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Larry didn’t go to bars to drink or pick up hot chicks, to the surprise of…well, most people at least. Maybe even himself. But no, his reason was initially…a bit weirder.
He remembered, as a kid, watching Cheers re-runs on his mom’s TV late at night after she had gone to sleep with it still on. Maybe he was too young for it, but he liked watching the way everyone greeted each other when they walked in, how everyone knew each other’s names for good reasons and talked and spent time together. The idea of having a place where everyone greeted you by name and was happy to see you was kind of comforting, in its own way.
Real life, of course, didn’t really follow that example. He’d figured that out a long time ago.
Larry visited this bar semi-regularly now for only one really good reason, and that was because the food was cheap. When he was between jobs, between roommates, between paychecks, this food was affordable and filling. It was so greasy it practically moisturized his hands to pick up one of their burgers, but it was better than nothing at all.
There was another reason though, tonight, and it was the reason Larry kept glancing at the door when he heard it open from his table.
About the fifth time, exactly fifteen minutes before the time Larry had suggested if his watch was right, Miles Edgeworth walked in. He looked around the bar, grimacing as he noticed how dingy and noisy it was, before finally noticing Larry waving to him and blinking in surprise.
“You’re early,” he observed, sitting across from Larry at the table.
“Our teachers used to say, ‘Never expect anything from the Butz!’” Larry answered cheerfully, and Edgey rolled his eyes but his grimace had fallen away to his normal borderline disdain so Larry took it as a victory.
“I don’t understand why… this was the location you chose,” Edgey remarked.
Larry shrugged, answering, “Still waiting on my first paycheck from my new job. It’s what I can afford.”
Well…that wasn’t completely honest. If you pointed a gun at Larry’s head and told him to give the full reason, he’d admit it was also because he knew that it would make Edgey uncomfortable, to be in such a seedy-looking place. That it was, in some ways, his own bit of revenge. Maybe otherwise he’d have gone for a cheap but half-decent chain restaurant and grabbed an appetizer instead of a meal, skipped the soda for just a water, just to save Edgey the effort of having to lower himself to Larry’s admittedly shabby standards.
“I see…” Edgey answered, grabbing one of the laminated menus from behind the napkins and opening it up. “What do you recommend, then?”
Well how about that?
“They make pretty good pasta here,” Larry suggested. “Probably nothing as good as you’re used to, with all that time in Europe, but it’s not as greasy as the burgers.” Edgey nodded with only a slight grimace, glancing at the pasta on the menu. “As for drinks, I dunno. You seem like a wine guy, but I don’t know if they’ve got any you’ll like.”
“Any decent beer at least?” He glanced up at Larry and sighed at his surprised expression. “Don’t look so surprised. I grew up mostly in Germany.”
Larry nodded in understanding. “You’d have to ask the bartender what’s good. I don’t drink.”
It was Edgey’s turn to be surprised, his eyes widening slightly at the casual admission. Larry could see the questions that were building up, but it seemed Edgey wasn’t willing to ask them yet, instead turning his attention back to the menu and glancing at the drinks.
“Hmm…I’ll just get water then.”
Larry waved to a waitress he recognized, Kennedy, who hurried over and took Edgey’s order.
“Your usual?” she asked him cheerfully once she had written down Edgey’s, and she chuckled as Larry shot her finger guns and wrote down his order. “Alright, we’ll get this food out to you shortly!”
As Kennedy walked away, Edgey shot Larry a look.
“What’s that for?” Larry asked, confused.
“Should you be flirting with someone who’s working?”
Larry snickered at that. “Maybe look at the button on her lanyard when she comes back, Edgey.” Then, before Edgey could ask what he meant, he added, “Anyway, I’m not gonna flirt with anyone right now. This is us catching up after all! Edgey and the Butz, a duo rarely seen!”
