Klavier Drives, Phoenix Calls Shotgun-Chapter I:
When someone claims that they could “do this in their sleep”, they mean to say “I am an expert at this and could do it very well at any time”.
Phoenix could literally hit the snooze in his sleep. This was quite a feat to do on a cell phone alarm, where you have to press tiny buttons a few times, but he could do it. And apparently he had, several times, because instead of rising to an obnoxious series of high pitched beeping, he woke up to the rhythmic pounding of his daughter’s feet on his back.
“Dad! Dad! You’re gonna be late!” she warned as she used his spine as a trampoline.
He just groaned, muttered something about selling Trucy to the gypsies, and put his pillow over his head to block out the yelling. This didn’t work very well, since the cell alarm went off on the phone inside the pillow case. He reached in and flipped it off again.
“Phoenicholas James Wright,” The girl started pissed-offedly, not that she was actually certain of his middle name. ((actually, my dad’s initials are PJW, I… Couldn’t help myself.)) “I can’t believe this. You’ll be late and lose your job and we’ll have to live in a box and I’ll starve to death. Is… Is that what you want?” She tried as hard as she could to sound pitiful and make her voice crack at the end, but it hadn’t worked. At least the snoring pillow didn’t think so.
Reaching into the pillow case as roughly as she could, Trucy yanked the old cell phone out and put one hand on her hip as she blipped through the menus. “Fine, sleep today. I’ll just set the thing to vibrate tomorrow, if that’ll make you wake up faster.”
The lump under the pillow and blanket twitched violently like it had just been struck. Phoenix stretched out like a cat before sitting up cross-legged. He glared at Trucy with his dark eyes. A few months earlier Phoenix must have bumped the “Volume” tab in his pocket, setting it to vibrate. He hasn’t noticed this until 6:40 the following morning, when it went off in his eardrum. It felt just enough like a taser to make him fling it across the room screaming like a little girl: The birth of the masking-taped battery tab.
He held out his hand and forced a fangy, sour smile to crack across his red face. “That isn’t fair. Why can’t you forget things like a normal person?”
Trucy beamed and tapped the phone to the top of her head, indicating the vast knowledge within. “An elephant never forgets,” she pointed out.
He reached out and pulled Trucy into a teddy bear hug and held it for a moment to kiss her forehead before yanking the phone out of her hand. He peered at it for a moment, then bonked her over the head with it. “Remember now?”

Still tired from chasing his daughter around the apartment hitting her with a phone in his boxers, Mr. Wright caught his breath. He should probably check to see if the old thing could still work, even if he hadn’t hit her that hard. Pulling the phone out of his pocket, it looked fine, but so much button-to-scalp action had brought the phone to the “Calendar” menu. A really old one.
Only one day was marked, so he clicked on it. He sat, totally still, for a full two minutes before tipping his head back on the headrest and putting his hand over his eyes.
How could I have let myself forget this…?

Chapter II
Work was just peachy. Phoenix’s poker table was collecting dust, as almost nobody had challenged him since the whole “Shadi getting brained” thing. Almost nobody came into the frigid restaurant to eat cold soup anymore after the whole “Russian waitress who wasn’t really Russian trying to frame him getting juice’d upside the head” thing. Oh, and Welch’s had gone out of business.
He didn’t even know why he bothered showing up to work anymore. At least not this early. I mean, come on! Who comes to a Russian restaurant to listen to shoddy piano at 8am, anyways?
But today Mr. Wright had gotten one request, a rarity for the hoodie-garbed musician A family who came to the restaurant to celebrate some little kid’s sixth birthday was his first customer in a while. He didn’t even get to the “Dear *insert name here*” part in “Happy Birthday” when the brat started crying. He had gotten off the bench to go over and comfort the guy when the very angry father kicked him in the groin so hard the person charting the Wright family tree never again had to add another branch.
So now the ex-Ace rode curled up in the fetal position on the bus seat like some homeless person. “Sir?” asked a frail looking old lady with a handbag and a sack of groceries, there’s always one. “Are you quite alright? Do you need anything?” her trembling old voice was concerned.
“Y-yes…” squeaked the shivering lump “Can you tell me who the hell wears steel-toed boots to a restaurant?”
The old lady did an old lady nose-upturned “Hrmph!” and got off the bus huffily muttering something about urban folk and their language and the nerve of young people like an old person with no character depth would. Phoenix mustered the strength to struggle into an upright seated position. He hated doing this, but it was the only way. He needed to regain his composure if he wanted this to work. Letting out a wavery sigh, he watched the houses zip by

Klavier Gavin rolled off his couch and into a wriggling mass of swearing, hung-over, purple-suited drill-hair. Huh. He didn’t remember falling asleep. He did, however remember the night before he had decided to play a street corner. He hadn’t been sure, even then, why he decided to lug his guitar out in the cold autumn night and play. He didn’t need money. Was he craving attention again? The feel of his fingers plucking hard, metal strings? Or of how he would lose himself entirely to the music, the sound of the guitar dancing with his voice through the alleyways in the dark? He needed that; it was like air to him.
It had ended when some fangirl asked for an autograph and said something about how he used to be her favorite guitarist and that she wanted to have his babies. The past-tense made him go home to cry his eyes out like a little kid. A little kid with booze.
Klavier had closed his eyes to better wallow in self pity when the doorbell rang. It startled him so badly he jumped to his feet and was instantly hit with vertigo wooziness like a ton of bricks and fell back, breaking a coffee table.
He opened the door with a bit too much force before leaning heavily on it, obviously the only think keeping him upright. “Huh-Hallo?” he stammered gruffly at the figure on his porch. He couldn’t tell who it was; it was just a silhouette against the bright afternoon sun that was causing his head to scream in agony. He tried to squint a little to block out the sun and get a better look, but his uselessly dilated pupils would have none of it. The bastards…
“Eh, hi.” Said the figure meekly “I know this is… This is sudden. I mean, I hardly know you, but…” he trailed off a bit before turning his head to Klavi again “I need a favor.”
“Keh?” muttered Klavier, now recognizing the figure as Phoenix Wright. What could he want? “Was d’you want?”
“Well, um, I need to be somewhere by tomorrow, but it’s a really long trip and I don’t exactly have a car. You’re the only guy I sorta know that has one, and since I hear noodle stands get awful gas mileage…” he explained, forcing a nervous chuckle at the end.
“So,” Klavier was kind of lost, he raised an eyebrow. “You need my car?”
“No, no…” said Phoenix, who was getting more and more uncomfortable. “I… I can’t drive.”
“You want me to drive you? Like your, ach…” He stopped and put his hand over his eyes, rubbing at his temples with his thumb and middle finger. When totally awake, he could speak perfect English with an awesome adorable accent. Why was he tripping over words so much now? It was getting really old really fast. Dammit, no matter how many years he didn’t use it, German was still the language his train of thought used as fuel. “Treiber! No, wait. Chauffer! Like that!” he said, pointing to Phoenix when he got it right. Victory!
“Yeah…” Phoenix muttered warily, pushing the finger away. “I mean, if you can drive. Are you okay? You seem… Off.”
Klavier raised his hand to shush the man in the doorway. “Ja, no worries. Just need a coffa cuppee, I’ll be okay.” Was it possible to wash puke out of a doormat? He didn’t want to find out.
“Uh-“
“I will pick you up at six, then! ‘Bye!”
“Wait!”
Mr. Gavin slammed the door on Wright and ran to the nearest sink.