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“The files, Wright.”
While the Wright Anything Agency had managed to become something resembling a fully operational law office, leaving its talent-seeking days behind, it’s still strange to see the chief prosecutor at its doors. A lot of the legwork, so to speak, was left to detectives and even if a prosecutor had the gall—or perhaps the respect?—to come here personally, it would likely be to serve papers, not ask for them.
Phoenix turns in his chair to look at the man at the door. After so many years without, a part of him can’t help but be glad to see the prosecutor’s face again.
“What files, Edgeworth?” Phoenix absentmindedly ran his thumb along the edge of his badge. Rule number one was always to play dumb, and then he realized how strange it was for the other man to be here personally, “I thought you didn’t prosecute cases individually anymore?”
It’s a shame that he doesn’t see his rival on the other side of the bench anymore, but Phoenix guesses that’s to be expected. A new generation of attorneys were taking the legal world by storm, after all, and even if the fabled turnabout terror has his license back these last seven years had certainly taken its toil on him.
For Miles to come here all the way from the prosecutor’s office, then something big must be going on. Phoenix fights the urge to furrow his eyebrows—and whatever this case is about, he apparently has documents pertaining to them?
Edgeworth has an inscrutable look on his face, the same that he got whenever he had to deal with—this, the mess that their legal system has become, with its rot and decay.
The law was a bit more than a dead tree, Phoenix remembered Mia saying back when he first entered law school. Though, Phoenix thinks that even she had no idea how bad it’d really get. For all the ways Mia’s life was cut short, he wondered if it was lucky that at the very least she didn’t have a chance to see it. When he stopped to think about it too deeply, it was hard to swallow the nausea that crawled up his throat.
The law was a tree, and lawyers are stuck trying to read its leaves. Crush up its roots and make tea and drink it, stuck trying to interpret the shapes of the loose leaves clinging to the bottom of the cup, with the hope that somehow it’ll bring justice to the people.
That in many ways the system should have given power to the wronged and helpless, it didn’t. All it did was commodify life, like the verdict of this case or the next was a game or a score when it always was everything but. What happened when the very foundation under your feet worked to poison you?
Ah. That must be it, then: “Is this what I think it is?”
Phoenix can feel Miles’s scrutiny, the way he searches the defense attorney’s face for tells as he says, “Yes. I need the paperwork, and any research you have concerning Kristoph Gavin. Alongside his personal USB, which I know you have.”
“And by ‘know’ do you mean the state knows that I have such information, which in that case a warrant or subpoena should be present,” Phoenix retorts instinctively, a product of years spent smoothing out the jurist system legislation jargon, not to mention Miles’s writings were more convoluted than anything even the worse of his law school papers, “or personally, acting outside of your jurisdiction, know I have it?”
The scowl on Edgeworth's face, combined with the tapping of the other man’s finger against the side of his arm, reminds Phoenix of the months of breathing legal textbooks under Professor Edgeworth's tutelage.
Then he realizes his slip up, “Uh, hypothetically, Counselor.”
Edgeworth gives him the same look that he gives all of his suspects, and to every witness on the stand that stands in his way. “Give me the files, Wright, before I find a judge that will give me a warrant.”
Sometimes, Phoenix believes that what is seen is less important than what isn’t. People, for one reason or another, tend to put more weight on their conclusions, on what is implicit rather than what is explicit. On what the shadows might be hiding than what the light is clearly showing.
Phoenix narrows his eyes. “I deserve to know what kind of investigation I’m helping, Miles.” And his words are more sincere than he usually offers to anyone else, but Edgeworth to him has always been special in ways that he tries not to dwell on. “From the fact that you’re here personally, I doubt this is official business.”
Phoenix pauses, and starts again, “And here I thought Kristoph had already gotten his guilty verdict…”
“He has. The upcoming trial is to determine the severity of his sentence,” Edgeworth says drily. Phoenix still can’t quite figure out how Miles feels about Kristoph. The seven years they worked to clear his name, no matter the things that Phoenix had told the prosecutor about the other man—and there were so many things he didn’t say—Edgeworth had a blank face. Well, that wasn’t quite right. There was always this flash, this twist of something, before it was smoothed down into a mask of stoicism and practicality.
“There are only so many days a man can spend in prison, after all.”
Phoenix chuckles, “I guess that’s true.”
The defense attorney guesses he shouldn’t be too surprised—ever since the Mason System Trial, even after Kristoph’s psychotic break on the witness stand, he had been coincidentally out of the public eye. He’s not entirely sure if that's because of the man pulling the right strings or if the high profile of the case made sure that everything remained confidential.
Even if Miles was here now, looking for evidence, Phoenix is surprised that Edgeworth was handling this case. Even if it is customary for a chief prosecutor to handle cases as swamped with corruption and twisted bureaucracy as this one, Phoenix can easily see how Kristoph could argue conflict of interests. No matter how exemplary Edgeworth's conduct might be, suspicion is a hard seed to weed out when it’s been planted.
And that’s ignoring the stakes insinuated in a case like this. Despite the scale of it all, the chairman of the Bar Association—a slimy man that Phoenix had met once and frankly once too many—would never let someone as high up as Edgeworth get involved, at least not personally. And while that man might not be the brightest, he certainly had his mouth against the right ears.
“You’re not the lead prosecutor of this case, are you?”
“I’m not.” The curt response and the tilted slant of Miles’s mouth betrays his frustration, “But the District Attorney asked me to assist Prosecutor Debeste’s investigation.”
“Debeste?” The name is familiar, and recognition rattles in his head.
“He is a new addition to the Prosecutor’s office. Originally an attorney based in LA, but for the last few years he’s been working in Germany. I doubt you would know him personally, but his father was an influential prosecutor for his time.”
“Corrupt, you mean?”
The corner of Edgeworth’s lip twitches, "Unfortunately, that’s the subtext, yes.”
“How do you know him, then?”
Edgeworth smiles, in the way he always did when Phoenix managed to surprise him, “What’s to say I know him, Wright?”
It’s embarrassing to admit, but there was nothing like that look. God, all the years Phoenix spent chasing Miles was worth it just for that—the way that Miles looked at him when he did something clever, when somehow Phoenix managed to impress him.