Edgey blinked, then nodded, seemingly slightly embarrassed. “Yes, that’s…true, I suppose. We haven’t seen each other since not long after…” He went quiet at that, and Larry guessed where his mind had gone.
“I’ve still got my copy of the photo,” Larry added cheerfully. “Oh, and I’ve got that photo from Halloween that your dad took of us in our Signal Samurai costumes, if you want a copy.”
Edgey went still at that, eyes wide as he looked up. “You do?”
“Yeah, I keep all those old photos. You can come look through them sometime, pick whatever you want a copy of.” Kennedy walked back over with a glass of water and a Sprite with no ice, setting the drinks down on their table. “Hey Ken, poor Edgey here thought I was flirting with you.”
“Hah! Not in a million years, Butz,” she replied, holding up her lanyard that proudly held a lesbian flag button. Edgey squinted at it, before glancing away, looking a bit embarrassed. “How’s the last girlfriend anyway? Uh…Trisha?”
“Ugh, don’t remind me. She dumped me over text and stole my good frying pan when she left.”
“Oof. Well, better luck next time! I’ll bring your food out when it’s done.”
“Thank you,” Edgey answered with a nod.
“Yeah, thanks Ken!”
As Kennedy headed to handle other tables, Larry grabbed his glass and began sipping his Sprite. “So, I bet you’re wondering why I brought you here.”
Edgey, who had also been sipping his drink, paused, giving Larry a wary look. “I thought it was to catch up, like you said before.”
“Well duh, obviously,” Larry said. “But I want to talk about Nick for a bit, alright?”
Edgey, concerned, asked, “What about Wright?”
Larry shrugged, explaining, “You know, he’s worse than me about getting caught up in stuff. That bs with the rich weirdo who murdered his boss wasn’t the first time he’d been framed for murder. His ex-girlfriend was a piece of work.”
“...Oh?” Edgey looked alarmed. He apparently didn’t know that.
“Yeah, I met her a couple times and if you want me to be honest, she was shady even before the murder. Most of the time she was really sweet, so in love with Nick it was embarrassing. Sometimes though, she got weird . Shady weird. And then she’d go right back to being sweet next time you saw her, like nothing happened.
“Nick didn’t notice. He was head over heels, practically picking out flowers for their wedding and deciding on the names of their kids. Then, one day, she tried to poison him.”
Edgey sucked in a breath at that, eyes wide.
“Her ex, Doug something or other, stopped it, got into a fight warning Nick and everything. After that, she killed Doug and framed Nick for it. And Nick…he was so stupid in love that he didn’t believe she had done anything right until she showed her true colors.”
Larry set his glass down. Thinking about Dahlia just made him angry, and he didn’t think he was strong enough to shatter a glass in one hand but he really didn’t want to find out.
“I…” Edgey’s voice shook. “I had no idea.”
“Yeah, Nick was heartbroken. Even with how mean he’s gotten since, he was always a bleeding heart. He started hardcore studying law eventually, but for a while he was the most messed up I’d ever seen him. It was really terrifying.”
Larry was legally able to drink only about a month before the trial. He swore never to drink another drop of alcohol only weeks after it. If he could afford a therapist, maybe he’d tell them what happened, why he stopped drinking so soon after starting, why Nick stopped too. But he couldn’t, and if Nick didn’t want to say anything, then Larry wouldn’t either. He would probably die with that knowledge before sharing it with anyone else.
He told Edgey his perspective on what happened with Dahlia, and things that could have been read in the news. The things after, the things that only he and Nick knew, those would stay between the two of them.
“And that was the most messed up I’d ever seen him,” Larry continued, “until last year.”
He watched as Edgey averted his eyes and knew that he was starting to figure it out.
Because Larry liked to consider Edgey his friend, even if he wasn’t all that sure Edgey thought the same. But just because he dropped out of high school didn’t mean he couldn’t do basic math. He had known Edgey for a few months before any of them had hit double digits, and he had known Nick from diapers all the way to now.
