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The Borscht Bowl Club is not very busy on a Wednesday night.
Miles Edgeworth slips in just as the clock passes eleven. It’s not alarmingly late for him, per se, but he’s normally at least at home by now. What possessed him to come here tonight of all nights, he can’t exactly say. Maybe it’s because it’s nearing two years since the day this club became a regular part of his vocabulary with his oldest friend, and another occasion, one he doesn’t care to name, has its anniversary marked on this date forever; maybe it’s because that’s brought the truth to the tip of his tongue, begging to be released; maybe it’s because he found himself craving beet soup; oh, why even bother, it’s certainly not that last reason. The guilt has begun to weigh on him, recently, he has to confess. Wright has worked here for quite a while now, and Miles has never once stepped inside before tonight, of all nights.
To be fair, this absence was at Wright’s own behest. ”It’s dingy and filled with all kinds of characters, and the house wine is served directly out of the bottle, Edgeworth, you’d hate it.” Wright had been in the passenger seat of Miles’ car, sprawled there in a way he never used to sit; they’d just dropped Trucy off at school, and it was a good morning because the smell of said wine had finally come out of Wright’s hoodie and not been refreshed. “Seriously, I think if you went inside you’d break out into hives.”
“I only get hives from wool,” Miles had informed him, his hands tightening on the wheel as he pulled them out of the tidy line of parents’ cars. (It felt strange to be a part of it, childless as he was, but Trucy didn’t know her way around well enough to walk to school yet, and Phoenix still didn’t have his driver’s license or a car for that matter, so. Miles had to ask Phoenix three times to let him drive them for a few weeks, and was reminded oddly of a flash of gold pressed desperately against plexiglass as he jingled his keys in Wright’s face to get his point across. Trucy had made them disappear a few moments later.)
A sigh from the seat next to him, and out of the corner of his eye Miles could see Phoenix turn his head to face out the window. “I know that.” Months ago, mere months, instead of his facade crumbling at the slightest provocation, he would have teased Miles for being too sensitive, too delicate, and Miles would have sniffed haughtily and offered to let him walk the rest of the way home if he was so hearty himself —
But that was months ago, and this was now, and this Phoenix laughed more than ever in public with a hollow sound that never rang true to Miles’ ears, and when they were alone (when he sometimes couldn’t even muster up a real laugh for Trucy), he was so serious, a complete turnaround, and not the kind Miles had begun to root for in court. “I just… don’t feel like you have to come, okay? You wouldn’t like it. That’s what I’m saying.”
Miles had knitted his brows together and felt grateful for the LA traffic once in his life, because it let him turn and look over to Wright where he sat. He wasn’t used to this, wasn’t used to being the one who had to chase after Phoenix and drag him back instead of the other way around, and moments like this were when he felt the most out of his depth, but he’d learned from the best, and he had to try, after all, he owed him that much.
No, it wasn’t just a question of owing; he wanted Phoenix to stay here, stay part of his life, badly enough to risk being chastised for trying. Was this how Wright had felt, in that detention center, hoping his own conviction could be spread enough to keep two people clinging to life?
The silence stretched on until finally, hesitantly, hopefully, Miles offered, “…I’m happy for you, Wright. A job is a job.”
“Yeah.” Phoenix had shoved his hands deep into his hoodie pockets and slumped down, in contrast to his previous easy sprawl, like he was caving in on himself without the flimsy supports he put up for the sake of his daughter. Miles wanted Wright to be honest with him, a bare minimum they’d established between them before this instance, had even grown used to giving it more like daily greetings instead of rare gifts. He couldn’t decide whether he was hurt or relieved by the fact that he knew, now, that Phoenix was holding something back. It was a breach of that trust, but it was merciful, sparing at least a little bit of the pain of watching Phoenix deal with this from the outside, his hands tied behind his back.
So.
