Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

When Phoenix Wright sees Miles Edgeworth for the first time in over a decade, it is, inevitably, in a circumstance where neither of them is remotely prepared to handle it. 

See, here's the deal. It's not that he wasn’t expecting to see the guy eventually—he does, contrary to generally-accepted legal lore, keep up with the news. He knows Edgeworth was appointed as the city’s chief prosecutor, and had resigned himself (albeit somewhat queasily) to an eventual conversation or two.

No, it’s more that he didn’t expect to run into him like this: Standing in aisle five of a Whole Foods. Wearing a pair of jeans and a tee with ‘Pink Floyd’ written on it in Japanese. Holding jars of two different brands of pasta sauce for comparison purposes (‘Low In Sodium,’ reads one, while the other declares, ‘Made With Fresh Herbs And Spices!’).

His partner’s hand on his waist.

He and Edgeworth make eye contact, apparently simultaneously, and it’s unclear which of them is more taken aback. 

Phoenix is, quite frankly, in shock merely from the experience of making eye contact with Miles Edgeworth. It has, after all, been approximately thirteen years and four months since he last made eye contact with Miles Edgeworth.

Not that he's been keeping track or anything.

He just about drops Made With Fresh Herbs And Spices!, and it’s only the absolute terror of embarrassing himself in front of his Definitely Not Ex that kicks his reflexes into gear.

“Wright,” says Edgeworth, sounding strangled.

“Oh,” says Alex. Go figure he’s already put it together.

Edgeworth’s eyes trail from Phoenix’s face, to his waist where Alex’s hand is still resting, and back up to his face. Phoenix is honestly a little surprised that Edgeworth recognized him; thirteen years is a long time, and he knows it shows: he’s a little heavier, a little more tired, a lot less idealistic.

On his part, it would be near-impossible for him to not recognize Edgeworth. He wears glasses now, apparently, and looks like Gregory Edgeworth to a nearly startling degree—never mind the fact that it’s a Sunday afternoon, and they’re at a grocery store, and yet he’s still wearing a full three-piece suit in that absurd shade of fuchsia.

“Okay,” says Phoenix, and turns on his heel to stalk away.

Alex, being the brains of the operation, remembers to grab the cart before chasing after him, and catches him at the opposite end of the aisle. Phoenix is glaring unseeingly at the selection of taco seasoning.

“Hey, earth to Phoenix,” he says, and Phoenix sighs. “Do you actually want both of those jars of sauce, or were you too busy running away from your ex to notice you're still holding both?”

“He’s not my ex,” Phoenix replies automatically, then sighs again.

Alex smiles faintly. “That was an awfully strong reaction from both of you for him to not be your ex.”

“I wasn’t prepared to run into him in public,” Phoenix complains. “This is karmic retribution for coming to Whole Foods. We should have gone to the normal-person plebeian grocery store.”

Alex shakes his head fondly. “Which jar of sauce do you want to keep?”

They settle on Low In Sodium, on account of being old and having to do such things as watch their blood pressure, and manage to finish shopping in peace. Or, at least, the closest facsimile they can attain while Phoenix is busy glancing over his shoulder every thirty seconds. Eventually, in the checkout line, Alex jabs him in the waist before handing his credit card to the cashier. “Honestly, I think he left the store entirely after you ran away from him. You can relax.”

“Serves him right,” Phoenix grumbles.

“That bad of a breakup, huh?” Alex asks, grabbing the canvas handles of one of their bags.

“No, seriously, he isn’t my ex,” Phoenix replies, taking the remaining two bags. “There was no breakup.”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” Alex says, “except that I don’t believe you.”

“Okay, we had sex once,” Phoenix admits. “But it was a really long time ago. So: no breakup, because it wasn’t a relationship.”

“All right,” Alex says, and lets the subject drop.

A couple of weeks pass, and Phoenix doesn’t forget about it, because that would be like forgetting how to breathe or how to love his daughter, but he at least tries to forget about it. Not that he has much success.

It starts with little things: Athena having to jolt him to awareness while he’s watering Charley, the both of them staring with dismay at the huge puddle he’s left in the pot; running a few minutes late for the bus in the morning because he zoned out while brushing his teeth. But soon enough it progresses beyond plausible deniability: He accidentally boils a pot of pasta water completely dry, which he hadn’t even realized was possible, ruining dinner and the element of the stove besides. During the trip to the hardware store to replace it, he purchases sixteen lightbulbs and four tubes of caulking and no stove element.

It’s a real shame he’s always had a thing for people so much smarter than him, because Alex is clearly reading him like an open book.

