[fic] Miles' Park

[kiyala.livejournal.com]

Title: Miles' Park
Author: kiyala
Word Count: 2828
Fandom: Phoenix Wright
Pairing: Phoenix Wright / Miles Edgeworth
Rating: PG
Warnings: shounen-ai
Disclaimer: CAPCOM own Phoenix Wright
Notes: Presentfic for schomperilla, one of my favourite net!people <3 Also, first completed Phoenix Wright fic! *does happydance*

x-posted to narumitsu and gyakuten_saiban

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If a relationship was like a plant, then the amount of time people spent together was like water. Too much of it at once could be damaging, but not enough would be just as bad. Both sides of the relationship must struggle to establish some sort of equilibrium, where they are not saturated, seeing each other far too much, but also not allowing the relationship to simply wither away, like a plant with no water.

Phoenix knew that his friendship with Miles was withered. Like a plant that sprung to life unexpectedly, only to die not long after. He had known it from the silence that Miles responded to his letters with. He had known the day they met in court. For a brief moment of panic, he had thought that Edgeworth hated him. And then he realised that it was not hate that he saw in the gaze across the court room. It was emptiness in the eyes of his old friend – if he even had the right to call Mr. Miles Edgeworth that.

The desperation to reconnect, the unshaking loyalty, the faith that Phoenix had in the other man did not seem to be returned at all. It bothered Phoenix enough for him to lose sleep over it, the night after the trial. There were already many things he had to deal with, now that the distraction of having a case was gone. Like the fact that Mia was gone. That Fey & Co. was now nothing but him and his mentor’s little sister to help; a rookie with but two trials under his belt and someone who didn’t know the first thing about law. The added stress of Miles Edgeworth, now a stranger who seemed to not want anything to do with him, robbed him of a few more hours of sleep and once he had managed to close his eyes without his thoughts wandering, he fell into an uncomfortable sleep with strange dreams.

*

It was a sunny day in the middle of Summer. There were no clouds, but a gentle breeze blew, chasing away the heat every now and then.

The three of them were running through the park near Mile’s house. Mr. Edgeworth sitting on a bench and caling after them, warning them not to run too far away. Larry ignored him and Phoenix glanced at Miles, who waved over his shoulder and promised not to.

There were trees growing at the edge of the park, and Larry pointed, declaring that they should explore it. Miles never backed down from a challenge, and Phoenix was intrigued by the tall, twisting trunks and long branches. They ran towards it, the air smelling of grass just after the rain; of the candy they had in their pockets; of excitement.

“Let’s go that way,” Miles said, pointing. While Larry was usually the one to make suggestions of what to do – and usually, they were bad suggestions – they never questioned Miles. They slowed down until they were walking, navigating their way through the old trees and fallen branches.

“Hey, I think we’re lost,” Larry piped up, after a few minutes of walking.

Miles replied, “No we’re not.”

“Whatever. I’m going back, okay? I’m thirsty. You coming, Nick?”

Phoenix glanced at his friend and then shook his head. “Nah, I want to keep going.”

“I’ll be back in the playground!” Larry called as he turned and jogged into the other direction, “I’m going to get the best swing!”

Miles paid no attention, and Phoenix watched him as they continued walking.

“Um…” he said hesitantly, “We’re not really lost, are we?”

“Don’t you trust me?” Miles asked. He looked irritated.

Phoenix shook his head. “No! I mean… I do! I wasn’t… I didn’t mean…”

“Just shut up and keep walking,” the other boy cut him off. Phoenix obeyed.

They walked until the sun didn’t feel as hot. Phoenix was surprised that he didn’t feel tired or thirsty. The trees finally cleared out to a cliff.

“Woah.”

“It looks pretty cool, doesn’t it?” Miles asked, giving Phoenix a sidelong glance.

“Have you been here before?”

“Yeah. I haven’t told my Dad about it, though. No one knows about it except for me, and you.”

Phoenix nodded in appreciation. Miles walked forward, closer to the edge.

“Come here. The view looks pretty good.”

Phoenix walked forward, stopping right beside his friend.

“Sometimes, I wonder what it’d be like to fall from here. It’s a pretty big drop, isn’t it?”

Phoenix gulped. “I don’t like heights.”

“Don’t be a wuss. Let’s go closer to the edge.”

Miles took his hand, and stepped forward. Phoenix followed, squeezing onto his friend’s hand.

“Don’t worry. You won’t fall.”

Phoenix pouted a little. “You won’t either.”

“What if I did?”

His grip on his friend’s hand tightened. “I won’t let you.”

“But what if I did?”

“Don’t say that!” Phoenix yelled, and then took a breath to calm down. “If you did, I’d save you.”

“Can you really save me, Phoenix Wright?”

Phoenix blinked. Before him, instead of the young Miles Edgeworth, stood the man, dressed in his magenta court suit, complete with the empty look in his eyes, the frown, and the jabot.

