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It happens quickly. Like everything else that’s gone wrong in Miles’ pathetic life. The tile flooring of the courthouse is fine one moment, and shaking under his freshly polished dress shoes in the next. Something icy claws at Miles’ heart before the bony fingers extend further to constrict his lungs between them. A feeling he knows all too well. His nervous eyes dart to the pictures of past judges hung on the walls, praying for his fears to be mitigated to whatever god may deign to listen to his pleas. But the gods don’t hear him. Miles believes they never have, not for fifteen years at the very least. The pictures rattle against the walls, and Miles can’t hear the sound as anything except the way his teeth had once chattered in that cold, dark place. Out of all days, why now? He’d been having as good a day as possible — the bar wasn’t high — but the quiet rumbling under his feet had ruined the high he’d been riding on from his current lead in court, quick as a bullet.
Miles whips his head from side to side as he chokes out an exhale, the ends of his overgrown bangs flicking against his cheeks. He scans the hall through quickly fading vision for a sign of life besides his own. There’s nothing, at least not at the moment. It’s a momentary comfort, something minimal to console Miles as he collapses on the ground. Not by his own accord, of course not. Under any other circumstances, he’d never risk letting anyone see him in such an unguarded state, especially at his workplace. Typically, Miles is composed, much too cognisant of his own image to let anything soil it. He doesn’t have that luxury now, though, and as his eyes squeeze shut in a feeble attempt to barricade his tears from flowing, he can’t bring himself to care about the dust that’s surely coating the burgundy vicuna of his suit where his knees hit the floor.
The dull pain goes unnoticed by the prosecutor; there’s nothing he can focus on aside from the blood roaring through his ears with the force of a tidal wave. That same water Miles feels in his head is in his chest, too, he thinks. It’s audacious enough to be drowning him on land, he can’t breathe. Whether it’s water or bile or sticky black tar, it’s inside Miles’ throat and it’s paralyzing him. He lays breathless, useless on the floor as the wave inundates him with memories. The earth rumbling beneath his small feet. The lights going out. The screaming. His father’s, Yogi’s, his own. The fighting. The feeling of his tiny hand closing around the gun and throwing it, for nothing more than to feel some sense of control over the situation, for nothing more than to get the men to stop fighting. The sound of the pistol firing. The world going dark. The waking up orphaned in a hospital bed. The belief he’d been the one to kill his father.
For fifteen years, the nightmare Miles had believed to be reality haunted him every time he closed his eyes. And even still, even with his father’s real killer behind bars, Miles can’t absolve himself of the guilt. Gregory Edgeworth had much more promise than his son ever did, than he has now. Gregory’s light had been snuffed out too soon, and all his son had done with the next fifteen years of his sorry life was become a carbon copy of the murderer, a matching silhouette of the douter that extinguished Gregory’s flame. It’s something Miles can’t escape. Something he doesn’t think he has the right to. He’d been raised in the image of a von Karma, raised with their values. Their determination. Their utter disregard for anything outside of themselves and the sound of a guilty verdict. Miles is a von Karma in every way but blood, he knows it. It’s a guilt that rests deep in his bones, something he can’t carve out despite how many times he tries. And he tries.
Ah. There are the tears.
Miles coughs out something between a self-pitying laugh and a sob. It’s something wet, something unbecoming. Humiliating. His face winds up pressed to the cold floor with force, like he’s trying to burrow into the tile. Maybe it’ll work. Maybe Miles can become one with the slate, be torn apart in the same way the stone might be, ripped limb from limb and buried in the same place his father died. He wants it. Deserves it. Yearns for it, in a way he can’t even admit to himself. It’d be easier that way, to sink into the shaking earth and fragment himself into rubble, into nothingness. A fitting end for him. But despite that desire, Miles wants to move. He needs to, he can’t let anyone see him like this. ‘Broken down and crying’ is not a survivable addendum to the demon prosecutor’s persona. He’s never vulnerable in front of anyone, lest it ruin his reputation.
