62 Dangerous Liaisons

“One day you’ll notice something different and if you take advantage of that moment, you will be what you exactly needed to be.”
~Auliq Ice~

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Phoenix Wright
Los Angeles, California
December 24, 2024

 

It was that time of the year again.

Palpable excitement buzzed through the charged air. Everywhere he turned there were swarms of people; some looking frazzled, some wearing infectious grins. Strangers shaking hands, patting one another on the back, and spontaneous outpouring of emotions as they filled the streets, which were bustling with last-minute gift-giving patrons.

The Yuletide-designed shops, illuminated with twinkling festive lights, colorful ornaments, and vividly colored signs, were lined up along either side of the street and had assortments of mouthwatering goodies, various fragrances, artisanal holiday cards, and infinite options of gift selections for customers to shop till they dropped.

The scent of peppermint and hot cocoa filled the air as smiling vendors served the delectable treats to the droves. Children merrily displayed their whipped cream mustaches, acquired from the generously slathered dallops atop their steaming mugs of hot chocolate, and the gleeful clamor of them and the other shoppers could be heard over the continuous chatter surrounding the spirited atmosphere.

Many would have been beguiled by the heavenly aromas from the freshly made gingerbread men, fruit cakes, and other sweet treats wafting from the surrounding bakeries amongst the bustling streets of the local Christmas market, and savored basking in the thrall of the festively spruced décor of the surrounding stores. It was the height of Xmas season and spirits ran high … it was so easy to succumb to the thrall of the magnificently adorned store windows, all with lit-up variations of snowmen, Santa, and the baby Jesus in a manger, slowly unveiling their mystical wares and attracting hordes of holiday shoppers.

Phoenix Wright wasn’t one of them.

He had his reasons for not being in the most festive of moods that evening, even if he was going to be spending Christmas Eve in good company. Other matters on his mind dampened the joy of the Yuletide season for him, with no reprieve in sight, although he would ensure he put on his best happy face for those around him who wanted nothing more than to have him eat, drink and be merry.

It was because of this dark cloud hanging over his head that he was barely half-conscious of all the spirit of Noël happenings around him as he neared his destination for the evening, absently side-stepping away from the masses of folks going in and out of the packed coffee shops and bakeries like bees as he continued along his journey. As the evening sky slowly began to fade away, the pink and orange hues were just beginning to be replaced with dark shades of blue, whilst the amber light of the streetlamps spilled on the stone-paved streets.

He was too lost in thoughts to even notice. His mind was too preoccupied with the events in his life that had been unfolding the past few months; and how everything had been brought to a head just a few days ago with just one brief, unanticipated phone call…

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When the pianist had committed to his “investigation,” he’d optimistically assumed it would take a few years to resolve at most, and soon after, things would return to a semblance of normality, and then he’d become a lawyer again.

Life truly was a strange and unpredictable thing.

Nearly six years later, that was still the unreachable, impossible dream.

With no sign of it manifesting as a feasible reality within sight.

No evidence and no legal system opening.

It appeared that as much as he hoped and prayed for it to be to the contrary, fate seemed to have other plans for him. Things could never be as they were. He was entrapped on this treadmill. Phoenix had begun to resign himself to the fact that he’d reached a stalemate, possibly an eonian stalemate. There appeared to be no way to convict Kristoph, no way to clear his name.

This is madness! He silently screamed to himself.  Why are things so broken? I begin to feel I’ll do practically anything to get the ‘closure’ and escape that entrapment to my obsessions. Well, short of murder and similar atrocities, of course. 

He’d dwindled around the poker circuit initially on the ingrained expectation that Trucy’s father would somehow resurface there.

But as the years passed, this likelihood diminished more and more, and became increasingly improbable; Zak had sworn he would return one day to see her, but Phoenix’s suspicions merely inflated as time passed that he’d merely been lying.

Truly, it was the worthless accomplishment of his unbroken winning poker streak which kept him there. And of course, he’d bent the rules marginally on that one. Trucy knew exactly what she was doing, somehow he wouldn’t categorize it as exploitation, nor all the magic shows – she stubbornly insisted to do them, and got upset if he tried to make her stop. Trucy had never known anything but his current act. She probably assumed he’d always been this way, cheating and forging his way through life, living a lie instead of trying to break through them.

He didn’t try to change her mind. He couldn’t even try to even if he wanted to. What evidence did he have to the contrary?

His daughter thought his borderline criminal behavior was cool. While disturbing, he took some solace that at least she didn’t think he was scum, like a lot of other people would’ve, had they known of his dealings.

As far as lies and half-truths went at the very least, the card shark had been true to his word to Maya. He did have a game plan in motion to try to get to the bottom of things. He couldn’t, wouldn’t possibly have ever lied about something like that!

