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Phoenix promises himself he’ll take Larry back to his place after the bar closes. There's nothing else left to do and as long as he gives himself a purpose, he can make it to sunrise.
He says it out loud a few times to really commit to it – to himself, mostly, but like he’s talking to Larry, when he says “You’re sleeping at mine,” or “It’s not too far of a walk, you’ll be okay,” or “If you even think of trying to drive like this –” because Larry was still in the throes of being absolutely shitfaced, “ – I’m calling your mom. No, I’m calling your dad.” And then Larry would curse his bloodline or something, he’s not really sure – it’s approaching the small hours of the morning too quickly for him to be paying attention.
Edgeworth’s (former) co-workers had filtered out around midnight as they actually had work the next day – including Gumshoe, who gave Phoenix a look on his way out that was too knowing for someone who was supposed to be a fool. Phoenix had caught sight of his grey eyes and, ever the coward, ducked his face into his glass rather than meet the detective’s eye.
But Larry is currently jobless, as far as Phoenix knows, and he’d closed the office for the week or until his brain starts working again, so he moves Larry to sit on the sofas in the corner of the bar where they hunker down with a jug of water.
Larry alternates between chatting animatedly about Edgey, drinking long pulls of water like he’s trying to drown himself, and muffling his cries in his hands whenever he works himself up into a state. The bartender approaches them a few times like she wants to ask them to leave, but Phoenix gives her a hard look anytime she gets too close, and she scurries away.
He feels bad, a bit. She's young. But so is he.
Larry's car sits in the parking lot and Phoenix snatches his keys away, closes Larry’s tab and gives an extra large tip to the bartender for not calling security on them. She looks empathetically at him when he says that they’d have to leave a car there overnight, and then he's dragging Larry out the door and through the dark streets to his home.
The fresh air seems to revitalize Larry, at least. He stands up straight, walks on his own in an almost-straight line, stops crying (mostly). He still wobbles, his eyes are still a little unfocused, but he’s talking in complete sentences.
A lot of complete sentences.
“It's a really nice night,” Larry says, and then, “Good for a walk,” when he is met with silence, and then, “I gotta go on more walks. I’m always saying I’m gonna go on more walks, and that I gotta try to find hiking trails and stuff around the city but I just never get around to it.” He stops to look up and examine a dead streetlight, some ancient thing in this ancient neighbourhood Phoenix called his home. You couldn’t see it at night, but Phoenix knew the glass covering the bulb had been smashed to pieces years ago. The other streetlamps weren’t in much better shape – some dim and others perpetually flickering. Larry smiles at him, and Phoenix only realizes he is frowning now because it deepens on his face. “We could take another walk ’round the block, get some steps in!”
“Absolutely not,” Phoenix grinds out.
“Aww, c’mon Nicky!” Larry’s raised voice makes Phoenix wince, “You’re just cranky ’cause you’re sleepy and drunk.”
“I think those are pretty good reasons to be cranky, Larry.”
“Man, you were always such a buzzkill by the end of a night out in college. I wondered if you’d changed, but I guess gettin’ old only makes things like that worse.” He laughs, too loud, “Gonna be honest, been awhile since I’ve had a few drinks. Tried to have the usual number of shots I’d tank in frats and threw up in the bathroom. Free reset, though! Those cops just kept buyin’ me rounds!”
Larry could never shut up, but it was always worse when he drank and he’d start rambling in that way that annoyed Phoenix, who was usually nursing his own alcohol-induced headache that inevitably morphed into a body-malfunctioning hangover in the morning. Now, though, Larry rambled in that way that meant he was nervous and buzzing with energy that only ever seemed to land him in trouble. And Phoenix is stuck with both him and the ache behind his eyes that reminds him of late nights out a lifetime ago, when he dreamed of making art for the rest of his life. He thinks of the watercolours collecting dust in his closet.
“Larry,” Phoenix snaps, “I wanna go home and sleep. I’m tired.”
