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They kiss for the first time on an otherwise unremarkable Thursday evening. Edgeworth is walking a full kettle back to the electric base when Phoenix stops him, a hand on his hip, one finger slipping just beneath an empty belt loop.
He kisses Edgeworth as if they’ve done it enough times before that it’s become boring. As if it’s the kind of activity that fills the time on unremarkable Thursday evenings. Phoenix’s lips are soft, pliant, familiar. Edgeworth sets the kettle on the counter as he pulls back.
He knows he should say something—an admission of feelings, an exclamation of relief, an admonishment for the state of Phoenix’s breath at merely five in the evening.
All he says is, “Would you be open to couple’s therapy?”
It falls just outside the bounds of a non-sequitur. But it’s a logical jump, one Edgeworth makes in under three seconds, eased by the frequency with which he’s plotted out this exact scenario, its faults, its credits. He can’t be held liable if Phoenix hadn’t come prepared. And the man’s fine enough at thinking on his feet, regardless.
Phoenix cracks a smile just short of a smirk. “Y’know, that’s the kind of question that makes the boys run.”
“Mm,” Edgeworth hums with a nearly-imperceptible smile of his own, “good thing you’re a man.”
Phoenix’s hand drops from Edgeworth’s hip. His smile is strained for a moment before it disappears entirely, and his eyes flick downward to dance with the tile floor.
“I did a lot of therapy back in—during my sabbatical.” It’s a convenient shorthand they've adopted for the gap in Phoenix’s law career. Edgeworth nods. He’d gone on Edgeworth’s dime and insistence, after all. “Not sure how keen I am on going back.”
“It’s different when it’s two of us.”
“I know that,” Phoenix replies, light exasperation seeping into his voice as quickly as it ever does when Edgeworth is involved. His eyes snap up to meet Edgeworth’s. Even when this is all laid out in front of them, there’s so much the man is still clearly holding back.
Surely one of them should be… excited? But Edgeworth isn’t exactly volunteering himself for the role either. Functionally nothing has changed as of yet.
“I won’t force you to do it, Phoenix,” he murmurs, “but I think we both know this is imprudent without it.”
Phoenix narrows his eyes the slightest bit. “I just kissed you,” he scoffs, but his voice is teasing and he’s poorly stifling the return of that smile. “Can’t you at least tell me you’ve got feelings for me, or something?” He takes a step forward, pushing Edgeworth’s hips back against the counter as he moves, pinning him in with his hands on either side of the man. It’s a tactic—a transparent one, at that—clearly meant to fluster Edgeworth and knock him from his purpose. The man never changes.
“Phoenix,” Edgeworth says as evenly as he can manage, “you’ve slept in my spare bedroom at least once a week for three years. I make few decisions of consequence without consulting you first.” He reaches forward to run his finger along the bottom of Phoenix’s tie, taking the opportunity to tear his eyes from the uncertainty of Phoenix’s. “We are each other’s emergency contacts, and you know the passcode to my security alarm. I believe we are both very aware of the fact that we are in love.” His eyes snap back up. Phoenix stops stifling the grin.
“You didn’t even give me a chance to say it.”
“You don’t need to.”
They’re both silent for a moment. The confession is no groundbreaking revelation, not due to the preceding minute but rather due to the two decades before it. It feels… strange to acknowledge aloud, at least for Edgeworth’s part.
“You’re right, though,” Phoenix adds.
A crease forms between Edgeworth’s brow. “That you love me?” They aren’t about to do the whole sappiness thing, are they? Edgeworth considers, not for the first time, that perhaps he’s misplaced his affections.
“That I’ve thought about it just as much as you clearly have,” Phoenix replies. “And it’s not a great idea.”
Mercy. “It’s hardly a good one,” Edgeworth agrees, fingers flicking back over the smoothness of Phoenix’s tie once more.
Phoenix sighs. He may have Edgeworth pinned against the counter, and he may have a good three inches on the man, but suddenly he has the disposition of the one being cornered. “Do you have to be so careful about this, though? Can’t you just…“ Phoenix trails off at the end.