Except with him…
Phoenix Wright. The only one to ever watch him go through a panic attack of this caliber —well, and his assistant, also Gumshoe, but Miles’ frazzled brain doesn’t think of them . It had been another earthquake-induced one, at the Detention Center of all places, as if Miles hadn’t already been humiliated enough just by being detained there. Miles can’t currently decide if he’d want Phoenix by his side now, without a pane of glass separating them. He doesn’t want to admit that the earthquake might be easier to get through if Phoenix’s arms were wrapped around him, another layer to help his body absorb the shocks emanating up from the ground. He can’t admit that, he can’t let anyone see him right now, he’s got to pull himself together before someone sees him and publicizes his weakness. He doesn’t know how much time the ground will continue to roll under his curled-up body, isn’t aware of how long it’s already been since he started hyperventilating on the floor. Miles weakly attempts to gulp for breath, but it’s more of an inverted wheeze than an intake of oxygen. He can crack one eye open just in time for his world to go red. There’s a click amongst the rumbling, the telltale sign of the power shutting down, with only the cherry red emergency lights softly beaming above him. Miles is glad in this moment that there’s no air in his lungs. It’s preventing him from screaming, from embarrassing himself further. The darkness, the shaking, the chill in the air. It’s a pitiful reenactment of fifteen years ago. Helpless then, helpless now.
There’s one man that would help. In his dimming consciousness, Miles can at least think of Phoenix amongst the memories of his father, of the pitch black, of the gunshot, of the hospital bed. Phoenix is there, burning red in the heavens of his mind like the emergency lights above him. The kindhearted bastard cares too much about him, much more than such a despicable man like Miles deserves. Phoenix is faithful, he’s loyal and he’s bright, and as far as Miles would be able to tell with a lucid mind, he’s probably already on his way to find the other man. To protect him. Again. It’s as comforting a thought as Miles can have in this situation, one that makes the vice-like pressure in Miles’ head diminish from excruciating to just immensely painful. He still can’t breathe easily, but there’s a twitch in his extremities that lets him know that the panicked paralysis isn’t total anymore. Miles can be rational, he can be the smart man he’s supposed to be, he’s trained to be, he can realize that the quake must be in its second half, he can realize that in a matter of seconds, Phoenix would be here with his safe arms and steady heartbeat and soft whispers.
No.
The true realization dawns on Miles with all the speed, intensity, and pain of an electric shock. Lightning strikes through his nervous system, sharp and unforgiving as the bullet he used to think he put through his father’s chest. Miles gasps and then chokes on it, spluttering a series of coughs against the trembling floor. His head is fuzzy, but he screws his eyes shut, using all his energy to think past the vignette bordering his recent memories. The court had adjourned for the day, Miles had to stay back and arrange for someone to be detained, Phoenix had kissed the crown of his head despite Miles’ protests that “Wright, we’re in public,” and the taller man had bid him goodbye and gone to leave the courthouse. Phoenix had been suffering through one of his chronic migraines today, and had told Miles that he’d be avoiding the stairs for a more comfortable travel to the ground floor.
He took the elevator.
Phoenix Wright is in the courthouse elevator. Phoenix Wright is in the same situation Miles’ father was in when he died. The earth rumbling, the lights going out. Miles is going to lose the only person in this world besides his father he’s ever loved. Fate has never been more cruel, more sadistic. A life without Phoenix… The voice in Miles’ head that wants to give up, to rot here, to reunite with his father once and for all gets louder. But he can’t. Fifteen years of survivor’s guilt has plagued him, fifteen years of diagnosed PTSD has underscored his existence. Miles has spent fifteen years grieving, and that’s not something he can ever stop, but if he can’t change the course of events this time, he would rather choose death. If Miles can’t save Phoenix like he couldn’t save his father, he’s no better than he was all those years ago. He’s nothing more than that scared little boy, crying and desperate and helpless. He can’t be helpless, not when Phoenix’s life is at stake.
