Chapter Text
Phoenix shouldn’t have helped Miles with the dishes.
He should’ve stayed in the living room with Maya and let Edgeworth do his own damn dishes. It would’ve been a small atonement for the last year.
Instead, he was drying dishes and trying to blindly guess at where they belonged in the kitchen, in what would have been a helplessly domestic scene, if not for the silence between the two.
Maybe he should’ve broken a dish, just out of spite.
But Edgeworth had bought food for them. Had let them come over.
And Edgeworth was probably the sole reason Maya wasn’t…
Nope! That’s enough of that. Phoenix was just being courteous and helping out his host with the dishes. That’s it.
When they had finally finished putting away all the dishes, Phoenix started walking back into the living room. Something grabbed gently at his sweater’s sleeve, and he turned around to find Edgeworth holding him back.
Phoenix tugged his arm away with more force than strictly needed.
(The irony of Edgeworth reaching out for him rather than it being the other way around was not lost on him, and he resented it.)
“What?”
Edgeworth tipped his head towards the living room. Franziska and Maya were both completely absorbed in Great British Bakeoff, and were chatting animatedly.
Was he… trying to give them space?
(Or he was trying to get Phoenix to speak with him. In private.)
“I don’t want to talk,” Phoenix said, in a hushed tone. “I mean. Maybe I do, at some point, but tonight I’m—”
“I assumed as much. That’s fine.”
Edgeworth took a seat at the dining table, a strange soft gaze on his face that Phoenix hadn’t seen since childhood. Phoenix followed his gaze, spotting Franziska, who looked as relaxed as someone like her could look, blanket wrapped around her, fidgeting with the remote.
“I still need to really thank Maya.” Phoenix’s gaze flickered back to the man.
“I’m afraid if she didn’t stop her,” Edgeworth’s lips tugged downwards, a much more familiar, grim expression crossing his face—albeit, twinged with something else. Guilt?
“She would have ran away, like you?” Phoenix guessed. Edgeworth winced.
Maybe he could have been a bit gentler, but he was still in Defense Lawyer Mode, and Edgeworth deserved it.
“Yes.”
A silence hung over them, drenched in all the weight of an unstated apology, one that Phoenix both wanted (and hated) to hear.
“I should have alerted you to my state.” Edgeworth began.
“A card would have been nice. Maybe a “wish you were here” from Amsterdam.” Edgeworth’s eyes flickered over in surprise.
“Lucky guess?” Phoenix half-grinned sardonically. “Literally anything would have worked. Even just a call.” He frowned. “You couldn’t spare a single text.” Phoenix slammed a hand on the table, immediately wincing and glancing towards the living room to confirm Maya and Franziska hadn’t noticed.
“I didn’t want you to feel pressured to contact me,”
”Miles,” Phoenix said, forming a fist against the table. “I would have preferred buying overseas minutes to wondering if you’d killed yourself or not for a year.”
“I didn’t think you’d want to talk to me,” Edgeworth floundered, cornered.
“You didn’t even ask.” Edgeworth paled.
Checkmate.
“I didn’t,” he looked away. “I… should have.” He looked towards Phoenix. He looked actually regretful.
Phoenix pushed away from the table. “What does it take for you to apologize?”
“I don’t think anything I can say will help you forgive me,” Edgeworth rubbed at the back of his head. (Just like when they were kids.)
Phoenix looked down.
”You need to stop making baseless assumptions. I thought a prosecutor would know that.” Edgeworth sighed.
“I’m sorry. I was mistaken. I… Did not consider the impact leaving the… message… would have on you.”
“You didn’t.” Phoenix sighed, folding his arms on the table and resting his head against them.
Maya’s sudden laughter made him look up towards the living room.
“I mean, really. What kind of fool doesn’t plan time for decoration? So many of the issues these bakers run into would be solved by simply sticking to a schedule!” Maya giggled as Franziska threw her hands up in dramatic exasperation.
She was laughing at Franziska? And Franziska was okay with it?
“I didn’t realize your sister was so into baking shows.” Damnit. He was supposed to be angry and unsocial. Not asking about Edgeworth’s little sister’s hobbies.