“Hey,” he says one night when they’re on the couch, Phoenix’s feet in his lap, both of them pretending to watch the news.

“Mm.” Phoenix keeps his eyes fixed on the TV. He’s still entertaining a faint hope of avoiding the conversation he knows is coming.

“Phoenix,” Alex says, this time in the Stern Voice that Phoenix usually only hears when he forgets to empty the dishwasher two nights in a row. 

Phoenix sighs and drops the remote on the coffee table. “What’s up?” he asks, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice.

“Well, we could start with the fact that you’re being snippy when I haven’t done anything wrong,” Alex says, a little pointed.

Phoenix lets his head drop back against the armrest. “Sorry,” he says, and means it. 

Alex rests his hand on Phoenix’s ankle. “I’m not angry. I’ve just never seen you so out of it for so long.”

“I’m not out of it,” Phoenix says, deploying the defensiveness that comes immediately to him whenever faced with the concept of Miles Edgeworth, then winces. 

“Phoenix,” Alex says gently, “you bought four tubes of caulking. There is no tiling in this apartment. You have no need for caulk.”

“Maybe I was planning on renovating,” Phoenix mumbles.

Alex squeezes his ankle, and Phoenix relents.

“Okay. I’ve been out of it. I’d just… hoped I wouldn’t have to face him again.”

“Well, it was just once at a grocery store,” Alex points out, rather reasonably. “I imagine we’ll all be avoiding that particular store from now on. There’s probably not much chance of us running into him in the future.”

“It’s not that simple,” Phoenix says, and sighs. “We both work in the legal system.”

“Oh,” Alex says, and then doesn’t say anything else, even though Phoenix can feel him burning with curiosity.

“He’s,” says Phoenix, and then coughs, because talking about this is brutal, even though it's been thirteen fucking years— “he’s the new chief prosecutor for LA.”

Alex is quiet for a moment, and Phoenix risks a glance over at him. He’s frowning, but it looks like it’s more out of confusion than anger. “I think I saw something about that. Something Wentworth?”

Phoenix can’t help but smile a bit. “Edgeworth.”

“Right.” He’s quiet again for long enough that Phoenix thinks the conversation is over. Phoenix drops his head against the armrest again and shuts his eyes. How fucking unfair is it that even this many years later, seeing Edgeworth was like a body blow?

He drags a hand over his face and looks out the window. The sun is just dipping behind the adjacent apartment building, sending the living room into shadow. They’ll have to start on dinner soon. It’ll be a distraction, at least, even if he’s currently down one heating element on the stove. 

Abruptly, Alex says, “I don’t—can you at least promise that he’s not a danger, or something?”

Phoenix looks directly at him, then. “What?”

He looks uncomfortable. “You don’t want to talk about this, and I don’t want to pry if you don’t want to talk about it. It just… seems odd that you’re having such a strong reaction to someone you only slept with once.”

Oh. Oh. “It’s nothing like that,” Phoenix says, horrified both at Alex’s reaction and at the thought that Edgeworth would ever— “No, god, it was consensual! It was just… a mess. Before and afterwards. It shouldn’t have ever happened, like, ever. It’s not a good memory, that’s all.”

“Okay,” says Alex, though he still looks pretty unhappy about it.

Phoenix prods him with a toe. “Hey. Thanks. I’m sorry I’ve been a pain.”

“Not a pain, really,” Alex says thoughtfully. “Just… weird.”

“Oh, thanks,” Phoenix says with a snort. “I mean, I’m always a bit of a space case anyway.”

He shrugs. “Well, maybe.”

So much for diffusing the tension with a joke. Phoenix sighs and sits up, swinging his legs off the couch. “We should get started on dinner. We were going to make that casserole tonight, right? That one that’s like chili, but more ridiculous?”

“It’s called firehouse chili, and it’s delicious.”

“Chili with a hat,” Phoenix says. “Seriously, cornbread on top of the chili?”

“It saves a step,” Alex replies with a shrug.

Phoenix tries to stifle a sigh as he heads to the kitchen, and after a moment Alex follows. They’re pretty quiet as they cook; they basically have a system at this point, and Alex tends to get lost in thought when his hands are busy anyway. Phoenix had purchased a small stereo system a few months back for this exact purpose, so after a few minutes of draining beans and chopping tomatoes, he goes to switch it on. Even the music can’t quite settle him, though.

They don’t talk much while they’re eating, which normally wouldn’t bother Phoenix much, but tonight he’d be grateful for a distraction. He mostly entertains himself by watching the cornbread melt into the chili which, when he thinks about it, isn’t much of a distraction at all.

