Chapter Text
Agreeing to host the New Year's Eve party was Phoenix's first mistake.
It was just going to be the Agency: Trucy, Apollo, and himself, along with a plus one for each of them. Six people, max. A completely reasonable amount to have in their tiny office space for a few hours. They could play cards, drink sparkling, non-alcoholic grape juice, and watch the ball drop on the TV when it got around midnight. Phoenix could then kick everyone out and crash on the couches with Trucy.
It would be an average New Year's experience. They all needed normal these days. The universe didn't need to punish him for trying.
His second mistake was having basic empathy. Trucy came up to him with pleading eyes and said she really wanted to invite Pearls, who would be “alone” now that Maya was abroad in Khura’in—but she also really wanted to bring Vera Misham, who wouldn't have anyone to celebrate with otherwise. It would be cartoonishly evil to make either of them stay home alone on a holiday. Orphans were his greatest weakness. Phoenix said it was fine.
“Yay! Thank you, Daddy!” Trucy clapped excitedly and tipped her head to the side. Her hat teetered dangerously close to vanishing into the depths of the office. “That means Polly can bring someone else too, right?”
Apollo jolted from his slouch over the coffee table. His scattered paperwork rustled like the sad bedding of a shelter kennel. After nearly eight years of raising Trucy, Phoenix’s tolerance for the Gramarye brand of puppy eyes was high (and, honestly, Apollo looked more terrified to have his name brought up), but he was past due on cutting the kid a break. It would be rude to say no after making an exception for his daughter.
“Sure, bring whoever,” Phoenix shrugged. “Make sure they bring some snacks, though. I’m not feeding an army.”
The thousand-yard terror-puppy stare fell back to an average, hundred-yard Apollo look. “Oh. Alright.”
Mistake number three (maybe four at this point) occurred six days later, exactly two weeks out from New Year’s Eve. Trucy was out with friends, and Apollo was… somewhere, which gave Phoenix the Agency to himself. A perfect environment for getting things done: like the very important meeting he was having with the back of his eyelids. Him and the Sandman counted their sheep profit margins. Lots of hay hit and logs sawed. Normal business things. It was all going well until the Steel Samurai theme erupted from the sky, and the metal man himself did a triple-backflip right onto Phoenix’s desk. The shockwave sent hay bits, logs, and sheep flying around the office: it was a nightmare. No one could do business in such a chaotic environment.
It was at this moment Phoenix started to suspect something was wrong. Most dreams, by this point, would have abruptly shifted to a different storyline. The Steel Samurai would have grabbed him and said Trucy or Maya or someone was in trouble, and then they’d be running through the Griffith Observatory and the courthouse library for reasons, and eventually Edgeworth would show up and derail things by starting an argument. (That happened in a lot of Phoenix's dreams.) But no. In this dream, the Steel Samurai instantly transformed into Phoenix's cell phone. His real, busted cell phone. The one that was really on his desk and really screamed the goofy theme song whenever he got a call.
Phoenix blinked, slowly. Rolled his chair forward. Felt every individual dent, crack, and scrape on the plastic casing as he picked it up.
Someone was really going to pay for this.
He jammed the green button and held it to his ear. “Hello?”
The response echoed his professional level of contempt: as if the caller had also been forced out of a lovely nap. “Hey Mr. Wright.”
“Oh. Hey, Ema.” Damnit. He’d been looking forward to being annoyed, but it was hard to be with her. Getting dealt hand after awful hand then coming out jaded was an experience he couldn’t help but empathize with. Plus, unlike some of his other friends, she wouldn't dial him without a reason. “What’s up?”
She crunched loudly next to the microphone. “Apparently, I’m asking for forgiveness.” Distantly, a panicked whisper crackled behind her snacking. “And also asking you to not fire Apollo.”
Phoenix was pretty sure, technically speaking, Trucy would have to be the one to fire Apollo, but he appreciated feeling important for once. “What happened?”
“He invited me to your New Year’s Eve party.”
“Sure,” Phoenix replied. Better her than Gavin. “You’re always welcome here.”
