Title: A Crying Shame
Character(s) or Pairing(s): Godot and Phoenix Wright. No pairings.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Adult language.
Summary: Seven years later, Godot has the chance to talk to a familiar face again. Spoilers for Trials & Tribulations: Case 5 and Apollo Justice: 1-4 to be safe.

Author's notes: First and foremost, an epic thank you to Sheamaru, who helped me out by giving her advice and very respected opinion throughout the development of this fiction, and furthermore making it possible in the first place, since it was our conversations and roleplays that packed my lunch and sent me along the path of wondering how Godot would react to Hobo Phoenix if he were around to see him. The product of which is hanging above this blurb.

To be honest a part of me feels a little guilty about giving Godot parole, since it looks a tad idealistic on my part. Hence why I put a lot of thought into this before putting my pen to paper, since I didn't just want to throw logic to the wind—clearly Godot wouldn't just be let out of jail with a lollipop and a goodbye. But from a logical standpoint considering all the facts and his character I feel he would be eligible for parole, though it may push the envelope in the PW-verse just a little bit, since their legal system is quite black and white. There is a multi-chapter fiction that is a spin-off of this to elaborate what happens next, but it's on hiatus, likely to be terminated due to lack of inspiration. If it ever becomes active again, I'll update it here as well, but I feel this one-shot can stand on its own just fine. Or normally I do, but at four A.M. everything looks terrible. I might break to pass out and continue updating my fanfiction account after some sleep. x.x;;;

Disclaimer: I don't own Phoenix Wright/Apollo Justice.

It was not difficult to pass through the thin film of reality and find oneself inside of a walking dream. To feel disconnected from himself and the people who slid past him in multicolored waves, like dropping into a foreign film halfway through—the artsy low-budget kind with subtitles—where the plot and characters were strangers he had to acquaint himself with in order to survive.

This, and the buzzing, unnatural feeling of staring at the world through rose-tinted panels, could make anybody feel as though they were in a dream. And like a dream, he was pulled in the right direction by a force much grander than his own understanding of what he was doing there on a late November night clear and cold as crystal ware, watching his breath freeze in icy puffs in front of his face as he tried to become accustomed again to seeing open streets instead of prison walls.

Perhaps it was just a stroll down good old memory lane, looking to see what had lasted during his sentence and what had been torn down and replaced by banks, retail shops or—though it made his throat close off with bile to think about it—Starbucks.

Then there, at the corner between a Chinese restaurant and an adult video store he caught a glimpse of a familiar face. Just a glimpse, what he thought could just be an urban mirage or a freak accident God created by copying a similar pair of eyes or noses on two unrelated faces still spurred him to follow after the stranger.

In this dream, apparently Godot was playing the role of a stalker. Trailing behind his mark a short distance away while he prepared himself for the moment of rejection when this man turned around and turned out to be somebody else. Four blocks and Godot was close to certain enough to give up and turn around—until his subject stopped at the entrance of a building whose engraved bronze directory shining greasily in the lamplight made him stop cold in his tracks.

"So, Godot, how long were you planning to shadow me without a hello?" The man asked the glass door in front of him, casting a faint light over his shoulder into the shadows where Godot stood.

That settled it. A face could be easily muddled by memory, but that voice he would've recognized anywhere. "Impressive. I wasn't aware you had eyes in the back of that spiky head of yours."

"I don't." He pointed a finger to their reflections in the glass. "With that mask on it's like being followed around by a traffic light."

Godot grinned. "How have you been, Wright?"

"It's a bit of a long story. Do you have time to hear it?"

"Does a man too impatient to kiss his wife goodbye before work find time to brew water with coffee grounds to replenish his weary soul?"

Phoenix finally turned around, and from up close the resemblance to the old defense attorney he once knew seemed even farther away than before, even with a tugging smile on his face. "Cryptic as ever, I see."

Godot couldn't help but frown, scanning him again precariously but still could not find a single memorable thing he could quip back with. At least this optical trick he didn't have to blame on his own eyes, but rather the sweats and ski cap Phoenix was wearing that made Godot feel overdressed in his waistcoat and tie. However he was confident that his manicured beard gave him character and projected an air of rugged mystery, nothing like the five 'o' clock shadow hanging over Phoenix's lower jaw: the carefree neglect of a man who could not bother himself to shave. Godot wanted to point out that he had been the one locked up for seven years, and yet still managed to keep himself presentable in his appearance. Instead he cocked his head back and scrutinized Phoenix on an angle. "Well? Aren't you going to invite me in?"

"Of course." Phoenix opened the door and made a grand gesture of sweeping out his other arm towards the doorway, ushering Godot out of the cold and into the sterile light of the building in front of them.

He had never actually been to the Wright & Co. Law Offices before, though Godot had always mused what it would be like. He imagined something clean and tasteful, a direct contrast to Grossberg's scotch-and-cigar stained headquarters—a garish expression of his wealth.