Would he feel bad if he had to pick between the two? Yes. Was there any doubt he’d pick Nick in a heartbeat?
Absolutely. Fucking. Not.
“Nick called me, the night he saw your letter,” Larry explained. “Full panic mode. They were still searching for you, but he had already jumped straight to the worst. Not that you could really blame him. You know, I’m pretty dumb sometimes, but even I can get what ‘choosing death’ is supposed to mean.” He took a deep breath, shuddering as he thought back to that day.
“He didn’t cry, that was the terrifying part. He was angry, he was meaner than usual, and I did my best but I couldn’t fix it. Couldn’t bring you back from the dead. Couldn’t do anything but stick by him and make sure he didn’t go anywhere either.”
Larry met Edgey’s eyes for a moment, before Edgey averted them again.
“You broke him in ways I didn’t think he could be broken anymore, Edgey.”
It was silent at their table for a good, long moment. Larry wondered if this was the moment that Edgey decided they really weren’t friends. That it was time to stop wasting effort on him.
Edgey was the first to speak, eventually.
“The letter wasn’t a lie at first.”
That shocked Larry out of any remaining scraps of righteous fury.
“What?”
Edgey grit his teeth, before taking a deep breath and releasing it as a sigh. “I wrote that letter intending to see it through.”
…Shit.
“Shit,” Larry muttered out loud. If something smells—never expect anything from—it was just like the Butz to think he knew what he was doing only to end up regretting it. “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-”
“No,” Edgey interrupted, shaking his head. “No, you…you have a right to be angry. For all that it felt necessary to be away, that didn’t make it right. That didn’t diminish the hurt I caused.” His right arm clutched his left elbow, a nervous tic that hadn’t been there when they were kids. “I hurt you and Wright with what I did, and I’m sorry.”
Larry had gone into this meeting fully intending to rip into the great Miles Edgeworth, but now he felt like a complete jackass.
“Didn’t give me the right to give you shit over an actual suicide attempt,” Larry answered, ashamed.
“It wasn’t like you knew.”
“Doesn’t make it okay.”
“Your food’s ready!” Kennedy’s cheerful voice rang out, and the tense atmosphere wavered as she brought a tray over, setting down a plate of pasta and a basket with a hamburger and fries inside. “Let me know if either of you need anything else!”
“Thanks Ken,” Larry managed, and she glanced at him, her customer service smile wavering for a moment. She didn’t say anything though, simply took the tray away with a nod and headed back towards the kitchen.
The two of them picked at their food for a bit. Larry didn’t feel particularly hungry after that revelation. That this entire meeting was a bust actually. He had gone in intending to give Edgey shit for the hell he’d put Nick through and instead he’d harassed his hopefully formerly suicidal friend over something that had probably been even worse for him . This was absolutely the moment Edgey was going to be done with him, and he deserved it.
“How much do you know about SL-9?” Edgey asked after a moment.
“It’s one of those case numbers, right?” Larry answered, confused. “I don’t know what those mean, man, I’m not a lawyer.”
“Joe Darke.”
Larry was grateful he wasn’t eating, because he probably would have choked on his food. “That guy who killed five people in one night?!” Larry wasn’t a lawyer, but he did look at the news occasionally. Not to mention one of his exes was really into true crime podcasts, something Larry couldn’t relate to after basically living through an episode of one.
“Yes. I received his case after the previous prosecutor was killed, and Darke was sentenced to death. Except the one murder he didn’t commit, the murder of the previous prosecutor, was one I charged him with.”
Larry winced. On one hand, he wasn’t inclined to feel too bad for a guy who had murdered five people. On the other hand, even he could tell that was a slippery slope in an already messed up system.