Edgeworth in all his curt, no-hold-barred, so honest that it hurt glory had given the DILF the motivation he needed. And he knew, as his suppressed instincts had been telling him all along, it all started, and was connected to Kristoph Gavin.

It was one thing to have learned over the years how to swim with sharks. It was quite another thing to throw yourself into their hungry hunter’s waters with a bleeding wound and wait for them to take the tantalizing bait.

A horrible euphemism, but there was no other way to describe the act of actually being the pursuer, rather than the pursed, for the first time in five in a half years and being the one making contact with the predatory German.

All under the harmless, innocuous guise of wanting to rekindle the friendship that they’d allegedly forged years ago, which had waned somewhat when he’d convinced Kristoph that Maya was no longer in his life and had hence seen slim to none of the man’s whereabouts much, save for the odd call or email.

At the time it had been a welcome reprieve, but in hindsight, Phoenix knew it had been foolish to let the defense attorney stray too far from his radar. For heaven’s sake, he’d heard from Edgeworth more often, and he was allegedly undercover!

The adage was true for a reason after all. Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.

And Kristoph Gavin was indeed his enemy.

His best friend’s confirmation phone call two days before Christmas had been the final proof the poker champ had needed of that.

He’d known Edgeworth nearly his whole life, and he trusted and valued that nearly flawless logic of his wholeheartedly. He never should have doubted the cynical barrister’s intuitions for a moment. Phoenix was still kicking himself for this grave error one even more than he was for ignoring his gut instincts.

He ruefully acknowledged his lover truly had just cause for being upset about the still uncertain present, never mind future, she had with him.

Since that day of Edgeworth’s pressing phone call back in the fall, Kristoph Gavin had become the spiky-haired man’s primary obsession.

Instead of the imagined future with Maya as legal and otherwise partners, since mid-October, on top of trying to formulate an action plan, the faux musician had been forced into whoring himself out to the duplicitous defense attorney for mind rape coupled with a side of morale/character disintegration.

Up until that fateful call, the ex-lawyer had only mildly suspected the blond man was somehow involved with or knew about the real forgery. But now he was caught in the spider’s web, the bated trap of the German’s alleged friendship and association. If Kristoph ever realized the pianist knew or suspected the truth about him, no doubt the consequences would be deadly. As serpentine as he knew it was, he couldn’t force himself to turn away either. It was the lone real lead he had on the whole forging incident. He felt like he was an entranced moth circling a flame, hypnotically caught in its orbit, but with enough remaining sense not to impale himself in it.

As if an association with the icy, calculating periwinkle suit wearer wasn’t an unpleasant enough experience, scrutinizing him was even worse.  There wasn’t a moment when the hobo was within his presence what he wasn’t nearly sickened with an overwhelming sense of combined dread and warped with uninhibited fury, even before getting the ‘affirmation’ call from Edgeworth, who had cautioned him to try to keep it together and not blow the whole operation with one of his former trademarked “Phoenix Wright Freak-Outs!”

That embarrassing reminder had forced him to acknowledge that his mannerisms in the past had tended to lean towards the over-dramatic at times, especially when compared to the ever-calm and collected Miles Edgeworth. While his childhood chum had often mocked him about it many times – in and out of court – especially his tendency to sweatdrop when nervous, Phoenix had always just dismissed the ribbings as his courtroom rival being a pompous ass, which, initially, the prosecutor bloody well had been!

Up until life had turned him into a poker-faced card shark, the anterior King of the Turnabout had never realized just how animated he’d been as a lawyer in comparison to the way he was now. As he’d always worn his heart and his belief in his clients like a badge of honor on his sleeve, similarly, his expressions had tended to show on his mien as clearly as a weathervane. Moreover, his hands – famous pointer finger notwithstanding – tended to make wild gesticulations and flap dramatically about whenever he was incensed or passionate about something.

 Holy Shit Biscuits! I was so melodramatic with these flailing digits of mine! And I’m not even Italian!

Of course, such obvious mannerisms would never do in his current circumstances. He could never let Kristoph see him sweat. His new preventative measure from such overt, tell-tale gestures was to keep his hands jammed tightly in his pockets, the smooth, familiar ever-present magatama forcing him to maintain an outwardly cool veneer and disguise the fact that the other man’s mere presence tended to make his palms sweaty.

No doubt that despite his alleged ineptness at poker, even Kristoph could read faces.

Also, the calculating attorney would be able to tell if the hobo’s nerves overcame him and he pissed himself! His nights, even ones spent with Maya, were plagued by insomnia, due to his mounting paranoia. Clutching his magatama as his sole give-me-strength support, he tried to talk himself into maintaining the same level of the infamous cool his adversary so prided himself on.

