Chapter Text
Phoenix appears at his doorstep with a bouquet and an apologetic grin.
Miles would be more surprised if it weren't for the fact that he had received a phone call prior, the usually gentle and accommodating tone of his condominium receptionist more frazzled and panicked. The guy just breezed past and kept punching the number to your floor, Mr. Edgeworth, she claimed, as if witnessing a burglary. I apologize, but please do remind your visitors that we have a protocol here— we are lucky security let that spiky friend of yours free.
“And the well-renowned ‘thief’ has made it to my doorstep,” Miles remarks, his face unmoving except for his quirking brow. “What did you do all that for?”
Phoenix exhales deeply, the petals of the crimson camellia flowers shivering below his chin. “I didn't want to be seen with this.”
Miles stares at the bundle. It looks expensive, although the flowers’ age shows itself slightly, vignetting the tips. Miles knows because Phoenix can't afford the more shapely ones.
Miles does not know whether to feel offended, or endeared.
He peers to his left. Then, his right, even if there only remains two more rooms. Silence at its finest perforates at every corner, a symptom of early afternoons on Thursdays.
Miles grabs Phoenix's lapels.
He accurately observes how much of Phoenix's frame genuinely enters the door frame as if he were conducting a science experiment. No millimeter of his intertwined hoodie sleeves or his worn sneakers should be peeking outside before—
Miles kisses him. Simple but prolonged, the corners of his eyes crinkling as if he were holding his breath.
When he lets go, Phoenix is beaming. The hand holding the bouquet is lowered at his side. Miles’ hands are still on Phoenix's shirt, consciously thumbing the wrinkled fabric. He doesn’t know why. He thinks guilt, over pulling him in. But the feeling is more fleeting. A temporary fizz. A motion he just felt compelled to do.
Phoenix chuckles warmly, a low thrum scythe against the whirlpool in Miles’ head. “Hello to you too, Mr. Edgeworth.” In one quick movement, Phoenix kicks the door behind him closed. Miles’ chest swells. “You still kiss like an awkward teenager.”
And suddenly, Miles’ inclination towards cold fronts returns in place as he rolls his eyes. It's not suppression, it's not hiding. Just routine.
He knows Phoenix will see through it. He always does.
—
Phoenix sits on Miles’ cushy bed as he watches Miles pack. It's not that the man refuses to assist— Miles is just very particular about how things should go. Order. He does not even trust Phoenix with something as simple as toiletries, because Miles has a system in his brain that cannot be questioned or trespassed.
Phoenix respects his boundaries, even with his semi-judgmental gaze. He understands him.
“Such a hassle,” Miles remarks, an assortment of neatly folded uniforms and ziploc bags scattered before him, “to be here before my trip overseas. All my good clothes are back home. These coats aren't steamed enough.”
“They look fine,” Phoenix prolongs. Miles knows he means it, but Phoenix does not see a problem with his contrasting button-up and joggers, so it's fallacious. “And, rude— California's your true home.”
“Are you jealous?”
“Wounded,” Phoenix jests, a dramatic hand on his chest. He's still infected with the disease of theatrics. “What does Germany have that California doesn't?”
Miles raises his head and exchanges gazes with Phoenix for five seconds. A projection of silent criticism, the process truly complete when Phoenix mutters an ah.
“You should visit sometime, when you charge your clients more,” Miles declares with a point. He can imagine his bench in the courtroom before him. “Recent labor movements are gradually transforming the current legal system. People take time. People ask questions, and they are open to learning.”
“That sounds nice,” Phoenix replies simply. There's an air of contemplation to it, like there's something more he wants to say but can't. “Maybe I can visit, after your trip. You just have to pay first.”
Miles scoffs. “You're insufferable,” he replies. He doesn’t mean it. He knows he would do exactly as Phoenix says.
—
The bed Miles has in California is spacious and soft, well-curated to his liking (and his bad back). He wonders distantly if twenty-year-old Miles had the hindsight of knowing it was the perfect space for someone else to invade, seeing as Phoenix slides into the empty space next to him as if he were Miles’ missing ribcage.