He looked down at himself, realising he was wearing his court suit. He looked back up, noticing that he was standing eye to eye with Edgeworth.

“Miles—” he began, stopping when the other man took another step closer to the edge.

“Did you really think you could stop the fall?”

“Stop it. Don’t.”

Edgeworth stood facing him, his back to the edge of the cliff. Phoenix looked at him with a desperate look in his blue eyes.

“Come here,” he said firmly. “Right now, Miles. Stop it.”

Edgeworth gave him a patronising grin, spreading his hands out. “You can’t act composed to save your life, Wright. Or mine.”

“Don’t!” Phoenix screamed, lunging forward at the same time Edgeworth took his final step backwards. He could reach nothing but a handful of the silky jabot, but it unraveled itself from the other man’s neck.

He lost balance and fell to his knees, watching Miles, watching the smirking face as it faded further and further away.

“MILES!” Phoenix woke with a jolt.

He gasped for air, pushing himself up to a sitting position. He brought a hand to his face and did his best to think. The dream, the park, the woods, the cliff… they felt disturbingly real. Phoenix could vaguely remember a park near the Edgeworth family’s home. He couldn’t remember any trees like the ones they had walked through in his dream, but he felt an overwhelming need to check. Just in case, his mind told him.

The digital clock beside his bed told him that it was four in the morning. The first bus wouldn’t begin its route for another hour and a half. He wasn’t satisfied to wait around until then. He shut his eyes, trying to remember the house. He knew the street name, and he was sure he knew what part of the street it was on.

He stood, stumbling through the clutter in his apartment and into his study. Flipping the desk lamp on and squinting at the sudden light, he reached for his map. He found the street he was looking for, tracing his finger along the lines that marked it, until he found the small patch of green that indicated the park.

Miles’ Park, he’d called it when he was younger. He muttered the words under his breath as he traced the way from his apartment to the park. It would be a forty minute walk, one way. He shut the book and went back to his room to find his coat.

*

There were no trees. No cliff. It didn’t even make sense for a cliff to be anywhere in this kind of landscape. It was freezing.

His watch showed it was ten to five. The Edgeworth family’s house, now owned by other people, had been rennovated and extended into something Phoenix could barely recognise.

Phoenix was furious with himself for even allowing a tiny part of him to expect otherwise.

He turned, ready to walk for a quarter of an hour to get back home into his warm bed, where he could ignore the hollow feeling in his stomach. He froze when he realised he was not alone.

“Wright.” Edgeworth didn’t sound surprised to see him, but his eyes told a different story.

“M—Edgewoth.”

The Demon Prosecutor, as they called him now, gave him a sardonic grin. “Feeling sentimental, are we?”

“I’d ask the same of you,” Phoenix countered, finding it easier to keep his cool when they were not in court.

The other man looked at their surroundings. “This is my park.”

He said it like it was a matter of fact. Like he would about a pen, a book, a memory…

“Miles…” Phoenix whispered, even though his mind was insisting that no, this was not Miles. That this was Edgeworth, and that there was an extremely important difference.

“Phoenix,” came the reply, said with ease, but sounding terribly wrong in the harsh voice of the man that stood before him.

Edgeworth sat on the bench – the same bench Mr. Gregory Edgeworth had been sitting on in the dream – and Phoenix sat down beside him without even looking at the other man.

“Seeing you in court today opened the figurative lid off a box of memories,” Edgeworth said, and did not say any more.

“I could say the same,” Phoenix replied. “Seeing you now made me think of how you were back then—”

“Say one thing about how I’ve changed and I’m leaving, Wright.”

“I’m actually confused as to why you haven’t already,” Phoenix replied. “I was of the impression you wanted nothing to do with me.”

Edgeworth took a breath. “Excuse me for the way I treated you in court, if you will. I treat all defense attorneys that way.”

“But I’m pretty sure that I’m the only one who sent you letters you never replied to. Did you even read them?”

The prosecutor scowled. “Yes. And I’ve kept them all, before you go making further assumptions. They take up quite a bit of space on my shelf.”

Phoenix did a double take. “What?”

There was a hint of a smile on Edgeworth’s lips. “Don’t make me repeat it when you heard it perfectly clear the first time.”

Phoenix managed a small grin in response. They sat in silence for a while until he spoke.

“Are we friends, Edgeworth?”

The other man turned to stare at him in surprise for a moment, not responding.

“Can I take that as a no?” Phoenix asked quietly.

“No,” Edgeworth replied. “…No, you can’t. Give me a moment, Wright. I’m still trying to get my head around the fact that after all this time, you still ask that and hope I’ll say yes. That you want to be friends with someone like me.”

“I’m pretty hard to get rid of,” Phoenix said with a humourless smile. “You should remember that, at least.”

“I noticed,” the other man replied. “From the letters. And seeing you in court. You’re quite possibly the most tenacious person I’ve ever come across.”