Larry’s smile loses some of its sunshine, “Uh, right. Of course. No worries,” Larry nods roughly, like he’s affirming something to himself. He pats the pole of the dead streetlamp and smiles up at all the broken glass he can’t see. Or maybe he was trying to pick out some stars in the light-polluted sky. “It’s just, y’know, it’s so… y’know. Nice night! Makes ya think life is worth living. ’Cause there's so much you'd miss. Right?”
“Can’t miss something if you’re dead,” Phoenix bites out without thinking, and immediately ducks his head to hide from his own shame and horror at himself.
He can’t stand to look at Larry’s face right now, and Larry’s voice only strengthens the thought, small and broken when he says, “D-don't say that. Don’t scare me.”
Phoenix allows himself one breath to set his face in stone, then looks back to Larry and says, “You don’t have to worry about me, Larry. I’m not going anywhere.” He tries to soften his features, hopes the dark makes him look less tense. “I promise.”
Larry’s bottom lip pushes up in a pout, all wobbly with the corners of his mouth pulling down like a sad dog. It was that face he got when he couldn’t read someone, which was most of the time, and he couldn’t figure out if he was supposed to be upset or not. But Larry was not a difficult person to lie to, and Phoenix had learned a very, very long time ago – back when they were still dealing with older kids shoving them over the playground’s asphalt – exactly what to say to make sure Larry didn’t cry over him.
That was sort of what Larry looked like now, like they were back by the sinks in the boys’ bathroom where he watched Phoenix spray antiseptic onto his own bloody knees and bandage them with an efficiency and aloofness that confused Larry enough to distract him from all the stupid empathy in his stupid heart.
“And you…” Phoenix injects some doubt into his voice, as if he was actually worried Larry would ever do anything to hurt him even unintentionally, “You wouldn’t…”
Larry practically jumps, stunned out of his sadness, and he marches right up to Phoenix to grab him by the arms. “No way!” He shakes Phoenix, “Don’t even think about that, ’cause it’s never gonna happen, got it?! Man, you must be real tired if you think you’re ever getting rid of me.” He swings his arm around Phoenix’s shoulder and begins marching him down the sidewalk, “We gotta get you home, dude. You’re going crazy.”
“Had one too many drinks, I guess.” Phoenix spares a side-eye to Larry. With what little light the streetlamps give, he can see Larry’s wet eyes over a forced grin.
The rest of the walk back is quiet, and Phoenix finds he hates it more than the rambling.
-
When they finally reach Phoenix’s cramped apartment, Larry sits on the couch and starts to cry again. It’s starting to sound a little awful, too, since he'd spent the whole night sobbing, cries now rough and broken like his vocal cords had been dragged over rocks.
"It's okay, Larry," Phoenix says, even though it's not.
He tries to offer Larry a drink, but Larry just keeps on crying. Offers a snack. Still tears. Starts to wonder if maybe Larry is in his own little world. He usually was, but Phoenix always imagined that world being less miserable than this one.
He can't think of anything else to do, so he puts a water bottle on the coffee table for Larry to replace his tears, then sits beside him and wraps an arm around him, sets his head on his shoulder and hunkers down. This was a semi-familiar ritual they would go through whenever one of Larry’s girlfriends dumped him, only Larry’s cries didn’t usually sound like they were being torn from his throat with a fishing line. Usually, because Larry had turned to this same miserable wretch after Cindy died, and Phoenix had slept in a sleeping bag on Larry’s bedroom floor the week after the trial until Larry stopped having nightmares about blunt force trauma and clocks that went tock-tick-tock-tick. Phoenix doesn’t want to think about what sorts of dreams Larry was having now.
Larry stops crying, eventually, sort of. He's coherent again, at least, and talks in short sentences – tries to say thank you, tell Phoenix to leave him and go to sleep – before his voice breaks and he turns away and covers his face. Phoenix gets him pajamas, gets him a blanket and toothbrush and towel even though he says he doesn't want to shower tonight, and gives him the little red, pocket-sized radio Phoenix kept on the fridge to keep beside him for the night.