“I was given faulty evidence, but I didn’t look closely enough. I should have. Things hadn’t added up, I wasn’t given everything I should have been. But I didn’t care. All that mattered was winning.” He stared at his food, refusing to look at Larry. “I didn’t learn about my failure for two years, and all I could think afterward was how many people I must have sent to prison on faulty evidence. How many of those people were truly innocent when I condemned them? I didn’t kill my father, but I killed many others instead. Not directly, but their blood is on my hands.”
“...Dude.”
Edgey looked like he wanted to melt into his seat and disappear. Like he was waiting for Larry’s judgment.
Honestly, Larry had judged him enough already.
“I literally made the murder weapon that was used to kill my girlfriend,” Larry admitted, and Edgey flinched, startled out of his attempt at disappearing. “No, it’s worse. It was two of a matching set. I gave the other to Nick’s boss, as a thank you for helping prove my innocence after Nick’s first trial. That one ended up killing her.”
“...The Thinker clock.”
Larry shuddered at the reminder.
It wasn’t his first work using electronics, but it was probably the most complicated. The programming hadn’t been his work, he’d gotten a friend at his job at the time to help him out, but he had put the whole thing together himself. He even got some noise complaints from his celebration when he got it to work. The second one was the one he gave to Cindy, the design perfected, and she’d loved it. He’d felt so proud as he taught her how to set it, because he knew how she traveled for her job. Teaching her that ended up saving his life, though it didn’t save hers.
He didn’t make sculptures anymore. He’d taken a long break from art after Cindy’s death, feeling nauseous every time he tried. Dating Kiyance, in hindsight, was a mistake that left him with useless garbage cluttering up a closet in his apartment. Selling hot dogs was a boring and lonely job that left him feeling worse, because he didn’t even have coworkers to share the misery with. Getting to help Edgey in court was probably the only thing he was proud of from that point.
In that brief period of time when everything almost felt fine again, with Edgey free and clear and Nick taking a break from cases but otherwise okay, he’d started painting instead of sculpting, and it was like some bleeding wound in him finally scabbed over enough to let him create again.
Paintings weren’t very good murder weapons, at least.
“...I guess you understand more than I thought,” Edgey remarked quietly, poking his pasta with his fork absently.
Larry nodded. For once he had nothing to say.
Neither Edgey nor Larry had killed someone before, but Larry sure as hell felt like a murderer sometimes. And he guessed Edgey did too.
He still had nightmares about Cindy, ones where she told him she hated him and that he’d killed her. Ones where she told him she loved him and that he’d killed her—because somehow that was worse than if she had hated him. Ones where she just stared at him with dead eyes, as if waiting for something Larry didn’t know how to give because he didn’t know anything, he didn’t know what she thought of him and what she wanted and whether she’d ever really cared or not.
Ones where she was dead at his feet, Nick’s boss slumped against the wall nearby, and he had the clock in his hands, the voice of his coworker ringing through the tinny speaker. I think the time is one o’clock. The blood was on his clothes, on the floor, on his hands, drowning him because they wouldn’t be dead if it weren’t for him and his stupid clocks.
Larry wasn’t technically a murderer, but he might as well have given the guy who killed Nick’s boss a knife, might as well have unlocked the door for Cindy’s killer.
“...How do you manage it?” Edgey asked, finally looking up from his pasta again.
Larry shrugged. “I just…keep going. Never really learned how to stop.” He hesitated, before admitting, “I can’t really talk about it with Nick. Best case scenario is he doesn’t get it. Worst case scenario, he does get it and that’s another can of worms he has to deal with. He’s already a big enough mess.”
Edgey nodded at that. “And yet, nothing will stop him from getting involved anyway, if he notices.”
“Good thing he doesn’t notice everything. Not enough Nick to go around, as much as he tries.”
“It’s as infuriating as it is admirable.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Larry agreed, taking a sip of his Sprite. “What about you? How are you holding up?”
Edgey frowned, poking absently at the noodles on his plate. “I’ve been attending therapy remotely, due to my travels. It has helped with addressing some issues I hadn’t been willing to consider. I was also prescribed antidepressants, though we are still adjusting my dosage currently. I’m less inclined to consider what I wrote in that note, at the very least.”
