Work Text:
EDGEWORTH POV
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Tw: suicide
I checked my pocket-watch quickly before gently knocking on the door to Phoenix's office. It was just a bit later that 5:00, so not too late to come in uninvited. Besides, I was just coming by to drop off some case files. My hand raised to the door and gently rapped on it 3 times. No answer.
Beyond the door I heard a quiet sobbing, and then a shaking noise. Bizarre. I knocked again, a bit louder this time, but no answer. The shaking noises kept going, repeating itself over and over until finally, with a clack, they stopped. The sobbing became a bit louder, intermixed with gasping now.
"I should check to see if everything is okay," I thought to myself before picking up the key that Phoenix always left beneath the garden gnome near the doorstep. Every time I saw that gnome I chuckled at his lack of common sense at leaving the keys to his office and home under a stone statue. The key clicked in the lock, and I slowly twisted the doorknob. As I stepped back to put the key away, the door began to swing open with a loud creak, and by the time I'd replaced the key, the door was fully open, to reveal a barely lit entryway to the office, and beyond it 3 doors.
I already knew that one led to Phoenix's bedroom, and that the other was a meeting room of sorts, but never had I found out what the third was. All I knew was that it was the room where Mia Fey had been murdered, but since then it had been kept shut. The first door was open a crack, revealing the small space that Phoenix called his bedroom, and the second was closed.
As I paced around, surveying the office, I heard the shaking again, and again, and once more. It was coming from behind the third door, the one I'd never stepped foot in, nor knew what was inside.
"Should I open the door and see what's going on?" I asked myself, uncertainty dancing through my mind. "Would that be an intrusion of privacy?" I asked myself, before finally deciding to quietly knock on the door before entering.
Once more, I brought my knuckles up to the door and gently rapped on it. The crying and gasping continued, followed by the shaking noise. What the hell is going on? Nobody answered my knock. I continued to knock, more and more until I finally gave up and slowly cracked the door open.
There was nothing that could prepare me for what I would see beyond that door. As I peeked my head through the doorframe, I saw Phoenix lying on the floor below a window, a yellow pill bottle held loosely in his hand, half empty. He was wheezing and crying as he slowly forced another pill into his mouth, then another, then another. He didn't even notice me come in.
I slowly walked over to him and sat down next to him on the floor. Even then, I couldn't even be certain that he'd noticed me. Slowly, I put my hand on his shoulder as he was about to force another pill into his mouth.
He'd finally noticed me, and was now staring at me with swollen, bloodshot eyes as a strand of hair brushed across his face. I stared back, not knowing what to say.
After minutes of anguishing silence, I finally worked up the courage to speak.
"Wright..," my voice came out shaky and broken as I finally looked him in the eye. "Phoenix... w-what-" I choked out, my vision blurring and my head beginning to hurt.
Was he killing himself?
What the hell are you thinking, Edgeworth? Of course he is.
I couldn't stand to look at Phoenix that way anymore. He was no longer the determined and powerful man that I'd seen as my enemy for so many years. He was a hurt, broken, and shattered person that just did a great job at hiding it.
I averted my gaze and shut my eyes tight. I didn't even know what to do, what to say...
"Listen, Edgeworth," came a voice. It was, undeniably Phoenix's, but it was croaky and slurred. I turned and forced myself to look at him. "It's time you know."
"What-" I choked out. "What... what are you talking about?"
He stared back at me, his bloodshot eyes conveying so much sadness, so much pain, that I could feel myself breaking on the inside. Then, I felt him gently picking up my hands and gripping them tight, yet never averting his gaze.
"I- I never really talk about my past or my childhood. There's a reason for that," he began, his voice still cracking and breaking. "My parents were very young when they had me, and a f-few weeks after they had me, they gave me up into the system. I went through foster homes through all of my childhood, nobody every loving me. I was always told that I'd be a nobody. That my dreams of being an artist never mattered, b-but when I was t-thirteen, some woman adopted me and cared so much about m-me, b-but th-then s-she died in a car accident only a f-few weeks later, and I was sent back i-into the system," he continued, more tears beginning to well up in his eyes. I reached into my pocket and gently dabbed at his eyes before sitting back and beginning to listen once more.
"W-well when I m-met Mia, I thought I could finally be happy with a person who cared about me a-and when she d-died, it made me feel... useless. I couldn't even save a person who I cared about, let alone a complete stranger!" he yelled, staring back at me, rage flowing through his gaze. "A-and when you d-died, I felt even more useless, like... like everything I'd done w-was for n-nothing!"
Then, he did something unexpected. He stopped holding my hands and let them drop limply to the ground. He then rolled up his sleeves and showed me the insides of his wrists. Dark brown lines, over and over, along the entire distance from his hand to his elbow was covered in dark, bulging scars. I stared, the ugly marks jumping out at me and flooding my vision.
"F-for h-how long?!" I yelled, finally jolting awake from my trance. I clutched his shoulders and stared at him, hot tears welling up in my eyes.
"Since Mia died," he responded calmly, looking back at me with a grim determination in his eyes.
In my transfixion in his story, I hadn't realized that the entire time, he'd been taking pill after pill. Shoving them into his mouth like a madman and not even taking a gulp of water to swallow. Now, he only had one pill left in his hand, one that he clutched as if his life depended on it.
Then, he pushed it into his mouth and swallowed heavily, coughing slightly.
Surprisingly, unlike before, he wasn't crying. He was just sitting there, staring at me calmly. I, on the other hand, was on the floor weeping, begging him to stay.
"Edgeworth," he said, putting his hand on my tear-soaked cheek. "My time has come."
Then, in a nearly unconscious movement, I lunged forward and held him tight, tears running down my cheeks and staining his blue suit. His heartbeat was so fast, and his breathing so raspy. Only moments later, he went limp in my arms, his hands awkwardly hanging by his sides, and his body awkwardly collapsing against the wall.
"Wright! WRIGHT! PHOENIX!" I screamed, shaking him wildly as his swollen eyes closed for the last time. "PLEASE, PHOENIX! I LOVE YOU! YOU CAN'T DIE!" I hollered defeatedly, staring at him.
"I'm sorry," came the words that he'd said too many times before. Then, I could no longer feel his heartbeat, and he'd stopped breathing. The pill bottle that he held in his hand fell to the ground with a soft clatter and rolled down the hardwood floor.
I then stood up numbly and began sitting him up against the wall, so he'd look natural, so that I could delusionally convince myself that he was just asleep. Then, after a while of doing that, I saw him sitting at the window, his head bent forward.
Something about this looked familiar. The window, the pose...
What was it?
"Wait..." I uttered. This was a perfect recreation of the crime scene of Phoenix's second ever trial.
Phoenix Wright's death had occurred in the place where his mentor had died. I wonder if that was his intent, his last wish all along.
That night, I vowed one thing to myself. I'd find someone to keep Wright and Co. Law Offices alive, I'd never let the memory of Phoenix Wright die...
and that when I fulfilled that vow, I'd throw myself into the pits of hell.