Just A Sip.
It Couldn't Hurt.
Diego Armando X MiaFey
Author's note: This was requested by Bitter-Chan! I really hope that I do a good job on this and I've tried really hard to make the characters as in character as I possibly can, considering these two are not my specialty. I love writing requests, and so if any one else has a request before I come up with the first chapter of the third installment of the 'Perfection' series, please PM me and let me know!
And I don't own Phoenix Wright or any of it's characters...blah, blah, blah.
OK, TO THE STORY!
February 16th
Courtroom 3
10:45 AM
"A-about...fifteen minutes away...there was a shine. And my...my Dahlia...we swore that we'd...uhhh we'd love each other 'till death...and never betray each other. An' we buried somethin' underneath a tree...an' we made a promise...and if we lost faith in eachother...we'd..."
A trickle of blood appeared on the corner of his mouth.
"...Dahlia...I...I'm sorry Dahlia..."
"STOP THE TRIAL! "
Over the sounds of the dying man and the outburst of the young prosecutor across from her, Mia Fey felt her entire body go numb. She could hear the blood rushing in her ears as her eyes fixated on the sight that she could not tear away from. Terry Fawles slumped down, dead on the stand. She watched in horror as his body slumped to the floor...she saw Dahlia Hawthorne's wicked smile...
The shattering of a porcelain mug caught the rookie defense attorney's attention. She turned to see the furious man beside her, blood running down his hand, his coffee mug shattered in pieces around him.
"Mister...Mister Armando! You're-" she managed to get the words out, but not without her voice elevating to the pitch of the emotionally sensitive woman she was.
"Don't cry Kitten." Diego stated calmly, looking at her with his smoldering gaze and his solemn face. He knew her emotions well, this having been one of the few times they had really worked together, and the first time they had worked alongside each other in court. "You can't cry now. You can only cry when it's all over."
She clapped a hand over her mouth and nodded meekly to him. A tear trickled down her face, and Diego reached up to gently wipe it away with his uninjured hand. His thumb gently touched the space just below the corner of her left eye, and slowly traced it's way down to her cheek in one fluid motion.
"Mr. Armando, if you would be so kind as to get someone to clean up that mess you've made with your coffee cup, and get that hand of yours looked at, eh?" the judge questioned, interrupting the briefly tender moment.
"Of course, your Honor." Diego replied smoothly, motioning for Mia to start walking towards the court lobby. She didn't hesitate, as police started to file into the courtroom, she wanted to get as far away from the courtroom as possible. This wasn't working, she told herself. Her being a lawyer...she couldn't handle it. She had known, taking up this career-field, that unexpected things were bound to happen while she was defending some one. But...but no one in law school had ever mentioned something like this could ever occur! Sure, she could get queasy at times, but when people talked about what they had done, at least she didn't have to see them in the process of killing some one! She could handle that! But to see a man die in the courtroom...a man she was sure was innocent...! That wasn't right! She had failed in her job to protect her client...maybe she should just quit...
"Kitten?"
"I quit! That's it! I'll quit!"
Her sudden outburst took Diego Armando by surprise. He had no idea that the reason she was being so quiet was because she had been contemplating her resignation. Then again, he reasoned to himself, she was new at this game...probably hadn't seen much. But even he couldn't have predicted this...if he could have, she never would have been put through what she had just seen. She was a great rookie. There were moments in that trial where she came up with things that he never would have thought of. He couldn't let this one slip through his fingers...there was something else in her that he had never seen before too.
"Quit?" he repeated slowly, making the young woman turn her head...and turn several shades of red. Apparently she didn't realize she had spoken aloud.
"Ah...did I say that out loud?" she asked brushing her hair behind her ears.
"Well either that or I can read minds, Kitten." Diego replied with his trademark smug smile. They had reached the defense attorney's lounge, and he made a beeline for the bathroom door so he could wash out his bleeding hand. He left the door open as he continued to speak, partially through clenched teeth, over the running water and the pain.
"You really want to quit and leave me with old Grossberg?" he feigned a laugh through his pain. He had been rather stupid to smash a coffee cup like that, now that he thought it over more clearly...but at the time he had been so damn mad...
"You were fine before I came to the office." Mia retorted, opening the refrigerator and pulling out a bottle of water for her. She then went through the pantry above her in the little kitchenette they had in their break-room and pulled out a coffee mug from one of the many stocked up there.
"That was because I didn't know what it was like to have someone else there to make fun of Grossberg with." Diego stated flatly, as he came out of the bathroom, patting his hand off with a towel, and then proceeding to wrap the towel around his injured hand.
"Mr. Armando-"
"Kitten, what have I told you? Call me Diego." the dark-eyed man purred against Mia's ear. She flushed slightly, and thrust the coffee mug into his hands before quickly sitting down on the leather couch.