Miles’ arms shake as he flattens his palms against the dirty ground, pushing himself up into a half-seated position. His legs still feel numb, like static, but he must find a way to mitigate that in the next few seconds. It’s something innate inside Miles that gives him the strength to lift himself up, some primal instinct to protect that he’s never felt before. Miles has never been a protector. He’s not nearly good enough of a person to be. As Miles manages to make it to his feet, balancing precariously on his trembling legs as if he’s truly become one with the shaking earth, his vision goes dark around the edges. Maybe it’s a trick, an illusion, the shadows seeming larger in the red light. Or it’s something simpler. He’s dizzy, he’s sick. He can only take a single step forward before he feels the familiar sensation of his face going hot, of his ears and nose buzzing. Another half-step, half-stumble forward, and his mouth fills with bile. Miles swallows it down with a grimace before it gets worse, before he can actually puke and waste time by retching. The demanded termination of the bodily function leaves an acrid, bitter taste in his mouth. With his throat burning, Miles forces himself to navigate down the dark hall, albeit through uneven footfalls that rock in tandem with the ground. Down the hall and to the left, and there would be Phoenix, alone and asphyxiating and as vulnerable as Miles’ own father had been. The pounding of his feet against the tile is as erratic as his heartbeat. Miles doesn’t have the wherewithal to discern how much time he squandered during his unsteady sprint to the elevator doors —Phoenix was right, Miles should be working out more, because then he’d be faster and stronger and he’d be enough.
“Phoenix—” A despairing scream of the lawyer’s name—his given name, not ‘Mr. Wright’ or a permutation of it that Miles would normally speak within these walls—leaves Miles’ lips, nearly cut short by the way the wind knocks out of him, a result of him colliding into the steel doors. A grievous miscalculation on his end, to not determine how much momentum he’d have, something he can beat himself up over when his mind is clearer. Miles’ forearm stings from the impact, but the man’s adrenaline blocks him from recognizing the pain. “Phoenix?!” His fists bang on the door with hopeless abandon, trembling and tense. It’s loud, too loud, it’s the gunshot all over again, he caused it then and he’s causing it now and he’s losing Phoenix permanently with only a few inches keeping them from each other. Through tears, he screams for Phoenix again and pounds his fists against the steel. The subdued pain in his hands and wrists is secondary.
“Miles?” The prosecutor freezes at the mention of his name. Phoenix’s voice is muffled through the door, confused, and hearing his name come out as a question makes Miles panic further. He can hear the sounds of Phoenix puking—right, the migraine that Miles had entirely forgotten about—through the door, puking which turns into dry-heaving, it sounds like, and Miles’ blood runs cold. Vomit. Confusion. Lack of oxygen. Miles has studied the symptoms of hypoxia enough times to have them memorized, even in his currently distracted mind. It can’t be this quick, no, he can’t have lost that much time in that wretched and pitiful state, curled up on the floor. It can’t be, but it might be, and Miles has to get him out of there. He pulls back from the elevator doors and crashes his full weight against the metal, leading with his shoulder. It’s a senseless act, all desperation and no thought, and the pure lack of planning on Miles’ end—something unnatural for him—sends his head simultaneously careening into the door. A pained noise escapes Miles, his vision going blurry as his head swims. He staggers on his feet, a new wave of nausea crashing down on the shore of his stomach. The pounding of his heart is echoed by his head, an unrelenting force that leaves him reeling. “Miles! I-I’m… I’m okay.” He’s lying. Phoenix must be lying to him, trying to spare his feelings, make Miles feel better about the fact that he’s going to die, because that’s just what Phoenix Wright does, he plays the hero and he protects and consoles and saves, he’s a good man and he’s dying and Miles is losing the only person still on this earth he loves.
“Phoenix, no, y—”
“Mr. Edgeworth?” Another voice that Miles recognizes. Deep and resonant, calling Miles by that formal title, a sign of the good detective. Miles can’t turn to face him, only dimly aware of the fact that he’s here next to him. He slams his shoulder into the doors again, making half of an effort to keep his head from crashing against the metal. It works, and Miles isn’t sure if he’s glad about that. Gumshoe is panting, hands on his thighs in an attempt to catch his breath. “Mr. Edgeworth, sir, I don’t think you should be doin’ that…” Gumshoe’s sentence doesn’t go unheard, but it sure is unacknowledged, punctuated intermittently by the thud of Miles’ body slamming against the elevator.