They don't touch. At least, not yet, not in the first five minutes. Eventually, Phoenix's hand worms its way around Miles’ stomach, his forehead leaning against Miles’ shoulder.
“I'll miss you,” Phoenix murmurs. His voice tickles Miles’ neck, giving him gooseflesh.
“Phoenix,” Miles replies tiredly. He turns his head slightly to look at Phoenix properly. His mind scrambles to find any kind of retort, but all that comes out is, “I'll miss you too.”
—
Sometimes tragedies come like a sick joke.
It’s how Miles would describe every single case he’s handled in California, after all. If it is seen as normal and business-as-usual that Phoenix’s disbarment occurs over tryhard magicians and a prosecutor with a rockstar schtick, then their legal system, for a lack of a better term, is in the absolute shitter— an unabashed breeding ground for well-consolidated fatalism, the absolute foil of everything he and Phoenix have been trying to work against for the past few months.
Of course Miles returns as quickly as he can. Even with the blood-sucking weight of this past month’s work weighing on him, he still hops on the next flight over, the desire to sleep prickling at the corners of his eye sockets at the airport gates.
The synonymity of Phoenix with terminus is a terrifying thing. Something earth-shattering. The ache is felt in the very core of Miles’ body. Under his flesh, deeply embedded in his bone marrow. He is always a careful traveler, eyes keen like a lamb’s horizontal, prey eyes whenever he takes a step out in public.
He is not scared of returning to Phoenix.
He is, however, scared of everyone else knowing their inextricability, the implications bleeding past the personal and into the legal system they’ve been swallowed in.
When he makes his first strides back in California, mind hazy with a fluctuating panic, he already hears whispers of the future. The Phoenix Wright?, a passerby would speak. They’re not even a person Miles would recognize; a simple Californian citizen. Well, there goes our legal system.
Miles' chest thumps with a sense of finality. There is an incoming specter.
—
The Phoenix Wright before him is unrecognizable, the wholeness of his previous well-developed character refined into the finest of dust.
He seems fine at first— it’s always like that with Phoenix, a slow-burning, hatching egg. He introduces Miles to Trucy, the young daughter of Phoenix’s recent defendant-turned-fugitive. She’s a bright-eyed kid, inseparable from the image Miles has of a fourth-grade Phoenix. It’s almost like the weight of her father’s disappearance has not settled. Maybe it’s because she herself is a magician. Maybe it’s in her philosophy, that all disappearing acts must resurface.
It’s only after a quick card trick does Phoenix urge Trucy to go to bed.
In translation: Miles, we need to talk.
Miles waits in the living room, seated stoically in the middle of Phoenix’s leather couch. His thumb repeatedly brushes over the teacup while he stares at the warm chamomile, as if it could whisper to him the secrets of the universe.
Miles only recognizes Phoenix’s presence when he hears a door click from down the hall. Miles doesn’t turn. He knows Phoenix is emerging from his room, making space in his bed for Trucy. Miles simply waits for him to draw close, close enough that would allow Phoenix enough space to unbuckle safely, the geysers under his skin raring to burst.
Quietly, Phoenix shuffles into the empty spot next to Miles. There’s no greeting, no jab of delight. He doesn’t even glance at Miles before he drops his face into his hands, back hunching over in defeat. Miles doesn’t make a move. Waits for Phoenix to expose his face first, Phoenix’s fingers slowly worming around his own next and onto the bottom of his scalp.
Miles receives a clear vision of Phoenix’s blue-brown eyes— they are crying. No build-up, no dramatic howl or gesticulation like he’d always exhibit at court. Just tears. A direct and unshrouded encapsulation of all his inner turmoils.
“Phoenix,” Miles murmurs, his own free hand crawling towards Phoenix’s clasped hands. His delicate fingers prod at Phoenix’s calloused ones, gently inviting the man to release his self-death grip.
“That— it happened so fast, Miles,” Phoenix whispers, allowing Miles to lead his hands away. His grip around Miles’ hand is tight. Seeking. A man reaching for the metal bars in a seven-feet deep pool. “Does it—” a shaky exhale escapes Phoenix’s lips. Miles smells a tinge of grape. “Is it always this fast?”