So Miles had kept away from the Borscht Bowl Club, like he was instructed, because he couldn’t bear to upset the delicate balance they’d managed to strike where Phoenix hid things from him but still allowed him in his periphery, circling hesitantly closer but never too close, because he knew without needing to be told that this was the best he was going to get. And it wasn’t in his nature to shun the truth, but when it came down to this, the truth, whatever wasn’t being shared between them, wasn’t any of his business. (Or maybe that was just something he told himself to justify the tiptoeing he did, the way he tried to fight for Phoenix behind the scenes without any real weapons and predictably didn’t get very far. There were doors he couldn’t bring himself to open.)
But tonight he goes, because that anniversary is approaching and Miles hasn’t entirely outgrown his self-flagellating ways. He knows that things are probably worse than how Phoenix described them, the same way kind of sick had been a 104-degree fever or a little bit of trouble with the landlord had been six months behind on rent, and it’s time for Miles to stop pretending that things are different — or more so to stop pretending that things are the same. They aren’t. He couldn’t help Phoenix.
That’s the reality he faces, the true reason this anniversary has brought him here, as he collects a reasonably-priced vodka tonic from the bar and takes a seat at a quiet table in the corner. It’s more brightly-lit than he’d imagined, and also far colder. By a stroke of luck, he came here right from work, so he’s still wearing his overcoat, and it’s that and the way he grew accustomed to the German winters that keeps him from shivering too much even though his breath puffs out visibly into the air and the piles of snow he assumed were fake on first glance are starting to look more and more real. He has half a mind to tell Wright off for not informing him of the strange climate.
Then again, though, that wouldn’t be fair, because Miles wasn’t invited here. He’s not even sure if he’s welcome.
Whether he is or not, though, he has to be here, tonight of all nights, needs to see with his own two eyes that Phoenix is alive, that he didn’t really crumble into dust and disappear two years ago the way it seems sometimes. Maybe that’s a bit ridiculous to think, because Miles saw him only a few mornings ago, stumbling tiredly in the door to relieve Trucy duty and press a kiss to his daughter’s forehead and a pat to Miles’ shoulder before moving like a dead man walking to his own bed. But this is different. This is a place where he’s not forced to be Phoenix Wright, ex-attorney at law, or Phoenix Wright, father to Trucy Enigmar, or Phoenix Wright, Miles Edgeworth’s… his… best friend feels too childish, too small to describe it, especially given the patchwork of emotions that have grown around Phoenix like an overflowing garden in Miles’ chest. He pushes past it, because that’s not the point.
The point is that Wright can be someone else here. And Miles wants to know what parts of the person he used to know shine through in this facet of him, wants to piece it together with the glimpses he’s seen in other places and see if he can make something recognizable out of it, something that proves he’s still there, that Miles’ shameful lack of action hasn’t kept him broken apart for good.
He’s so wrapped up in his own thoughts about this that he doesn’t even realize that the piano bench stands empty for an embarrassingly long time, and it’s only when he hears a door – not the front door, a different sound, creakier – close that he looks up and sees a flash of blue. And a flash of blue has always meant Phoenix, whether it’s a suit or a hat, garish royal or disarmingly bright turquoise.
He might have just been on his break, Miles reasons, and tries to tuck himself farther into the corner. If he’d thought this through, if he hadn’t been borne by impulse and a deep, gnawing need instilled by the calendar, he would have dressed less obviously, tried to blend in more. But he didn’t. He thought less about this than he has about anything in weeks, and in some ways, it feels good, but in other ways it shames him now that it’s become so clear. Do other people live like this, letting their emotions rule them? It seems like every time Miles has done so, he’s needed to dig himself out of the hole it’s created in his life afterwards. Buying a last-minute plane ticket to Germany as his final recourse against something far worse – flying across the world on a few words from Larry Butz to sit by Wright’s hospital bed and have his world changed for the millionth time – passing the cold, hard metal of his prosecutor’s badge into Justine Courtney’s warm, soft, shockingly living hand as though it were proof of his willingness to save Kay –
And now, sitting up a little straighter on instinct in the Borscht Bowl Club, because just as blue has come to mean Phoenix in Miles’ mind, Wright meeting his eyes has come to meet a challenge, and even now Miles can’t allow himself to back down. If he does, he’ll fade away entirely.