"Diego, then. That's an awfully horrible thing to say about Mr. Grossberg." Mia muttered, taking a sip of her water.
"Oh come on now, Kitten. Do you like standing in court with him breathing down your neck and complaining every five seconds about how his hemorrhoids are killing him? Honestly Kitten, if you like that kind of stuff, there's a hospital down the street from here. You could always be a nurse."
He was teasing her.
Her soft laughter filled the room; music to his ears.
He liked hearing her laugh at his comments; liked watching her face turn different shades of pink and red. She was something special all right...he had never delighted in just simple conversation with other women. But with Mia, things were different. She was an intellectual at heart. Brains and beauty...with a little bit of a feisty temper mixed in. This kitten had claws, and most certainly wasn't afraid to use them.
"Oh Mr. Arm...I mean, Diego, I could never handle a hospital." Mia replied as she set her bottle of water down on a coffee table in front of her.
"Of course. Why treat the dying when you can help keep people out of prison?" Diego replied smartly. This earned him silence though. He turned to see Mia looking down at the floor, her hands folded in front of her.
Ouch.
Wrong thing to say, Diego...
He scolded himself mentally as he awkwardly poured himself a cup with his left hand, scalding himself once or twice. Of course she would still be a little upset about what just happened in the courtroom. Having seen so many different things himself, Diego had learned to laugh things off until his mind could battle his own feelings out. But Mia...she was new. He continued to forget this...
The dark-haired lawyer walked over to the solemn woman and set his cup down in front of her on the coffee table. Bending down, he gently tilted her head up to look at him; his face somber and apologetic.
"...hey. I'm sorry, Mia." he whispered, his breath washing hot against her face.
She moved her head and looked up past him, at the white walls that were across from her, contemplating something. It looked as though she really had something she wanted to say to him, but there was uncertainty in her eyes. They stayed like this for several minutes and then she spoke her mind, her gaze still fixated on the wall...more on the clock though, that hung there by itself.
"Diego...do you think I should continue?"
He was taken aback, that was to say the least. But...after pondering for a moment what the best court of action was, he came up with a cryptic answer.
"Kitten...this isn't my question to answer. If you really have the drive to be a defense attorney, you'll have to have the strength to find your own answer to this." Diego murmured gently, making Mia turn towards him, her eyes curiously asking him to continue with his train of thought.
This was it.
He could either make or break his argument with this.
"Mia..." he paused, savoring the way her name rolled off of the tip of his tongue...and if he wasn't mistaken, she seemed to be doing the same thing for the moment. "Kitten...I'll be dead honest with you. If you were to quit, our law firm would be done with...because I'd sure as hell throw down my resignation alongside you. And Grossberg once told me that if I quit, the law firm would crumble..."
He paused when she emitted that little gasp of surprise.
"This world is cruel, Kitten. Nothing in life is ever fair, but everything always happens for a reason. You couldn't save Mr. Fawles back there...no one could have saved him but himself. You have to realize that, Mia. You couldn't convict Dahlia Hawthorne either. But she'll slip up again, Kitten. You'll see. Everyone gets their dues in the end. And when you put her behind bars, I'll be right there to congratulate you."
Diego took a deep breath before finishing the closing statements of his gentle argument. He looked at Mia as a battle in court. Unless she screamed 'objection', he would win.
"Mia. Only you can answer your question. I said that already. But if you can answer it now, you're one step closer to becoming a defense attorney of considerable strength. If you've got this idea that being a defense attorney makes you some sort of god in the law world, forget it. If the reason you became a defense attorney is to 'save people', you can forget that too. The only thing we do, Mia Fey, is help people get out of jail because they are truly innocent. If you fight because you believe in that, then there is nothing more you can do."
She looked at him, gentle eyes meeting passionate ones. And when she blinked, he was suddenly sitting on the couch next to her, one of his slightly calloused hands placed overtop both of hers.
"...can you answer your own question, Kitten?" he asked lowly, his voice a paradox of smooth and husky.
"Y-yes." she replied, wanting to lower her gaze shyly, but finding it rather hard to do so. His eyes were penetrating her soul, holding her in place, fixing her gaze upon him.
Him...Diego Armando...several years her senior. His lightly tanned face that was rarely more expressive than his eyes were. She could tell, by the short time they had spent together, when he was thinking, when he was about to laugh, when he was angry...but most of that emotion was held in his eyes, and in the way he smiled. She had never known a person to be so expressive in the way they smiled. He had a bitter smile, a secretive smile, a pleasant smile, a cocky smile, a slightly (if she wasn't mistaken in this assumption) seductive smile...the list went on and on. She found herself to be slightly embarrassed at realizing that in the same amount of time he had studied her thoroughly, she had been doing the exact same thing!