Yet in its simplicity he imagined it would radiate a sense of warmth that a client would feel comforted by. It had, after all, been her office once. But that was in the past, as many things were. It couldn't even be called Wright's law offices anymore. And Godot failed to ask Phoenix what he was now using the space for, or if he was just haunting it, as they walked up the stairs and down what smelled like a freshly-painted hallway in total silence.

"So, when did you break out?"

The sudden puncture of sound in the space between them caused Godot to twist his head around. "I'm sorry?"

"When did you break out?" Phoenix repeated. "I was under the impression you had gone to prison, after that case…"

"I did," Godot said, not waiting for him to continue and turned away. "Though my freedom was nothing quite as romantic as digging my way out from underneath the prison beast with just a spoon and my sweat." He hesitated, as if disappointed that that wasn't the case. "Parole. I got out on parole."

"Well then, a belated welcome back to the world outside. How does it feel?"

"If I had known I was going to bump into you tonight, I would've written a speech."

Phoenix chuckled, stopping short in front of another doorway isolated between two white walls. "Right this way, Prosecutor."

"The formalities are unnecessary, Wright. Not that I don't like the sound of it…" Godot trailed off as he slid past him into the office. "But I'm not a prosecutor anymore."

He faltered in his footsteps, blinking twice in sequence but not to adjust his eyes. The visor he wore—though tacky and more cumbersome than it was worth in his opinion—compensated beautifully with the ability to see in the dark. If he were about thirty years younger he could kick so much ass at nighttime hide and seek. It also gave him a clear sight of the office before Phoenix found the light switch behind him after several seconds of groping and fumbling against the wall.

"What a coincidence: I'm not a defense attorney anymore," Phoenix said after the lights flickered on, Godot turning around to watch him stroll into what he could hardly call an office of any kind, as opposed to a warehouse of foreign objects that now apparently occupied Phoenix's life as an ex-attorney.

Godot nodded vaguely in response, not really aware of his head moving of its own volition as he stared. "So I've heard."

"What does that make us, then? If I'm not a defense attorney, and you're not a prosecutor, we can't exactly call ourselves rivals anymore…"

"We're a couple of men reunited on the path of life with a lot of catching up to do."

Phoenix made a noise inside his throat. "Fair enough. You still drink coffee, right?"

"Until the day that I die," Godot responded, glancing down at his feet for a second to make sure he didn't trip over something; then when he looked up Phoenix had left the room without warning.

Godot exhaled sharply in response. How rude.

But it did leave him to his full digestion of the unkempt space. It looked like a clutter monster had slit its stomach open in there, bleeding out gag props which pooled in a jumbled mess from floor to ceiling, all except for the center of the room, where two plush couches and a small glass table were arranged for any visitors who dared to stay over long enough for a cup of tea.

He started running his hands over things out of sheer nosy habit from his lawyer days: the hula hoop propped up against the back of the couch, the plate of plastic spaghetti seeming to be levitated by a fork "hovering" in midair. He edged his way through the piles of props to the opposite corner of the room, where a tall plant was wedged. It looked so normal between the magician's trick box and the bookcase stocked with law and magic books—Godot was almost scared to touch it with the lingering thought in the back of his mind that it could do something bizarre like sing or spit out ink. Finally he worked up the nerve to pinch one leaf between his fingers, tug it down and watch it spring back into place with a sigh of relief. Thankfully it was just a plant.

That was when Phoenix reemerged from the hole he disappeared to, green bottle in one hand and a white mug in the other, the rich smell of coffee reaching Godot's senses and already breathed a new sense of revitalization he could feel all the way in the back of his skull.

"Here you go," Phoenix said. "I remembered you took it black."

"I'm touched." He accepted the cup from him, almost immediately feeling the warm drink seep through to his hand. He raised it up to his nose, appreciating the aroma at a more intimate angle before gulping it down. An acrid bitterness swept over his tongue and bit the back of his throat when he swallowed, all politeness tossed aside he had to splutter and cringe.

Phoenix laughed again, and for a moment Godot forgot his repulsion when he thought he saw the old Phoenix reappear before those exhausted eyes opened back up, and just like that, he was gone again.

"I'm sorry, I should've warned you it's kind of cheap."

"You can't possibly drink this."

"I don't. Not often anyway, I prefer to stick to the good stuff," Phoenix said brandishing the green bottle throttled loosely in his fist.

"Booze?"

"Grape juice."

"Ah."

Godot switched the mug to his other hand and glanced over his shoulder once again to acknowledge the clutter behind him. "You have quite an interesting collection of stuff here, Wright."

Phoenix in response glanced to the side as if it were the first time he ever noticed the mountain of junk before; then shrugged his shoulders. "Most of that belongs to my daughter, actually."

One of Godot's eyebrows quirked in response. "You have a daughter?"

"The second half of our talent agency," Phoenix explained—not that it answered the real question on Godot's mind, but he accepted it anyway without further question.