He doesn’t regret any of those decisions he made with his heart rather than his mind, and he doesn’t regret this one, either. Unfortunately, though, this particular instance of conviction isn’t from looking back on the incident with a calm that comes from hindsight, the detached ability to judge his own actions and see where they fit into the map of his life. Rather, it comes in much the same way that one rarely regrets the jump during the fall afterwards, simply because there isn’t enough time to do so.
Miles keeps his head high, his heartbeat whoosh-whooshing in his ears, as Wright lopes over to him. If he’s surprised to see him, he doesn’t show it, his face still fixed in that carefully neutral expression that would look completely natural to anyone who hadn’t spent the better part of the last five years memorizing his face. “Edgeworth,” he greets, easy, unbothered, and his posture is, too, when he pours himself into the chair across from Miles. “I’m guessing you’re not here for a cold bowl of borscht. Although it’d match your outfit.”
God. Some part of Miles is forever going to expect to be greeted in a firmer, more enthusiastic tone of voice, to see hair swept back into spikes instead of covered by a hat, for a split second always, always picturing Phoenix whole instead of the glimpses, the fragments, he catches now out of the corner of his eye in stolen moments. He’d hoped some of that experience would be replicated tonight to see him in his element, or as close to his element as he could truly get these days, but in greeting him, Wright has put them on the same uneven ground as always, and Miles has to tread carefully, holding his breath. If he’s learned anything over the past two years, it’s that he was right when he hadn’t wanted Phoenix to find him, when he’d been accused, what seems like a lifetime ago. There’s something about seeing someone one cares for that way, a shared kind of pain that nevertheless can’t be spoken aloud.
Like all pain, it’s easy to grow used to it until it decides to increase suddenly, without warning, leaving the sufferer breathless and filled with urgency. Tonight is one of those instances, and the feeling seems to flow inside Miles, like it’s threatening to tear out of his veins, as he crosses his legs and surveys Phoenix in as clinical a manner as he can manage. “No, I’m not.”
“Then you’re here to see me.” Wright leans forward, now, reversing his position, both elbows on the table with one forearm laid flat and the other propping up his chin. “I thought I told you that you wouldn’t like it here.”
“I didn’t say that I do,” Miles snaps back, and immediately knows it’s the wrong move, the adrenaline making him touchy. Even Wright can’t conceal the surprise that comes from hearing his tone, his eyebrows shooting up towards his hairline. Miles sighs. “I – I apologize. I would have waited if it weren’t important, I promise you, I do respect your time.”
The apology seems to placate Phoenix, and his face settles back to something even a little bit more open than it had been when they’d sat down across from each other. It appears he’s still more at ease when Edgeworth is nervous. “It’s okay. I know you do.” He casts an eye up and down, Miles can feel it as it travels over his body and makes his face go hot; he only realizes that Wright is waiting patiently, not just staring, until he prompts: “So… why are you here, then? I know Kay’s watching Trucy, so it shouldn’t be anything with her. And you told me you finished a case the other day, so I can’t imagine you’d need my help with something else so soon, unless you’re getting in the habit of doing all your cases in a week again.”
Miles is half-tempted to stay quiet just because – and he knows it’s pathetic, thank you very much – he’s so missed the sound of deductions in Phoenix’s voice. He does owe him an explanation, though, for intruding where he was told implicitly to stay away, so he clears his throat and begins with the easiest factor. It’s not even technically a lie, and he’ll work his way up to the truth, but it feels a great deal different having to wring it out of criminals than himself, when it’s painful and uncomfortable. “I… had hoped to see you play,” he offers first.
He watches Wright’s face like a movie screen, maybe the only person who can still see the emotions that play out across it in microseconds for what they really are. There’s surprise, first, which – why should Wright be surprised? There was never any question that Miles would want to hear him – followed by no small amount of trepidation, giving way to the barest moment of confusion before finally settling into that same relaxed look he’s gotten so talented at putting on, just as Miles’ head is beginning to spin. (It seems that always happens for one reason or another when it comes to Phoenix, but Miles never gets used to it no matter what the cause is.) “Ah, that’s too bad. Got a pinky injury, kinda makes playing impossible.”