“Yeah, um– but the way he worded it—” the whispering behind her grew louder, “— the way I interpreted it, I thought it was an open-invitation situation, and I kind of accidentally asked some of my work friends if they wanted to come too.” A few more Snackoos were ruthlessly murdered. “We can just find a bar or something if you're not okay with it, it's not a big deal.”
Phoenix leaned back in his chair and frowned. Reaching double digits was kind of pushing his personal limit—but it was just one night, and it was a holiday, and it was Ema. Orphans. …Oh, well. He’d put up with larger groups in the office plenty of times before. Certainly wasn't something he’d get Trucy to fire Apollo for.
“No, don’t worry about it. You all can come. Like I told Apollo, though: bring some snacks.”
“Oh! Okay. Thanks, Mr. Wright.” One of her rare smiles shined through the call. “See, I told you he wouldn't care…”
“He’s still on the line,” rasped a familiarly loud voice.
“Ope, yep, he is. Bye! See you then!”
Phoenix barely got in a “See ya” before the call disconnected. He probably didn’t need to worry about who Ema’s extra friends were. She was nice. The company she kept had to be good, too. He tossed his phone onto the desk and tried to get back to his meeting.
Phoenix’s final mistake was getting lulled into a false sense of security. No, not security: genuine optimism. The whole office had the holiday spirit, and he got wrapped up in it like an absolute sucker. He came home from work one night to find the Agency both clean and tidy; a joint effort between the kids to get things ready for visitors. (As long as you didn’t try to open the storage closet.) It was the nicest he’d ever seen the place since Mia was around. Trucy even borrowed some old decorations from the Wonder Bar, and the three of them spent the next few days making the front reception room festive.
Gold tinsel streamers hung down from the walls, sending glittery flecks of light towards the origami snowflakes strung up with fishing wire. Giant paper numbers wrote out “2027” over the door to the inner hallway. Trucy sat on the floor, cutting up tissue paper for confetti, while Apollo went around with the step-ladder pinning up fairy lights. He had to get on his nervous, shaking tip-toes to reach the ceiling.
When he finished with the first corner of the room, Apollo lost his footing on the way back down the ladder, and took a short tumble into the nearby bookcase. The glass panel on the front wobbled, and the books and knick-knacks rattled around, but in the end everything landed where it belonged: bookcase standing tall, Apollo grounded on two feet. The rest of the light strip fell around his shoes.
“Careful,” Phoenix called from the couch, as Apollo took a deep breath and shook himself off.
One of the lights clacked against his bracelet as he yanked it up. “You know, this would be a lot easier if you actually helped.”
That was some strong attitude coming from a man who was worried about being fired a week ago. Phoenix smirked. “I'm supervising.” He brought his ankle up to rest on his other knee and tilted his head. “How else would you know you were falling if I didn't warn you?”
If Phoenix had been responsible for raising Apollo in any capacity, the look he was currently receiving would've been accompanied with a pointed finger, a slam against the nearest flat surface, or (more likely) a middle finger. But Apollo’s guardians had been more polite, so the look was all there was. He’d get the hang of it eventually.
“He did help, Polly. He spent all yesterday making the paper snowflakes,” Trucy chimed in. She grabbed another piece of tissue paper, and no, it seemed Phoenix was wrong. No child of his went for angry, physical gestures. Wrights fought with their words. “We left him alone, y’know. He gets really bored on his days off.”
“Hey.” He didn’t just do that. He’d spent quite a while studying for his second round with the Bar Association, but he needed something to do with his hands, and the snowflakes were mindless enough to fold while reading. It hadn’t occurred that he’d made a decor-worthy amount until his flashcards had gotten buried underneath the paper snowdrift.
Apollo held up one of the snowflake strands, inspecting it. His eyes flashed over to Trucy, then to Phoenix. “You made these?”
“...Yeah?”
“Huh.”
There were a couple of weirdly tense minutes, cut up by the sound of Trucy’s scissors, where nothing was said and Phoenix felt like he’d spilled a disgusting secret. He needed to stop answering Apollo’s questions without thinking. The step-ladder creaked as it was moved around, the snowflakes drifted lazily underneath the ceiling fan, and finally, Trucy put her scissors down.
“We should have music,” she said. “For the party.”
“Sounds great,” Apollo chirped like a fire alarm. Phoenix nodded along.