(He remembered it, when Edgeworth had confronted him after Gramarye V. the State, on the subject of the murder of a magician that had held the lives of his disciples hostage. He remembered it clearly: how the prosecutor had looked at him, when he saw the web that Phoenix had made. At the time, he had nothing but ideas, suspicions—of a man that was all too willing to take his side, the one dissenting voter on a board looking to make themselves look better. To take a stand on corruption, like they themselves weren't drowning in it, like they weren't planning their vacation on some businessman's luxury island in exchange for a quick settlement.
He expected Miles to be—angry, maybe, at the way he had lied. He knew that the months after he had lost his badge he had pushed the other man away. He had pushed them all away, because the thought of them seeing what he had become made him sick to the stomach. He was meant to be their strength, someone that Maya and Pearl and Larry and all the rest (all the clients that had looked up at him over his now-extinguished career flashed in front of his eyes, the way that they had looked at him first in desperation and then with sweet relief, gratitude) could rely on.
What does he do, then, in the face of it all? He stopped taking Maya's calls. He stopped replying to Larry's texts complaining about his new girlfriend or to get drinks. He adopted the daughter of the client that had walked out on him, and it's not surprising some people took that as an admission of his guilt. God, forgery…
He didn't like the thought of it. That someone had deliberately decided to ruin him—that the paranoia that had followed him had reason, a ghost that had become his constant companion the moment Kristoph had came to his office with his condolence and sympathy and assistance was his own mind warning him—
Fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice?
No. He played this role once. Phoenix refuses, not again never again.
“Phoenix,” Miles quipped, dry, "You never cease to amaze with your utterly abysmal luck."
"You're… not mad?" The wave of relief from that statement almost drowned out Edgeworth's voice.
Edgeworth’s eyes flicked over the evidence that Phoenix had presented, fully prepared for his friend to condemn him. Condemn his actions. And if not that, then at least condemn his down-right carelessness. He got cocky against the younger Gavin, there was no other way to put it.
The next words, said offhandedly, sent a flicker of flames over his skin. "I doubt that there is anything you could do that would lead me to denounce you." Edgeworth put down the papers, and faced him. The prosecutor put a hand on his shoulders, and the touch felt like electricity.
"But—"
What he did then was even more shocking: he tugged him closer, drawing Phoenix into a hug. It was so uncharacteristic that for a moment Phoenix thought he must be dreaming, but then he caught that awkward sideways glance that Miles has on his face sometimes, when hit with vulnerability, and then he realized that he was wide awake.
The other senses came back to him after that, over the rush of blood in his ears.
He could feel the rise and fall of the other man's chest, the steady pump of his heart. He could smell the herbal tea that Edgeworth only drinks because it's the only alright-tasting one in the Gatewater, whenever the man takes to staying at the Hotel.
The last time he was so close to Miles was when they were still boys. He knew he missed all those years, but that loss never felt as apparent as it does now. Phoenix tucked his face into Edgeworth's shoulder, hoping that'll be enough to hide his blush.
"I'm sorry. Wright.” Edgeworth sighed, “I’m not sure how much that means from me, but I… I wish I could have been here sooner. Men like Gavin, nothing matters more to them than their pride. This should have never happened to you.”
What did it matter? The sentiment was nice—a flimsy word but surely close enough?—but emotions never translated to action. At least, that's what Phoenix had convinced himself to believe, but he knew Edgeworth. The prosecutor never said anything he didn't mean, and the idea of the other man thinking so highly of him, even after everything, was dizzying. The drowning guilt that clung to his shoulders lightened for a moment.
Phoenix clutched Edgeworth tighter, and said, teary eyed and snot faced; "Miles, please… help me."
And Edgeworth did. )
“You said ‘personally’—that implies that somehow you know Debeste as more than just one of the prosecutors in your office.”
“Hm, sharp as ever, Wright." Edgeworth confirms, and Wright thinks it's a bit embarrassing the warmth those words cause, "His father was the chairman of the Prosecutorial Investigation Committee, and Sebastian had helped me prove his guilt.”
Phoenix remembered the massive scandal with the PIC, alongside the rest of the things Edgeworth had to deal with over that March, “Was that before or after one of your fellow prosecutors held you at gun-point?”
Edgeworth’s eyes shift away, like they usually do when he’s trying to hide his amusement. “While there was a prosecutor with a gun—Portman, if you ever had the chance to encounter him but with your usual caseload I doubt it—the one that had me at ‘gun-point’ was not him.”
“The world has a surprising number of gun-welding lunatics.” The defense attorney acknowledges wryly, “What charges are you planning to convict Kristoph on, then?”
Edgeworth’s right hand goes to re-adjust his glasses, and the flash that goes through his eyes—as inexplicable as all the other man’s facial expressions were when it came to that subject—is evasive. In a strange way, it reminded Phoenix of Kristoph. “While the trial involving Vera Misham had revealed a lot in regards to the former attorney’s crimes, I’m sure there’s still a lot of people still looking to get back at Kristoph for what he had done to them. People looking for their pound of flesh, so to speak.”
For some reason the defense attorney felt like Edgeworth counted himself on that list too. But he guesses that it’s just the way the man has always been, always willing to go up and beyond for the things he cares about. About the people he cares about.
(A conversation that Phoenix had with Larry bubbled up from the back of his head. It was after the other man’s successful picture book publishing, and while Larry had been on a ‘very important mission, Nick—no booze and no babes!’, he had no such reservations. At home, with Trucy–who was only about thirteen at the time—he tried to not drink, sticking with his grape juice or tap water. But stress relief every once in a while never hurt, and at the very least he had Larry looking out for him.
Still, Phoenix remembered being pretty out of it. Remembered hazing at the corners of his eyes, and thinking about how tomorrow’s hangover was going to be a bitch and how he was going to drag himself to work. Something about digging out his old ear-plugs from back when he was in Ivy U and one of the guys from the dorm across from him hosted parties every Sunday night like it was going out of style. Even his own piano playing got on his nerves from time to time, Kris’s jabs of him being tone-deaf notwithstanding.
And there’s one other thing he remembered.
“Did, uh, Miles tell you about the murder in his office?” Phoenix hiccuped, trying to steady himself so that he wasn’t completely slumped over Larry’s small dining table, “The one about the smuggling ring.”
