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"Acquitted!" Trucy exclaimed, as she threw down the newspaper.
"Mm. Seems we can't win them all, Truce." Phoenix replied with his typical, laid-back smile, to assuage the guilt and apprehension that rolled his stomach into pretzel-knots. He didn't want to worry her, even though he, himself, was beyond worried.
"I can't believe your good friend would do this to you, Daddy." Trucy continued, sighing with a cute little frown.
"I don't think Kris did it on purpose, Truce. He just wanted the truth, like I do." Lies, lies, and more lies. Phoenix Wright was becoming a very good liar, by this point.
"I think you're too trusting, sometimes, Daddy." Trucy concluded, leaving Phoenix to inwardly snort.
If only she knew how very little he trusted his supposed friend Kristoph Gavin.
Wright arranged for Trucy to visit Maya and Pearl in Kurain Village for a week. He got his affairs in order. He made sure Charley had water and fertilizer to help him withstand the days before Phoenix was found, and made a lunch-date with his friend Larry, so that Trucy wouldn't be the first person to find his body.
Phoenix was convinced, now that he'd played his hand, that Kristoph would come for him, just like all the times he'd casually stopped by in the seven years they'd known each other.
And this time, for sure, Kristoph would kill him.
He got a little bit paranoid, after Kristoph was acquitted (checking the seals on his wine, never eating out, avoiding the club, even though poker was the only thing keeping Trucy fed and clothed). He barely slept after his daughter left, and that was probably a bad thing. It was probably how he'd ended up like this, handcuffed to his own bed, and woken up by a familiar laugh, as a familiar face looked down at him. Phoenix's bleary vision solidified into Kristoph, who smiled his typical gentle smile, and held a knife in hand, twirling it idly, while his intended victim realized he couldn't move his arms. His legs were un-bound though, so he kicked out at his captor, who side-stepped it as easily as he had side-stepped a guilty verdict.
"Still getting blackout drunk, hm, Wright?" Kris laughed, smiling good-naturedly in a way that fooled everyone but Phoenix. The justice system might not see the truth, but he could, and he was certain Apollo could too.
Instead of responding, Nick tugged at the restraints again, ignoring how the cuffs bit into his wrists as he stuggled. Mentally he struggled too, trying to recall the last few hours. His wine was properly sealed, of course (he'd checked - never left a bottle alone, once it was uncorked), so he couldn't have been drugged. Had he really been so tired and paranoid that he'd gotten drunk enough to sleep through being cuffed to his own bed?
"That was quite clever of you in court, you know." Kris mused as he approached, straddling Wright's legs to avoid further kicking. "Using my own protegé against me from the defendant's seat."
If you're going to kill me, get it over with! Phoenix wanted to shout, but he held his tongue. He had to stay alive for Trucy's sake, and that meant doing anything in his power to distract Kristoph from his real goal.
"It got me off the hook, didn't it?" Nick smiled, the same serene-yet-bitter smile that he always used these days, and Gavin smirked lightly in reply.
"Indeed. I must congratulate you on that, and offer my sincerest apologies." The blond smiled more kindly now, and ran an almost-comforting hand down Wright's cheek, who flinched, as if afraid his fingers were coated in poison (as ridiculous as that sounded).
"Pfft. Apologies?" Nick retorted, impulsively rattling the handcuffs again, as if the give had changed any since the last time he strained against it.
"I never meant to implicate you in the murder." Kristoph explained, fixing his grip on the knife as he brought it downward. Phoenix squeezed his eyes shut, and prepared for the pain, but he only heard a quiet sawing, as Kris cut open his t-shirt - slowly, methodically.
"I just needed someone to take the fall. Better you than me, hm?" Kristoph smirked. "You'd know that better than anyone, Phoenix."
Yes, yes, he knew that well. He also knew that his sinking hunch was correct, and Kristoph was indeed behind murder.
"Please, please don't kill me." Phoenix whispered, as he felt the knife ghost over the boxers he'd gone to sleep in. It was humiliating to beg like this, but he knew that Kris would get off on it, and he had to do what was necessary. "I'm the only family Trucy has left, and she needs me."
"Oh, I don't want to kill you, Phoenix. Whatever gave you that idea?" Tanned fingers hooked his waistband, and Nick subconsciously arched his back to help get them off - they'd done this so often in the past seven years, he didn't even think about it until after his shorts were down around his ankles and Kristoph was taking his cock in hand, gently stroking.
"I'm the only one," Wright gasped as the other man ran a thumb across his slit, making him swell in a way that felt wrong, with the threat of death hanging over him like a noose. "I- I'm the only one who knows what you did."
"Double Jeopardy, Wright. I can't be convicted of the same crime twice." Kristoph purred, and Nick knew it was true, but he didn't believe it, not when Kris was fondling him like this, in steady strokes that brought him to half-mast as he gasped and whined, struggling against the cuffs and the knowledge that this was it, Gavin was really going to kill him this time.
"Please don't kill me." He said again, this time his voice cracked into a sob, and biting his lip (to keep from moaning, screaming? He wasn't sure).