“It’s not working,” Miles mumbles, and of course it isn’t, why would it? There’s no reason, by any stretch of any amount of logic that would lead the door to open just by Miles throwing his entire body weight at the solid sheets of metal. “It’s not working, get him out, get— Phoenix!” A broken wail of the defense attorney’s name leaves Miles’ lips, shrill and panicked and shattered. He pauses the frenetic movements momentarily, not to give his left shoulder a few seconds of respite, but to claw at the space between the doors, the small fissure where the metal isn’t fused together. With a scoff, Miles thinks that it might as well be, what with the downright idiotic design of the airtight space. There’s not enough room for his thin fingers to fit between the crack, but he tries regardless, ignoring the biting pain that rips through his nerves when his freshly manicured fingernails catch on the edge of the door. Miles scrapes at the doors with all the anguish and fear of a cornered animal, trying to pry them apart. “Please,” The aimless beg comes out as more of a sob than anything else, split into two syllables by Miles’ splintered exhale. “Phoenix, please, I—” I can’t lose you.
“Miles.” There’s conviction behind Phoenix’s dampened voice this time. He shouts to be heard, despite the strain on his voice. “I’m alright… You gotta stop, love, I don’t want you hurting yourself. Maintenance should be arriving soon, yeah? They’re gonna get me out of here.”
“No,” Miles is shaking his head erratically, a loud crack sounding from his neck. One look down at his fingers shows a few bloodied nails. In the red light, it’s easy to miss. “Phoenix, no, we don’t have the luxury of ‘soon’!” Miles rests his forehead on the cool metal for a moment, a failed attempt at grounding himself in reality. A large hand winds up on Miles’ shoulder, the one he hasn’t been slamming into the doors, trying to keep him from hurting himself further, an attempt at honoring Phoenix’s wishes. It doesn’t work. “You’re losing air—” Miles shouts, once more throwing his shoulder into the metal and biting back the pain. Gumshoe’s hand slips off Miles’ shoulder and swings at his side. The detective’s gaze flits between Miles and the imposing doors; he’s at a loss for what to do.
There’s no sound from behind the doors for a few seconds, and Miles’ knees nearly buckle under the combined weight of his body and his crushing guilt. And then he hears “Shit,” terse and in an exasperated tone that is so uniquely Phoenix, and Miles nearly collapses again on grounds of relief. A pity the moment is fleeting. Miles can feel the doors shake where his open palms press against them. It’s got a similar thumping sound to the ones Miles was making, if not more powerful, and it brings a fresh wave of tears to his eyes that spill over the angular planes of his face, miserable waterfalls cascading down his cheeks. Miles echoes Phoenix with the slamming of his own body against the doors, and the metal still doesn’t budge. He’s briefly chained to the floor with fear; Phoenix is trying to break out, Phoenix is physically exerting himself, the idiot, and Miles screams desperately at him to stop. It’s a lamentable cacophony of both lawyers yelling at each other, clamoring to be heard. Miles, pleading for Phoenix to save as much air as he possibly can, abandoning his usual flowery language for the sake of urgency and praying to the gods that had already forsaken him to listen this time, to not take away Phoenix, if not for Miles’ own selfish reasons then for the fact that Phoenix deserves to live. Phoenix, slowly losing his rationality, begging for Miles to stop and think for a moment, to please not hurt himself, to listen to Gumshoe and just wait for the maintenance team to arrive and bust the door open, to calm down.
Calm down.
Down.
Phoenix had simply been trying to exit the courthouse, get down to the ground floor so he could reach his bike and head home, and now he was trapped and dying in his attempt at a descent. It should be Miles in that position. He doesn’t just think it, he knows it, he knows that it should be him to die like this, especially if he’d be heading down. A slow, painful death in his descent to Hell. Phoenix Wright doesn’t deserve that, Phoenix Wright is an angel in Miles’ head if not outright deified at this point, Phoenix Wright can not go to Hell. Not when Miles is right here, a perfect candidate for eternal suffering. It’s another cruel moment from whatever higher power must get off on taking everything good from Miles. The prosecutor has tried time and time again to send himself to Hell, and he’s failed every time, and it’s now that the one good and loving man he knows is taking his place. Miles’ aching shoulders shake as he cries, only able to throw himself at the doors with half the amount of force he could be using, the efficacy of his endeavors mitigated by Gumshoe’s hand gripping his bicep. The detective doesn’t try to pull Miles away, he doesn’t want to make Miles’ anxieties grow. He’ll try to protect the man in small ways, like he always does.