“That’s good.” Larry set his glass down again and grinned. “You’re alive and you’re getting better. Things are looking up!”
There was a pause, as Edgey blinked at his pasta, his frown taking a thoughtful edge to it. “I suppose I hadn’t thought of it that way. It still feels like…things are moving slowly. Like I’m not where I should be yet.”
“You think anyone is?” Larry asked. “Seriously, I never feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be. Sometimes literal starving artist and all that. Then again, you always had big plans about what you were going to be and how you were going to get there. Maybe the fact that there’s not a step-by-step guide to being okay is what’s messing with your head over it. Or maybe you’re just not effortlessly good at it. Like origami.”
“Don’t bring that up,” Edgey said sternly. “It was humiliating.”
Larry snickered. “Aw, c’mon Edgey! It wasn’t…” He paused. “Okay, so it was that bad, but it was like the first thing you weren’t good at on the first try. First time I could actually do something better than you. Hell, girls swoon over you despite the fact that you’re the least interested man I’ve ever seen.”
“There’s a good reason for that,” he muttered under his breath, and Larry pretended not to hear. He’d let that truth come out when Edgey was ready.
(Heh. Come out.)
“Whatever. The journey is more important than the destination and all that,” Larry continued, after a moment of tracking down the thread of conversation. “Can’t give yourself shit for not being all the way there yet, or you’re just gonna give up before you get there. Don’t need to make the whole thing harder on yourself.”
Edgey blinked at him for a moment, opening and closing his mouth before finally shaking his head and turning his attention back to his pasta. “That might be the smartest thing you’ve ever said.”
“Yeah don’t expect any more, I can throw out one of those maybe once a week. If I’m lucky,” Larry joked, and Edgey let out an amused huff.
“I suppose I should feel lucky to have borne witness to such a rare event.”
Larry snickered at that, and observed a bit proudly that the expression on Edgey’s face was practically a smile.
The two settled into a more comfortable quiet as they started digging into their food. It seemed the pasta was up to Edgey’s standards after all, because he finished it before Larry was even half done with his burger. Today was just full of surprises, wasn’t it?
“When are you going back to Europe?” Larry asked after finishing his food.
Edgey shrugs. “In a few days. I have to finish paperwork with the prosecutor’s office, and Wright and Miss Fey have both insisted I have dinner with them the night before I leave.”
“You know how long you’ll be gone this time?”
“Not really.” Edgey glanced at his empty plate, as if mourning the late pasta now that he didn’t have any to poke with a fork. “I intend to spend some time in Germany, studying the law reforms there. After that…there is always something new to learn.”
Larry could respect that, even if he didn’t fully get it. “Gimme your phone number, then. So I don’t have to contact you through Nick again.”
Edgey rolled his eyes, before holding out a hand expectantly. Larry passed him his phone and watched as he created a new contact on the device.
“This is not an invitation to harass me at all hours of the day,” Edgey warned, narrowing his eyes at Larry as he saved the contact and passed the phone back. “Don’t make me regret this.”
“Chill, man, I’m not that bad,” Larry assured him. “Unless once a week is too much for you. Then sucks to be you man, you’re joining Nick on the ‘still kicking’ texting list. I’d make it a group chat but that might actually kill Nick’s brick.”
“Yes, it probably would.”
When Kennedy brought the ticket, Edgey took it, giving Larry a glare that dared him to try and argue. Larry wasn’t Nick though, and he especially wasn’t the kind of person to turn down free food. He hadn’t been lying about waiting for that first paycheck anyway.
Once the food was paid for, Larry walked Edgey out to his car, waving to Kennedy as they left.
“...Are you available tomorrow evening?” Edgey asked. “I would be interested in looking at those pictures you mentioned.”
And Larry figured things would be okay.