Chapter Text
It was somewhere between their third and ninety-fourth hour in the car, and Phoenix Wright was suffocating. Of all the ways he expected to die, “sweating to death in the middle of the desert next to Miles Edgeworth” was surprisingly low on the list.
Somewhere out there, Maya Fey was laughing.
It was her fault. Entirely. When he’d come bursting back into the Wright & Co. office, interrupting her afternoon couch-nap and screaming bloody murder, she was supposed to stop him. Case or not, it was her job - her appointed duty - to keep him from exactly this. When I say I want to get in a car with Edgeworth so we can both investigate a case six hours away , he was sure he’d instructed, do not, under any circumstances, let us go unattended.
Do it, Nick , she’d urged instead. It’ll be so fun, who cares if the press or your bosses or literally any of the people who hold power over you will ruin you if they find out, job be damned when maybe you’ll finally admit that you’re desperately in love and elope and adopt forty-six babies -
“Wright?” offered Edgeworth, breaking eye contact with the road for the first time in approximately eight centuries.
“‘Zsup?” Phoenix muttered, cringing before it even came out of his mouth.
“Are you…er, do you need -”
“I’m fine. Totally good.” He raised his hands behind his head in an attempt to appear even remotely relaxed - it might’ve worked, if his freakishly long arms and complete cognitive shutdown hadn’t caused him to elbow Edgeworth square in the face.
“Oh, shit. Sorry! Are you okay? Shit, I’m so sorry -” Phoenix began, only later aware of just how much he was screeching.
His counterpart remained silent, holding a hand to his nose. This was it. Phoenix wasn’t just going to die out here, but Miles Edgeworth - his childhood friend, professional rival, and complete dream man - was going to kill him. And he hadn’t even written his will yet.
“I’ll take that as a sign not to ask again.” He returned his hand to the wheel ever-so-gingerly, his cheek twitching in the way that Phoenix thought ( knew ?) was a smirk.
Phoenix snorted. On a normal day, that fact would’ve left him mortified, reliving it on a loop as he tried and failed to sleep that night. Today, he figured it might as well happen.
“Seriously, you’re okay?” he prompted, afraid his friend and renowned Champion of Repression might be wordlessly championing a broken nose.
“I’m fine.” Without warning, Edgeworth reached over to flick him on the forehead. “That’s your sign not to ask again.”
“Hey!” He swatted his hand away playfully, careful this time to avoid whacking his delicate face. Gone unchecked, Phoenix was sure he could study it for hours; it was porcelain and steel all at once, gossamer lips and perfectly-curved nose wrapped up in the frigid tension he wished so desperately to thaw.
“You have an eyelash on your cheek,” the prosecutor whispered, though his eyes did not break from Phoenix’s own. He reached for it, though his thumb lingered a moment too long before he brushed it off. The two men were drawing closer to each other, magnets with no choice but to stick to one another for dear life.
Oh Jesus.
Phoenix shrieked, pushing himself as far away as the stupid, tiny, gorgeous sports car could get them. Edgeworth himself seemed to be trying to wedge into the space between the door and the driver’s seat, though he was apparently distracted by the abrupt realization that he needed to swerve back into the correct lane.
Luckily, the middle of nowhere wasn’t known for harbouring much oncoming traffic. Being crushed by a semi truck might not be so bad, though, if they got to kiss while it happened.
Phoenix really needed a cold shower.
Fine , Maya had said. If you really, really insist on going sexless - and he really, really did, despite her initial suggestion of a tank top and booty shorts - don’t wear your suit until you have to. He always looks at your ass. He thinks he’s being sneaky, but it’s not subtle. At all. Wear, like, a tracksuit or something. Baggy stuff, y’know?
A lot of help that was doing him now. It’d be easier when they were out of the car, he knew, but the feeling of cotton plastering itself to his slightly-damp skin was hard to ignore in the meantime. The all-black interior of Edgeworth’s car, normally in admirable contrast to its garish red outside, was only making things worse.
“Do you have A/C?” he finally worked up the courage to ask, eyes glued to the passenger-side window.
“It broke this morning.” Shit. “I thought I mentioned as much.”
He absolutely, 100% had. Phoenix hadn’t been listening, for daydreaming-about-climbing-on-top-of-him-there-and-then reasons.
“How much longer?” he muttered, rubbing a stray drop of sweat from his brow.
“Roughly half an hour.” Despite his efforts, Phoenix groaned audibly. “If it’s really so unbearable, you can…remove your sweater. If you think that might help.”
His urge to do a spit-take was almost unavoidable, despite his lack of any sort of drink.
“No. Nope. Nonononono. I’m fine,” Phoenix protested, as smooth and believable as ever.
“Wright. I know we’re…” Edgeworth cut himself off as his eyes widened. He winced, inhaling deeply. “You’re more than welcome to continue dehydrating in front of me, if you prefer. Either way, I’ll certainly insist you put it back on before we re-enter civilization. All I’m suggesting, with the knowledge that we are mature adults, is that in this moment it may be prudent to -”
“Fine,” Phoenix interrupted, clumsy hands already trying to maneuver around the seatbelt. “I’ll take my shirt off for you.” Everything in the vehicle froze for a moment.