“Maybe someone’s friends can bring a bluetooth speaker.” She dumped her last batch of confetti in with the rest of the bowl and mashed it around. “Or, I dunno, a guitar. Something.”
Apollo turned from his new section of the lights and sighed. “C’mon.”
“Just saying. Because– y’know.”
Trucy kept mixing the confetti, almost entranced. Apollo messed with his bracelet.
“I’m pretty sure Clay has one,” he eventually offered.
“That’d be great, Apollo.”
There was something deeper here Phoenix wasn’t picking up on—but it was important for kids to handle conflicts on their own sometimes. Neither of them would want him involved, anyway. They were basically (actually) siblings; they were going to fight. Better to diffuse whatever was going on and let them hash it out later.
“That should be fine,” he said. “As long as I don’t hear any Christmas music playing.”
Trucy picked up the confetti and moved it to the counter. “We’re not heathens, Daddy.”
“I never want to hear Mariah Carey again,” Apollo shuddered.
Neither did Phoenix. “It’s banned in here until next year.” He leaned back into the couch, pulling his beanie over his eyes and barely containing his smile. “But, I guess that means it’s fair game again once the clock hits midnight…”
No reaction. Phoenix peeked out from under the neon yarn.
“Get it? Because it’ll be next year?”
Apollo didn’t look away from the lights. “That’s nothing, Mr. Wright.”
Trucy shook her head at him, too. Sheesh. Tough crowd.
Whatever. They were going to have an alright party. The Agency was pretty, Pearls was bringing her strawberry dessert thingies, and soon, Phoenix would be around people who gave his jokes the audible groan and eyeroll they deserved. He didn’t think it would be perfect, but it would be pleasant. Average. Normal.
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
Math had never been his strong suit. The second things like letters and brackets got involved, Phoenix was a goner. There was a reason he’d been an art kid before he transitioned to law (and back again to the art of cards and piano). But even his C-in-Algebra self could say with certainty: there were not six people in the Agency.
There was also not, Phoenix reasoned, the adjusted total of “ten or so”. That was, of course, unless you made the words “or so” do a lot of heavy lifting: far more lifting than four letters could possibly be expected to do. Even Phoenix couldn’t lift that much, and he was a grown adult man.
There were thirty-five people here. Maybe fifty. Estimates weren’t his thing, either.
He didn’t know how it happened. First Trucy came home from collecting the girls; then Apollo arrived with his roommate Clay; then Ema, with her pair of quirky work friends. Then they just. Kept. Coming.
His best guess, if he had to make one, was that his “bring whoever” comment to Apollo had gotten skewed beyond recognition when it reached Ema’s friends and continued to spread beyond them. It would certainly explain the number of detectives, lawyers, and prosecutors roaming around. He’d considered asking her what exactly she’d said when she invited them, but he didn’t want to make her feel bad or cause a scene.
It wasn’t like he could turn people away, either. When the Judge (yes, that one) showed up at your door with his entire family and a pan of brownies, you opened it widely for them. There was always space in the Agency, even if they had to extend into the other rooms.
The folks who’d shown up were nice. Phoenix knew them, for the most part. It was infinitely better than the snooty New Year’s Eve social Kristoph dragged him to one year. The kids had done some wireless magic to the speaker to make it play old pop music, and everyone was laughing and having a good time. He kept getting congratulations on the jury trial and excited comments about his return to law. It was– It was good. Things were good.
A head bumped into Phoenix’s arm, and he jolted. Pearls jumped away below, sloshing a plastic cup. Miraculously, the soda fell back inside and stayed there, even as she whipped around and bowed to him.
“I’m so sorry, Mister Nick!”
“Hey, hey, you’re fine.” Phoenix held out his hands as placatingly as possible. His fault for lurking by the food tables. “Did you get some cookies?”
He had to hand it to the crowding mass: the game of invitation telephone hadn’t distorted the plea for snacks. Apollo had to pull a couple fold-outs near the reception desk to make space for everything. Granted, they were very much falling victim to the Holiday Dessert Curse (wherein there were twenty different types of sugar overdose and no types of anything else), but at this point, too much food was a perfectly fine problem to have. Phoenix needed to count his blessings there.