"Kitten..."
His voice brought her back out of her reverie and she startlingly found that his face was closer to hers than it had been when she had started thinking to herself. His breath washed over her face like the sun on her skin on a cool summer day: more welcomed than expected.
"I have a question to ask you, now."
"W-what happened to answering questions yourself, Mister Armando?" Mia questioned, attempting to keep her cool.
Her retort did not faze him, almost as if he was expecting her to say it. Instead he laughed, his soft, low chuckle sending pleasant shivers up her spine.
"Well, Kitten...this is one of those rare exceptions...where if I answered the question myself, I would probably be more off than I had realized I was...or I could be spot on. But answering it myself wouldn't help me if those two outcomes are my choices." he stated matter-of-factly.
"...more off...or spot on...are you...trying to gauge something?" Mia asked, her forehead crinkling slightly.
He loved it when she did that.
And just like she always would when she was thinking, Mia tilted her head to the side and barely bit her bottom lip.
"You are smart, Kitten. Now, can I ask you my question?" Diego asked, moving his face closer so that their noses touched as she turned back to face him. He relished in that small blush that appeared on her cheeks.
"Oh! Of course! W-what is it? I hope I can answer it...I'm not really good at answering my own questions though...maybe you should ask someone else...what about-"
He gently brought her lips to his with a smile as she rambled on incessantly. He felt her whole body tense up; freeze. As he thoughts of regret and doubt filled his mind, and he was about to move away from her, she suddenly relaxed; her eyes closing gracefully as the action sunk in.
His good hand moved up and in a single motion, entwined his fingers in her smooth hair, letting the feel of her, the taste of her, the scent of her perfume, overload his senses. If they never shared another kiss again, he would certainly never forget this one. But in his opinion, this would be the first of many...so he was surprised when she pulled away.
"...Diego...I'm...I'm glad you asked me that question." she stated after a moment. "I...I was asking that same thing in my head as well."
"And did I answer it?" Diego purred, moving closer so that his lips were against her ear.
"...only if I did." Mia whispered back.
Six months. It had been that long, half a year since their relationship had started, the day of the Fawles case.Their relationship was steamy and sultry, with him being able to call himself her lover. But there was more to it than that. Any man could sleep with a woman: there was no pride in that, at least not to Diego. No, he was her lover because there was more than a lustful feeling for her. He could say, without a doubt, that he loved Mia Fey. And while they hadn't exchanged those three little words yet to one another, he planned on doing it today...just as soon as he took care of some business.
He sat there waiting for her for what seemed like an eternity...and then she showed up. He didn't even have to look up from his papers to know she was there...he could hear every whisper from the men around him, getting closer and closer, until she showed up in front of him, her dainty little feet not making a sound. Diego looked up disdainfully at the figure of Dahlia Hawthorne, scoffing slightly to see that she had kept open that stupid parasol even in the building.
"Ms. Hawthorne." he stated curtly, as she sat down next to him. The courtroom cafeteria was bustling with people, lunch time was the best time to come here, he assumed, since there would enough people around, paying attention to her so that she wouldn't try something.
"How nice to see you again, Mister Armando." Dahlia stated cheerfully, her poison-laced smile etching its way across her face.
"Let's get to the bottom of this, Ms. Hawthorne. You don't need to put on your beauty face for me. I've seen your true colors." Diego commented, crossing his arms over his chest. This got a tad bit of a reaction out of her. He saw the flash of anger in her eyes, but instead, all she did was look as though she would cry any moment.
"W-what do you mean?" she asked, her voice trembling.
Diego scoffed underneath his breath, shaking his head. Fine. If she wanted to play it that way, he would let her. Just so long as they got down to what he really wanted to know, it didn't matter. "Never mind, Miss Hawthorne. Let's talk about the Fawles case, shall we? I want to hear everything you did." his voice was dark and threatening, and perhaps he might have scared her into talking, had a busboy not come up to him with a large mug of coffee in his hands.
"Here you are, Mister Armando, sir. Sorry it took so long, but I wanted to make sure it got brewed fresh." the boy stated, handing Diego the mug of coffee, which he sat down on the table. He turned slightly, fishing his wallet out of his pocket and handing a dollar to the boy as a tip. "Thanks kid. Keep the coffee coming." he replied before turning back, raising an eyebrow as Dahlia adjusted her hands in her lap. Shaking it off, Diego held the mug up to his lips and then paused, looking at the coffee interestingly.
"I don't know why I buy this stuff...it's horrible." he commented.
"You might as well drink it. You paid for it already, right?" Dahlia questioned innocently.
Diego smirked in her direction. That was the wisest thing she had said since they had sat down together.
"Eh...just a sip. It couldn't hurt."