The dark-haired man wasn’t sure whether or not to take that as a compliment. He didn’t say anything, and after a moment, Edgeworth cleared his throat and spoke again.

“I do suppose we could be friends. Though it doesn’t mean I’ll be any easier on you in court.”

“That’s good enough,” Phoenix replied with a nod.

Edgeworth nodded in response and a surprisingly comfortable silence took over. Phoenix hesitantly leaned just the slightest bit against Edgeworth’s shoulder. Edgeworth leaned against his in response.

*

“You listen to me, Phoenix Wright. Don’t ever show your face in front of me again.”

It had bothered Phoenix all the way to his office. It bothered him through the day, making him unresponsive to Maya as she spoke to him about the case, and about future cases. He left work early so he could sit at home and think. He hadn’t seen Edgeworth after they had met in the park, until the trial. And if the prosecutor’s words were anything to go by, their meeting in the park was as good as a dream. He wondered what he could have done to make the other man suddenly decide that no, they could not be friends. Surely Edgeworth wasn't that sore a loser.

It was eight o’clock, and he decided that it was time that he got out of his apartment. He told himself that it was just a walk, but he knew that it was a lie as he recognised the houses he’d passed in the early morning, the last time he walked to Miles’ park.

It somehow made perfect sense to him that Edgeworth was sitting on the bench by himself. He wordlessly made his way to it and sat down.

“I thought I told you not to ever show your face in front of me again,” Edgeworth spoke, not looking at him.

“About a month and a half ago, you decided that we could be friends. I didn’t see you between then and this trial. And now you’ve decided that you don’t want to see me again. I have to say, Edgeworth, that I’m just a bit confused.”

“I told you already. Being near you makes me feel uneasy and uncertain. I don’t enjoy those feelings.”

“Just over an old friendship?” Phoenix asked, frowning. “Come on, Edgeworth—”

“It may just be an old frienship to you, Wright…”

“Then what is it to you?”

Edgeworth turned to him this time, and glared. “I’ve avoided having to deal with people who won’t leave me alone – friends – since I left, years ago.”

“You haven’t had any friends for fifteen years?”

“I’m not comfortable with the idea of elevating someone to that level of importance, Wright. Especially not you. To know that I’ll be letting you close to me… I can’t do that.”

“Why the hell not?” Phoenix demanded, turning so that he was sitting facing Edgeworth.

The prosecutor stood. “I’ve read your letters, Wright. Your view of friendship is vastly different to mine.”

Getting up to his feet as well, the dark-haired man frowned. “How is it different?”

“I’m leaving,” Edgeworth said, ignoring Wright.

“Edgeworth—” Phoenix called, reaching out. He grabbed onto the other man’s shoulder, Edgeworth turned, and he wasn’t quite sure how the rest happened.

“Don’t do this, Wright,” Edgeworth breathed. They were gripping onto each other’s upper arms, almost nose to nose. Phoenix could feel the other man’s breath tickle his face and it made him freeze up. Edgeworth was glaring into his eyes as he continued. “If you have any sense at all, you’ll stop here before it gets worse.”

“Edgeworth…” Phoenix said again. His eyes were wide, holding the other man’s gaze.

Edgeworth’s grip loosened at the same time Phoenix’s tightened, and he wasn’t quite sure who had moved first – perhaps both, at the same time – but their mouths met, lips touching for a brief moment before they pulled away and stared at each other.

“You’re not running,” Edgeworth stated. Phoenix could hear the surprise in his voice.

“You’re not, either,” he replied, fingers digging into the other man’s arms, making it sound more like a command than a statement.

“Why—?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you really…” Edgeworth couldn’t quite form the sentence, but he tried to continue. “…Me?”

“I don’t know. I guess so.”

“How long—?”

“I don’t know, Miles,” Phoenix said, his tone carrying just a hint of impatience. “I really don’t know. Some things just… happen.”

Edgeworth made a small movement forward and Phoenix noticed. Their lips met again, and they stayed that way for longer than before.

“This doesn’t mean I’ll be any easier on you in court,” Edgeworth murmured and Phoenix pulled back.

“You said that when you said that we could be friends, too. I hope you don’t think I’m letting you get away as easily this time.”

With a sigh, Edgeworth took a business card out of his pocket. Retrieving a pen out of his inside jacket pocket, he scrawled a number on the back. “There. My office number, and my mobile. I’ll warn you beforehand that you are not to call at all inconvenient hours of the day and night. And—”

Phoenix leaned forward, giving Edgeworth a quick kiss. “Look. I finish work at five. You know the address to my office. How about you meet me tomorrow and we can figure out the rest from there?”

“Your office?” Edgeworth frowned. “But—”

“I’ll tell Maya to go home early,” Phoenix said, understanding the reason behind Edgeworth’s hesitance.

Edgeworth nodded silently and Phoenix let go of the other man’s arms.

“I want to see you again. Soon.”

Edgeworth straightened up, placing his business card in the other man’s hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

x