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Just from seeing someone own a lighter, a beloved lighter at that, it was an easy assumption to make that they smoked.
Excelsius Winner smoked, often, usually cheap cigarettes from the corner store. His house always had a haze, thick and cloying.
When Stacey was younger, she used to cough performatively near him to hopefully get him to stop. It never worked, obviously. Excelsius was maybe even more stubborn than Stacey herself.
She never had the urge to smoke in her life. The smell and sight always made her nauseous, a constant reminder of her father.
It didn’t make sense to her, really, why people could want to smoke.
Right up until she moved in with Miles Edgeworth.
Edgeworth smoked. She knew that, even before she decided to stay on weekends and while school was out to get mentorship from him. She had seen him standing alone after wrapping up an investigation, stubbing a cigarette out on the bottom of his shoe before returning to his associates’ sides.
Stacey never asked why he smoked, but his behavior towards it was incredibly different from Excelsius. Edgeworth’s house was clean and bright, no smoke smells or haze, Edgeworth’s hands were clean and well manicured, his teeth perfect and normal, you could never tell from the outside he had the same vice as Excelsius, who showed all of those signs and more.
She had gotten better at understanding Edgeworth throughout the months, it had been almost one and a half years of moving between his and Verity Gavèlle’s houses for school and work. His mentorship had made her investigative skills significantly stronger, and one night, she dipped out of her room late at night, and headed out to the balcony where Edgeworth lurked. She visited him there often when they both had trouble sleeping. Shared misery was easier to carry.
For once, Edgeworth didn’t have his coat on, or his vest, or the stupid jabot, just his button down and slacks, the sleeves rolled up.
That was… new.
Stacey and Edgeworth had that one thing in common. They both almost always wore long sleeves. She did it because of the school uniform, clearly. But Edgeworth’s arms were studded with circular scars, punched out and healed over. Well, a few weren’t fully healed over, ones that were higher up on his forearms, but nearly all of them were old.
He didn’t make any move to hide them, stubbing out his current cigarette against the railing. He didn’t say anything, just stared out at the far off city skyline. Stacey stepped closer, resting her head against his shoulder, following his gaze. Her hand absently rubbed against her collarbone, scratching at matching circular scars that littered the skin there. “Where’d those scars come from?” She finally asked, looking up slightly at Edgeworth, her brows slightly furrowed.
When Edgeworth didn’t immediately reply, Stacey took a slight step back, “Sorry, I’m being pushy, I didn’t mean that, dad-“
“Stacey, calm down, I’m just thinking.” Edgeworth sighed softly, gently ruffling Stacey’s hair then fixing the little bow pinning back her bangs. “I don’t enjoy lying to you, so I’m figuring out how to phrase it properly.”
A breeze lazily ruffled the leaves of the trees down in the yard, filling the silence. “Oh. Alright.” Stacey rubbed at her eyes, stifling a yawn. It was fairly late at night, the moon high and shining down on them.
Edgeworth exhaled weakly, steeling his nerves, clearly. Stacey was getting good at his tells. “Okay. When I was younger, about your age, I was not in a good… mental place. Ever. My mentor didn’t particularly keep a close eye on my uh- extracurricular activities. Or the people I hung around with. The people didn’t truly care for me, clearly.” His ears flushed in embarrassment. “I spent a lot of my free time trying to punish myself for something I didn’t realize was my fault until years later.” He pushed up his glasses, hands trembling slightly.
“So you did it to yourself.” Stacey finished, leaning into the railing. “Mm. I do- did- the same. For a while.” She didn’t know why she was saying this, Edgeworth knew, he had helped her clean up her palms after multiple episodes, this was old news to both of them.
“Yes, dear, I did. It was a while ago. Go to bed.” Edgeworth muttered, over the conversation already. Maybe he still had some more stuff to work through. No use pressing this topic. Every nook and cranny was pried into.
The court systems were weird. Sometimes people would sit on death row for years and then be claimed by a heart attack or old age, and sometimes they would just suddenly be dead, and you’d get a weird package in the mail.