Miles doesn’t need to ask what it is. He experiences it almost daily, ever since he was nine. “Yes,” Miles replies. But it’s not your fault, he wants to say, though he knows Phoenix would loathe it. I’m sorry sits at the edge of his tongue, because Miles himself is a catalyst for whatever brought Phoenix here today— but he knows Phoenix would hate that, too.
Instead, he says, “The legal system is like a tick.”
Phoenix blinks, wide eyes staring at him. Miles thinks a snicker wants to huff out of his mouth, but it merely shakes, more tears falling down his cheek. “A— a tick? Miles—”
“It latches on without you knowing,” Miles continues. “Sucks more and more out of you. Makes you sick. And you can only remove it with the proper tools.”
“But ticks—” Phoenix speaks, stubborn as always. “Ticks are easily removable.”
“By humans, yes,” Miles says. “As dogs— animals— it’s virtually impossible.”
—
The first three years of the seven-year debacle flows like this: Phoenix breaks, Miles would visit, Phoenix would find a new job, Trucy gives Miles a magic trick of thanks, and Miles returns home. Miles considers this framework that of the narrative’s— a promise that fronts as meager, daily reminders, something simple and hope-infused to help Miles sleep.
Stories, narratives— they are foundationally unrealistic. But if Phoenix can drink, Miles can have his own vice. Namely, believing that there is a timely conclusion to this cycle of break and repair.
Sometimes, he gets caught. His almost monthly return to California is something that can’t go unnoticed, after all. It’s not that he’s grown clumsy— he could never. But the lines Phoenix and Miles have between personal, political, and work have blurred drastically. Their relationship started in that vagueness.
It’s just that, the era they have entered now has reached an all-time high in its precariousness.
There is no perfect balance between taking care of Phoenix— of them— and hiding. There is diminished privacy when you’re the current legal system’s only mavericks.
“Perhaps you need to rethink visiting that foolish man every month,” Franziska’s voice once rang sharply through the phone like a blaring alarm. “Having an unpolished essay in the academy is highly unbecoming of someone of your calibre.”
Miles was smart enough to not reveal the vortex that has made its nest in his chest cavity. “The legal system of California is the center of my research,” he replied coolly. It’s not untrue. “I have no choice but to return when I can.”
There was also—
“You know, boss, you didn’t have to do all that,” Gumshoe had said, chasing Miles as he briskly exited the police department. Maggey followed shortly behind, stance sheepish despite her furrowed brows. “I know Mr. Wright asks you to, but you don’t have to visit us too every month for our sake. We can handle it.”
Miles turned. “You two aren’t going to have a wedding if the department doesn’t raise your salaries,” Miles retorted, tone matter-of-fact. There had been five police chiefs that had sealed the power vacuum Gant left behind, all of them having been trialled for graft— the current one was no exception. “This place’s problem is my problem, too.”
And—
“Why can’t you leave this case shut,” Simon had said behind the glass of the detention center. His tone was dark, low-energy as it always was, but Miles is smart enough to recognize that it was secretly pleading. “Why can’t you just focus on Phoenix Wright’s case? I’m sure that’s more worth your time.”
“Because you’re innocent,” Miles asserted, a repeat of what he had said last time, and the time before that. “You’re innocent like he is— like how a lot of you are, in there.”
And then there’s the one time it becomes his turn to break—
“Can I ask,” Kay speaks, sitting on the sill of his office. Her legs dangle into the night sky as if she trusts herself to know how to fly. “Who are you even giving these meds to?”
“A friend,” he says without missing a beat. He accepts the paper bag Kay gives him, its opening taped shut by her signature Yatagarasu sticker.
“Lemme guess,” Kay says, tone playful. “It’s for that— that man— what’s-it, Phoenix Wright?”
Something snaps inside Miles. Something taut, something angry. “Can you stop asking me about him?!” he seethes, fist gripping tightly around the paper bag.
A pang. A miscalculation, loud and unmasked, permeating in the suffocating four walls of Miles’ office space.
