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It’s late. The courthouse is deserted, and the sun is slanted so low in the sky it’s sending honey-gold beams of light through the courthouse’s large radius windows, and Miles can see the motes of dust swirling in the faint breeze.
Miles feels like those motes of dust, sometimes. Just following the path set by forces far greater than he. Unless someone or something arrives, shining and true in a way he could never be, to change his life in ways they never imagined.
Miles frowns. He doesn’t think he’s thinking about dust anymore.
No matter. The only reason he is still in the courthouse this late, as opposed to his office at the Prosecutor’s Office, is he seems to have misplaced his badge somewhere.
He sighs, leaning further against the wall he’s standing next to. As he tilts his head back and takes a deep breath, emotions rise from within him. These past few months have been stressful, with the return of that man and all that came with it.
It’s strange, sometimes. Waking up and realizing Manfred von Karma no longer has any bearing on his life - it feels like chains having lifted off him. Sometimes he wonders if he should even still be a prosecutor - late at night, the sum of all the people he’s condemned pressing on him so hard his breath quickens and he can hardly breathe, he wonders.
What would they have lived to be, those innocent, had he not stopped them in their tracks? And even the guilty, did he rob them of a second chance? A life?
Miles glances out the window. He can faintly see the city skyline through the window, and he wonders once more how much plane tickets to Germany cost. The city feels suffocating, sometimes, with the weight of everything he’s done and the revelations about his past that occurred here.
Well, he would have left already if not for that man. He saved Miles’ life, and with Miss Fey gone, he doesn’t seem to have any other friends than Larry, Gumshoe, and Miles himself, and Miles doesn’t want to leave the poor man alone with no one to talk to except Larry and Gumshoe.
Speaking of Gumshoe, he comes rushing in in a tizzy. Miles scowls, but he can’t exactly tell Gumshoe he’s mad because Gumshoe disturbed the floating of dust particles, so he just settles with barking, “What is it, detective?”
Gumshoe skids to a stop, the familiar bewildered expression on his face, before he jumps into a salute. “Sir, Mr. Edgeworth, sir! I know where your badge is!”
“Well?” Miles asks, spreading his hands in exasperation. He’s 10 seconds into a conversation with the detective, and he’s already reached the end of his rope. “Where is it?”
“Um, that way, sir!” the detective says, pointing down a hallway. “But I found Mr. Wright holding it, so I figured I’d better come back and talk to you!” A pause. “Sir!”
Miles sighs, but it ends up more like a groan. He is a little thankful that the detective didn’t barge in, but that’s about where his gratitude ends. “Thank you, detective.”
There’s a moment where they both stare at each other, neither of them moving, Gumshoe still holding that stupid salute, before Miles yells, “Get out of this building right now or you’re going to be paying to work with me come payday!” As the detective is scrambling to get moving, Miles takes a deep breath and says, “And, ah, where is Wright?”
“Down that hallway and to the left, sir.” Gumshoe says meekly. “In the smaller court room.” At the responding scowl, Gumshoe turns tail and runs out the door, smacking face-first into it before successfully leaving.
Having resolved that walking catastrophe, Miles turns his attention to the hallway Gumshoe indicated. Frankly a tad sorry to leave the setting sun, he heads down it. The sound of his footsteps against the silent courthouse strikes him as slightly eerie, leaving him slightly on edge as he peers around the doorway into the small courtroom.
He sees Wright standing maybe 10 feet away from him, standing in front of the desk where he’d left his badge. He doesn’t think Wright can see him, but he can see Wright’s face clearly in the setting sun’s light.
Wright has Miles’ badge in his hands, and is staring at it with open love and admiration. Miles is transfixed. He watches as Wright’s hands, the same ones that slam on the bench and stab at the prosecution while objecting, caress the thing that represents Miles with the same reverence a normal person would assign to the Holy Grail.
He watches while Wright’s shining, multifaceted eyes shimmer with fondness and his beautiful, expressive face lean downward to press a kiss to the badge. Seeing Wright’s lips press to the badge sends a rush of heat through Miles, and he stumbles forward.
Wright looks up in surprise, and both attorneys freeze, Miles mid-stumble and Wright with his lips inches from the badge. Suddenly, Wright smiles, languid and wide, a lovely pink blush spreading across his face like spilling paint. Miles can see a bit of the blush on his neck and has the sudden, depraved urge to take off Wright’s shirt and see how far down the blush goes.
“Hi, Edgeworth.” he says, and how does he manage to stay so composed when the sheer novelty of what Miles is feeling right now makes him want to turn around and put his fist through the wall. “Mind if I return this to where it belongs?”
Infuriatingly, Wright correctly takes Miles’ lack of any discernible response as a yes, and moves towards him. Miles feels like he should be reacting like a scared cat, but all he can do is feel strangely happy as Wright gets closer.
Odd.
Wright finally gets close enough to reach him. He pins the pin back on Miles’ cravat carefully, so carefully, like Miles could shatter if he moves wrong.
Miles feels like spun glass right now. Wright is looking at him like he’s fragile and beautiful and shining - Miles normally doesn’t consider himself those things, but he’d be them for Wright.
He cups a hand around Wright’s cheek, relishing in the way Wright’s gorgeous eyelashes flutter closed as he brings their faces closer. As their lips connect, the first thing that runs through Miles’ mind is His lips are nice before things stop running through his mind.
Somehow he’s ended up pressed against the wall, and he doesn’t mind at all. He feels like he should be guilty somehow that they’re doing this in a house of law, but he doesn’t really feel anything other than the press of Wright’s lips and the grip of his hands.
At some point, they break apart so they both can breathe, and Miles takes joy in the fact that Wright’s eyes are dark and wide and his face is flushed. “Back to my apartment?” he says, forgetting proper grammar in his rush to get them somewhere more private.
Wright nods, desperately, and all of a sudden they both take off running down the hallways back out to the entrance. The absurdity of it all has Miles laughing, which starts Wright laughing, and somehow laughing makes him even more handsome, and Miles has to once again fight down the desire to do filthy things to him in a courthouse.
They reach the steps in front of the courthouse, and Wright rubs a hand against the back of his neck - Miles should not find that as endearing as he does - and asks for a ride. Miles couldn’t refuse the fool if he asked for a Lamborghini right now, so of course he says yes.
As they drive off into the mostly set sun, Miles thinks of dust particles and smiles.