Fuck. Why did he say that?
For the first time in fifteen years, Edgeworth laughed - audibly laughed - in front of him. “I should be so lucky,” he retorted, his shoulders relaxing back into the seat somewhat.
Their banter (which Maya liked to insist was just called flirting, Nick ), was back. He did his best, motionless and smiling, to appear unbothered by the fact that he had just taken his shirt off. In front of Miles Edgeworth. Not even two feet away from him.
“Is that better?” Maya was right; he really wasn’t subtle. At all. He was trying to time his glances to go unnoticed, that was obvious; but he wasn’t doing it well enough. Unless - did he want Phoenix to catch him?
“Yeah. Thanks.” Phoenix brought his hand over to pat Edgeworth’s. Some, he knew, might call it “playing with fire.” And some would be stupid. Sure, he was attracted to the man who’d driven his life since childhood. Sure, he had trouble sleeping before trials when he knew Edgeworth was going to be there. And sure , he rarely went five minutes without thinking about his quick wit, or his perfect lips, or the way he could read him like a book. But sometimes a platonic hand pat was just that, and nothing more.
Immediately, he found himself physically incapable of removing his hand from Edgeworth’s. It was soft, lotion-twice-a-day-every-day soft, fitting so perfectly in Phoenix’s, and his fingers were the perfect length for -
“Let’s listen to some music!” he cried, the last reasonable remnants of his brain doing their best to save him.
“I don’t have any on-hand.”
“That’s okay! Me and Maya made a road trip mix. Check it out,” Phoenix rambled, yanking the loose CD from his pocket and shoving it into the tray.
“You’re only mentioning this now?”
“Uh - hey, listen to this.” As he spoke, a horrible metallic scratching began blaring from the car’s speakers. “So I was in a band with Larry when we were thirteen, and we thought it would be really cool to be experimental. So this track is just Larry scratching his guitar strings for, uh…ten minutes.”
What’s unsexier than Larry Butz? Maya had asked as she added the track.
“What was the band called?” Edgeworth half-yelled, appearing to be in moderate physical pain.
“Butzucker and Wrightnoceros.”
“Wrightnoceros? As in…rhinoceros?”
“Yeah. But with my last name.”
He laughed. Again. A part of Phoenix declared himself the luckiest man alive, then and there. Not only was he one of the only people to ever witness such a sight; he got to be the cause of it.
“You are a force of nature, Wright.” The words sent a small shiver up his spine, even in the heat. There was a tenderness in his voice - in his gaze - that Phoenix had only ever seen in dreams. He dug into his own palm with his fingernails, doing his best to repeat a mental list of everything he loved about his job.
Upstairs brain.
“But get this!” he yelled, skipping to the next track. “Now this - Tuvan throat singing. It’s - wow, the cultural history.” he chattered, making things up entirely as he went.
“Agreed. I believe it is referred to as khoomei ?” Goddammit. Why had he fallen for the most unphaseable person known to man? “I have to admit, I didn’t think you’d be interested in something so…”
“Not dumb?”
“You said it, not me,” Edgeworth smirked. God, and just the right level of condescending.
“I lied. I hate music. No more music,” Phoenix declared, rushing to press the stop button.
“Speak for yourself. This is providing me with valuable insight into the mind of Phoenix Wright.”
“Fine.” Phoenix rolled his eyes, pretending it eliminated the gigantic goofy smile on his face. “One more song. Then we should be in town anyway, yeah?”
“Ideally, so put your sweater back -” began Edgeworth, before being drowned out by a dreadfully, almost satirically familiar guitar intro. Phoenix hadn’t put this on the disc.
I’ve been really tryin’, baby…
Marvin Gaye. Marvin Gaye. Marvin fucking Gaye.
Somewhere out there, Maya Fey was laughing.
“Oh. This one was - uh, I mixed it up with something else, and it’s bad, and it’s not supposed to be on here. We’re skipping it,” Phoenix insisted, rushing to put his sweatshirt back and hide the blush creeping across his entire body.
“I don’t mind it.” Jesus - Edgeworth was swaying his head .
“Oh my God,” Phoenix exclaimed, cringing at himself. Edgeworth, in an unexpected moment of mercy, did not respond, instead leaving Phoenix to genuinely contemplate swinging the door open and throwing himself out onto the road.
“I know there’s a great deal of work ahead of us,” Edgeworth remarked, breaking the long, tense silence that followed the song’s close, “but I must admit I’m starving.”
“Yeah. Me too. Let’s - uh - do you see a drive-thru anywhere?”
“A drive-thru ?” He could pretend he’d never heard of one all he wanted; Phoenix still remembered how a young Miles would beg his dad for fast food every night. “We’ll have dinner - a proper one.”
“I don’t know. Money and stuff,” Phoenix began unconvincingly.
“My treat. To celebrate.”
“What are we celebrating?” Phoenix furrowed his brow, pretending his heart hadn’t nearly burst from his chest.
“Everything.” Edgeworth avoided eye contact. “All of it.”
“Okay,” Phoenix smiled.