“Course. Edgy’s week of hell. Weeks?” Larry laughed, as he whipped up another cocktail for Phoenix from the slightly expired syrup and vodka he had in his fridge. He might be trying—for however long this little resolution of his was going to hold—to not drink, but that doesn’t mean he wants to lose all his tricks! Girls, Larry knew, liked a man who could shake a mean drink.
“Hmm. Yeah—guess Miles is the same as ever. Crazy over anyone messing with his things. A body in his office? God, it’s like fourth grade and his fancy fountain pen all over again.” It was a running joke between the three of them. Well, between him and Larry anyway, because Edgeworth would be mortified whenever they brought it up. One boy in their class, Damien, didn’t like Miles very much, annoyed at the other boy’s teacher-pet-ness and stick-in-the-mud attitude. It came to a conclusion one day when Damien had broken the gray-haired boy’s fountain pen right in front of him, smashing into the concrete. It was a gift from his father for Miles’s ninth birthday, and his favorite.
“I’ll bet. Didn’t know Edgy was like that. Or was able to make someone cry so hard.” Larry tilted his head to the side, furrowing his eyebrows like he was deep in thought, “Ya know I respected him a lot for that. Even if the other boy was jumpy around Edgy for the whole year.” The story that they managed to get out of Miles was in pieces, but it involved ripping whole pages out of Damien’s book, connecting and blackmailing the other boy over the stationary he’d stolen from the teacher, and a video recorded on the Miles’s dad’s digital camera of Damien bullying a few boys from the year below. In the end, Damien had been suspended for a month, and had to give an apology to both the boys and the teacher.
“Yeah, Miles was ruthless,” Phoenix said, “But you got to admit it was pretty cool.”
Larry had given him a flat look that, if he was more sober, Phoenix would have interpreted to mean a sardonic ‘you would think that, wouldn't you?’.
“Some things never change, huh?” Larry stretched his arms over his head, popping his shoulders, “ ‘m not surprised his attitude’s the same to everything from his lawyering to his relationships. When it comes to Edgy, sometimes I think overprotective might be an understatement.” Larry hummed, “But I can respect devotion. Loyalty’s hard to come by these days…
“Man, I still can’t believe Lelia cheated on me with her mailman…” Larry whined, and Phoenix noticed absentmindedly that this was the second time a mailman dashed Larry’s love life. He thought it’d be a firefighter or some handsome doctor, before his head caught onto the other thing that Larry said.
Wait—Edgeworth? Relationships? That can’t be right…
“I didn’t know Miles dated.”
Larry gave him a puzzled look. Phoenix continued, “I mean, you know, Miles always seemed so uninterested in stuff like romance… Unless there’s some secret lover in Europe?” Phoenix thought about it for a little while, burying the mess of feelings settling in stomach, before the pieces came together and the truth was clear to him. “You know, like ‘that man’?”
Larry’s confusion only deepened, and Phoenix couldn’t understand why; everyone knew about the man that Edgeworth would never shut up about. He tried not to feel jealous. “That man?”
“You know the one. The guy he met in Europe over his death-vacation and talks about all the time? Something, something, saved him, shines brightly in his eyes?”
“Nick.” Larry said, almost manically, like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Phoenix wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t homophobia. He thought Larry already knew about his bisexuality…?
“Don’t be per-judiced, Larry,” Phoenix managed, trying really carefully to enunciate his words properly but feeling he was getting it wrong anyways, “If Miles likes guys, then that’s good for him. Love is—love.”
Larry opened his mouth. Closed it. Started again. “Nick. What—how much do you think it takes to charter a private jet? I mean—isn’t that how you managed to pay your mortgage?”
“Dunno? A lot of money? What's my mortgage got to do with any of this?”
Larry took one look at the cocktail he was making, and downed the whole thing in one gulp. He muttered something under his breath, something that sounded along the lines of ‘Cindy was right… should’ve…got a sugar…too’.
“Huh?”
The rest of the night was a blur, after that. It tasted a lot like the room-temperature beer and hard lemonade that Larry had stashed away in the pantry to make his short-lived abstinence easier. Or for emergencies. But Phoenix wasn’t sure what in their conversation about Miles’s maybe-love life counted as an ‘emergency’. When that too had run dry, Larry slurred, “I ought to be knighted… dealing with this… for too fucking long.”)
At Phoenix's contemplating silence, Edgeworth continues, reassuring, “Justice will be served, Wright, I promise.”
“And here I thought you only cared about the truth.” Phoenix teased, but he got it. It’s a shame really; oftentimes the law wasn’t able to always take the truth into account—the defense attorney recollects Edgeworth told him about the mess of extraterritorial law that he was forced to work through, twice, in order to gain his verdict. Things have been getting better, but it’s slow going. Miles said that his reinstatement as a lawyer helped dismantle this ‘dark age of law’, but the both of them knew that there was still so much left to do.
“It is still the only thing I care about.”
Phoenix chuckles, “Sure it is, Miles. The last few years have probably changed you more than they've changed me." He shakes his head disbelievingly, "Made you a maybe little soft. Some might even go as far as to say that the famed Demon Prosecutor has turned sentimental.”
Wright shifts his head to give an amused look at Edgeworth, a part of their usual back-and-forth, but the prosecutor was already looking straight at him. Phoenix could feel the weight of Edgeworth's glare, the considering and piercing gaze. Eyes that could see through him perfectly, taking him apart into pieces that could be easily examined and deconstructed. He tries to stop his face from showing the way his heart flutters. “Wright, you would have to be completely clueless if you truly believe if these years have been easy for me.”
“I mean, why not? Living out in Europe, traveling country to country. Exotic cuisine and lit rooftops—”
“Phoenix. You can't actually think that," the prosecutor's voice sharpened, and Wright felt that pin-prick pressure that he normally got when something important slipped by him, when there was something he was missing, "That seeing the law that we had both held in such high regard fall apart was a pleasant thing. The idea of you suffering half the world away was not something I could forget so quickly."
Edgeworth’s concern was comforting, starting a not-unpleasant flutter of butterflies in his stomach. Phoenix hopes that, at least after all these years, his poker face is good enough to hide what Miles does to him. What the other man’s always done to him, really.
"Yeah, I know. I'm sure I've been the cause of a lot of your gray hairs over the last few years," and while he aims for a light tone he's sure it fell flat, a touch above self deprecating, "but I guess it's finally time to move on. We have our work cut out for us, if we're going to fix the legal system."
