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Miles can’t say he remembers how in god’s name he wound up on the couch.
Maybe it’s the sheer amount of pure, unfiltered law school he’s been cramming into his brain in the last several months, but his ridiculous first impulse is to treat it like a crime scene. There in his mind’s eye, he putters around the shape of it all, metaphorical chalk outlines and police tape festooning everything the blinding sunlight touches. Perhaps those same two things—the rigorous study and the long-awakened dawn—are equally to blame for the miserable headache he’s nursing.
He’s getting ahead of himself. Backtrack, focus. The couch. Why is he on the couch?
Eyes sore, Miles lazily takes in his surroundings. The towering ceilings and windows of the von Karma manor remain the same as ever—exuberant, excessive things. On every side of him, the bookshelves are equally enormous, their girth containing a wonderful modicum of all the nuances of American criminal law he’s somehow managed to absorb recently. The library, then… Miles is thankful, at least, that he didn’t fall asleep in the living room like he initially thought.
Right, right, he… was here last night. Not soon after he donned his cap and gown did Mr. von Karma have a case for him—due in a mere few days back home, drenched in the sweltering September heat of LA. He’d gather his badge from the offices when he touched back down stateside and get right to work, and before that he’d memorize case files, burn glossy photographs of evidence into his mind. Not a single moment to slow down, not a single moment alone with his thoughts, just the way he liked it.
All that to say, there was quite a bit of work to do, and Miles planned on doing so with flawless, precise, von Karma perfection. Which is why he’d spent the last two days holed up in the library—the quietest part of the already rather-quiet mansion—doing little else besides reading the case files in question. Tracing every serif on their low-res typeface, devouring even every lowly punctuation mark, reading and reading and reading until his eyes crossed and his brain fried itself. This was it. This is what Miles had been waiting his whole life for—he was finally going to stand in court, finally going to be the arbiter of justice he’d dreamed himself all those years ago.
Things had changed since his starry-eyed youth—twists and turns that could, perhaps, be crafted into poeticisms if he were a poetic man. Instead, he was Miles Edgeworth—who only cared to dwell on the fact that he was here, not untangle the why and how.
On some level, anyway. He was a little concerned about the why when it came to his waking up on the couch. Presumably, he’d fallen asleep somehow, but…
The sun shifts out from behind a cloud and through the tied-up curtains, and this time the stabbing pain that shoots through Miles’ head like a spike is twice as agonizing in its ruthless assault. Caught off guard by its intensity, he presses a palm to his aching temple and cringes into the shape of it, as if trying to push the ache from his skull. He’d been so caught up trying to figure all this nonsense out that he hadn’t even noticed how uncomfortable he was.
Last night there’d been… a catch in his throat, was the only way he could think to describe it. Something stuck there, like a single grain of sand, that he could not move despite all his best efforts. Miles was sure he’d broken several world records for the frequency at which he was clearing his throat, and that was only as the sun first began to dip. As the night plunged itself into darkness and the stars began to take shape overhead, the catch turned into an ache, and that ache had spread to nearly every other part of him. With the oncoming night came the chill, the kind that didn’t care to keep to itself and had instead taken up residence somewhere deep within the young prosecutor’s marrow. It had all been there, consigned to be a mere background hum as Miles read through his evidence binder again, again, again. Laser-focused, with little thought for much else, least of all the ever-increasing urge to—
His traitorous lungs finish the sentence before he can think it. An imperfect inhale snags somewhere on the way down and twists to the side, coughing unattractively into his folded arm. With every angry lurch of his chest he can feel that spike in his head getting hammered down deeper, each strike hitting with more force than the last. Laying there, Miles finds himself feeling more than a bit prone and pathetic—belly-up, addled in some manner, still wearing his day clothes from the afternoon before. No, this simply wouldn’t do, Miles thinks as he’s staring at his long-empty mug of tea across the room, right at the desk where he left it. Just because he’d graduated with flying colours and perfect marks didn’t mean he could start slacking now of all times, let alone being so slovenly when it came to matters of—
Another bout of hacking takes him, with little time to recover from the last. The ticklish need of them lives somewhere above his breastbone, nothing concerning but certainly nothing pleasant—and definitely not something he can ignore. Despite how cold the room seems to be, the exertion sees him sweating, a revolting reminder that he ought to get cleaned up and out of these clothes immediately. For his own benefit, yes, but there’ll be hell to pay if someone catches him before he can.
