Written for a kinkmeme prompt that double dared me to make this pairing work.
Title comes from the play 'Waiting for Godot' by Samuel Beckett. Full quote: "They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more."
Waking was a long, fuzzy, weightless sort of process. He slipped back into the world so gradually at first that he had no concept of how much time was passing: hours, days... years. In the end, it was the smell of coffee that brought him out of it, a shitty cafeteria brew, not nearly so rich or dark as he'd like. Still, it did the trick.
He blinked his eyes open, heart pounding. His vision was... skewed, everything was just a bright blur that hurt to look at and he shut his eyes again pretty quick. Opened his mouth instead, as he heard a nurse come rushing in.
"Dahlia... Hawthorne," Diego croaked, throat feeling like it was cracking apart under the strain of speaking. "She did this..."
Her name was the first word out his mouth. He was shushed and fed ice chips and fell back asleep again for another few hours, and all in all it took a little while more before he could carry out any real conversation. Before he learned about Mia.
After, during the hours and hours and hours of tests and physical therapy, he kept thinking about that. He knew it made no sense, was pure superstition, but he felt like if he'd said Mia's name, maybe things would be different.
-xxx-
To continue the theme: the first thing Diego Armando did after his release was to arrange a visit with one Dahlia Hawthorne, Death Row inmate.
He had plenty of other business in the works, of course. He'd been reading up about what had happened in these lost five years, about how Mia had finally taken Dahlia down... and how she'd been taken down in turn, years later. There was a common thread between the two incidents - Phoenix Wright, her apparent protege and the heir to her lawfirm, not to mention supposed whiz kid lawyer, taking down big names left and right. He hated the guy instantly, all the more for his success, because he'd already failed where it mattered the most - and now, he and Maya were by all accounts thick as thieves. Diego'd never met Mia's sister, but he knew how much she loved her, and he knew she'd be next in line for the title of Master, so he wanted to protect her. Starting the preparations for becoming a prosecutor was as much about that as it was about testing this Trite character, or at least that's what he told himself.
But none of that was really Diego Armando. That was all the work of this new person he'd become, escapee from hell into a reality that often felt worse. When he took up the mask, he decided he might as well make a full switch, and began calling himself Godot. Paradoxically perhaps, it felt less like a lie.
But visiting Dahlia, that wasn't Godot. That was Diego, brash and furious and five years behind, and - worst of all - it made him feel better.
Not because the sight of Dahlia behind bars was satisfying. It wasn't - it came too late, and in any case she was still smiling that sugar-sweet smile, smug and vicious as ever. Even knowing it had always been a facade, her mask gave the impression that prison hadn't affected her at all.
"Oh, if it isn't Grandpa Robot, come to visit," she trilled innocently, a predatory glint in her eyes. "Truly, I'm honored."
"Can it, witch," Diego ordered. Her smile only grew.
"How are you feeling?" she asked. "I heard tell you had a rough recovery."
"Bitter," he bit out. He gripped the travel mug in his hand as hard as he could, and stared her down. Everything was tinted red now; he'd need a new metaphor for the kind of rage he felt at the sight of her.
"Ah," Dahlia said lightly. Her smile twisted, became wretched and ugly and raw. "I'm familiar with that one."
-xxx-
If it had been a one-off, he could explain it. It would, however detestable, make sense. He'd needed to see for himself - perfectly understandable, and now he could get back to business protecting Maya.
If it had been a one-off.
Godot developed a routine: once a week. Once a week, he would visit Dahlia, would sit across from her in an empty little room and speak through a grate in the glass between them. He'd sit across from her and counter her sly innuendo with casual flirting of his own (he'd calmed since the first time), and he'd wish to god he could wring her neck.
Her eyes gleamed, like she knew what he was thinking. Like she was thinking something similar.
The visits weren't long, and the conversation wasn't especially deep, but the problem was that they existed at all and Godot didn't know why. He just... couldn't stay away for long. It felt horrendous, seeing her clear skin and shy smile, he could feel the bile rising in his throat at the sound of her voice, there was no reason he should subject himself to this but he just couldn't stop.
He hated her. He hated her so much. But maybe - in a truly twisted way - he needed her, too.
Dahlia was five years behind, just like him. Her existence now, however blase her smile, was nonetheless a mere shadow of what her life had once been. Most importantly, she too was still all wrapped up in Mia Fey. The three of them had been all tied up together once, in the worst way - now, Dahlia too seethed daily at the thought of Mia's death by Redd White's hands. She too dedicated her revenge to a ghost. Her reasons were different, her goals the diametric opposite of his own, but there was nonetheless a link to be had there.
And it didn't hurt that she too hated Phoenix Wright.
-xxx-
"He's an ignorant fool, who gets by on pure luck."
"He always was. All 'Dollie' this and 'my love' that, god how I wish I'd managed to kill him."
Godot stopped ranting. Favored her with a sardonic eyebrow.