And then Phoenix remembers something that Edgeworth had said to him once. A sense of boldness comes over him—along with the curiosity of what else that Edgeworth would let him get away with. It's no secret that the prosecutor had helped him so much over that last seven years, that he was probably the only reason he and Trucy had managed to make it through the brunt of it. That perhaps without even realizing it, Miles has slipped into the role of Trucy's other parent. That without even realising it, Trucy stays up working on tricks to impress the prosecutor, who was always able to see further through her tricks than most people.
(The first day that they had met, Edgeworth had been reluctant. The prosecutor had told Phoenix that he had never been good with children; that he wasn’t able to handle them with the care that they needed, that they deserved.
But when Phoenix saw Edgeworth with his daughter, over the years, he thought the other man was too harsh on himself. It was a shameful secret, but a sweet one. The nights he spent in the kitchen, washing dishes, listening closely to Trucy’s quick questions, and Edgeworth’s honest answers.
So much of Trucy’s life was uncertain, surrounded by people that treated her like a child but expected her to take hits like an adult. A world that expected her not to cry when her father ran away or mother died, but thought too lowly of her to tell her the truth. Enigmar goes through his head, bitterly. Phoenix might be biased, but he didn’t care.
Sometimes, Phoenix thought—and still thinks—that the magician sees the world in a certain light; to her life was a combination of many games going on at once, and in every hour of every day they were checkers, moved around without care. That even those with the power to be players—what Phoenix had clawed himself up to be, trapping Kristoph in a cage of the other man’s own making—were nothing more than pieces in another plot.
In that, she built many of her relationships. Saw the world through that warped lens. Trucy clinged to him, maybe partially because she liked him, but also because she had no choice. Every person had a purpose, and to her eyes Phoenix knew that love looked like using and letting yourself be used. It was a bleak way for a child to look at anything, but what else did she know? The disappearing act: there one moment, and gone the next.
But as he walked back to the dining table, seeing Miles explain to her a piece of history or the way to solve a math problem, Phoenix hoped that he could help with this. At least. It won’t be quick or simple, but Phoenix likes to think everyday it gets a bit easier. That as long as she has people that care about her, genuinely, by her side, it doesn't matter where she is. Paris in snowy midnight or California in midsummer’s day. That tight knot of mistrust, like a ball of yarn, will unravel eventually. And even if it doesn’t, either way, Phoenix will continue to love her. His daughter, light in the darkness.
He hopes that whatever he’s been able to give her can be equal to even the fraction of what Trucy’s given him.)
“Are you waiting for an invitation, Miles? Come in, stop darkening my doorway ominously. Stop being a stranger, and sit down.”
And so the prosecutor does, unfolding one of the chairs Phoenix has tucked away near Charley, the beloved agency pot plant.
Edgeworth settles opposite him, close and facing Phoenix head-on. He has his arms crossed over his chest, gaze steady. The fluorescent office lights looked good on him, but that wasn’t anything new. The other man wasn’t close enough for Phoenix to feel trapped or claustrophobic, but the defense attorney has always been hyperaware of Miles. Even back in uni when he was combing through texts in the courtroom library, and Miles would be prosecuting a case two lobbies over. Phoenix had to be deliberate in how he angled his head away from Miles for fear that his old friend would recognise him. Or maybe because of the sinking dread that Miles wouldn’t. That he had always mattered more to Phoenix than Phoenix had ever meant to him.
He shoves those worries down.
The man he had seen in the newspapers wasn't the same Miles he knew, and even the mutterings he could overhear from the prosecutor's lobby were callous, cold. He knew acutely that if he wanted to save Miles, he needed to get his badge. It doesn’t mean it was easy, though.
One thing Phoenix has to admit though is that he's always admired Edgeworth's hands. The first time Edgeworth had objected in that class trial he remembered being stunned by the boy's hand, outstretched and determined.
Phoenix wonders what it would feel like to cradle those fingers with his own, to kiss the tip of each of them. The idea of Miles doing the same—bringing his hand up to his month, lips grazing the inner and sensitive skin of his wrist, like in the way he noticed, perhaps enviously, Miles doing to some of the people that they had encountered in Europe, as a token of his regard—makes him burn in a way that's hard to explain but even harder to deny.
Miles has always been a grounding force—even when they were children. Time hasn't changed that, not much. He didn’t know when exactly Edgeworth became synonymous in his head with ‘trust’. He didn’t know when he stopped caring.
After so many years and it still feels like the way we started… Life's a strange miracle, isn’t it?
He tries not to think of his own betrayals. The forged card, on Apollo’s first trial. Him committing the very sin he was trying to prove himself innocent of. That’s why he couldn't give the USB up. Kris was a man that never took well to humiliation, and what Phoenix ended up doing to the other man surpassed that. Even from behind bars the man had managed to do much—he knows the power that Kristoph had, the one of leverage—and it’s lucky that he managed to swipe it before Gavin was transferred to another cell.
(“Phoenix.” Kristoph said, holding them together in the aftermath, sweaty and sore, “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
He shivered, but not because of those words, but with the way that Kristoph said them. Like he wasn’t a person but rather an object; a thing to be owned, one that was owned. Everything in Phoenix’s life, from the moment that Gavin had him disbarred, belonged to him. The younger man had a way of saying anything and everything that came to his mind when they was in this bubble of theirs, so far away from the rest of the world. Phoenix made sure to control himself though; by a few months in, he’d already mastered the shallow level breathing of a man dead asleep.
There were many things the man would whisper to him, in that liminal space.
“Wright. You should know that no one’s on your side but me,” Kristoph would say, wrapping their fingers together, before dragging his hand up to his mouth for a kiss, harsh, on the back of his palm. Like it was a privilege, like everyday Phoenix should be thankful that at least in this cruel world, Kristoph would always look out for him. What a joke.
“No one’ll love you like I do. Like I can.” He’d say, dragging his thumb along the line of Phoenix’s stomach, nails digging in, leaning over him, and he had to suppress the burning urge to smash the back of his skull into Kristoph’s nose. To make the other man bleed, instead, for once.