Miles’ office chair squeaks as he shifts, his entire body an earthquake. Kay is still at his window sill, behind his potted flowers and ginormous Steel Samurai figurine. But her face is clear. Too clear, actually. There’s a jutted pout, her eyebrows sewn together as she stares directly into Miles’ soul.
“I’m sorry,” Miles quickly says, putting down the paper bag. He lowers his shaky palms onto his knees. He’s afraid to see what could happen if he lets go, if his hands were free. “I’m sorry, Kay. I shouldn’t have yelled.”
Kay doesn’t respond immediately. Her eyes continue to stare, owlish. Miles distantly thinks, amidst his deep breaths, of how much Kay has grown. Her senses are keener, her actions more deliberate.
It makes him want to shut her off more.
And yet, somehow, he can’t find it in himself to do it. To shut the window, to tell her to leave.
In a moment of paradoxical paralysis, Miles unable to move past breathing, Kay carefully makes her way inside, delicately leaping past the things displayed on the bookshelf below. Before she makes her way towards Miles, she shuts the window.
Then, she turns, squatting. Make herself smaller as she reaches for Miles’ hands.
“I’m sorry too, Mr. Edgeworth,” she says. Miles’ insides churn, infused with guilt. “I shouldn’t have pushed— I know you’re going through a lot.”
Not something, but a lot— a nuanced recognition of continual sorrows. Miles acknowledges that Kay has been watching him closely.
“You shouldn’t bother,” Miles replies. Kay opens her mouth to retort, but Miles quickly interjects— “No, seriously, Kay. You shouldn’t. This is a problem I need to shoulder. Alone. You can’t— I prefer you don’t,” Miles spills. It’s only after that he realizes the unfiltered vulnerability lacing his words. It’s only after that he realizes that it's too late. Desperation clings onto him as adds a meager, “Please.”
Kay’s pout transforms into a frown. “I don’t exactly know what’s going on with you, Mr. Edgeworth, but it’s not— it’s not like I don’t know,” she says. Miles feels like his body has been dropped into a freezing pool. “It may not be obvious to others, but to me— to me I see it. And you look— you look terrible.”
“I know,” Miles replies. He's not felt well since 2019, when he shared a bed with Phoenix. When it felt like they had a hold of their future, when it felt like all had been settled. “I'm— I'm scared for Phoenix, Kay.”
Uttering his first name to someone else feels like an incantation. A cursed taboo.
“Is he dying?”
Worse. “He's rotting,” Miles replies. “I feel the pull.” He pauses. Tries refocusing his attention on his hands interlocked with Kay's gloved ones. “Please, please don't tell anyone.”
—
“You must care a lot,” Trucy mumbles into his jabot. Her small, right hand plays with the top frill as Miles carries her to her shared bedroom with Phoenix. He doesn’t wanna admit it, but his untrained limbs tremble slightly.
“What's that?”
“You care,” she repeats, “about Daddy. A lot.”
Some pretense melts from his face. Trucy, like Kay, is more intelligent than she lets off. Magicians mingle well with subtext— with what lies underneath.
For that, he does not reply. There are some things that need not to be discussed, not with her half-dozed off in his arms. Even with their two-year familiarity with each other, the clear-cut image of who Miles is, who Phoenix is, remains a tight-lipped secret. A confession should be just as deliberate as a surgery.
She does not protest anyway, Trucy's hand slowly falling off the jabot. Tiny snores escape her nose. Miles bends slightly to reach for the bedroom door, hand slipping from the knob twice before successfully twisting it, pushing the door inwards.
The room is dark. Not entirely messy, to Phoenix and Trucy's credit, but not as organized as Miles would have wanted either. His feet touch some forgotten shirt left on the ground as he ambles towards Phoenix's bed, making Miles shiver.
He likes to ignore the fact that Phoenix is also in bed.
He notified Miles about it earlier today, so it isn't unexpected, but Miles feels his chest pinch when he sees the haggard man— tired, sluggish. Unable to move around and run about like he used to.