Easy there. Calm down, Phoenix. Relax. Deep breaths. Don’t forget to breathe! 

However, in the act of shutting off the mental switch of dread and suspicion, he was plagued even further with the barely suppressed mounting flames of expressed injustice.

The anterior Ace Attorney repeatedly cursed himself for his incapacity to mask his emotions and fears in a better manner. He was positive that the result would be his worst nightmare come true –  a mistake even more foolishly fatal than presenting ‘forged diary pages’. The inability to do so inflated his paranoias further in a vicious cycle. Who knew who the victim – or casualty – would be this time – him, Trucy, Maya..?

It was becoming more and more evident to Phoenix that Kristoph Gavin was a sick and dangerous individual. The worst part was his ever-ready, ever-present, infallibly charming, yet as genuine as a three-dollar-bill disposition

While the disbarred legist wasn’t stupid enough to blow his cover by trying to break the psyche locks he could see at every turn, he still berated himself daily for squelching all his doubts over the years, despite the mystical gemstone’s capability to let him see through the defense attorney’s outer persona of lies.

Edgeworth’s validation of his longtime ignored suspicions had given Phoenix rekindled hope. The hope that he could still clear his name. For the sake of his sanity, he wanted, no, needed, the truth. It had helped him before, and he prayed it would again.

Aside from his girlfriend, his quest for the truth, and the daily responsibilities of fatherhood, were his single motivations in life that give him direction and forced him out of bed each morning.

Leading him and his innocent, unsuspecting daughter into regular dealings with a tumultuous, unpredictable madman whose next move was impossible to anticipate and who held both their lives in his bony hands.

He was playing with fire and risking his own vitality because what Maya has shrieked at him was true: he wasn’t Elsa from Frozen. He simply couldn’t let it go and move on. He couldn’t – wouldn’t! – leave well enough alone.

What the beanie-wearer should have done, as best for him and Trucy, was abandon his selfish, perilous spying years ago while there was still time to reinvent himself.

Have a brand-new do-over as what exactly, Phoenix? His masochistic, torturous mind taunted him. What do you want to be when you grow up? Are you gonna hope to find another bar where the locals are too drunk to notice you can barely, passably, play the piano? Will you perhaps venture into becoming some cheesy, cabaret singer instead, in an attempt to distract patrons once they realize you’ve been bluffing your way through tickling the ivories, much like you’ve been with everything else?

It was unimaginable what he could have aspired to, had he not chosen law as his destined path. Being a defense attorney, with its associated empowerment to save others, (mostly inspired by having friends like Edgeworth) was the one genuine motivator he’d ever had, career-wise. The vague fantasy from another lifetime, of becoming some sort of artist, when he’d signed up for art school, had just been a juvenile delusion to avoid serious career enslavement.

Perhaps he ought to have thrown in the towel at this point, but as much as it appeared his lawyer self from another lifetime ago was long dead and gone, that infallible tenacity still prevailed. As much as the sane, rational part of him urged him to give up, he just couldn’t. Because it was now impossible.

He was too thoroughly intermingled in the shadowy stems of the Gavins and the Gramaryes. If he put a foot wrong, the other man would probably kill him, and if he could not untangle the darkness of the magician Troupe, it would likely seize and exhume Trucy.

His life was a complete conundrum in every hellacious way possible. He was damned no matter what he did.

What he should have done, Phoenix conceded in hindsight, was flee to another city years ago where his fraudulent reputation had not so extended and gotten a 3:00 AM night shift at an all-night convenience store. It would have eliminated the risk his inspecting and probing would have exposed his daughter and himself to while communicating the illusion to Trucy and Maya that he had “moved on” from that devastating incident, and perhaps avoided the fraud he’d trapped himself in, like a moth impaled to a flame.

While the magician was the light of his life, and fatherhood was the one task of any meaning the hobo had accomplished since then, he didn’t delude himself that he’d performed this via the most altruistic means possible. His parenting had been partially ruined by hijacking her special skills and presence into his selfish little quest for justice.

I’m a sick, sick man. He reflected bitterly, with no short amount of self-loathing.  Trucy makes money for us and helps me while I waste and imperil both our lives because I can’t find closure on that dreadful day of doom.

He admitted to himself that no, it wasn’t really about waiting for the return of Zak for his kid’s sake – that son of a bitch didn’t deserve to get his hands on and exploit someone like Trucy, and her safety would be enhanced by never having to deal with him again.