And just like that, Miles is torn, however briefly, from his thoughts, arching an eyebrow. “...A pinky injury.”
“Yep,” Wright continues, blithe, fixing his eyes on the ceiling and gripping his right hand with a touch of drama. “Jammed it coming in the door tonight. Terrible shame, really.”
Miles has never seen a more obvious lie or excuse in all his years prosecuting. He’s sure that if he had that magic rock in his pocket again, a bevy of Psycholocks would appear in front of Phoenix, their glittering chains promising the full truth, what Miles has sensed has been hiding in this job, this vaguely run-down bar, for quite a while now. But he doesn’t have it, and what’s more, he doesn’t have the right to know that, either. Demanding answers would be incredibly uncouth for someone in his position right now. After all, he came here to eat not borscht, but crow.
But even the sarcastic skepticism written on his expression – he doesn’t even feel he needs to bother with words, honestly – isn’t enough to deter Wright, who shifts to sit up a little straighter. When he levels his gaze at Miles and lets his hand fall to his lap, his “injury” forgotten, it nearly makes Miles breathless, calls to mind the courtroom in the sudden blaze of pain those memories always bring, like plunging into ice water. “So,” he goes on, “I guess you’ll just have to tell me why you’re really here.”
Damn. Maybe Wright does have that rock with him. Miles opens his mouth to try and deny anyway, but he’s met with a shake of the head from Phoenix, who tilts his jaw downwards, then, that beanie almost covering his eyes but not the wry, overwrought smirk that seems to twist his face into something unfamiliar. This is the newest of his defenses, and it hurts Miles more than he can say to see it on the features, grotesque in how he knows it covers what’s inside, a layer of cover stretched thin enough for him to see right through it. “And no, I don’t have the magatama with me. Come on, Edgeworth, I might not be a lawyer anymore, but I’m not stupid.” The laugh rings self-deprecating and too loud in the restaurant, which is hemorrhaging patrons and only adding to the grim mood. (It’s only a Monday night, after all, most customers likely aren’t going to stay as it rapidly approaches midnight.) “You know what day it is. I sure as hell know what day it is.”
Ah.
And here comes the part where Miles does begin to finally regret this flight of fancy, because he hadn’t thought this through, and that means he has no idea what to say to this. Of course Phoenix would see right through him. Of course he’d know Miles wouldn’t just show up on a day like this, of all days. And of course he’s defensive about it; it’s obvious from the way his posture has gained that touch of wide bravado, his shoulders back, that downward-facing head chilling Miles still, the longer it goes on.
It’s so different from what he’s used to, so wrong, and Miles can’t make himself speak in the wake of it. His mouth goes tight and he looks around, anywhere, anywhere other than at the man in front of him. He came here with the intention of observing Phoenix, trying to convince himself through the evidence of his own eyes that he wasn’t – wasn’t – what, Miles doesn’t really know, now, with the floor falling out from under him at the same angle of Wright’s all-wrong smile – but now he can’t even bring himself to allow him in his field of vision. Whether his stomach is turning because of that same old pain, the unholy combination of recognition and a lack thereof, or just because all the worst, most unkind thoughts he had about this idea are finally coming back to light now that the adrenaline is fading, he can’t say.
Oddly, though, instead of setting Phoenix further on edge, the silence seems to make him lose some of that strange posture that almost appeared to be injected into him, the way it didn’t truly fit with what Miles knew, like a synthetic glue just barely holding things together. The constructed strength softens, and Phoenix reaches a hand across the table – for a moment, one moment, Miles thinks he might – but he doesn’t, just lets it rest on the flaking gold surface, in Miles’ field of vision. Almost close enough to feel the heat of his skin. “...Let’s go sit at the piano,” he says.