"And the fact that your failed attempt landed you here has no bearing on that, I presume?"
"Oh," she hummed, all delicate little shark's smile. "Well, I suppose that would be a bonus. But, honestly, I'd do it anyway, just to be rid of the annoyance."
Godot laughed. Dahlia smirked at him through the glass, and he laughed at her joke about murdering Mia's apprentice, and he came horrendously close to making a joke himself about letting her out to finish the job.
His stomach rebelled and he excused himself to go vomit in the toilet. The act of retching pulled at his gut, made his throat burn and his eyes water; he had to take off his mask to clean the inside panel. As he wiped it with a paper towel, Diego watched his fuzzy figure in the mirror above the sink, thinking about Dahlia Hawthorne. He wanted to shoot her in the heart. He wanted to scratch her eyes out. He wanted her gone, now, she was poison personified and she'd already murdered him once. He didn't need to let this happen again, not when it would be so easy to walk away.
After replacing his mask, he returned to the visitor's room. Dahlia snickered at something he said, and tossed her hair over her shoulder, and the red of it combined with the hues from his mask was a bloody sort of beautiful.
Godot wanted to wrap his fingers through it and yank it from her head.
-xxx-
Dahlia's execution date was coming up.
Godot's visits were increasing.
At first it was just a matter of shifting days. One week he'd come on Friday, the next on Tuesday. The next on Sunday. And then the fourth, he came on Saturday, so it was technically twice in a week but he was busy with investigating Morgan, and prepping for another trial against Phoenix Wright; of course the attorney would appeal once he realized he'd been impersonated. But then he had some unexpected free time on Thursday, so he went again...
Twice a week became the new standard, and he was staying longer. Sometimes, they sat in silence for upwards of an hour, just watching each other. Fantasizing, vicious end after vicious end. Dahlia, no doubt, had the advantage - both experience and natural ruthlessness were on her side. Godot in turn was hampered by the certain knowledge that, in just a month, Dahlia would be hung. It didn't leave much room for imagination.
"Kitten," he purred one day, over a cup of #345. One of his bitterest brews, and a favorite for Dahlia days. "Do you think you could be persuaded to kill yourself for me? Something more creative than a rope."
"Your cup is looking low," Dahlia returned. "Want me to top - it - up?"
They smiled at one another through the glass, and on a whim, Godot reached out a hand. He touched his fingertips lightly to the glass directly before her throat. Thought about squeezing.
Dahlia leaned in close herself, smiling coyly, and snapped her teeth together. He could almost feel them latch around his knuckles, sink down to the bone and refuse to let go.
"Ah, we understand one another."
-xxx-
"It would have been better if I had killed her," Dahlia said one day.
"Yes," Godot agreed without hesitation. He'd been to see the man who murdered his love, and it was a pathetic sight. Dahlia at least was a predator; White was a vulture at best, swooping in whenever he spotted someone else's kill. There was no cleverness, no chilling determination, none of that edge of obsession. Mia had been on his trail, and he'd simply panicked.
With Dahlia, it would have been personal. It would have been a kiss of death, rather than a clumsy lashing-out. Mia deserved that. If she had to die at all, she should have died at the hand of someone who knew what she was worth, who respected her no matter how twistedly.
It would have made his own obsession more fitting.
"Yes, you should have," Godot sighed. "Instead, you killed me, and what a waste that was. Didn't even stick."
"Oh, I don't know if I'd call it a waste," Dahlia said. She smiled at him, and stroked a finger down the glass. "You're much more interesting now."
A shiver ran down his spine.
"...and besides," Dahlia's eyes lit up. "You should have seen how it wrecked her. You'd have loved it, trust me."
She was poison, poison, poison, but he did.
It was the terrible thing about him: even now, hearing that Mia had been hurt so much by his death filled him with a warm flush of emotion. He didn't like her pain, not the way Dahlia did; but knowing she'd cared deeply enough to feel that pain made him just as happy, and so just as much a monster in the end.
"I hate you," he commented, and drained his mug.
"Aw, I hate you more," Dahlia cooed. She was grinning wide, obviously pleased at the hit she'd landed.
"I hate you most," Godot retorted, and blew her a kiss.
-xxx-
"Speak to your mother lately?"
"I was wondering when you'd bring that up," Dahlia said. She was smiling, but it was colder than usual. "Reluctant to bring business back into this?"
"If you're suggesting seeing you is a pleasure, I'd think again," Godot scoffed. He was grateful for the mask, as it hid his difficulty meeting her eyes. The truth was... she was right. He thought it was because of their mutual obsessions with Mia, their equal-but-opposite hatred and love. Maybe it was simply the fact that she was the only one in his current life who knew what kind of man he had once been, but he felt like Dahlia understood him. He felt like, against all common sense, he could relax around her. Bringing his investigation into these visits was uncomfortable, somehow. But Morgan was living under the same roof now. It had to be done.