“Uh-huh!” Pearl turned out one of her robe pockets to show off a napkin full of chocolate snowballs and mini gingerbread men.
“Attagirl.” Maya had trained her well.
“Oh! Right.” The gingerbread men fell back into their pink silken prison. “Trucy said that– well, Jinxie said that Trucy said that… um, Mister…” She put her thumb to her mouth. “Ah, I don’t remember. Somebody’s looking for you.”
Hmm. Interesting that another one of Trucy’s friends magically appeared tonight. Not that one more mattered at this point; Jinxie was far from a troublemaker. Phoenix made a half-hearted sweep of the room then shrugged. “I’m sure whoever it is will find me eventually.”
Three knocks drummed against the front door as Pearl took a sip of her soda. He couldn’t even be surprised at this point. A bailiff, this time? Franziska von Karma? Maybe Maya had flown halfway across the world just to say she’d travelled “back in time.”
“I’m going back to Trucy’s room,” Pearl said, giving a little bow. “See you around, Mister Nick!”
Phoenix gave her a wave and started on his journey to the door. They weren’t completely packed in like sardines at a frat party, but it took some creative zig-zagging to avoid breaking through conversations. Despite everyone inviting themselves over, it was still his job to invite them in. He’d considered stationing Apollo by the entrance as the official bouncer, but that felt a bit too mean, even for him. Apollo was here as a guest; playing host was Phoenix’s cross to bear.
He yanked the door open. The door chime jingled like an angel’s ballad, and Phoenix had to hold onto the handle to keep from falling to his knees.
“Edgeworth.”
Phoenix made no attempt to hide the relief in his voice. He was a dying, parched man in the desert of crazy, and here was his overdressed oasis. His knight in maroon fabric armor. Phoenix could kiss him—or give him a respectful pat on the shoulder, or, easier still, a thankful nod. Yeah, the nod was plenty.
“Wright.” Edgeworth nodded back. He was blessedly empty-handed, because when Phoenix invited him (three weeks ago, as his original and only plus one, thank you very much), he had no idea he’d have to institute a potluck policy, or that he’d later come to regret it. He didn’t know if he would have it in himself to fake another smile if Edgeworth handed him more cookies.
A couple grey-brown strands fell over Edgeworth’s glasses as he leaned over, assessing the damage over Phoenix’s shoulder. "Perhaps I should have brought Kay and Detective Gumshoe along. You haven't quite hit your occupancy limit yet.” He pushed his frames back into place. “That is what you're trying to do, correct?"
Any other time, Phoenix would have returned the snark, but finally— finally —someone else realized there were too many people here. Excluding Apollo, possibly, though he’d gotten swept up in the tide half an hour ago, and Phoenix did not feel compelled to fish him out. This was his fault too.
He sighed. More to Edgeworth’s point: "Oh, don't worry. They’re both here. Maggey and Ema, too."
Edgeworth’s eyes went wide. “What? Why?"
"I stopped asking myself that when Larry showed up."
He might as well have said the Agency was full of the Black Plague. Edgeworth physically leaned away, almost out the door, and seemed to mentally weigh if coming inside was worth the effort. Phoenix hoped his frantic presence was enough to carry the “worth it” side.
Before the ruling could be carried out, a high voice rang out from deeper in the reception area. "Mr. Edgeworth?”
A tall black ponytail bounced above the crowd, flagging the goofy New Year’s glasses beneath it. Kay Faraday jumped and flailed her arms at them, and Edgeworth morosely waved back. She squeezed her way over, pulling along a jittery brown-haired guy who Phoenix hadn’t been introduced to. His wide, wet eyes locked with Phoenix’s before returning to Kay. If he had a second spike on his head, he could do a pretty good Apollo impression.
“Heck yeah!” Kay released her friend and lopped onto Edgeworth’s side, hooking his elbow with one arm and putting the other hand on his shoulder. She patted him like a used-car salesman. “Sorry, Mr. Wright. I’m stealing him. We need another victim.”
“Victim?” Phoenix repeated, in time with Edgeworth. Nerves Kid rummaged anxiously through his pocket and pulled out a metal stick. It bent under his fidgeting white gloves.
“Yep!” She grinned and tugged at Edgeworth’s coat. “C’mon, it’ll be fun.”