Miles swings his head up, back to Wright’s eyes, without thinking about it. It’s a knee-jerk reaction he doesn’t want to overcome. “I thought you were too injured to play.” Even in his shock at the sudden, direct turn of their conversation, a rarity for them these days, some dry sarcasm escapes at injured.
Phoenix closes his eyes, and the amused smile that twitches the corners of his mouth is too instinctual to be insincere. “I’m not going to play. The table over there is just a little more private, and I don’t really want everyone hearing my business if it’s so serious.”
The restaurant is nearly empty; Miles swings his head around to make sure, but there are maybe four patrons in here other than the two of them, scattered to the corners. “Everyone…?”
“Just trust me, okay, if it’s worth hearing these guys will find a way to listen, and I’m assuming you wouldn’t come over here for something not worth hearing.” Wright stands up, stretching, even though he’s only been sitting for the few, quick beats of their conversation, and jerks his head towards the table in question. Some of the chairs have been removed, the table pulled up flush against the piano bench, presumably so he can talk with whoever he wants without needing to leave his position. He moves, then, without waiting for Miles, who scrambles after him, his sweating and frosty drink forgotten on the table, the awkward screeching of his chair on the floor fairly par for the course of how this has all gone so far.
When they arrive, Wright wastes no time in taking a seat at the piano, backwards so that he’s facing the table. Miles, in turn, pulls out one of the chairs, then hesitantly moves it closer when he’s met with a beckoning hand. “All right,” Phoenix says, leaning forward, his elbows braced on his knees. “So.”
As ever, he’s not going to make Miles drink; he’s not even going to lead him to the water. That’s deserved, certainly, but some part of Miles is still exasperated that no part of this is ever easy. (The dealing with the emotions part, he means. As cliche as it is to say, the loving Phoenix part has only ever come as naturally as breathing, even when he hated to admit it.)
Miles resists the urge to repeat the So back and plows forward, trying to force himself to stop stalling for time and just get this over with. “I owe you an apology, I fear, Wright.”
“I wasn’t aware you did anything you needed to apologize for.” The response is so quick that it’s almost as though Wright had been expecting this, but again, little tells are what give away even a bit of surprise, the way his mouth turns down at the corners or one jagged eyebrow cocks.
“No. Well, you wouldn’t be.” He’d been hesitant to even broach the subject in the first place, because what Miles had done wasn’t exactly something Phoenix had asked him for.
It hadn’t been long after the hearing for Phoenix’s disbarment, as soon as Miles had made his way back into the country, again chasing the tail of news that he had to get secondhand. He’d immediately offered to go into the Bar Association, to raise hell, the fury consuming him now where it had clearly already left Phoenix an empty, burned-out shell. It had been the evening – Wright was getting ready to leave for one of his first shifts at the Borscht Bowl Club, and Miles had stopped by on his way home from work – and Trucy was asleep, so instead of yelling like he wanted to after hearing the full story (or at least as full as Wright was willing to tell him), he was hissing through gritted teeth again. “I can’t believe that they did this to you–”
“I already told you, no one did this to me.” Wright raked his hand through his hair; he hadn’t yet started covering it up with that beanie. “It just happened, Edgeworth, it happened and now I have to deal with it. And you yelling about it isn’t going to make it better right now.” There was an ending to that sentence that hung uncomfortably in the air as Wright made his way around the room: nothing’s going to make it better. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a job to go to that will fire me if I don’t show up on time. ‘Cause we don’t all have cushy jobs at the prosecutor’s office, you know?”
Miles wasn’t used to hearing that venom in Phoenix’s voice, that vindictive sort of hurt like a wounded animal lashing out from a trap. He moved aside, nearly tripping in his haste. “I told you that I lost my job only a few weeks ago–”
“For a few hours,” Wright had countered, scrubbing a hand over the unshaven bottom half of his face. Above his fingers, his eyes were tired. “That’s not the same thing.”
“Well, would you prefer if we were both unemployed so then I would be allowed to have an opinion on this?”