Blearily, Miles opens his eyes, struggling in the blinding dawn. He’s still there in the folded cover of his arms for a moment, gearing himself up for another onslaught… instead, his aching muscles seem to take pity on him as they settle. Sucking in a much-needed breath, Miles gives himself another mental once-over as he’s gazing deliriously at the far-away ceiling, so sprawling and vast it looks like a void, threatening to swallow him whole. His mouth is dry, his throat far worse, no doubt shredded from all the coughing he’s doing. When he closes his eyes—a long, slow blink that turns into something more—even that aches, tugging painfully at the swell of his lids
As much as he wants to blame his current state on one too many late nights and the drafty air of the mansion… these maladies run far too deep to be just that. Some wretched germ has breached his defenses—already something to bemoan—but not only that, it’s happened right before he’s due to…
No. Miles isn’t going to think about that right now. One thing at a time—he’s going to open his eyes, he’s going to face the truth, he’s going to nurse himself dutifully and perfectly, like the von Karma he’s grown so effortlessly into. Scald the microbes out of his throat with some of that horribly unpalatable tea Mr. von Karma’s always made him, read his case files from the comfort of his bed, face the illness head on so that he can crush it like he would anything else. That is what Miles is going to do, stubborn voice in his head be damned.
Step-by-step, though. One thing at a time. With that settled, Miles opens his eyes.
“So this is the dastardly lair you’ve tucked yourself away in!”
Oh, heavens.
It’s not only Franziska’s voice that jolts him upright—though the sharp tenor of it could certainly have that effect on any given day. No, it’s the power in that voice plus the way she’s encroached upon his personal space—like always—her nose nearly touching Miles’ own. She’s bent over the arm of the couch, upside-down in his tired gaze, hands on her hips and brow scrunched in that seemingly permanent way it always seemed to be.
Before Miles can think to stop himself, the startle sees him furiously straight-backed as he sits up, knocking their foreheads together in a truly pathetic display of chaos.
He, of course, barely has time to register the exacerbation on his head’s already miserable state. The ache is immediately replaced with a sting—the leather of a riding crop coming down hard on his abdomen, loosing a second wince of a sound from his lungs. Rather impressive, considering Franziska’s also nursing a mark, rubbing furiously at the spot where their skulls collided. Even in the most dire of circumstance, she finds a way to share her pain with anyone else who dares trifle with her.
“Every day you best yourself in the sheer amount of foolishness you manage to live that foolish life of yours utterly festooned in!”
She pulls the serving tray from the coffee table adjacent, staring deep into its pristine finish for any bumps or blemishes on her otherwise perfect features. There’s a rather garish red spot living there on her forehead, and she studies it with dismay that turns quickly into fury, as if she’s trying to scare the thing away.
“Perhaps I would not have to act so foolish,” says Miles in a voice that’s a bit low and croaky, “if you could use that prestigious intellect of yours to internalize the definition of personal space!”
“What else was I to do?” Franziska places the tray back on the table, crossing her arms and sticking up her nose. “You were laying there on the couch like some sort of wounded hound!”
“And I was rather enjoying it,” Miles mirrors her, his own arms crossed as well, “before I was so rudely interrupted.”
“The couch is no place for sleeping, little brother,” she looks at him almost… interrogatively. Miles resists the urge to swallow down worry, unsure of what it even is he’s scared of.
“What on earth were you doing napping in a place like this?”
Miles clears his throat, as inconspicuously as he can. “I spent the night reading up on what’s soon to be my debut case. The time simply got away from me.”
Franziska’s eyes narrow further at that. Oh, how Miles dreaded when the von Karmas did that. A wordless, intimidating, universal gesture that spoke loud and clear—I know there is more to this story, and the details will spill themselves even if I must cut them from your belly myself.