"Shh, shh.. I'm not going to kill you, Phoenix." Kristoph whispered again, and the air smelled like lavender as he slathered his hand with the lube that Nick kept in his bedside table, for a smoother stroke across Wright's sensitive cock. It was Nick's bottle, of course, but Kris was the only one of his lovers who'd ever used that scent - he'd long-since associated Kris with the smell of lavender, since they'd started this whole friends-with-benefits thing seven years ago.
He didn't realize he was crying until Kristoph leaned forward to lick the trail of tears from his cheek, peppering the place with light kisses, as Phoenix sobbed.
He's toying with me, Wright thought, weak and terrified. He's toying with me before he uses that knife to kill me.
"Relax, Phoenix. It will be painful if you don't relax." Kristoph purred, slicking down his fingers again, this time with the intent of sliding two into Wright. He wasn't just stretching him, it was like he genuinely loved fingering the other man, relishing the reluctant moans that Nick couldn't hold back when he crooked his fingers just right to stroke his prostate.
"Just get on with it-" Nick bit out. Just get on with it and kill me. I don't want this.
"Patience is a virtue, Wright." Gavin laughed. "I want to savor the moment."
A third finger joined the first two, and Phoenix arched into the touch as he squeezed his eyes shut, refusing to see any more of his tormentor. I'm dying, he thought. He'll kill me, and Larry will find me here on this bed, naked, and handcuffed.
"We are both free men now, ja? What more is there to celebrate?" Kristoph's voice filtered through the litany of don't kill me, don't kill me, that ran circles in Nick's head like a mantra. He reluctantly opened his eyes a bit, to see Kristoph stroking himself as he straddled Phoenix, smiling serenely with every glide of his fingers.
"I want to make it good for you, too, Phoenix. You deserve this celebration just as much as I do." Kristoph smirked, just a bit, and Nick choked back a sob.
"What does it matter? What does it matter, if you're just going to kill me?"
"For the last time, Wright, I don't intend to kill you. Not now, at least." Gavin rolled his eyes, before he took Phoenix's legs, and threw them over his shoulders, sliding into the other man slowly, an inch at a time, and grinning wickedly as he brushed Nick's prostate, clearly enjoying the quiet moans that slipped out through clenched teeth and bitten lips.
"You haven't changed at all in the few weeks I've been gone," Kris purred, running kissed down Wright's throat, and nuzzling him in a way that was almost affectionate, until he was buried inside of Nick, flush with his hips. "Oh, yes. I still fit perfectly, don't I?"
Nick couldn't even form words anymore, and he wasn't sure what he'd say if he could - should he beg for Kris to move already, or sob that he wasn't ready to die, wasn't ready to face the darkness that had taken so many he knew and loved.
Slowly, slowly, Kristoph pulled back, drawing a strangled cry from Nick, and a louder moan as he thrust in again. It was delicious to have a sweating, bound, terrified Phoenix Wright beneath him. He clearly didn't want this, but he was so terrified of dying that he wouldn't say no, because he still believed that Kris would kill him as soon as he finished, a belief that Gavin didn't bother correcting. It was far too entertaining.
"Is that good, Wright?" Kristoph whispered, nibbling lightly on his earlobe as he kept up the pace. "Your moans and whimpers are glorious, you know."
Nick was close (he was so painfully close) but he couldn't say anything, so filled with Kristoph (Kris' scent, his voice, his cock) that it felt there wasn't any Phoenix left in him. Kris was pleasure and anger and bitterness, and Nick was nothing but the fear of death, the constantly repeating knowledge that he was going to die - that after his climax, Kris would slit his throat for what he knew.
Finally, Gavin wrapped a hand around Wright's erection, stroking a bit too roughly as he came, claiming Phoenix from the inside-out, and stroking him through his own climax, the kind of rocketing orgasm that left him weak and shaking, totally unable to fight off an attacker (even if his hands weren't tied).
"Please... Trucy needs me..." Phoenix whispered again, now that he was certain the end was near. Slowly, wearily, Kristoph rolled off of him, and unlocked the cuffs with a key in his pocket. Exhausted, Nick let his arms fall to his sides.
"I'm not going to kill you, Wright." Kris rolled his eyes then. "I've said that approximately three times already."
"... Why?" Phoenix asked, reaching a single hand up, to wipe a tear from his cheek.
"It's more entertaining to keep you alive, of course." A cruel smirk, the tiniest glimpse of Kristoph's true nature. "Besides, I think you can be persuaded to stay in line."
The blond walked to the bedroom door, and favored Nick with a last glance over his shoulder.
"If you try to get me convicted again, I'll let everyone know about that forged evidence you used during your trial."
"You know about that...?" Nick asked, honestly a little impressed. Kris smiled.
"I don't think the judge will accept anything short of jail time for another case of forgery, Wright. You said yourself, that Trucy needs you."
It wasn't until he left, until Nick began to decompress, that he realized he'd just been sexually assaulted. It was easy to ignore when he thought he was going to die, but not so easy to ignore, now that he was awake, alert, and very much alive. No matter how close they'd been in the past, Wright definitely didn't want that tonight. Would Kristoph have stopped if he'd asked him to? He was being so gentle the entire time, it was hard to reconcile with the fact that the same man had just threatened him with blackmail.
The same man was guilty of murder.