“Yeah, maybe! Because then –” Wright cut himself off mid-snap, deflating where he’d briefly puffed up in indignation. Miles didn’t know what he’d been planning to say, but he wanted him to go ahead and say it even if it was too much, because this was the most life he’d gotten out of Phoenix this whole time. “...I don’t know, Miles.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned against the door, heavy, letting it support him. “I just… I don’t like being this person. The guy who has to rely on other people.”
The irony of it had almost made Miles laugh. One shift in dynamic, the loss of the ability to be a hero to strangers, had left Wright blind to all the friends and family who still needed him badly, and not the defense attorney, just the man he was outside of that. Maya and Pearl; the little girl asleep in the other room; Miles himself. “Well, welcome to the club, Wright.”
In the end, he hadn’t made Phoenix rely on him at all. He’d reached out to his contacts in the inner workings of the justice system, to Justine Courtney, all by himself, so that Wright didn’t feel like a burden, because he wasn’t – this was something Miles had to do, as foregone a conclusion as thoroughly investigating a crime scene down to every nook and cranny. If he didn’t explore all of his possibilities, he would never know.
Now he knows, though, and he has to wonder if it would be better for him to have remained in the dark, with the way the shame of the reality of the situation washes over him now. It’s not a feeling that Miles usually associates with truth; he’s not used to being on the other side of the reveal.
“Hey, Edgeworth, stop zoning out when you’re trying to tell me something important,” Wright says mildly, drums his fingers on the table.
Miles starts and flushes. It’ll only get worse if all he does is sit here and think about how it could have gone differently. “I tried to get you a rehearing in front of the Bar Association. Well, to be more precise, I tried to get them to consider reopening your disbarment.” Now it’s like he can’t tear his eyes away from Phoenix’s face, and of course now that he’s looking, he doesn’t see a hint of anything on the features, no indication that Wright feels one way or the other about this.
With no other choice, he goes on. “It was… a long process, understandably. I attacked it from different angles, talked to a great deal of different people… I was holding out the most hope for Justine Courtney, my acquaintance who sits on the P.I.C., but even she was unable to do anything, so… I’m coming to you today to tell you that I failed.” Miles’ throat is tighter than he expected when he says it, and he thinks back to other times he’s said those words: standing in von Karma’s cold, barren office with his hands folded behind his back, flinching; waiting for the verdict of the Inquiry Committee during the Skye trial. Neither of those had been quite like this in the terrifying, unknown depth of meaning it has to Miles. “I wasn’t able to help, Wright, and I’m sorry.”
This time, Phoenix’s reply is far less quick; he takes a few moments to glance down at the table and let out a breath, but not long enough to make Miles sweat. “That’s what you’ve been sitting there stewing so long about?”
He phrases it like it’s not worth worrying over, and instead of making Miles feel better, loosening the indomitable knots in his stomach, he’s just confused. “What do you mean? Of course it is, Wright, I set out to do something for you and I did not succeed.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t even know that you were doing it until today. How could you be worried about how I’d take it? If you didn’t tell me, I never would have known. And there are things going on with – with that whole situation that you weren’t aware of.” Miles had known as much, but hearing it confirmed is about the opposite of what he needed. “Seriously, Edgeworth.” Wright smiles, but it’s forced. Miles swallows hard. He hates knowing better but being powerless to fix things, and he’s never felt it more than now. “It’s fine.”
Maybe that’s the most obvious lie, then, Wright taking the spot for a second time in the same conversation, and Miles makes a sound under his breath that was supposed to be frustrated, but comes out impotent and stifled, and like drawing the blade from a wound, everything comes flowing out under the slightest provocation. “It’s not fine. It’s not. You saved my life, you saved me, and I couldn’t even help get your badge back.”
There’s no hiding that the silence comes from shock, this time, at the brutal honesty of the statement, the way it lays things bare between them. It’s been so long since they talked openly, or at least openly about this topic, about themselves and the things they think they owe to each other. Miles wishes it wasn’t here, but beggars can’t be choosers, and oh, he’s begged for this.