“How unbecoming.” She looks down her nose at him, hiding more than just a twinge of jealousy behind those eversharp eyes.
And Miles should leave it. He knows he should. There’s a perfect out, if he just shuts up, Franziska might even lose interest in tormenting him. For some reason, Miles hears his father’s voice in his head first—pick your battles carefully, son—immediately followed by Mr. von Karma’s voice, twice as bassy and booming and grand, allow no one to make you feel small. You are a von Karma, and a von Karma stands rigid and ruthless in all.
“Nothing unbecoming about a healthy work ethic, Franziska.” Finally, Miles makes some progress in properly getting up, shifting his legs across the cushions and carefully trying not to cringe at how his muscles sing with dull agony. Any weakness he shows will be poked and prodded at ad nauseam, best not to let on how dreadful he’s feeling.
“Perhaps you yourself would be trial-ready too, if only you’d the mind to follow my example.”
Miles Edgeworth has said a lot of things in his life that were, decidedly, the wrong thing to say. He’s never felt it more than he feels it right now, though—oh, the change in her expression is immediate. Franziska, for once, holds no façade—does nothing to hide the scalding fury that blazes white hot through her every nerve. Face painted red clear up to her ears, she forgoes her riding crop and instead takes a forceful step forward, slamming her open palms into Miles’ torso and pushing him right back down into his makeshift bed.
It’s more than a bit humiliating how easily he goes, beaten into submission—as always—by the thirteen year old girl, half his size. Franziska was a lot stronger than she looked.
“Backtalk me once more, Miles Edgeworth, I both welcome and dare you!”
WHAP. She swats her weapon hard against his arm, and when he sucks in a breath in lieu of an undignified yelp, it rakes across his throat uncomfortably. Franziska carries on, and Miles steels himself.
“You got lucky!” she yells, sharply enough to shatter the glass of the aging windows all around them. “You were lucky to have been born before me, lucky to qualify for your exams first, lucky to have been taken in by Papa when you were!”
There’s nothing he can say to that, really. Due to the nature of how linear time works, he was, in fact, born seven years before Franziska. Not that it seemed to matter in the grand scheme of things—she’d be due to graduate in mere months herself, missing his own exam date only by a hair. Truthfully, Miles doesn’t really know where he meant to go with any of this—but there’s a light sense of satisfaction that comes with needling her, especially when he’s feeling as dreadful as he is right now.
“Honestly, Miles Edgeworth, what is wrong with—”
The rhetorical question… halts itself. Uncharacteristically, Franziska’s signature rage skids itself to a stop. The twist in her brow becomes far more contemplative, that analytical quality sewn back into its shape. For some reason, it’s this that sends a particularly cold chill down Miles’ spine.
She restarts the inquiry. This time, genuinely.
“...what is wrong with you?”
Miles sets his jaw, meeting her eyes with his own puffy gaze. “To what are you referring?”
“I find you far more disagreeable today than normal,” says Franziska, “but moreover, you seem…”
Vaguely, she gestures her riding crop in a wobbly circle around his tinted features. Trying, he can tell, to find the most precise word to describe them.
“...addled.”
“Addled,” he responds, deadpan, a single eyebrow slowly quirking up. As if he has no idea what she means.
“I didn’t notice at first, with how pitiful you always look,” she elaborates, “but you’re awfully pale, little brother. And to be so absent-minded that you’d collapse on the library couch like this… are you, perhaps… unwell?”
“E-Excuse me? I’m perfectly fine.”
“Hm. Well, I would certainly hope so…”
A mischievous, twisted grin crawls its way onto Franziska’s lip.
“...otherwise, you might have to postpone that debut trial of yours.”
Ngh!
Her silvery eyes, previously cast off to some far off corner as she laid out her observations, make their way back to Miles, sidelong. There’s the absurd feeling of being under a microscope, like every wince of pain and meaningless clearing of his throat will be filed away in her mental index as precious evidence against him. If Franziska thinks he’s ill, she’ll do everything in her power to make it into a far bigger deal than it is, anything to push his prosecutorial debut ever-further away, closer to her inevitable own. The likelihood of her exaggerating the circumstances to her father is almost too much to even bear thinking about.