Phoenix is still talking to him, and Miles wants to scream at him to stop, remind him that talking only uses more oxygen, but even with fate’s scissors threatening to sever the thread of Phoenix’s life, Miles can’t stop being selfish, can’t help but to silently plead for Phoenix to keep talking to him, to keep letting him know that he’s okay, alive, that the lack of oxygen hasn’t stolen him away just yet. Through his rushing pulse, Miles can barely make out the specifics of what Phoenix is saying, just that he’s talking and he’s still here. His eyesight is failing him, red-filtered and tear-blurred. Miles is an absolute mess of foiled senses, broken down to nothing but the urge to save. He hasn’t felt like this in fifteen years, hasn’t felt a desire to save a person, hasn’t felt any reason to. Humanity as a whole is guilty, all of them on some level, and after the death of his father, Miles had learned that it’s his job to punish them. Humanity and all its shortcomings are beneath Miles, and it’s his job to keep order. It’s a sentiment he’s known and followed for the past fifteen years. Manfred must have instilled that in him.
The realization seems to grip at Miles’ throat, squeezing a pained rasp out of him. He wishes he didn’t know why he thinks of that man in this moment, but he does. He knows, because Miles’ life is but a series of tragic parallels, and none have been worse than this. Phoenix, the only genuinely good lawyer that Miles has ever known since his father walked this earth, about to die in the exact same room Gregory did, in all its small size and poor design and shame. Miles, a sorry excuse of a man, desiring more than anything to get into the elevator, to grant himself access to the defenseless attorney for no other reason than for his own selfish gain. Miles bawls against the doors, unable to stop his racing mind from drawing connections between himself and the man who put his beloved father to his death. If he was raised by the evil himself, how could Miles ever wish to be better? By blood or by covenant, he was the son of a von Karma. It’s a breaking point within a broken point, and Miles can’t hold himself back from laughing at the situation. It’s contemptuous and pitiable, and for all his intelligence, Miles can’t think of a way to cope with the very real possibility of losing Phoenix in a matter of minutes, as having the last interaction with him besides this sorry sight be chastising him for showing affection. Manic and animalistic, he’s a bitter cocktail of impulse and he bashes his body against the door, sweating through his suit and bloodying the doors where the torn skin around his fingernails collide with the smooth surface. He’s calling out for Phoenix, sobbing and begging for some all-powerful force to switch their places if anything, to keep Phoenix alive by any means necessary. He’d give his own life for Phoenix in a heartbeat. Hell, he’d tried to give it for less. He chants Phoenix’s name like a prayer, as if it will solve anything.
And he doesn’t hear an answer.
There’s nothing coming from the other side of the door. No pleading with Miles to stop risking injury, no certainties solidifying that he’s okay, no attempt at talking to Gumshoe asking to remove Miles from the situation by force if need be. There’s nothing.
Miles wails, a sound tormented and harrowed. There’s not enough substance in his pained noises for anyone, especially himself, to discern words. It’s raw and it’s primitive and it is just screaming. Recklessly, he launches himself at the door. It’s not an attempt to open it so much as it’s a desperate venture to catapult himself through the steel and reach Phoenix, to blow a hole open through the metal, warping it around his body, letting it cut into his flesh as he bleeds out breaching the seal of the elevator, his last moments actualizing the first and only bout of selflessness he’d ever experience. If his life were to end saving Phoenix’s, it would still be more than he deserves. His entire body crashes against the solid force, strength from the pure agony giving Miles the momentum he needs to escape Gumshoe’s grip. With nothing holding him back, physically or mentally, the collision is strong. His head knocks against the steel again, vision going black for a second, maybe two, and Miles’ mouth floods with something metallic. He can’t stop screaming, he can’t help but sob for the love he’s sure he’s lost, and it’s only after he initiates another assault on the door that Gumshoe manages to wrestle him away.