“I didn’t, though.” Phoenix’s voice is raw though his posture doesn’t change, the most real emotion he’s shown this entire time. The gradual loosening of his chokehold over his feelings has finally resulted in everything coming unglued, as much as Miles has seen in over a year now, and he’s matching every ounce of candor he was given. “That wasn’t me. That was — that was whoever I used to be, Edgeworth, whoever you thought I was, and I’m not that anymore.” The way Wright speaks about himself is a slap in the face, an open-handed punch, a push away. “I’m just not. I’m sorry, I’m — I know I’m letting you down, and I can’t do those things for you anymore, so…” He rubs his hand roughly over his eyes, the gesture familiar; Miles realizes he’s seen him do it when Trucy isn’t looking. “So you might as well just leave this behind. I understand.” His voice is a shallow whisper, a husk, but still, still, the simple honesty, the way he cares so much, enough to drop his act because he knows Miles needs the truth, proves beyond any tiny glances or momentary movements that this is the man Miles knows and loves. Even if Phoenix doesn’t see it himself. The denial, in the end, was the confirmation.
Miles feels his heart break messy and open. “What do you mean, you aren’t that?”
“I know I’m different now, Miles, God, I know, and I don’t — I don’t need you coming here to tell me that like I don’t see it in your eyes every time you look at me.” Phoenix’s head has drooped down once more, but there’s no matching smirk; his mouth is slack, a painful-looking slash across his face.
“See what?” Miles is breathless. His chest hurts. The first name pings off of his awareness like a stray bullet but hardly even registers.
“Disappointment.” Phoenix swallows bitterly and wipes his hoodie sleeve across his mouth.
Oh, God, Miles has been going about this all wrong.
For all the times he’s wished for the little pieces of his friend that he saw to coalesce into a whole, all the times he’s watched Phoenix change in both the big ways and the thousand tiny imperceptible ones that leave him where he is today, he’s felt so many things he’d never imagined feeling before. Love has mixed in with every emotion to create bittersweetness, melancholy, a tender kind of sadness, but amidst it all, Miles has never been disappointed.
“Phoenix,” he says. It comes out breathy and obvious, but he can’t care, that’s not what matters now. “No. I’m not disappointed. How could you think that? You told me what happened, I know that it wasn’t your fault, and even if it was –” I could never feel that way about you. I could be angry, I could be frustrated, but I could never be something as patronizing as disappointed, not after everything. Miles manages to swallow it back at the last second. “You’ve done so many things, you’ve kept yourself afloat, you’ve been raising a child.” It’s like he’s listing the evidence for himself as well as Phoenix. “You are trying, so hard, just as you’ve always done.”
He’s never been one for initiating physical contact, the few brushes they’ve had with it immediately making him yearn for more, more than he should be allowed to take, but it feels right here, so for once in his life, Miles doesn’t overthink it. He leaves his chair and goes to sit at the pulled-out piano bench, on Phoenix’s left, but swings his legs around so he’s facing the keys. Their shoulders touch. It leaves room for Phoenix to turn, too, if he likes, further isolating them both from the rest of the dining area, but he could just as easily stay where he is, too, and keep the space if it’s too much to bear. (It’s nearly too much for Miles, but he couldn’t consider moving now.)
The nod is a miniscule movement that still somehow manages to fill Miles with relief. He doesn’t think that Phoenix is agreeing with him; one of the reasons he’d been so hell-bent on finding the vestiges of the pre-disbarment Wright is because it had seemed that Phoenix wasn’t very fond of this one. Miles should have focused on proving that they weren’t different at all instead of following that flight of fancy. People don’t transmute into different beings, unknown creatures on whom change can be blamed, no matter how much easier it is to believe. They simply look different in each different light, shift like mother-of-pearl, and just like a precious thing, Miles loves every color of Phoenix, every version.
So, no, he doesn’t expect Phoenix to come to the same understanding, to agree with what he’s saying; as he’d just thought, they’ve both spent far too long under the impression that personhood could be shed and exchanged like snakeskin. But the nod, at least, tells Miles that Phoenix is listening, that he believes that Miles feels that way, and in the moment, that’s enough.