But how am I any better? Look at the jeopardy I’m putting her life into! Every meeting with that creepy German sausage is just hazarding with both of our lives. She’s the one who Kristoph told to give me the “evidence,” of course.  She’s under his radar too now, I’m sure of it. And here’s me, leading us both along this treacherous path, like a sheep with his little lamb, to slaughter.

The self-hate gnawed at his insides daily, threatening to overcome the hapless feelings of hopelessness that accompanied it.

Daily, the poker champ was forced to acknowledge the true gamble he was making in this portentous game. Every day, he knew he was imperiling Trucy’s safety and well-being.

But he refused to endanger Maya.

I’m officially going to go to hell for this.

It wasn’t because his daughter was less valued to him than his girlfriend. Phoenix couldn’t have loved the girl any more than if she was biologically his; they were as close as law and love could possibly make them.

It was honestly because he didn’t honestly believe his daughter was in the direct line of fire should the predator decide to strike.

Thus far, and in the past, all veiled threats had been made against solely the ex-lawyer himself, and Maya alone had been on the blond man’s radar previously; save for that one time he’d mentioned seeing his daughter working at The Wonder Bar, Kristoph had since seemed content to torture his so-called friend by making the odd remarks about his lover, which he’d seized doing once convinced she was no longer in the picture. The pianist aimed to keep it that way.

The former attorney was entirely fueled by his obsession, and more superficially, by his poker and grape juice addiction. He lambasted himself regularly for being such a twisted terrible parent. He should have felt the same regard for his daughter, yet he was painfully aware of the fact that he exploited her as much as protected her, with her full willingness and compliance. He truly was a horrible father.

Worst of all, Trucy showed no signs of neither knowing nor caring. It was all just a game to her, part of the Phoenix Wright Magic Show. Luckily for him, Zak had set the standards on fatherhood pretty low, so his daughter thought it was all in good fun and was used to using her talents for helping “Daddy, the good guy, win”.

From the day he’d met her, and even more now since he’d fallen in love with her, Phoenix’s first and foremost responsibility to Maya was to instinctively protect her, not ruin her life with his stupid personal agenda. He’d sworn to his late mentor he’d protect and take care of her. It was a vow, no matter how low the levels he’d sunken to, that he aimed to keep. The love of his life had been through enough strife and hardships of her own; no selfish needs or desires of his were ever worth the chance of her getting hurt.

He thanked his lucky stars every day for the haven his best friend had provided so he could still see the woman whom he loved more than his own life. While it may not have been as often as either of them would have liked – between her Master schedule and his difficulties getting time away from his awful shady piano/poker gig, there was no way they could venture these types of rendezvous at his insecure apartment. His residence was all too liable to easy surveillance by Kristoph and other nosy parties. That was the true reason why, to this day, he couldn’t let his daughter know about Maya. Trucy had too many secrets to keep already.

So he pressed on, powered by his obsessive belief that once he knew the truth, he’d find peace, and closure, even if it meant playing against him and Trucy’s life and morals every day to get it.

But he could not, would not, ante hers. Never. Even if it meant keeping her in the dark. Ignorance was bliss in some cases. This was one of them.

Keeping secrets from his girlfriend gutted him. But she’d merely panic if she knew what he was doing. Worry. Make demanding queries he couldn’t answer. Ask why he was doing this. What was he hoping to achieve? Was it worth the gamble?

And he knew there was no answer he could give her that would be satisfactory.

What was he fighting for now? Phoenix wasn’t even sure anymore. He could try to tell himself it was to keep Trucy alive, but it wasn’t. Not really. He willingly hazarded Trucy’s and his own life and safety by continuing to meet with Kristoph, but he could never let Maya risk herself that way.

No matter what.

He knew she would never understand that. He could hear how the conversation would go in his mind right now, could hear the incredulous hysteria in her voice as clearly as if she’d been right before him then.

“You lost your job, the whole world turned on you, and you’re still worried about me?”  

“I can’t let anything happen to you, Maya, even if it means losing you.”

All those crazy ideas he’d once believed in – the good in humanity, justice, the justice system itself could still work for good – they seem almost preposterous now. Trite. Nonsensical.

He had to forget them, his once steadfast morals, his ethics, his entire belief system. He went against them daily to survive.

But there was only one other thing that he’d believed in back then, and still did. It was the only one that still made sense.

He’d believed in her. In Maya Fey.

She was the solitary evidence there was still somebody decent once upon a time; someone who hadn’t forged the evidence, who was fighting for something larger than just a selfish obsession over a personal injustice, alternately drugging and numbing himself in order to exist.

She’s the last remaining tie that binds me to the man I used to be, he despaired now as he put his hand on the familiar doorknob and swallowed the lump in his throat. If that day should ever come, if I lose her, then Phoenix Wright will truly be gone.