This is exactly what happened to Stacey.
She and Edgeworth were just arriving home after she spent time with Verity, and before going inside, Stacey checked the mail.
Inside was a small box. About the size of a top end smartphone. Clearly she couldn’t open it outside, no knife to cut open the tape.
The box sat untouched for a solid week after it was delivered. Stacey got busy with helping on cases, Edgeworth didn’t remember to remind her, but of course, it couldn’t be avoided forever.
One night, when Edgeworth was usually out on the balcony, doing his angsty old man routine, Stacey snagged the box from the table and took it outside. She didn’t want to open it alone, just in case it was something dangerous.
Inside, nestled in layers of paper and bubble wrap, was a very familiar silver item. Excelsius’s lighter. No note, no information on the box, just the lighter, and the implications.
Excelsius had been incredibly protective over that lighter her entire life. It was always on his person, no matter what. The fact that it was sitting inside a box held by trembling hands held a terrifying thought.
Her horrible, disgusting, roach of a father, was gone.
She should’ve been elated.
She turned to Edgeworth, who had looked away as soon as the box was opened. “Why aren’t you saying anything? He was a pain in your side- you should be happy.”
Edgeworth shook his head slightly. “My feelings on this matter aren’t of your concern, Stacey. He was your father.”
Stacey groaned. “Can you not be my dad right now? Just be, I don’t know, my mentor? A friend? This isn’t…” she trailed off, scratching at the burn scars on her collarbone again. “This isn’t normal. I don’t know what to think.”
Edgeworth huffed a small laugh. “I’ve already told you the story of what happened with my mentor. He wasn’t a good man, but he’s dead now, and I didn’t find out for a while until my sister told me.” He turned back towards Stacey. “Are you going to keep the lighter?”
Stacey turned it over in her hands, tracing the engravings with her finger. The metal was cold through her gloves, lighter than she remembered. The last time she had been allowed to hold it was when Excelsius wanted to see if she knew what it was for as a kid. That hadn’t gone anywhere good, and she wore gloves constantly. “Maybe. He uh- burnt me a lot with it. But if you wanted to use it for your clearly well managed cigarette habit, I wouldn’t be upset about parting ways. Or I could keep it if I wanted to smoke ever.”
Edgeworth raised an eyebrow, “Stacey, I don’t think you want to smoke. Even I’m ashamed of it.”
“But my father smoked. With this lighter. Maybe it can be a final, like, screw you. Or whatever.” Her voice cracked on the last word, and she harshly wiped at her eyes, refusing to let Edgeworth see her cry again. She had cried so much when she had first moved in, even before then.
“If you say so, dear.” Edgeworth dug into his pocket, pulling out his slightly crumpled package of cigarettes. Back when Stacey had first moved in, he had temporarily quit smoking due to his new mentee’s volatile nature around lighters. Now that she was older, it wasn’t as much of an issue. Stacey carefully selected a cigarette from the carton, staring at it like a foreign object.
Stacey placed it between her lips, fumbling with Excelsius’s lighter until she was able to flick it on, avoiding even looking at the flame as she lit the end of it. On the first inhale, she immediately coughed, regretting it with every fiber of her being.
“This is horrible-“ She coughed out, eyes watering from the smell and how the smoke itched her eyes. “Dad, how do you keep doing this?” She stubbed out the barely smoked cigarette, regretting every decision.
Edgeworth shrugged, adjusting his sleeves. “I got used to it. Not my finest moment, however. Don’t follow in my footsteps.” He leaned down slightly and pressed the lightest kiss to the top of Stacey’s head. “Go to sleep soon, darling, it’s late.”
Stacey stifled a little laugh against her hand, the sheer hilarity of The Miles Edgeworth being horribly fatherly to her in the middle of the night after being gifted her birth father’s old lighter. It was weird, absurd even, bizarre if you preferred. Edgeworth’s own mentor (his adoptive father legally but not emotionally) had died a few years back as well, and here he was, comforting her.
She didn’t understand anything he did, even after months of practicing logic and investigating. Family didn’t need perfect understanding.