So many of Gavin’s words Phoenix remembered documenting, but there was always this one thing that Phoenix never understood. It was when, after kissing the back of his shoulder, coiling them closer, Kris would whisper onto his skin, “I understand why he kept you all to himself for so many years. I would have.”
Phoenix remembered his breath hitching, before he had to force his lungs back into their artificial rhythm. He thought about asking Kristoph what he meant, back when the other man was imprisoned in Solitary Cell 13. But the hateful look in the other man’s eyes, surrounded by five locks—black? was that even possible?— convinced him otherwise. )
Phoenix smiles, beaming at Edgeworth.
"We're partners, Miles. We might be forced to work against each other… as a prosecutor and defense attorney, but as long as you're on the other side of the bench, I know that there's no one that can stop us."
Phoenix sees Edgeworth looking away, focusing insistently on a spot on the floor. There's this pained look in his eyes, but then he turns back to Phoenix, as professional as ever.
"Indeed. And I am glad for it." Phoenix fights the urge to furrow his brows—the tone of Edgeworth's voice was off, almost jaded. "But don't think that the defense's flattery will distract me from my prize, Wright."
It's not flattery, Phoenix wants to say, but he refrains from doing so. Baby steps.
He takes a quick glance at his beat-up piano, instinctively. The back of it, nested between the off-tune keys, is where he had hidden the USB in question.
The reality was that he wasn’t as good a man as Edgeworth liked to believe. For a man so aware of lies, the defense attorney wonders when the other man will realize his crime. When he’ll turn his back to Phoenix, and rightfully so.
One of the very reasons Phoenix decided to sit the bar again was because of Edgeworth. It had made the defense attorney sick, to see how deep the rot of the legal system went—the tree’s roots, Phoenix could tell, were twisting onto themselves, its leaves spotted with yellow. But more troubling was the wariness in Edgeworth’s frame, when he caught another one of his prosecutors tampering with evidence. The bags under his eyes when he had to discipline a detective that had been deliberating leaking information to the opposition and the press.
But if Phoenix had the honesty to look at the selfish part of himself, the one that had never been satisfied with what he had, he knew the truth. It was the same reason why he had pushed Doug Swallow, after what he had said about Dahlia. It was why he had spent so long writing and sending letters to someone who never replied to them.
He doesn’t want Miles to—Phoenix can’t lose him again. The guilt that came to him, time to time, when Apollo’s eyes were too sharp and knowing, over what he did was hard enough to deal with. But the alternative was worse: what if someone found out? What if they took what he’s worked too hard to get back away from him?
He might have not had the heart to destroy the drive, but Phoenix was careful. There was nothing explicit about the fake ace on Kristoph’s files, but it takes only one loose end. He forcibly relaxes, and meets Edgeworth casually.
"I can't help you if I don't know exactly what you're looking for, Edgeworth."
"Phoenix," he says, strict but not unkind, "I know that the last few years have been difficult. I know that you are—reluctant to dwell on everything that you went through, especially with regards to… Gavin."
"Difficult?" There's a pit in his stomach, a wringing weight, "What are you talking about, Miles?"
He thinks that maybe, like the Edgeworth he had first met opposite the courtroom, the prosecutor would leave it at that. Emotions and vulnerability were neither man's forte; care was something whispered in actions and not words. It was ironic for two people that have made their careers over not knowing when to shut up, but that's just the way they've always been. But this Edgeworth was different from that man then. In many ways he had celebrated the ways that Miles had warmed to him, but sometimes it came back to bite him. Like now, because even if it was like pulling teeth, Miles would not stop until he got the answer he wanted.
"One of the first things a prosecutor learns is the importance of silence and omission, Wright." There is a softness in Edgeworth's voice that is uncommon—generous and understanding.
Phoenix can taste his heartbeat at the back of his throat, and he can't tell if it's because of Miles or the anxiety he gets from having to talk about—
"While these 'lies' might not always be intentional," Edgeworth deduces, halting Phoenix's thoughts before they can spiral, "They obstruct the truth regardless, more so than any falsehood or disguise ever could."
"If there's something you want to say, Miles," the defense attorney murmurs, already knowing deep down the answer, "Then say it."
Edgeworth doesn't shy away from his eyes.
"What did he do to you, Phoenix? And—"
Phoenix opens his mouth to object, but the prosecutor cuts off the lukewarm and vague response that was already marinating on his tongue, "I don't mean the disbarment or forgery. It is no secret that despite your situation, Kristoph looked at you… fondly. Enough so to be willing to frame a waitress to get you off, if his word can be trusted. Until the end, he had seen you as a friend, and had enjoyed your company."
"Ha! Company…" Sometimes these days Phoenix sounds so bitter that he can barely recognize himself, "Yeah, I guess he did enjoy my company well enough." A part of him doesn't mind the way his voice betrays him, though, the edge of disgust that bleeds through, because the alternative would be admitting otherwise—it would be admitting that he had liked some parts of it, the way that Kristoph had leaned in. Kristoph's motivations, at least when it came to this, were clear enough. There was a pleasure that can only come from having the man you ruined in your arms, knowing that you are his savior and damnation both. And the rush that follows it; a man that was once so strong begging, reduced to this shadow, stuck moving through his life like it was a crime in and of itself—
"You two were involved." Edgeworth declares, like he had suspected but Phoenix knows he couldn't have, couldn't have captured exactly what they were, in that space of seven years. There wasn't any point for the prosecutor to try. Edgeworth—unlike him—should know when to let sleeping dogs lie.
(Sometimes to deal with it all, Phoenix would close his eyes. Imagine someone else cradling his jaw. The press of someone else's body, their breath on his neck. And then he would have to open his eyes again and see Kristoph staring back down at him. Always the same blue eyes, and always that fear that the man had seen too much, seen the part of Phoenix that he's been hiding ever since a boy with gray hair defended him when no one else was on his side.
And the tangle of emotions that had been inspired in that brief daydream wasn't worth it. The heartache—Phoenix knew better than most how catastrophic it can be, blending fantasy with reality.
Sometimes Phoenix remembered convincing himself of it, the affection that Kristoph gave him. Sometimes, in those moments he forgot all that he already knew, and let Kris weave his story. Let himself fall for the other man's false kindness, his too-tight embrace. Because there has been and always will be a big difference between your head knowing something, and your heart knowing it. What did Phoenix know about the shape of love anyway? Kristoph's lips tasted a lot like Dahlia and that should have been enough to tip him off every time, to keep the truth at the forefront of his mind. But maybe in that way he's always been weak, wanting. )
His tone is more clipped than he wanted it to be. "I had to get close to him somehow. Kristoph wasn't a man that dropped his guard easily."
