
“Yeah, I know I don’t,” says Phoenix. “But I want to.”
He presses his hands down on either side of Kristoph, caging him in. Blocking his escape route.
“Bye, Kris,” he whispers. His breath brushes against Kristoph, mingling with his own. Scorching down to his lungs. “It’s been fun.”
Leaning down, he presses his lips to Kristoph’s.