It goes beyond enough when Phoenix raises his head fully and makes eye contact, picks his legs up and mirrors Miles’ movements so that he’s poised as though he’s going to play. For someone who supposedly does this for a living, he looks uncomfortable at the bench, slouched over. “Then – then let me ask you this, Miles: how can you think I would be disappointed in you?”
The turnabout; they’re inevitable in conversations with Wright, it seems. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve already done so much to make my life easier, Miles, I don’t care if you don’t think it counts or not. How could you ever think that I wouldn’t notice? That it wouldn’t be enough? It is more than enough, more than I could have asked for.” Emotion creeps into Phoenix’s tone, and it’s warm, this time, rising in to fill Miles’ chest. “You are… so much more.”
Now the evidence for the defense, the things Phoenix is referencing, fills Miles’ head: the early days, the earliest ones, cleaning the apartment and doing laundry until Phoenix could get out of bed; babysitting Trucy with his work laptop balanced on one leg and her head resting on the other; flying the both of them out to Europe to give them a break from the monotony of their apartment and get Phoenix in the field again. He’d been under the impression that he’d needed some kind of grand gesture to make up for things – well, he’d thought there was something to make up for in the first place. He looks down at his hands on the keys, Phoenix’s a few inches away, like they’re playing a duet blind, no sheet music to lead them.
They’re so used to proving each other wrong, to the relationship they had in the courtroom, even two years later, that they both keep things too close to the chest, and if they’d only talked about it before, they could have erased these imaginary debts and begun with blank slates far, far earlier, not held back by expectations.
But they’re here, now, talking even though it hurts, and Miles can’t look back, both because he doesn’t want to and because all he can see is Phoenix in front of him. Not the hero defense attorney who saved Miles, but the man, whole and real, blinding in his beauty. The sun, in all of its warmth, in all of its persistence in rising every day; even when covered by clouds, it comes up and waits for them to break apart so it can show its face again.
A tug in Miles’ stomach, all the way from his heart, like a string inside him being pulled. “Phoenix,” and he hardly even knows what he’s going to say until his lips are moving almost of their own accord, and then he can’t speak fast enough, almost stumbling over his words. “There is something… I need to tell you the truth, now, I–”
“Miles.” The weight on the first name is impossible to miss now. “I know. I already know.” It’s impossibly soft, wrapping around Miles like an embrace. He could cry: relief, joy, something he doesn’t know how to name, sprouting from his throat like flowers. Nothing else needs to be said, practically, with Phoenix’s voice sounding that way, but he says it anyway: “All I ever wanted was you being here, with me.” Simple, when it comes down to it, so simple it should make Miles feel stupid, but there isn’t room for anything else inside him. He’s bursting open.
Childlike, with the same casual orchestrated movement, Phoenix brings his hand closer and closer to Miles’ on the keys until their pinkies overlap. The difference between this and the rest of the things he’s been doing all night, the act he’d been putting on until they sat down at the piano, isn’t something that Miles can quantify or explain. It’s a sensation, a feeling, exchanged between them as easily as the touch on middle C that they’re sharing. There is no question of reciprocation.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Miles manages.
“I wasn’t sure if you knew, and God forbid I get in the way of a Miles Edgeworth investigation.” The amusement is obvious in Phoenix’s voice, lifted higher and higher with unmistakable elation. It feels so good to hear it again.
“Are you sure now?” Miles speaks in a whisper. If there were pages on the piano, sheet music to be read, it wouldn’t be loud enough to stir them into movement with his breath.
The smile cracks Phoenix’s face in two, and light shines out. There is no mixing of emotions, here; the rest recede and make way for the truth, the most important one, in all of its forms. “I’m sure.”
Their lips connect, hidden by the open lid of the piano, and Miles counts two impulse decisions he’s resolved not to regret tonight.
somebody to lie in the dark with.
Somebody's hands to touch.
Yrsa Daley-Ward