It's nearly 4AM by the time Phoenix crawls into bed, and through the open door of his bedroom he hears the quiet tunes of a late-night blues radio station.
-
He wakes up to the smell of grease. His body is achy and tired, and he’s got maybe the biggest bitch of a headache he’s ever experienced. He rubs his hands over his face and groans. At some point he’ll accept that his body isn’t eighteen anymore. He wants to shove his face back into his pillow and sleep forever.
Unfortunately, he’s gained a new purpose in making sure Larry doesn’t burn the place down.
He walks into the kitchen to find Larry humming along to the little radio, now back in its place on the top of the fridge but still playing that blues station. He’s in front of a frying pan full of bacon that Phoenix doesn't say had been sitting in his freezer for a dubious amount of time. There’s a plate with a folded paper towel set up on one of the unlit burners. Phoenix imagines his mother biting Larry’s head off for it.
“Mornin’, Nick!" Larry greets. He sounds genuinely happy, but Phoenix doesn't want to look up and find a sunny smile on his face to check. Instead, he lets his morning grogginess and pulsing hangover stir his misery.
"How are you even functioning after how much you drank last night?" Phoenix grumbles, moves sluggishly around Larry to get to the cupboard where he keeps the cereal so he can prepare breakfast in under a minute like a normal human being instead of using the stove before noon.
Phoenix’s kitchen is a tiny thing – stove jammed next to the tiny counterspace and tiny sink jammed next to the fridge, all about five feet away from the wall. The air circulation was terrible, and the oven set off the smoke alarm the last time he’d tried to pre-heat it.
"You don't remember? I – ” There’s a pause that Phoenix assumes Larry uses to point to himself, but he’s busy rummaging through the cupboards and setting haphazardly stacked Tupperware on the counter so he can get to the corn flakes and bowls at the back of the shelf. “ – Never get hangovers!"
Right, Phoenix now recalls late mornings hunched over the toilet in Larry's dorm while Larry went about his day like he hadn't plowed through his liver with his weight in cheap beer the night before. And then Phoenix would drag himself to the kitchen to eat cereal like he was now, only back then he’d spend the entire time bitching about his headache and how long it took Larry to make breakfast. Phoenix gives himself a mental pat on the back for growing out of his whininess and allows himself a small smirk, “Lucky son of a bitch.”
Larry laughs, loud and boisterous. It grates at Phoenix’s ears. “Don't you talk about my mother like that!”
“I meant your dad,” Phoenix shoots back, finally looks away from his disorganized cupboard to give Larry a playful scoff, a tiny spark of humour skipping over his brain for the first time since – well.
“No arguments there.” Larry pushes the bacon around with a silicone spatula Phoenix had gotten from some budget store, ducks his head to stare into the pan. “Hey, uh, thanks for taking care of me last night.”
The biting tone on Phoenix’s tongue withers. “Someone has to.”
Larry looks away, just for a second so Phoenix can’t see his face, then back at him with a wide grin, all bashfulness gone. “So where’d you disappear off to yesterday, huh? Ditching poor old me?” He takes the bacon out of the pan and puts it on the plate. “Hey, grab the eggs.”
“I didn’t disappear,” Phoenix opens the fridge to assess its contents. Its near-empty, meaning Larry had thrown out the definitely-spoiled milk and all the takeout Phoenix had been accumulating. Larry must have wiped it down, too, because one of the takeout boxes had been leaking something brown and sticky into the fridge but there’s no sign of it now. All that’s left is a carton of oat milk Phoenix had bought in his last health-motivated stint which he’s… reasonably sure has lasted, and a half-full carton of eggs he’d forgotten about. He grabs both and hands the eggs to Larry. “Was just talking to people. Looking for evidence.”