Miles gently places Trucy on one side of the bed, ensuring she's far enough from the edge. She quietly hums. Curls onto the warmth of their bedsheets. Noticing the tug from the other side, Phoenix shuffles lazily, turning to greet both Miles and his sleeping daughter.
“I thought you were ‘resting’,” Miles whispers, parroting what Trucy described to him a while ago.
“I am,” Phoenix murmurs back. “Just not sleeping.”
Miles quietly makes his way to the other side of the bed. He sits at an empty spot near Phoenix's waist, placing his left palm on the bed to lean on. “Is that all you've been doing all day?”
“Most of the time,” Phoenix shrugs, “while I wait for jobs to accept me.”
Slowly, Miles feels Phoenix’s arms slither around Miles' own waist. A gentle tug to come closer, even if Miles knows they won't spend the night together. Not when Trucy is in the same room.
But Miles permits this, these little acts that fall through the cracks. Only here. Only in places he'd call home. Only and especially when these past three years weigh on both their backs like boulders, them trying to pick up the pieces of all merit they've lost. Both of them, together.
Miles' places a hand on Phoenix's unkempt hair. It hasn't been as gelled or sharp as it used to be.
“Okay,” Miles murmurs. “We can settle for this, just for now.”
“For now,” Phoenix echoes. It's tired, almost like he doesn't want to believe it. Not against Miles, at least, but against himself. “Before it gets to shit again.”
“Phoenix,” Miles whispers, slightly harsher. Outwardly, he knows it presents as a berate. Inside, Miles knows it as an expression of fear. An urge to grip onto a cliff's ledge. “Stop saying that about yourself.”
Phoenix doesn't reply. Doesn't meet his gaze either. All Miles sees is a fog.
“I'm sorry,” Phoenix whispers softly. “I'm sorry I'm not the same.”
Miles wants to shout. If it weren't for the fact that he loves Phoenix so much, that Trucy is sleeping soundly next to him, he would've stood up and raised his voice, angry and exasperated snarls escaping his throat. Not an unraveling, not something gradually boiling in his skin that makes itself known— it's always been there, that livid demand for what is just.
In this case, he needs— pleads— that Phoenix pulls himself out of this ocean of ambiguity he's drowned himself in. That he stops saying sorry, that he stops hoping for less than this, because that is the complete antithesis of them, of what they've been trying to build together ever since Phoenix became an attorney.
But Miles knows it's not an appropriate time to yell. Miles knows that this rebuilding of the self requires patience.
His palm moves downwards, cupping Phoenix's cheek. His thumb catches on some uneven stubble he refuses to shave.
“I love you,” Miles softly imparts. He needs Phoenix to catch it, to disentangle his words and see its true wants and depth.
Phoenix removes one hand from Miles’ waist and places it atop Miles’ own hand. It's dry, scabbed and unlotioned. “I know.”
—
It's strange to be longing. It's strange to grieve, when he sees him every month.
Sometimes— most of the time, all of the time— Miles does not sleep properly. There are nights where his mattress feels too lumpy, discomforting in all areas. On those nights, he would endlessly stare into the ceiling, waiting for the universe to do something.
The crowds of California always work in the extremes. Extremely noisy, extremely smelly— it's objectively opposite to Miles’ entire charade. And yet, he thinks about the statement Phoenix made long ago, about how California has been more home to Miles than Germany ever was. He thinks, now, that there is more truth to that statement than ever before, an itchy, compulsive feeling under his skin commanding that he return.
He just does not feel well when he's away. The thought of Phoenix invades his mind more than he'd like to admit.
It makes him sick beyond belief. Obsessive, paranoid. There is no waking moment he spends not wondering if Phoenix is safe or employed or sober, and he thinks, oh, how inseparably intertwined he is with this wretched man that the act of severance is almost akin to amputation, Phoenix his phantom limb.
“He needs to make it,” he tells Kay once, over the phone. “He can't not make it.”
“You have to make that clear for him, Mr. Edgeworth,” Kay replies. “His stagnation is yours, too.”
—
“I don't get it,” Phoenix declares sullenly, reading over one of the essays Miles had made and printed for his archive in California.