Edgeworth narrows his eyes. "You have a right to miss it, to mourn it, Phoenix."
"Huh?"
Edgeworth licks his lips, his hand coming up to clutch his elbow. Even after all this time, Miles hadn't fully shaken off that habit. Phoenix can see the way his friend catches his own tell, forcing his hands to rest on his lap instead, cradling a file that Phoenix didn’t notice before.
"Kristoph was your friend. And perhaps a large part of your relationship was transactional, but that doesn't make it meaningless. You're… allowed to feel, Wright."
Edgeworth couldn't quite meet his eyes, "Even after my trial, after you had beaten Von Karma… I suppose a part of me had wondered what it would have been like, if you had never opened up my eyes to the truth.
I do not regret it, though. I do not regret any of it. But it's pointless pretending that it's—easy, breaking away from the life you've known for so long."
Phoenix almost flinched at the idea of Edgeworth pitying him, after everything. He wants to—to say something, but his mouth is dry, and the words catch in his throat.
Edgeworth continues, because that's the sort of man he's always been, pushing through because of how hard it was, not despite it, "A wise man once told me to let him defend me." He huffs, "I am asking you the same, Phoenix. I cannot change the past. Who can? But I can make sure that something like this never happens again. Or at the very least, I can ensure that Kristoph can never harm anyone ever again.
"Miles—"
"I'm sorry, Wright," Edgeworth interrupts, "But I really must insist."
Edgeworth places the manila folder on Phoenix's desk, and the defense attorney didn't even have to look at the documents to know they were—only a small part of—the crimes of Kristoph Gavin, attorney at law. "Let me do this, Phoenix. Please. Give me the evidence I need so that Gavin gets the punishment he deserves."
"There never was anyone else," Phoenix snaps, "That's the problem."
"Sorry?" Edgeworth's eyebrows knit together in confusion, but underneath, Phoenix knew that the prosecutor wasn't clueless to it, the way that Kristoph's touch had lingered, the way that he had looked almost betrayed when the truth finally came out.
"I'm the one he fell in love with—if it could even be called that."
"You're not saying that he…"
"Sure. I am. I mean, I'm sure that's how he saw it. I know you don't like having a personal life, Miles," The defense attorney jokes, because out of all the coping mechanisms man could have chosen, his has always been humor, "But it can't be that crazy that someone fell in love with me?"
"Wright—"
"He liked knowing I was his. That there was nowhere I could run—" It feels like he's somewhere else now, talking about this through a film of distance, "—That no matter who I told or what I did or said, it didn't matter. It would have always been my word against his and, who cares for the words of a fraud?
"He told me that he was the only person willing to deal with the thing that I’d become. Without my badge, I had no value to anyone. And he was the only person that would stay by my side—there was no one else, not for me. No one but him.”
A wave of self-consciousness comes over him. Phoenix forgot how uncomfortable vulnerability feels.
"Is there anything else you would like to pry out of me, Counselor? You're cutting into my working hours now."
Edgeworth looks at him, intensely. Like he's something to be decoded, understood. "Did you love him?"
"Does it matter?" Wright gives Edgeworth a sardonic shrug, "I should have been more careful, but you know me. Always wearing my heart on my sleeve. Dollie should have been the last, but what can I say? What's done is done. This isn't any of your business."
"Isn't it?" Edgeworth hesitates, like he was fighting with himself or trying to find the right words and it's been a long time since he last saw that look on Miles, "And I'm not sure what Ms. Hawthorne or Mr. Gavin caused you to believe, Wright, but you are far from unlovable."
Phoenix doesn't move.
"Wright. Look at me." Edgeworth places a hand on the side of his face—cradling his jaw—and tilting his eyes to the prosecutor's gaze. "I care about you. I… You've suffered and been wronged, Phoenix. What Gavin did was to appease his own ego, and to him you were the trophy of his ‘victory’.” The last words sounded like contempt, but it disappeared soon, leaving earnestness. Leaving admiration. “And yet you've stood strong. I want to help you, and I want to make sure something like this never happens again."
Edgeworth’s voice softens, ever so slightly—no, it couldn’t be, could it? From any other person the words would have sounded like an admission of sentiment. Of something more than just that. Did Miles…?
"More than anything, Phoenix,” the prosecutor confesses, “I want you to be happy."
"Why?” A whisper of an idea comes to him, but it’s all the thoughts he’s refused to let himself entertain. “Listen, Miles, I'm glad you've done so much for me but for this—"
“Why do I care? Is that what you’re trying to ask me, Wright?” Edgeworth’s tone hardens. Then in a rush of movement, he goes over to the other side of the desk, bypassing the one thing keeping them separate. And he moves in even closer—closer than he’s ever willingly came before, until Phoenix could feel his breath on his neck. Their foreheads were brushing together.
“Why wouldn't I, when this is,” He looks down at the files, “is what he’s done to the best man I’ve ever known? Kristoph deserves the worst in this world.”
“I’m not—”
Edgeworth moves one of his hands to smooth down the lapels of Phoenix’s suit jacket, to straighten his badge. They were touching, almost breathing the same air, and Phoenix thinks he might be a bit lightheaded. “I disagree.”
But even more than that is the firm look in Edgeworth's gray eyes.
He's hit with a realisation, with a certainty most people devote to higher powers like divinity or fate or nature. Miles will be with him the whole way. That while they might not be together in that sense, Phoenix knows that Edgeworth will be by his side. That he'll be safe in the other man's always capable hands.
"You're in love with me." Phoenix accuses, like it was the only natural conclusion.
"Yes." Miles says, like it was a fact of the universe—the sun rises from the east, the sky was blue, Miles Edgeworth loved Phoenix Wright, the earth's tilt was twenty-three-point-four degrees.
A beat of silence passes through them. Edgeworth’s expression turns severe.
"I'm sure you're already aware of the—unnecessary feelings I have towards you.” Edgeworth's ears start to go pink. “I had understood it never could go anywhere, but that does not mean that I do not want what is best for you. Because so often, Wright, you compromise yourself for those around you.”