Miles is no match for the older man, and even raw adrenaline isn’t enough to break him out of the position the detective has him in, arms pinned to his side as Gumshoe gives him some amalgamation of a tight hug. Gumshoe drags him away from the elevator doors, holding him against his chest, muttering reassurances that fall on deaf ears. The fight inside Miles is giving out, as if it has any right to, as if it’s okay that Phoenix is dying and Miles’ pure exhaustion is an adequate reason for giving up. His mouth falls open as he gasps for breath, a sticky mixture of spit and blood splattering against the floor. He’s startled by Gumshoe’s voice, something right next to his head, exploding into a booming sound. He’s too far gone, already toeing the line of the first stage of grief, to understand what Gumshoe is saying. It’s as if his shouts, his orders, come from underwater. “There’s a man unconscious in there!” is what Miles fails to hear. “You’ve only got a couple of minutes to open those damn doors, or so help me, God, I’ll use the lot of you to open ‘em myself!” Nobody on the maintenance team is quite sure what the man means, but none of them want to risk finding out.
They’re all bellowing at each other, carrying tools and waving flashlights that Miles can’t see through the unrelenting flow of his tears. There’s sounds of banging yet again, but this time it’s metal against metal, something effective. Miles couldn’t save him, he hadn’t been enough. The harsh scraping sounds would inevitably make Miles cringe if he had the ability to care about anything aside from Phoenix’s imminent death at this point in time. Miles can’t escape the incessant sound of the clanging or the crushing pressure of the guilt, and he weeps in Gumshoe’s arms, cursing at the gods and at his own mortal shortcomings. It should have been him. If there’s anyone representative of humanity’s scornful guilt, it’s Miles Edgeworth himself. He deserves this, but yet again, he’s the one left alive, left bereaved, forced by some sick joke to keep living —and for what? The man who was supposed to raise him is dead. The man Miles wants to spend the rest of his life with is mere seconds away from meeting him, if it hasn’t already happened.
“Finally, jeez!” It’s Gumshoe’s roaring that catches Miles off-guard yet again. His puffy eyes don’t let much through, but Miles notices that all the flashlights are pointed in the direction of what he knows to be the elevator. And they don’t bounce back against the steel, no, they flood the elevator with their harsh glow and they illuminate the sorrowful scene. Miles’ gaze trains on the cobalt blue of Phoenix’s suit, wrinkled on the ground. The overwhelming urge to run to him surges over Miles, and it washes away any last dregs of rationality still clinging to the sulci of his brain. His arms don’t have much in the way of motion, but there’s enough leeway for Miles to draw his left arm away from Gumshoe’s stomach and jab it back against him. Miles throws all his remaining strength into the hit, and it’s enough to send the detective recoiling, letting go of Miles for a second, and it’s all the time he needs to sprint into the elevator. He is the bullet entering the elevator this time, he’s got a clear path carved out heading straight for the motionless defense attorney.
Miles’ right arm is outstretched as he caves to the floor, half in front and half on top of the unmoving man. His bloodied fingers scramble for purchase on Phoenix’s wool suit, clawing at the lapels. Phoenix has fallen on his side, half curled in over his own chest, and Miles knows from experience that he fits in that space perfectly. He ends up hurting his nose with how aggressively his face strikes the place on Phoenix’s chest he calls home, and sobs muffled apologies against the suit. Miles cries until his body is too dehydrated to produce more tears, and he doesn’t know how long that takes, coughing and gasping for air despite being unwilling to take his face away from Phoenix’s chest. He feels the heat again, the buzz and the dizziness, and the tension leaves his body. Miles’ hands slide off of Phoenix’s suit jacket, and he’s as motionless as the man beneath him. In his regrettable stillness, though, Miles can feel what the tremors of his sobs had prevented him from noticing—a heartbeat. Safe, steady, soft. Phoenix is alive. The relief is a feeling Miles can’t describe. His heart is no longer being crushed under the newly doubled weight of his survivor’s guilt, he’s escaped the peine forte et dure his lungs were enduring just moments before they could collapse. Phoenix has a heartbeat, he’s still here, Miles hasn’t gone and lost him just yet. He still doesn’t trust whatever higher powers may exist, but he whispers a “thank you” to them before his eyes roll back in his head and for a second time, his entire world goes black inside that elevator.