“You’re imagining things, Franziska.”
With it, Miles juts his jaw out ever-so slightly, something he realizes he picked up from her. An attempt to make himself seem more rigid and unmoving than he is, not to mention bank the impulse to cough that’s tickling at his irritated throat. He breathes slow, methodically, careful in his every breath.
Never one to back down from a challenge, she puts her hands back on her hips—perfect 90-degree angles, poised as ever—and leans over, memorizing every line of his face.
“I could not imagine those bags beneath your eyes even if I wanted to. It looks like someone socked you.”
“Perhaps it was you.”
“It certainly will be if you keep making such foolish comments!” She points her riding crop at his nose, and Miles flinches on instinct. “Miles Edgeworth, you look well and truly ill. If you think this fact is something that can escape a von Karma’s flawless watch, then you’re even more of a fool than I initially thought.”
It’s only as she says it that Miles realizes he really hasn’t looked in a mirror since he woke up. If it’s that obvious, he may be able to fool Franziska, but there’s no way he’d be able to get away with fooling Mr. von Karma. One look from that searing blue gaze and Miles would break like a ne'er-do-well in the dim lighting of the interrogation room, spilling out everything in excessively meticulous detail. He could see the dead end, far from where it lived.
With great effort, he swallows, shutting his eyes and inhaling deep in an attempt to fend off the pain.
“Franziska,” he says, with a weight that runs congruent with a man about to confess his greatest sins…
“I am hungover.”
“Aha! Miles Edgeworth! I knew you w—”
She stops. Blinks dumbly. Re-routes as the words translate.
“...you’re what?”
“I,” he says again, this time with purpose, “am hungover. Faded. Katzenjammer.”
“No one here says that.”
“Verkatert. Semantics, Franziska.”
To his genuine surprise, she looks at him with the flattest expression he’s ever seen.
“Miles, that is the oldest trick in the book.”
It’s what?
“It’s what?” he says, his filter failing him.
“If you think I am foolish enough to believe such a foolishly feeble attempt at an excuse, you are sorely mistaken.”
He looks hard into her. “I am!”
“You are not, Miles. Where on earth would you procure the spirits necessary?”
“Wh—I graduated not three days ago! There are certain—” he waves a hand, vaguely and without meaning, “—festivities!”
“You’re telling me,” Franziska stands straight-backed, her arms crossed, not a trace of belief in her tone, “that you got properly inebriated at a graduation party and slunk back home to pass out on the library couch?”
“Can a man not celebrate in peace?”
“What were you drinking?”
Miles stares up at her, feeling oddly small from his place on the couch.
“Pardon?”
“Tell me what manner of concoction did this to my poor, ailing brother. Since you are apparently such a Säufer, now.”
“I’m under no obligation to—why on earth would you—”
“Why so hesitant, Miles?” She grins devilishly at him. “You’ve already admitted to the crime. Why act so intent to hide the finer details?”
“I…”
Oh, how he hates this house. Perhaps he’s being dramatic, but he wonders if a life exists where every argument is not treated as though it is waiting on the thundering song of a gavel. Why was Miles Edgeworth cursed to dwell amongst only the most peerless of legal legends?
“I drank beer.”
“Did you?”
Exhausted, Miles nods. “With ice. In the glass.”
Then Franziska just… stares at him. He stares right back. This gesture is tried and true amongst the members of the von Karma house—so much speaking is done with the eyes, nearly all of it of the confrontational sort. The way Franziska’s looking at him right now, he can take a few guesses at how his own gaze falters—if he looks as sore as he feels, this is probably a losing battle. It’s anyone’s guess, then, why he fights regardless.
With little fanfare, then, Franziska reaches forward and presses her palm to his forehead.