They are both in Phoenix's living room, Miles visiting to later assist a trial handled by Eustace. Of course, he drops by Phoenix first, going over the updates of his paper for Phoenix to comment on. It's never been the case that Phoenix dislikes what Miles procures— Miles knows Phoenix is more precise than that. He's even witnessed Phoenix thoroughly flip through the pages two or three times.
“What do you mean?” Miles asks, saliva thick in his throat.
“I just—” Phoenix drops the paper. He isn't looking at Miles, who is standing behind him, leaning against the couch. “I don't get why you're still trying.”
There it is.
“What?” Miles replies, voice audibly cracking. He feels his airway clog itself, even if he's known that Phoenix was on the road towards pessimism these past three years. “Phoenix, what are you trying to imply—”
“That I am a lost cause, Miles!” Phoenix shouts, finally turning around. His old, wooden chair squeaks, a dissonant sound against his voice. “You keep— you keep coming back, showing me your research about change and— don't think I don't see what you're planning, I know you want me to try again, to retake the bar, but— but look around you, Miles! Nothing has been changing!”
Miles feels smoke enter his lungs, the bubbling of magma incinerating his inner walls. “You're not thinking clearly, Phoenix—”
“Stop— stop that!” Phoenix yells, standing abruptly. As Miles jumps, flinching at the sudden movement, Phoenix points at him accusatorily. “Stop implying that I'm dumb and stupid and drunk out of my ass that I can't think clearly— I am. Thinking is the only thing I do these days. And— and Miles, nothing has been getting better—”
“Who cares if it's not getting better?!” Miles matches Phoenix's tone, voice as explosive as a supernova. “I'm not dumb either, Phoenix! I— I see it with my own eyes how the system's gotten so— so prosperous, so wretched— Eustace is prosecuting a blasted child, you don't think I see how foul it's gotten?”
“Then, why, Miles?” Phoenix asks. Miles can imagine him as a rabid dog, foam frothing at his lips. “Why do something? Why—” Phoenix violently grabs for Miles’ essay, the paper loudly crumpling in his hand. “Why bother with this—” Phoenix presents it to Miles. “Why bother when nobody is fucking listening—”
“Because we have no fucking choice!” Miles yells, rasps, decades worth of hurt and trauma making its way out. He's breathing heavily now, his throat scratchy. “Because I am not accepting this— this situation as reality. Because I would rather die than see you rot in bed while people get executed everyday.”
A beat. Despite his twitching eyebrow, Phoenix stares at him with wide eyes. “Miles—”
“We're two of the only ones left,” Miles pleads. He feels something wet roll down his cheeks in a way that makes his insides twist and churn even more. “We've built something so good. You've become such a good, good person. I am not—” Miles inhales sharply, a gasp making its way out of his lips. “I love you so, so much. I’m not making you go to waste. What— what isn't clear about that?”
“Miles,” Phoenix breathes. He lowers his hand, looking both wounded and astounded. A biblical, guilt-laced awe. “Miles, I— I love you too.”
“Then, then, please—” Miles cries. “Please stand by me. Lockstep.”
I can't do this without you, goes unsaid.
Miles has always grieved this sense of unsolvable absence. Whenever he walks, the space next to him feels abundantly clear. Haunting. There is a reason why the biggest critique received from all his recent theses is that there is something missing. California remains in perpetual anticipation, and Miles’ work isn't enough.
Phoenix quickly fills in the gap between them before Miles does anything else. His broad arms wrap around Miles’ torso, pulling him close as if he were another half of a locket. Miles grasps at the back of Phoenix's hoodie, desperately clenching as he silently cries into Phoenix's chest, his tears directly imprinting onto his heart.
—
Miles returns home, at Phoenix's apartment, hours after Eustace's trial finishes. The verdict is not guilty.
Trucy isn't home— she spends the night away with a friend from school. It's enough to leave Miles unhesitant walking through the bedroom door, coat and shoes removed as he just about falls into Phoenix's bed.
Phoenix pulls him close. Miles pulls him in, too.
They are both so, so tired. They sleep together with the unbridled hope they will wake up tomorrow, next to each other.
Things will start anew.