"I see. So that's what you've been doing for a J-O-B, lately."

"…Yeah, you could say that."

Godot watched Phoenix set his bottle down and lean his weight against the bookcase with his hands stuffed into his pockets, a wistful look passing over his face. "It's been a long seven years."

"Seven years is a long time," Godot agreed.

"You've heard about what happened, didn't you?"

The subject was bound to come up sometime. Even still Godot had to gather his words carefully before he answered in restraint: "I have. Hell has frozen over many times, but I don't believe it's ever stopped cold quite like this before."

"Because the great Phoenix Wright forged evidence in court?"

"Please. You wouldn't forge so much as a signature in a false identity contest." He took another sip of his coffee, forgetting for a moment that it tasted like piping hot crap until he was fighting the urge to spit it back out—but that wouldn't look so cool. "You never turned to forgery when you and I were exchanging blows with the fists of our intellect inside the ring of the courtroom. And if you didn't resort to it back then, I know for sure you wouldn't now."

Phoenix's eyes seemed to disappear underneath the brim of his ski cap, leaving behind his smirk. "You're one of very few who believe me."

"I know somebody else who would. But she seems to have been completely exorcised from this place."

"...Time often does that to people. But what can you do? One day you wake up and you've drifted apart."

"From your thoughts?"

Phoenix didn't say anything so Godot invited himself to continue, propping his elbow on top of his opposite wrist as he prepared himself for a lecture. "If you changed into a decent suit and bothered yourself to shave, you'd look like the same Phoenix Wright from seven years ago, but your insides appear to be as hollowed out as an empty mug, leaving behind no trace of the defense attorney I knew."

"I already told you I'm not a defense attorney anymore."

"It's not just about being a defense attorney. It's about being a man, a man who keeps his back straight and stays strong until it's all over. You came so far, I saw you become the man she wanted you to be, was it really so easy to give up the ghost?"

"What do you want me to say, Godot?"

"I want to hear you explain yourself, Wright. You owe it to me—and to her as well. When did you let yourself go? Was it too painful to stay connected to your old life while you yourself had died?" A sudden thought crossed Godot's mind, wrenching up a feeling from his impatience that was almost hopeful. "Or are you just wearing your wretchedness on your beggar's sleeve so nobody can see through to what you're really up to?"

Phoenix turned away, entertained by something in the corner of the room. "Interesting words coming from a man who wears a mask," he said slyly.

Godot wasn't so amused. He didn't know why his stomach bottomed at that response: he wasn't expecting anything so he shouldn't have been disappointed, but that didn't console the hardening of his insides. "All men wear masks. But masks don't cut through to your morals or your honor, those you have to throw away. You still haven't explained this to me, what about that case cast you into the steely clutches of a bottomless hell. Why did you give up? Now look at yourself."

"I have looked at myself for a very long time after that case, Godot. I was disbarred for a crime I did not commit; to make matters worse my defeat was at the hands of a seventeen year-old greenhorn. I became a joke after that—"

"Wrong. You would've been despicable if you had actually done it, but you're still a disgrace because of the gutless individual that case has made you. For disrespecting Mia…" his sentence broke off and his lips pressed into a thin line, threatening to disappear altogether. "I should have never changed my mind about you, Trite."

A horrible pause inflated between them until Phoenix, much to his irritation, smiled. "So we're back to that now, huh? Does that mean you hate me again?"

"To the contrary, Trite, I nothing you. You aren't worth an emotion. Even your memory I hope will in time be able to scrubbed from my thoughts the way you scrubbed us from yours."

"…If that's what you think, Godot."

He imagined punching Phoenix in the face, the stubble on his jaw scraping against the skin of his palm once the two connected. Or tossing his cheap coffee in his face, like he used to back when they were in court. Something to get his point across, something to make Phoenix feel sorry, feel anything that broadcasted on that impassive face he now wore like a battle scar.

There was nothing more to say. Godot replaced his mug on the nearest surface and twisted around to walk away, anger still twisting his stomach in impossible knots. He was halfway out the door when Phoenix's voice followed after him. "Remember seven years ago when you told me that you yourself had come back from the dead?"

Godot stopped, the weight of his visor suddenly seeming to shift, become heavier where it rested on the bridge of his nose. "What about it?"

"Nothing except, well, I don't think either one of us is very alive. The past has made ghosts of both of us. But I have something that forces me to remain among the living. What is it that keeps you here, Godot, if it isn't revenge anymore?"

"…I have no obligation to respond to that."

He took one last look at Phoenix, sick to see him with the same expression, seemingly unfazed by everything he said. It only made him want to be even more ruthless, even colder than the air in the night outside Phoenix's disgrace of a law office…

"You're little more than a ghost, Trite. No—" Godot gripped the doorknob so hard his knuckles turned white under his skin, trying to push enough energy through his hand to crush it. "You're even deader than she is."