The sensation of his bangs being swept to the side, damp with sweat—when did he start sweating?—is annoyingly uncomfortable. It sends a sudden chill racing down his spine, and Miles doesn’t do himself the disservice of imagining how pathetic he probably looks in that moment. He’s about to lose this argument anyways, and so he chooses instead to revel in the feeling of how relieving her hand feels, cooling off his scalding forehead and soothing the headache that only seems to amplify with each passing second.
“Tell me, Miles,” she says, “since when do hangovers come with a fever?”
Stubbornly, his mouth moves without thought. “I’m not feverish.”
“That’s quite a statement, given you are currently searing a hole through my hand.”
“How fortuitous,” Miles rasps out, “perhaps the warmth will thaw that icy exterior of yours.”
When did he shut his eyes? It must’ve happened on its own, with how wonderful the contact feels on his face. That’s not really the matter at hand, though—the matter at hand is what he sees when he opens them. Franziska is not wearing the smug look on her face that she was mere moments prior—with the survey of him up close, the furrow in her brow turns to something less haughty, almost edging into…
“You are ten times more miserably unpleasant than usual right now,” she says, frowning. “Hmph.”
When Franziska pulls herself away, it takes all of Miles’ self control to not lean forward, chase the empty spot of endorphins her hand leaves. Something contemplative breaks across her face, there and gone so quick it’s a miracle Miles’ foggy head registers it at all. Turning on her heel, then, she begins to trot away.
“...where are you off to?”
“That’s of no interest to you.” She waves a hand flippantly back at him, not bothering to turn around. “I’ll leave you to nurse that hangover of yours. Better hop to it, little brother… or I will not hesitate to take up the trial bench before you can even gaze upon its luster.”
Normally, her gloating comes with a genuine air of superiority. A turn over her shoulder, a sly-eyed smirk as she saunters off, laughing a noblewoman’s laugh. There’s some punch lacking in this comment, though, an emphasis that Miles can’t help but notice the absence of.
In any case, Franziska leaving him to clean himself up is an obvious upturn in the wretched morning he’s having. Even if he can’t help feeling like she’s plotting something sinister behind the scenes. Regardless of how the rest of the day shakes out, the silence is bliss on Miles’ pounding head.
Next time, it isn’t the sun on his face that wakes him, but how much worse the sore throat has gotten. Its needling skewers him awake, but the bright agony of the waking world that Miles is expecting does not come. Instead, he squints at shapes in the not-quite darkness as they come into view—wincing still, but far less than he’d think.
The blinds remain closed, the room half-lit. Miles preferred to sleep with the lights on for grounding purposes—it was very easy to trick one’s brain out of thinking it was trapped in a blacked-out elevator shaft when the room was impossibly illuminated. Usually he goes for a bit more light than this, though… his eyes follow the soft orange glow to its source, a corner of his room punctuated with the soft scratching of a pen on paper, the near soundless shuffling of clothes. There at his desk is Franziska, facing away from him as she writes, having not noticed that he’s stirred in all her focus.
Strange of her to be here, though not too strange. She did have a tendency to just… wind up wherever he was, time and time again. When Miles clears his throat in ragged discomfort, that’s really all he intends it to be—but it sticks there in the tatters and catches, doubling him onto his side as he coughs stubbornly. Only then does he realize the cold towel on his head, flopping ungracefully onto his sheets while he’s in the throes of it.
With his eyes shut, he can’t see the way Franziska startles—obviously so tunnel-visioned on whatever she was writing she’d forgotten entirely he was there. Her cheeks are still burning red when she does turn to face him, but upon noticing his state she schools her expression back down to its mostly unbothered default. Not soon after Miles has caught his breath does Franziska roll his desk chair fully around, taking him in with her face knit tight.
“How’s that hangover of yours?”
He glares daggers at her through balefully wet eyes, his whole face looking pink and sore.
He deflects. “Why are you in my room?”
“Because it’s terribly uncouth to eat in one’s bedroom,” she says, then pulls a slice of something bready off a nearby plate, “and you are a terribly uncouth man.”
Somehow, she manages to make even eating look holier-than-thou—the flick of her wrist, the way she looks the picture of ladylike as she shuts her eyes, bites down softly, tears the bread from itself. Her own portion claimed, then, Franziska picks the plate up off the desktop and sets it on Miles’ bedside table, placing the fallen washcloth back on his damp forehead for good measure.
