Phoenix wasn't always the quickest to figure out what was going on at just a glance. Sometimes it took him awhile to piece things together, going over a scene in detail until everything came into focus.

He was, however, immediately able to figure out why Edgeworth, Maya, and Pearls were waiting in his office when he got home from work, a grim look on all of their faces.

"Not again," he groaned in exasperation, closing the door behind him and settling the keys back into the pocket of his hoodie. "Haven't we already been over this enough, you guys?"

"It looks like we haven't," Maya said softly, and Pearl nodded, her expression full of innocent sorrow.

Phoenix sighed. "Look, I've already explained myself," he stated, folding his arms and giving them all a look. "You really don't have to keep doing this."

"But we do, Wright." Edgeworth still had never gotten used to personal confrontations, as opposed to professional ones; his eyes were averted, his speech stiff and awkward. "We... we care about you. We'll keep coming back until you let us help you."

"But I don't need any help!" Phoenix exclaimed, throwing up his hands in disbelief.

"I know, I know - you can stop anytime. Right, Nick?" The patronizing tone of Maya's voice had him struggling not to smack himself in the forehead. "But no matter how many times we come back here, you still haven't stopped."

"Because I don't need to stop!"

"Wright," Edgeworth spoke up, more firmly. "I understand what it's like to find oneself in disgrace. I know that you're seeking a way out. I can't say that my decisions have always been wiser, but I can say this - you won't find salvation in a bottle."

"I certainly won't," Phoenix stated. "Because the bottles are full of grape juice. Not wine - grape juice. How many times do I have to tell you before you believe me?"

Maya's sympathy, Edgeworth's awkward stern expression - they didn't change one bit. Pearl, however, tilted her head, considering. "You know," she observed thoughtfully, "he might be telling the truth. The magatama says he doesn't have any secrets in his heart..."

"The magatama won't work on him anymore," Maya told the younger girl sadly. "Trucy taught him all the ways people show that they're lying, and he's learned to hide them."

"Really?!"

"I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way," Phoenix corrected her. "Trucy's tricks cover physical ideosyncrasies, and the magatama is spiritual. You're the Kurain Master, Maya, you should know that much."

"Hey!" Pearl spoke up in sudden indignation. "That's why no one should ever be rude to Mystic Maya! Not even if that someone is her special someone!"

"Don't be angry with him, Pearly," Maya murmured. "It's the alcohol talking, not Mr. Nick."

"No it isn't." Phoenix was getting more annoyed by the second, and finally he picked up a half-empty bottle he'd left next to the couch when he'd left for work. "Okay, everybody - look at this, all right?" he suggested, sitting down and turning the bottle in his hand so the label was visible as they gathered around him. "You see what this says? 'Sparkling grape juice'."

"Wine is grape juice," Edgeworth pointed out. "Aged in a particular way."

"This isn't wine," Phoenix insisted. "See here? It says 'non-alcoholic', right underneath the words 'sparkling grape juice'."

"Well, maybe it started out that way," Maya reasoned, "but how do we know it's not old?"

Phoenix made a faint sound of exasperation and turned the bottle again, pointing to some small print on the back. "It has an expiration date right here. Wine wouldn't have an expiration date, would it?"

Edgeworth leaned in, squinting at the blurry numbers, and then stood straight again with a nod. "As I thought," he stated, tapping one finger on his crossed arms. "It expired last week."

"It did?" Phoenix blinked. Indeed it had. "Oops..."

"Oh, Nick..." Maya and Pearl stared at him in dismay, and Maya rested a hand on his shoulder. "You're so deep in denial, aren't you? But it's okay, we're here for you-"

"Wait, Maya!" Phoenix objected. "Grape juice doesn't ferment that fast!"

"But isn't that what the expiration date is for?" Pearl asked. "Once the date's gone by, the grape juice has gone bad, and wine is what happens when grape juice goes bad... Poor, poor Mr. Nick!"

"It hasn't 'gone bad'," Phoenix insisted. "It's just a guideline, to make sure you get the freshest flavor - if you don't believe me, have a taste yourself."

"Nick!" Maya was aghast, pulling her younger cousin away from the bottle he was holding. "You can't give that to Pearly - she's underage!"

"Oh, for..." Phoenix offered the bottle to Edgeworth instead. "Fine, you have a taste, then."

"I wouldn't dare," Edgeworth said firmly. "I know what your drunken mind is plotting - if you get the rest of us a bit tipsy, we'll go easier on you. Isn't that your plan? To have us join you in your unfortunate excesses?"

"You couldn't get drunk from just a taste," Phoenix pointed out, "even if it-"

"Eureka!" Edgeworth pointed his finger with a shout, so loud and sudden that Phoenix fumbled the bottle and almost spilled the juice on the carpet. "Then you admit that the contents of this bottle could in fact cause one to become inebriated, should they drink enough!"

"No, I didn't!" Now thoroughly annoyed, Phoenix got to his feet again. "That's it - all of you, out. Trucy's going to be home from her show at the Wonder Bar any minute now, and I don't want her hearing all your crazy conspiracy theories about how I'm supposedly a raging alcoholic."

"Don't be angry, Nick," Maya pleaded with him. "We just want to help! Trucy will want to help too, it's nothing to be ashamed of-"

"That's exactly what I'm afraid of." She'd probably believe them, and then he'd never get a respite.

Once he'd managed to force all of them out of the office, and the knocks and offers of help had subsided, Phoenix sat down on the couch again, head in hands, trying to relax. Each time his friends tried to stage an 'intervention', he got more and more frustrated, and the frustration took longer and longer to dissipate.

Finally, unable to calm down, he got up and left, returning from the corner store a few minutes later with a different kind of bottle than the one he'd been trying to explain to his friends. A couple of ice cubes from the freezer helped to dilute the whiskey a little, and he swished it around in the cup before taking a brief drink.

Phoenix sat back with a grimace, unused to the strong liquor. He didn't usually drink alcohol at all, honestly, but after one of these incidents? He really needed a drink.

A few more of these interventions, he thought vaguely, and he really was going to turn into an alcoholic.