“From a girl?” Larry wiggles his eyebrows, says “Dude, no,” as he watches Phoenix sniff the oat milk before pouring it over his cereal. “Not the sniff test, man.”
“It’s fine,” Phoenix says. It’s probably fine.
Larry tries very unimpressively to crack an egg one-handed into the bacon grease. He fails, mostly. Phoenix watches, a little amused, as Larry hurriedly scoops up the little bits of broken eggshell with the remaining piece he has in his hand. “Don’t judge, I’ll get it in another try.”
“Maybe not when you’re making food for other people, Larry,” Phoenix says, starts eating his cereal before it gets soggy.
“Uh, who said this was for you?” Larry waves the spatula at Phoenix. “Just ’cause I’m making the food in your fridge? In your home? That I slept in last night?”
“How dare I presume, right?” He clears his throat. “And it wasn’t… There was no girl.”
“A guy, then?” Larry cracks another egg. Not as much eggshell lands in the pan as the first time. Seemingly emboldened, he empties out the rest of the carton into the pan to varying degrees of success, scooping out eggshell as he goes.
Phoenix tilts his head and thinks of his conversation with Gumshoe, gives Larry a secret little smile, knows he’ll interpret it as something entirely different then it actually is. “You could say that.”
Larry's smile turns into something sleazy. He reaches out to grab Phoenix’s arm and pull him into his side, fingers squeezing into his shoulder, says “’Atta boy!”
“It wasn’t that impressive,” Phoenix says. He’ll feel bad about the stunt he pulled on Gumshoe last night when he starts feeling anything at all, and he doesn’t want to think about the amount of regret and imagined apologies he’ll never actually deliver that will crash into him whenever that decides to happen. “I didn’t even get his number,” but only because he already has it. He stares into his food. It feels unappetizing now that the smell of bacon and eggs has filled the kitchen. He puts his bowl on the tiny counterspace. The corn flakes are starting to look sad.
Phoenix has never been afraid to poke the right bear to get the information he needs, and he’s been tased to prove it, but he knows this one in particular is harmless. He gets a lot out of Gumshoe – more than he would if some tight-lipped detective were left at crime scenes, less than if investigations were headed by someone who’d be willing to let Phoenix slip some cash into their pocket. Maybe if he’d played harder into the sad, grieving childhood friend angle, into that soft spot he could tell the detective was developing for him (and for Maya – God, he misses her), Gumshoe would have told him what he wants. Just who would he have to bribe to learn the specifics of Edgeworth's... departure?
He lets his head tilt onto Larry’s shoulder so they both have an excuse to avoid eye contact when he asks, "What about you? No girl?”
“Uh. No, nah, not really right for me right now, y'know?” Larry hasn't moved his hand. He gives Phoenix's shoulder another squeeze. The eggs sizzle. The smell is suddenly making Phoenix nauseous. He’s gonna need to open every window if he doesn’t want it to last the rest of the day and then some.
“… Yeah.” Larry’s arm loosens and Phoenix pulls away. He forces his mouth into a smile when he looks at Larry, but the effort becomes too much and he practically feels it fall off, knows the exact moment it leaves his eyes when Larry's go sad.
Larry’s smile slips from his face like peeling wallpaper, “You… you doin’ okay, Nick?”
God, Larry's trying so fucking hard. Part of Phoenix wants to give him more to work with, but the rest of him is coldly hollow. “Not really, Larry,” he says quietly.
Larry sighs, "Yeah," he says, voice low, “Me neither.”
Phoenix tries to force himself to look into Larry’s brown eyes and face whatever lies there. But Larry wasn’t a lying witness or a head-in-the-clouds detective on the stand, and there was no truth for Phoenix to fight for. “I… I just wish…” he grasps for words, “If he had – or if I had, maybe if I just talked to him or something – ” he goes to lean on the counter, but his elbow hits the rim of his forgotten bowl and the whole thing tilts sideways and flops over the counter, sends milk and cereal over his arm and down his pant leg and the counter and cupboards before shattering impressively on the floor.