Edgeworth’s nostrils flare. He’s already said he loves him, is that not enough to—“Not with you. I won’t risk it.” The words sneak from his mouth, sans permission.
Phoenix pauses, quirking a brow. One side of his mouth perks up. “So, therapy.”
“Therapy,” Edgeworth repeats.
“Do we even have problems?”
Edgeworth should have brought the literal list he’d written out over the years. “I’m a forty year old man who’s never had a real romantic relationship in his life. Your last two partners have tried to kill you.” He knows Phoenix hates to talk about either of them; he hopes it’s an effective enough conversation stopper.
“Oh, please,” Phoenix snorts, “you’ve had plenty of time to make an attempt on my life by now.”
Edgeworth narrows his eyes up at the man. “We’ve had some level of attachment to each other, often on the wrong side of healthy, for nearly our entire lives.” He grabs Phoenix’s hips, fingers sinking into the soft flesh hidden beneath his dress shirt and trousers. “Our careers are parallel. I am unlikely to want to marry you, and you’ve been known to consume jewelry for those you care about.” He pushes Phoenix backward, freeing himself but maintaining his hold on the man’s sides.
“I was twenty.”
“And there are about thirty other reasons that our relationship will not work out that I could list in the next minute.” Edgeworth rubs his thumb against Phoenix’s waist. His clothes are warmed, worn.
Phoenix sighs heavily, rolling his eyes for added dramatic effect. “You can be a real dick sometimes, you know?” he says. “Wouldn’t kill you to just be nice for thirty seconds.”
“Note taken.” Though it’s not a note that Edgeworth hasn’t gotten one thousand times before. Take a number, Wright. “These are the kinds of things we can talk about in therapy.”
Phoenix wraps his arms around Edgeworth’s neck, yanking the man the slightest bit closer to his chest. “Y’know, I can’t make heads or tails of whether you actually want to do this.”
Edgeworth makes an agonized sound, and the jerk of his hands betrays his aborted impulse to throw them in the air. He watches as Phoenix fights a laugh. “Of course I want to do this.” If either of them were anyone else, Edgeworth’s voice would hold an inappropriate level of exasperation for this conversation. “Of course I love you, of course I’ve thought about this every time you cross my mind for the past ten years,” he adds, feeling a fiery blush pass across his cheeks. “The variable here is you, whether you’ll agree to my terms. I want to give us… a fighting chance.” The man needs even the most obvious truths spelled out for him, apparently.
Phoenix’s smile lessens in intensity, but not in sincerity. There’s something excessively… kind, in his face. “So it’s therapy or bust?”
Edgeworth is still blushing, though he fights to retain composure in any other way he can. So his words are firm, even if his voice still betrays some softness. “I am positive that our connection will continue regardless of your decision,” he concedes, nearly whispering, “but it is the only way I will do… this, properly.”
Phoenix’s heart may as well be seeping from his eyes. The sight makes Edgeworth want to run; it makes him want to yank the man to his chest and never let him pull even a centimeter away. “Yeah.” Phoenix’s voice is small. “Yeah, shit, of course I will.” His hands come up to card through either side of Edgeworth’s hair, and finally a traitorous smile crops up on Edgeworth’s face. “I’ll fuckin’ hate it every step of the way, but it’s you. Of course I will.”
Edgeworth may need to go throw up in the bathroom. They’re giving it a shot.
He’s not particularly prone to tears. He’ll wield this fact as a weapon when Phoenix teases him later about the state of his eyes as Phoenix leans in and presses another kiss to his lips.
Edgeworth squeezes his arm and takes a step back into the counter. He reaches to his side and picks the kettle back up, doing all he can think to do in the embarrassing state of shock he’s found himself in.
“Go sit on the couch,” he says. There’s all the specifics to work out yet, but there’s something happening here. It’s equal parts horrifying and relieving. He needs a stiff drink to take it all in, really, but he’ll make do with a warm one. “I’ll make us tea.”