"Well, in that case..." Dahlia gazed off into the distance, ran a hand through her hair. "Yes, I've had several chats with mother dearest. She is a bore, isn't she? Still, she does have a few decent ideas, upon occasion."
"Care to share exactly what she said that was so interesting?"
Dahlia outright laughed at that.
"Oh, don't worry," she promised. She leaned in close to the glass, so close that her lips almost brushed it as she spoke. He leaned in too, to hear her whispered words. "You'll find out very soon."
There was that shiver again.
"I'm impatient," he confessed, voice just as low.
"Oh," and Dahlia's eyes just glittered, cold and cruel and cheerful, sending every nerve in his body alight with an awful thrill, "I know the feeling."
-xxx-
Prosecutors, Godot reflected, not for the first time, really had far too much power. It was almost sickeningly easy to arrange matters so that he could sit in on Dahlia's execution. Even with his many, many visits over the past year, no one questioned whether he should be given access to such an important moment.
Dahlia walked into the room in handcuffs, but otherwise unrestrained. She was moving forward with dignity, taking purposeful steps. No cowering from this cat; her claws were out till the end.
She walked straight up to Godot and pressed her body against his. Her arms locked behind her back, she made no move to hold him, but simply lifted herself up on her toes and kissed him. She used teeth, no surprise there - bit her way into his mouth more than anything, and the swipes of her tongue that followed were more proprietary than soothing.
Godot kissed back. Of course he did: this wasn't any kind of romance, this was an attack, and he wasn't going to let her win. He had the advantage of hands, and he used them, gripping one hard to her hip, the other fisting in her hair, pulling her head back. First to a better angle, easier for him to lean down into her and lick down into her and kiss her hard enough to bruise for days - then before she could turn the tide against him, he pulled her hair again, yanking her head back to a painful angle.
The executioner was staring, but he hadn't made any move to interrupt them. Disgraceful.
"And what was that, kitten? I didn't think you were the sort to curl up in laps and purr."
"I can purr with the best of them," Dahlia replied, arching her hips against his sensuously. When she smiled he noticed a spot of darker red on the red of her lower lip - no doubt his blood. "But this was just a little farewell revenge. Petty really, kissing her boy, but I'm out of time for the good stuff."
Godot let go of her and stepped back. The executioner moved forward at last, hesitatingly grasping her elbows and pulling her away. Still, he paused only a few steps back, as if waiting for Godot's go-ahead.
The prosecutor didn't give it yet. Instead, he wiped a hand across his mouth, concealing a grimace at the pain the motion brought. He felt sick, and stupid besides. Of course kissing her back had been the wrong choice. As soon as he'd done that, she'd already won. She'd made him unfaithful, in her final moments on earth, and he hadn't even realized until she pointed it out. He'd been proud of himself for winning, he'd liked it. The thought made him nauseous. All the more because it wasn't just a product of this moment. It had been months now, that he'd kept coming back to Dahlia, kept talking to her, couldn't stay away - and how was that not a betrayal, too?
In a way, he'd been betraying Mia since he first woke up and spoke the wrong name.
"Please, go die already," Godot urged. The executioner took that as his signal, and started pulling Dahlia over to the hanging platform. He pulled her up on the stand, put her head through the noose - she didn't resist at all throughout the entire process.
"I have to admit," he said, as the executioner tightened the noose and stepped away to hold the lever. "That kiss, while delightful, didn't exactly live up to my expectations for your mother's plots."
Dahlia swallowed hard, staring at the trapdoor beneath her feet - but then she took a deep breath, and lifted her chin high.
"Oh, you haven't seen anything yet," she said, and finished with a nod at the executioner. The lever went down; she went down.
She swung for a little while at the bottom. Didn't die right away. Godot smiled, watching.
-xxx-
A month later, she laughed as he stabbed her.
-xxx-
In the trial, she gave no sign of their relationship, such as it had been. No mention of his visits, of their friendly words and the hatred beneath, of the kiss she'd given him before her death. She hardly glanced his way, too busy bragging about her successful vengeance.
Even in the end, she didn't care about him. She was too focused on the ghost of Mia Fey, standing tall and proud next to Phoenix Wright, delivering the final proof that all Dahlia's murderous efforts had been in vain.
And, strangely enough, that eased Godot's guilt about the meetings. About the kiss, the words exchanged, the hours spent - because really, in the end, it was never about each other. From the very beginning, Godot had been drawn to Dahlia because she was his reflection, his mirror opposite with Mia in the middle between them. She was his lover and Dahlia's greatest enemy, she was everything to both of them in completely opposite ways. They were both removed from action five years ago and Mia was taken away from them and they couldn't handle it alone, that was all. His other crimes, those were still his and he'd pay for them starting now, but this, this was something he could forgive himself for. All Dahlia saw in him, and all he ever saw in her, was a way to the person at the center of both their hearts.
Mia. It was only ever Mia.
For him and Dahlia both.