Phoenix stares down at the puddle of milk, cereal, and sharps hazard he is now stepping in. This is what he gets for splurging on cheap ceramic instead of cheap plastic.
“Nick – ”
“Oh,” he says, at the shards and the soggy cereal and the probably-fine oat milk soaking into his pant leg. He wipes his arm on his shirt. “I’m… stupid.” He takes one shaky breath in, breathes out through his nose as hot tears spring in his eyes at the stupidity of it all. He stares at the tile, thinks how long it’s gonna take to clean. Thinks he can’t remember the last time he mopped. Thinks crying over spilt milk, which is kind of funny. Thinks stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid – a canned laugh track plays in his head.
"You’re not," Larry says. Phoenix hears tissue after tissue after tissue being pulled from its box, "I'll clean up."
Phoenix shakes his head numbly, carefully steps around the spill. It’s the mess a child would make. Except that as a child he’d once spilt chocolate milk on his new dinosaur pajamas – the first set of boy clothes his mother had gotten him – and been less upset than this. He used to watch I Love Lucy with her, and she told him every laugh was real. “No, don’t worry about it, Larry.”
“No yourself.” Larry's hand is on his sleeve, tugging, presses the tissues into his hand. “Go shower. Just throw your stuff outside.”
Phoenix stares at the flurry of tissues in his hand. Larry gives him a shove. He dabs the tissues at his feet and makes his way to the bathroom without looking at his friend. It doesn’t occur to him to say thank you until after he’s closed the door and started undressing. He leaves his crumpled-up clothes on the floor outside the door and gets in the shower, turns the water to the hottest it will go.
Maybe Larry’s incessant blabbing had a point after all, because with nothing but the sound of spraying water Phoenix finds his own thoughts are worse than any of Larry’s tangents, thoughts running rampant in directions he can't stop as he tries to steady his breathing.
Edgeworth would have no trouble getting his hands in a gun. But that would be untidy, unless he decided to lay down plastic beforehand. He would want it clean, more than he would want it quick.
Was it in his home? But who would have noticed he was gone if he hadn't left a note? Did they have to break into his house? Did he leave the door unlocked knowing someone would come looking? Did a detective walk into his bedroom to find his feet hanging in the air? Or maybe he’d emptied out his medicine cabinet and found somewhere comfortable to lay down for his final rest.
Miles dead and blue and cold, Mia still and silent and bloodied, Maya crying Larry crying Phoenix crying the pain of an electric shock seizing up his body and too-warm, too-knowing detectives that let him leech investigation details and heat but not the secrets that really matter –
Maybe Edgeworth left a spare housekey in his office to make everyone's lives easier when they had to clean up after him.
That’s what Phoenix would think to do. Only Phoenix wouldn’t do it in his home. Just a note, telling them not to look for him, and then he would throw himself off some point high enough and far away enough that he would surely be dead and lost forever. And in his final moments the wind would rush past him, and he could be reborn like his namesake.
Or maybe he would just be dead.
“You old bastard.”
Phoenix’s head snaps to the door. Larry’s voice was muffled behind it, and now he hears footsteps padding from the creaky wood boards outside the bathroom back to the kitchen.
Phoenix realizes he’s done nothing but stand under hot water. He gives himself a quick scrub with soap, uses it in his hair too because he doesn’t feel like uncapping his shampoo bottle. He scrapes his nails over his scalp and steps out of the shower the second he’s sure he’s washed all the soap out. He leaves the water running. Larry’s voice grows louder as he paces towards the bathroom again, and Phoenix creeps to the door to press his ear to it. He certainly feels like a creep, in nothing but a towel. A little voice in the back of his head taunts him for never being able to stop looking for evidence.