“You know, it wouldn’t be a perfect victory if I defeated you in this state.” Franziska crosses her arms, then, looking off into some vaguely-upwards direction. “Pickled from drink and mindless as you are. More egregiously, you skipped breakfast, Miles Edgeworth.”
Oh, that he did. And one did not simply get away with skipping breakfast when they shared a house with Franziska von Karma. She felt—more passionately than many of the more deserving things she felt in life—that breakfast was the be-all-end-all of keeping one’s mind sharp. Miles had learned this the hard way in his dark, depressing youth, always trailed by a bright-eyed little girl intent to beat him until he shoved some toast into his mouth.
That same meal is more or less what she’s inching toward him, now. A still-warm fried egg draped near-perfectly across the top of it, melting cheese dotted with flakes of black pepper… strammer max. Of course.
Truthfully, the sheer amount of grease present makes Miles’ stomach turn more than a bit. Franziska rolls her eyes at the twisting of his face, brandishing her riding crop warningly.
“You’re to eat,” she commands, and perhaps Miles is growing weaker by the second, because for whatever reason he hasn’t the heart to argue.
“What’s the hesitation, anyway?” continues Franziska. “Strammer max is the perfect cure for a hangover.”
As per usual, Miles regrets his karma, come to him in the form of this girl who bears its name. It’s what he gets for lying so bullheadedly—his twice as bullheaded sister, doubling down there alongside him. She is correct that bread and grease would do the proper ailment some good, but Miles is less certain about its efficacy in fighting off whatever bone-deep virus is trying him at the moment.
Regardless, he doesn’t exactly want to be beaten, and so he delicately pulls the washcloth from his face and sits up in bed, cringing all the way. At his flank, Franziska watches carefully, really not doing much for his motivation to eat—who wants to do something as degrading as eat in front of someone else, let alone with them watching you like a hawk?—but Miles supposes he already looks pretty pathetic as is. Eating in bed is equally reprehensible, but as he is now, he’s not entirely sure he could make it anywhere else.
Horrid as this illness is, it’s thankfully not the kind that’s taken up residence in his sinuses. The smell of the still-warm sandwich swirls around him, and he suddenly finds all his reservations with eating gone. Franziska will kill him if she learns he skipped dinner, too, and Miles realizes that he doesn’t actually remember the last time he ate. The food, of course, would taste divine if it were anything—but oh, is it delicious, far from just sufficient. The grease of the fried ham soaks into the bread, turning it soft and rich and ten times as filling. Somehow, by the hand of fate, it’s at the perfect temperature to go down easy and soothe his reddened throat on the way.
Miles does not scarf, of course, but he doesn’t take his time, either. Once the food has disappeared, Franziska leans back in his chair a bit, the corner of her lip sliding ever-so-slightly upward. She crosses her arms like she so often does, looking satisfied with her work.
“There you are,” says Franziska, “Good?”
Miles takes the washrag in lieu of a napkin, absentmindedly wipes the grease from his hands. The thing has gotten awfully warm, anyways, he’s probably due for another one soon. “...Yes. Thank you, Franziska.”
For a moment, there is a certain swell of pride that flares in her eyes, like a newly-trained puppy that’s just been lavished with treats and praise for its temperament. Miles knows that look from their childhood—though nowadays, it usually burns up and out quickly, Franziska refusing to let it show for long. True to form, then, she regains her cool and unaffected exterior, finally pulling her gaze away from him.
“Do not thank me, little brother,” she says, “this is only to even the playing field. Soon enough, you will find yourself struggling to breathe once more, only this time it will be because you are scrambling beneath my heel.”
For some reason, Miles can’t help but grin at that.
“Of course,” he says, and she huffs out a satisfied noise through her nose and turns back around, pretending she’s paying him no more thought.
Miles’ head hits the pillow, his consciousness fading in and out to the sound of Franziska’s scratchy ballpoint dragging at her notebook.
Every few hours, when he awakens, that same sound remains.