“No, wha—no, I didn’t know—you’re in love with me?” Phoenix repeats, stupidly, like a scratched record, but he thinks he’s allowed that much. Twenty-five years—god, that long?—was a lot of time to hold out, to hope. And while Phoenix knew it was helpless, the embers of his crush, because that was the word nine-year olds used when they had an infatuation, were hard to smother out. Love. He chokes because one of those feelings were closer to the truth than the other, and he had a feeling it was one that nine-year olds were actually able to spell. L-O-V-E. Is this the part where they start K-I-S-S-I-N-G?
He couldn’t help it. Phoenix started laughing.
“Is there a problem, Wright?” Edgeworth bristles, defensive, “I’ve never tried to hide—what I mean to say is that… I thought you…”
He hesitates, and a part of Phoenix can’t help but break at that, because that uncertainty wasn’t due to Miles’s feelings but rather his worry over how Phoenix would take this news. As if there was any way that the prosecutor’s feelings were unrequited. Like there was any world where Phoenix Wright was not in love with Miles Edgeworth. Like there was any world where Phoenix was not made to love Miles.
Edgeworth takes a deep breath, stealing himself. He is level, controlled. “I thought you knew about my feelings towards you. I see I was wrong. My deepest apologies. If I have made you uncomfortable in any way, Wright—“
“No!” Phoenix blurts out, because that couldn’t be further from the truth, he was trying to rein himself in from jumping over the moon, “That’s to say… I’m in love with you too?”
Edgeworth scowls. “Don’t joke about this, Phoenix.”
“I’m not. I’m not.” The word bled out of him like an old wound, one that refused to close. He has never known anything else. “I think if I loved you any more I’d start bursting at the seams.”
Edgeworth looked at him warily, considering. It was almost like—the other man didn’t believe him. There were many things Phoenix was able to deal with but this would never be one of them.
He moves before he even realizes it, and Miles must have known what he was planning to do before he did, because the prosecutor relaxes. Like he was waiting for—Phoenix grabs the edge of jaw and tugs him down, in for a kiss but misses, lips landing more across the other man’s cheek.
It was harsher than Phoenix wanted it to be. But maybe that’s wrong. It was sweet, too sweet and Miles broke Phoenix's hold on him. Rubs away the wetness on the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, staring intently at the defense attorney. And the look on his eyes were just as intense as before but different now. Convicted. Determined.
He recognizes that look, now that he thinks about it. It’s the same look Miles gave to his crime scenes, and cases. An arrangement of pieces, waiting for them to come together in front of him. Phoenix resists the urge to shiver; Miles kept looking at him, though. As if to preserve Phoenix in his mind’s eyes—he wants to be part of the other man’s puzzle, more than anything, Edgeworth was always the missing part of him—but he stood here hesitating. Phoenix tries to steal the other man’s words. With his month. But Edgeworth knew his intentions this time, and the other man shoves his forearm against Phoenix’s chest, pinning him in place.
“Wright, I—” And then Edgeworth looks down at him and really. There was only so much he could take.
“I forged evidence—” The words tumbled out before he wanted them to, but he never could lie to the other man, not for long. “On Gavin’s first trial. Shadi’s murder. That’s—”
The rush of shame comes over him. What was he thinking, while he looked at Kristoph from the defendant’s stand? It was reckless, short-sighted, but back then he knew he couldn’t have cared less.
“That’s—why I can’t give you the USB.” Phoenix finishes lamely.
“I know.” Edgeworth tilts his head to the side, but still keeping the man below him pinned, like a butterfly’s spread wings. “Did you truly think you could hide something like that from me?”
“Edgeworth…”
The prosecutor ignores him, and only pushes him harder against his chair. Phoenix feels lightheaded for more reasons than one, and he wonders if this was how Miles would punish him for his mistake. By sliding his hand up to grab Phoenix’s throat, feel his panting breaths, the pulse of his heart through carotid arteries, and squeeze. It’d be what he deserves.
“Stop. Wright. I can already hear your thoughts. Didn’t I tell you this before?” There’s a pulse of annoyance through the other man’s voice, but his glare is all-consuming, as if to say, with me is where you belong, Phoenix—and it is where you'll stay. “There is nothing you could do that would make me denounce you.”
Phoenix meets the other man’s gaze head on. Miles does not waver.
“Nothing, short of murder? Short of me throwing away all that we’ve spent so long fighting for?”
“I have made my own share of mistakes.” Edgeworth says, voice low, “You forgave me for all of them. Why can’t the same be true for you?”
“I can’t ask you to do that, Miles. I can’t let you—cover up my corruption—”
And wasn’t that a thought, ruining Miles with his carelessness?
“Wright.” Edgeworth shakes his head, “There is no ‘let’. You don’t need to ask, and I’m not going to offer. I will do it regardless, because I’d rather bury myself than let you be disbarred again. Before allowing anything to take away your badge.” Even from here Phoenix could see the way Miles’ wrist was pressed against the sunflower of defense, the back of the pin digging into skin but the other man didn’t pay it any mind. “Do you think reform is easy?”
“Are you saying that we did what we had to?”
“I’m saying change requires a strong will. Know this. You are one of the strongest men I’ve ever had the honor of knowing, Phoenix. To get to the truth in a world where everyone’s looking to get ahead is not easy. The card that you had made was the truth. The one that a man like Kristoph had destroyed to cover his own tracks.”
Edgeworth sighs, “The truth is what matters most. As long as you and I have that, nothing else is important.”
“What I did was no better than Kristoph.”
“No.” Edgeworth denies, vehemently and when he said it like that the urge to believe his words as be-all-end-all was strong, “Gavin had held others’ lives hostage, used the love of the people around him like a weapon to wound. The only thing you’re guilty of,” The prosecutor’s eyes were shining, resolute, “is having the will to do what had to be done. You did what you had to, Phoenix. That is all.”
“Still, Miles…” He know what he did could have endangered their jurist system project, the one that they had spent so long slaving over, because it was the only to remedy the broken law that they had valued so highly, “I was—”
Miles goes to cup his hand over Phoenix's mouth, cutting him off. “You’re my truth, Phoenix. My conscience, the one that showed me the way… the pulpy thing in my chest that points me in the right direction. Trust me. Phoenix, trust this.” Miles takes one of Phoenix’s hands and presses them against the fabric of the prosecutor’s waistcoat, slightly to the left, over a beating-too-fast heart. “That’s what you are.” Edgeworth drops his hand, and all the drive he had drained out of him. “The ends justify the means. There was no other way.”