“He was our friend, not that you’d know anything about what that means,” Larry snaps, a genuine anger Phoenix hasn’t heard since they were kids and Larry was chasing off bullies, bone thin arms and chipped nails everyone knew he wasn’t afraid to rake over eyes. “Put Mom on the phone.” His voice lowers as he walks away, and Phoenix can’t make out the words.
He presses his ear harder against the door, waits for Larry to approach. But he smiles in spite of everything at the memory of being smaller and weaker and sitting outside the principal’s office with Larry, who had bitten right through the skin of an older boy’s arm after he’d tried to grab Phoenix’s skirt, leaving two crooked rows of bloody teeth marks.
The other kids mostly left them alone after that, and it had just been the two of them for a long time. Phoenix doesn’t miss most things about being a kid, but sometimes he misses how simple things were.
(“My dad says boys need to be brave,” Larry had said to him, with blood on his teeth and tears in his eyes just from looking at Phoenix’s bandaged knees. “No one likes you if you're a cry baby.”
“I like you,” Phoenix had said, which was true, then “You don’t cry that much,” which was a lie, but he thought saying it would make Larry feel better.
Larry wiped his eyes. “Thanks.” And Larry had smiled at him and never really stopped.)
Larry’s voice picks up as he gets closer, “I know. No, I know, really.” A sigh. “Have you spoken to Mrs. Naruhodo?” Phoenix’s ears perk at her mention. “I don’t know if… No, alright, I’ll tell him. Yeah, I love you too. Put Dad back on, I need to tell him to go to hell.” He laughs, “Yeah, yeah. Bye, Mama.”
The footsteps stop outside the bathroom. Phoenix hears a long, tired sigh, and then Larry going into and out of his bedroom.
“Nick, I’m putting your clothes outside the door, ’kay?” Larry calls out.
Phoenix opens his mouth to speak, then realizes the shower is still running and takes a few steps back, “Alright,” he calls back.
Phoenix dresses and dries quickly, heads back to the kitchen where Larry was doing the dishes. Because apparently he's doing that for Phoenix now too. Any sign of the mess Phoenix made was gone, just a plate of bacon and eggs on the counter. Larry's even wearing the heavy-duty rubber gloves that Phoenix kept in the cupboard under the sink. Phoenix doesn't use gloves when washing dishes, but his mother did, and there was something about seeing them hanging over the drainpipe under the sink that made his apartment feel a little more like home.
“Do you want to take a trip?” Phoenix asks, around a mouthful of egg. He feels useless, standing around eating food he didn’t make himself while Larry cleans.
“Huh?” Larry looks back at him. “What kinda trip?”
"Like a road trip or something. We could go up the 5.”
"What for? Got something to do in Washington?"
"No, just to – just to drive, I guess.” He pushes the food around with his fork. It’s fine, even if his teeth have crunched through a few bits of eggshell. “It's just an idea."
“This is how people know you don't have a car, ’cause you wanna drive up the 5 for the scenery.” Larry gives him that playful smirk like he’s so pleased just to know Phoenix. “Nah, we'll take the 101. Loads of beaches along the way. Y'know, I once drove this girl I was seeing all the way upstate to see her parents. We had a whole thing planned about driving straight north and spending a week there, but it took us a few days to get there ’cause we kept making stops. We packed our swimsuits and just kept goin’ May as well! anytime we got close to a beach, y’know?”
Phoenix doesn’t know. He doesn’t do much swimming. Or vacationing, really. Then again, he’d thrown away a future career in art and jumped into law with what he’d initially viewed as a grand revelation but now, in hindsight, feels more like Larry’s May as well!, chasing some sunset over sparkling water. Does he even own swimwear?
“Yeah,” he says, “Yeah, I know.” He’s starting to wonder if he can handle Larry in the small space of a car for so long. He doesn’t have to wonder if the opposite is true – Larry will put up with him no matter what he does or says. Or what he doesn’t do or say, like the dishes or thanks. Larry will make it look like he’s not even trying, too, which might be the worst part of it all.