When he wakes up, disoriented and cold, it’s under the bright lights of a hospital room. He’s got a dislocated shoulder, since popped back into place, and he’s got doctors worrying about a possible concussion they’ve not yet had the chance to test him for. The injuries on his hands are minor, but every finger with a damaged nail has since been bandaged up. Miles’ memories are foggy, especially the ones from right before he blacked out, but he’s sure he can remember the key points. After all, this is the second time in his life that this has happened. The earthquake, the power outage, Phoenix in the elevator… Miles’ heart nearly stops. He wakes up in this same place after fifteen long years, and for what? To hear from a doctor that Phoenix is gone now, too? Tears well in his half-lidded eyes—he squints to remedy the harsh fluorescents above him—and there’s nothing Miles can do to stop them. He’s powerless now, he was powerless however many hours ago, and he’d been powerless fifteen years ago. I’ve lost him. Miles deems it would be better had he never woken up.
“Miles?” A hushed whisper. From a voice Miles knows, one he’s memorized the hills and valleys of. He sits straight up in his hospital bed like he’s been electrocuted, and stares out at the visitors’ chairs mere feet away from his bed to see Phoenix Wright sitting there in a hospital gown that matches his own, IV drip connected to his arm and gelled spikes of his hair deflated. He looks tired, but the exhaustion doesn’t dampen his look of concern for Miles. Miles must be dreaming; the urge to pinch himself shoots across his mind, and if he possessed the strength to honor the impulse, he would. Phoenix sitting here in front of him, breathing and blinking and decidedly not dead. Was it even real? “Hi…”
“Phoenix—” There’s so much that Miles wants to say to him, but all that comes out is the name, barely audible and warped by Miles’ scratchy throat. “You—”
“Said I was going to be alright.” He’s all gentle smiles and bashful glances away from Miles. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
“Scared me?!” Miles rasps. His mind, a bit slowed from the painkillers, is still trying to process that Phoenix is alive, that Miles doesn’t have to live on without him. And here the man of the hour is, apologizing to him. That’s what solidifies it in Miles’ cloudy head, that Phoenix this is real. Any illusion, any dream version of him wouldn’t be apologetic, wouldn’t care to this extent about Miles’ role in this situation, his fear. “Phoenix, you…” Miles can feel the hot tears rolling down his cheeks, carving deeper into an already well-worn path. The brief alarm that he’s crying in front of Phoenix leaves as quick as it appears. The preoccupation with his image, his need to feel dignified at any moment, that doesn’t matter anymore. Phoenix is here. Phoenix is alive. Nothing else holds significance to Miles anymore. “Come here. Please?”
Phoenix obliges the request, and moves on slightly shaking legs, one hand gripping the IV stand and bringing it along with him. For an otherwise clumsy man, Phoenix is silent when he moves. Careful. He’s treating Miles like the delicate one in this situation, as if it hadn’t been Phoenix himself who’d nearly suffocated. Miles shakes his head in disbelief as Phoenix closes the gap between them. Phoenix has to bend down just a bit for their foreheads to touch, but as soon as he manages it, Miles’ eyes blink shut, the tension leaves his shoulders. Miles is dimly aware that his skin is clammy, now that something’s pressing against it, but he’s sure Phoenix doesn’t mind. Miles breathes in deeply, a luxury they both have, thank God, and is calmed by Phoenix’s smoky-firewood scent overpowering the otherwise sterile, chemical stench of the hospital. Miles can’t feel where his silent tears splash against the bedsheets, only knowing they fall from the sensation of them leaving his sharp chin. “I don’t know what I would have done had I lost you.” Miles whispers, a waver cutting through his deep voice.
“You never will, Miles.” Phoenix assures him. His closed eyes can’t stop him from finding one of Miles’ hands atop the thin sheets; he’s mapped every inch of the man’s body enough times to find his hands without sight. Lacing their fingers together, Phoenix gives Miles a comforting squeeze. A vow. “We promised forever.”