The defense attorney doesn’t respond. His head gets stuck on the words, my truth. Phoenix wonders if even Edgeworth understood what he was admitting to when saying something like that, and the idea that he did and does and mean it anyway stops him in his tracks.
“If you have to blame anyone, Wright, blame me. I wasn’t able to help you.” A flicker of regret and righteousness passes through Edgeworth’s expression, and Phoenix recognizes it as the one he saw so many times over the last few years. “Kristoph remained out of my reach for a long time. We lost seven years, and I don’t plan on us losing any more.”
Phoenix furrows his eyebrows. “It wasn’t your fault. It’s not your responsibility to deal with someone’s actions, Edgeworth. Kristoph was my problem—”
“He was our problem, Wright. Imagine it, what if I was in such a situation? Von Karma had aimed to ruin me, but it pales in comparison to what Kristoph has done to you. You would have the same. If it meant protecting me.”
Yes. Every time.
The response comes to Phoenix quicker than he liked.
Edgeworth softens. “Then, Phoenix, let me do this for you.” He lowers himself slowly, enough that if Phoenix really wanted to he could have stopped the other man. He methodically takes off his glasses, settling them on Phoenix’s desk.
He then moves his hand to cradle the back of Phoenix’s head, and brings them together. Presses a kiss onto his lips, soft in a way he hasn’t felt in years. Phoenix can feel the other man’s palm, the way they press against his locket–can feel Miles’s fingers sliding through his hair. Miles’s other hand goes to settle on the small of his back, to tug him up, until they both were properly standing.
For something that was probably only ten seconds, it sends a bolt of electricity through him. Miles separates them, and gives Phoenix a smile that, on anyone else, he would have called shy.
Phoenix goes to push Edgeworth until the other man was the one pinned this time, against the office wall. He lets one hand rest on the prosecutor’s shoulder. Edgeworth looks at him with dark open eyes, and he grabs onto Phoenix’s hips, waiting. The defense attorney leans in for another kiss. And another one. And another one.
Edgeworth under him tasted like tea and honesty. It felt like a weight off his chest, it felt like falling, letting go, giving in, and still having someone on the ground willing to catch him.
Even from now, Edgeworth kissed him like he’s waited lifetimes to, and that just won’t do. Phoenix pushes against the other man harder. Miles’s eyes open up in surprise, but then he sees Phoenix’s face and gives an amused chuckle. Grasping at the side of Phoenix’s face to pull him into another kiss, with proper direction. Heat settles in his stomach. He wonders if Miles could taste contentment from his tongue.
‘I leave it in your capable hands, partner.’ It was only natural that those words flashed through his mind again, but it had never meant so much.
Not compared to now, when Phoenix stared into Miles’s month, pink and swollen, knowing that his wasn’t any better. When their heavy breathing was the only sound ringing through the office, when Phoenix thought the drumming of his heart would have caused him to be deaf, by now.
“I guess your debt’s paid off by now, hasn’t it, Edgeworth?” Phoenix muses, panting, wrapping his arms around Edgeworth’s back. Bringing him in close, closer than he ever thought he’d be allowed to get away with.
“My debt?” Edgeworth says, only slightly out of breath, but any wrinkle in the other man’s armor makes Phoenix smile, “What do you mean?”
(Feverish. Hot. Too hot. Too cold. All he remembered was this; Maya on the other side of that damned bridge, and him falling falling head first into a rush of numbing river. The water and the dirt surrounding him, finding their way into his lungs before he was finally fished out. And while he’d managed to cough out all the water, his body wasn’t obeying him anymore. Just the act of opening his eyes in the light hurt. Who opened the blinds?
“Wright…”
He peeks at Miles, standing at the foot of his hospital bed. The other man looked tired beyond belief but the only thing that mattered was the wash of relief that came from seeing the other man. He kicked off his covers, reaching out for Edgeworth. The rest, what followed after that, was a blur though. Smudges in his head. He remembers managing to pass over the magatama and his badge, babbling words like psychelocks and detention center. Words like Iris—he choked the instinctive Dollie down his throat—and murder; Maya and bridge. Then nothing. Black.
When he woke up again, Phoenix found himself tucked in. The curtains mercifully closed. He stared up at the ceiling, with hope in his heart, and fell back asleep.)
“Don’t you remember Kurain? When I gave you my badge and you defended Iris. I told you after the trial I was in your debt and you said—”
“ —'I find myself owning you so much, Wright. I was only trying to return the favor, but I don’t think the scales are balanced quite yet'.”
Phoenix raised his eyebrows in surprise, “You remember everything you say, Miles? Should have known; you always were like that. Verbal contracts are not legally binding, you know.”
“The words of a defense attorney trying to wriggle his client out of liability, Wright. Letter and not the spirit." He retorted, “And regardless, I remember what I said so clearly,” and here it sounded like a confession, quiet but true, the truth, “Because I said it to you.”
“Huh.”
Edgeworth shakes his head, giving Wright a pointed look. “I suppose… that was what it meant to love someone.”
Phoenix feels like he was being warmed up from the inside. “Is this where I say, ‘til death do us part, Edgeworth?”
“Not yet, Wright.” Edgeworth pulls his hand closer up to his mouth, “Not yet. Things worth doing are worth doing properly.” Edgeworth kisses the tendons of his inner wrist, the rush of blood underneath. Phoenix wonders if somehow the prosecutor could taste it. Phoenix hides a grin; for all the other man complained about him, Miles had always been a bit of a contradiction himself, with his words portraying one thing and his actions another.
But when Phoenix brings both of their hands together to press against his own chest, to let the other man feel his heart beat too, he knows what the prosecutor really means. When Phoenix pulls Miles into another kiss, he can see the truth in the corner of the other man’s mouth, in the heavy sighs when their foreheads touch and they were just left there, in their own world, breathing.
In many ways it felt like a promise. And in many ways it was. But more than that it was the culmination of all the things that they refused to tell each other before, but decided to voice now.
I will be by your side, every step of the way.