Edgeworth shouldered off her grasp, eyeing the other kid. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Pleeease?”
“Absolutely not.”
Officially, Phoenix had only met Kay in passing. Most of what he knew about her was filtered through seven layers of Edgeworth-level criticism, which wasn't as bad as it sounded. If Edgeworth complained about someone repeatedly, it was because deep, deep in the office building of his soul, he cared about them. And kept an entire filing cabinet full of ways they could be less annoying. (If Gumshoe’s word was to be believed, Phoenix’s designated cabinet took up an entire room.)
This was to say: if Phoenix knew one thing about Kay, it was that she liked to pretend to be a thief. She never took anything big, and rarely took anything for good, but if inching mischievously towards a priceless artefact was the way to get on Edgeworth’s nerves, she would manifest a cartoon bag to complete the look. If Kay wanted to get Edgeworth to stay tonight, she might “temporarily borrow” his glasses until he promised not to drive off with them, or something of the like.
But no. Kay went for the home run. Edgeworth's most prized possession, the one thing he couldn’t lock away: his honor.
“Aww.” Her gaze drifted off to the crowd. Tears pricked at her eyes, and she pulled her chunky scarf to her mouth. “Okay.”
He had to hand it to her: this was masterclass emotional blackmail. God feared the day she colluded with Trucy, Maya, and Pearls on a hunt for takeout. Phoenix could see what she was doing—wasn’t even involved in the argument—and still, there lurked a deep, programmed need to hand over his meager wallet and solve all her problems.
Not every man folded like a step-ladder, though. Edgeworth crossed his arms and formed a crimson brick wall in the doorway.
Kay’s boot twisted on the carpet. “I’ll see you around, I guess.”
“I suppose you will,” Edgeworth replied.
“It was good to see you, though.”
“Yes.”
She took two steps backward to stand beside her brown-haired friend. Her foot went back for a third, but before she followed through, she made a final pleading case:
“Y’know, Gummy would be really sad if you didn’t say hi to him.”
Edgeworth sighed, and against all odds, seemed almost nervous. “Don’t get Gumshoe involved.”
Was she… going to pull this off? Were puppy eyes the one thing Phoenix was missing during all their debates? Did Edgeworth actually have a heart?
Kay slumped against her friend. His baton stick sprung back into place as he started, narrowly missing the both of them. A fake sob racked her shoulders. “I guess we'll just have to,” she gave a wet, drawn-out sniffle, “tell him you don't care about us anymore…”
Well, that guilt tripwire was about as blatant as caution tape. Edgeworth scoffed. “Knock that off, I didn't say I was leaving.”
She raised her head, wet-dog act already forgotten, and stuck her tongue out. Her friend bapped her on the head and received the same treatment.
Unfortunate for them, but for Phoenix, this was still a win. There needed to be another shred of sanity around tonight. (And someone less susceptible to emotional manipulation.) He wasn’t going to make it to midnight otherwise.
“I’m going to say hello to Gumshoe,” Edgeworth decided for himself.
Kay perked up again. “He’s over with us!”
Oh, how the mighty fell. Edgeworth’s voice slumped. “Of course he is.”
She did a punchy little dance and grabbed Edgeworth’s wrist, then reached to snag the other end of her friend’s baton. They both resigned themselves to their fate. The door jingled as Edgeworth walked away, but before he got too far, he turned and waited for Phoenix.
Phoenix wanted to go with them and witness whatever fresh hell Edgeworth had been roped into, but he needed to be a good host, too. Trucy and Apollo had disappeared into the back a while ago, which meant others would be filtering in along with them. He barely trusted them to handle trials on their own; protecting the office from people like Larry was too much to ask.
Plus, he hadn’t seen Vera since she’d arrived. This situation was overwhelming for him, and he hadn’t been sheltered away indoors for nineteen years. Someone should check in on her. If things were getting too loud, she might want to post up in his office to draw for a while.
“I’ll catch up with you,” Phoenix said. “I should do a lap around. Make sure there’s no fires anywhere.”
“Alright,” Edgeworth replied. There’d be time to spend with him later. Phoenix would be quick. Kay dragged her victims into the crowd, and he peeled off to the hall.