“Yeah! Anyway, she dumped me when we got to her parents’ house,” Larry continues, “I think she just wanted a ride and a beach trip. Parked my car at an In-N-Out and passed out for a few hours then drove all the way back in a day. Man, I was a wreck. We're not gonna do that, though.” He flashes Phoenix a grin. “I’ll get my car, go home and pack a bag, all that. You get ready.”
Phoenix almost chokes on the last bite of his food, “What, right now?”
“Yeah dude, when else?”
“Literally any other time, Larry. You need to plan these things. It’s barely spring, it’ll just be cold if we drive north.”
“Afraid of a cold plunge, Nicky? Nah, you gotta plan, like, actual vacations. We’re just driving up the freeway.” He shrugs, “But we can hold off.” Larry puts the last dish in the drying rack. He even wrings out the sponge and cleans the sink. “We should take a real vacation overseas sometime. Go to Japan or something, bring your mom. You can get in touch with your roots or whatever. How’s that for a plan?” He smiles at Phoenix, and Phoenix has never felt so undeserving. He tries to dig into the deepest pits of himself to find something genuine to return the gesture, but nothing comes up.
Phoenix presses his lips together, takes a deep breath and contemplates just how badly this could go and what he’s about to say. "… No, you’re right." Phoenix forces himself not to slouch, thinks of Mia standing ramrod straight as she dragged truths to light in court. He nods, to himself or Larry, he’s not sure, “We can leave today. Right now. I’ll pack right now."
“Seriously?” Larry peels off the heavy plastic gloves. “Hell yeah! Be ready in an hour! Actually, go do your fuckin’ laundry first. Your room’s a damn mess. I already threw in the stuff you got food on.”
Oh, right. Phoenix hasn’t done laundry in, what, three weeks? “Fine. Laundry, and then we leave.”
“And talk to your mom. My ma says you haven’t been calling her.”
“Get off my ass, Larry.”
“Never! Now shoo!”
“You’re unexpectedly a nag,” Phoenix sets down his plate and makes his way to his bedroom, calling back, “Any of your girls ever tell you that?” There are clothes all over the floor. It’s the middle of the day but the sun is blocked out by the dark, dusty curtains.
“Nope!” Larry says cheerfully. Phoenix hears Larry collecting his things. “Be right back, Nicky!”
“Don’t get distracted on your way there!” Phoenix picks up his laundry basket with one hand and shovels his clothes off the floor into it with the other. He's starting to feel a bud of excitement. This could be good. It could be a disaster. Larry will be there. Maybe he would let Phoenix drive down an empty road, with one nervous hand on the wheel from the passenger seat. Larry will be there. Phoenix pauses.
Larry, for better or worse, moved fast with all things in life. Phoenix can already imagine the heart attack he will give him from speeding down the freeway.
“Larry,” Phoenix calls out. His face heats up, even in the privacy of his room, “Thanks for, uh, sticking around. And everything with the – the case with… ” He clears his throat. Larry would get it.
There’s no response. Did Larry already leave? But Phoenix hadn’t heard the door slam, which happened if you let it close on its own, alerting the whole floor that you were a dumbass. Larry always forgot you had to ease it shut, instead letting it bang closed on the doorframe anytime he left Phoenix’s place. And then he’d yell Sorry! from down the hall for forgetting, and Phoenix would roll his eyes fondly – and every single visit from Larry ended with that same BANG – “Sorry!” – eyeroll that left Phoenix feeling a little more ready to face the next day.
But there was no BANG – “Sorry!” – eyeroll. Phoenix goes to his front door to investigate.
The door is still open. Just by an inch, having gotten caught in the rug at the entrance.
"Fucking hell, Larry," he mumbles under his breath. Larry must have left without noticing the door hadn’t closed.
Figures.
Phoenix sighs and closes the door.