“Me neither,” Edgeworth replied, relief at the topic change evident in his tone. “It makes sense, though. It’s a very rewarding hobby for those who enjoy exact instructions and precision.” He sighed. “If He ever allowed us to do anything ‘unproductive,’ I’m positive she would have picked it up eventually.”
The “He” in question seemed to loom over them when mentioned, like some shitty ripoff of Beetlejuice.
“Why not now?” Phoenix pushed.
”Excuse me?”
“You act like her whole life… Like both of your lives have been set in stone already.” He turned to face Edgeworth, holding his gaze steadily. “Maybe you should both get a hobby. Might help.” A gleam seemed to enter Edgeworth’s eyes at that.
“You might be onto something there.”
Phoenix was about to speak—maybe to make some quip at Edgeworth’s expense and distance himself from the man—when Franziska’s voice cut in again.
“Ridiculous! Did they even see Amelie’s lemon meringue tart? Matt’s blueberry tart didn’t have nearly the same level of complex flavors or any of her presentation, and that’s not mentioning his average performance in the technical round, or the fact that he plays every single round by throwing caution to the wind and seeing what comes of it!”
Phoenix started at the sudden malice from the other room, fearing for a moment that Franziska was yelling at Maya, and was surprised to realize she was yelling about The Great British Bakeoff. He let out a relieved, rough laugh that turned into a cough about midway through. It wasn’t until he’d had a sip of water that he realized Edgeworth was also laughing, still laughing, and Franziska had fled upstairs.
Maya death-glared the two men from across the room.
“Sorry,” Phoenix said sheepishly.
He quickly made a conscious promise to temporarily bench his “I’m very angry with Miles Edgeworth” attitude. Maya didn’t have to see his anger; It would just make her feel worse.
“How long have you two been sitting there for?” Maya asked, a tinge of anger in her voice. Interesting. Phoenix pocketed the thought for later examination.
He bit back a bluff, looking towards Edgeworth and exaggeratedly stalling.
“Uhhhh–”
“Not long.” Edgeworth cut him short. Damn. “I was just telling Wright about my time away,”
“You were?” He played dumb, tilting his head to the side. Edgeworth glared at him. “Oh! Yes. “Germany,’” he replied, comedically winking at Edgeworth. The man rolled his eyes in response.
Maya yawned, unphased by Phoenix’s shenanigans.
“Nick, will you two be ‘talking about Germany’ for much longer?”
“Mm?” He looked over at Edgeworth. “Uh, maybe?”
“Okay. Wake me up in like 30 minutes,” Maya said, cozying up deeper into her spot on the couch.
“Alrighty,” Phoenix said, a silent agreement between the two that Phoenix would definitely just let her sleep longer.
They lingered in silence for a while.
”Are you going to check on her?” Phoenix nodded his head towards the ceiling.
“I’ll give her some space.” Edgeworth looked back towards Maya and Pearl, sleeping soundly on the couch, Pearl burrowed into Maya’s side.
“If you’re willing to try and carry them, I have a king sized bed. There should be room for the three of you. I don’t mind sleeping on the couch.”
“What?” It took Phoenix a minute to realize what Edgeworth meant. He dragged a hand down his face. “Can you just… ask things normally? Instead of wrapping everything you want to say in three layers of abstraction? It’d make things a lot easier, y’know.” Edgeworth sputtered before regaining his stature quickly.
“There really isn’t hiding anything from you, Wright.” He cleared his throat. “I’m aware of it. I’ll look into it. I’ll… work on it.” He looked right at Phoenix. “Let me retry that. Do you want to stay over tonight?” He spoke. “Of course, if you’d rather take an uber back, that’s fine as well.”
Honestly, Phoenix really just wanted to go home to his own bed and apartment and crash… But it was also late. And taking an uber again meant worrying the entire time about being kidnapped or getting into a car accident or somehow having Maya framed for murder again—
And he was tired.
“No, we can stay here. I don’t want to wake up Maya and Pearls again.” He smiled, just a little. “They look so blissful.”
“They deserve it.”