Conversation picks up slightly more once they’re done, tidying up back in the kitchen. For a few moments Phoenix watches Alex scrape the leftovers into a tupperware container—and the cornbread is just getting mixed into the chili, this is why it is a ridiculous recipe—and then steps over, sliding his hands onto Alex’s hips.

“Hey, you,” Alex murmurs. 

“Hey,” Phoenix whispers back.

Alex turns just enough to give him a half-smile, then puts the dish down and spins to face him. “Something up?”

“Not really,” says Phoenix, burrowing his face into his neck.

“You’re usually only this touchy-feely when you’re unwell,” Alex says, raising a hand to his forehead.

Phoenix laughs a little and catches his wrist. “Nah, nothing like that. I think I’m just tired.”

There’s a pause, and he lifts his head. Alex looks thoughtful. “Am I still staying over tonight?”

“What?” Phoenix asks. “Yeah, that was our plan, wasn’t it?”

“Just thought I’d check.”

Weird. Okay. “Of course I want you to stay over.”

“Good,” Alex says, lifting his hand to Phoenix’s face again, this time to touch the tips of his fingers to his cheek. 

Phoenix gives him a quick kiss and moves over to the sink. “Come on, let’s finish this up.”

They do, elbows bumping as they move around Phoenix’s too-small kitchen, then taking turns in the shower before moving to the bedroom. Alex loops an arm around Phoenix’s waist as they drift off, and Phoenix dreams of pick-stitching and silk.

Alex has the day off a couple Fridays later, so he invites himself along to watch Phoenix in court. Phoenix, personally, is lost as to why anyone outside the legal system would find it interesting, but shrugs and brings him along anyway.

Athena has the case pretty well in hand, so Phoenix spends most of the day leaning smugly against the wall, watching her dismantle the prosecution’s breathtakingly shoddy arguments.

“But why,” Athena asks, “would my client possibly want to leave her jacket behind?”

Payne is sweating. “Watch your tone, defense.”

Phoenix straightens, ready for a confrontation, but he’s trained Athena well—she yells out an “Objection!” before he even gets his mouth open.

“Maybe you should watch your assertions instead, Mr. Payne!” She props her hands on her hips. “Your arguments are inconsistent—you claimed earlier that Ms. Wire leaving her coat behind at the scene was evidence of her sloppiness, and that explains why her fingerprints were plastered all over the scene. And now you’re saying that it was a sort of calling card! Which is it, Mr. Payne?”

He winces. “That is…”

Athena slams both hands on the bench. “There’s no reason for her to have left the jacket behind! And in fact, if you look at this sheet of paper here, you’ll see that she had filed a report at the mall’s lost-and-found the week before. The defense asserts that the jacket was stolen for the purpose of framing my client!”

Phoenix grins and leans back against the wall. It’s been a long time since Payne was anything even close to a match for Athena. Alex, sitting in the gallery opposite, catches his eye and grins back.

The trial ends in the early afternoon; they’d needed one recess to re-process a broomstick for prints, but once the evidence was all settled, Athena had mowed through the tatters of Payne’s case in no time flat. Phoenix watches as she congratulates her (their? he's not sure whether he can take any credit for this one) client, shoving their paperwork back into the briefcase.

“Hey,” he hears from just above his head, and cranes his neck back to look up at Alex.

“We’re done a little earlier than expected,” he replies.

Alex grins. “Yeah, you’d made it sound a lot more dramatic than it turned out to be.”

“Back in my day, it was always dramatic,” Phoenix retorts. “Did I ever tell you about the time I had to cross-examine—” Wait, no, this is a terrible road for his thoughts to go down. “Before I got my badge back, Athena and Apollo—you never met him—defended an orca.”

“I actually had heard about that one,” Alex says, resting his chin on his arms folded on the rail. 

“Oh, god, was it in the news?”

“No, I heard it from Maya.”

“Right, that would make sense.” She’s always been a bit of a busybody. “Anyway, just give me a few minutes, I’ll meet you out in the hallway.”

“Got it,” Alex says, and heads off.

Athena is just about done with the tears-and-back-slapping routine, so he leans against the bench, waiting for her.

“A rush like none other, Boss!” she says cheerily, making her way back to him.

“You kids and your energy,” he jokes. “When you’re old like me, you’ll get jaded.”

“I hope not,” she says, socking him in the arm. “Did your guy already leave?”

“Yeah, I said I’d meet him in the hallway.” He checks his watch. “I’ll probably see if he wants to get lunch—do you want to join?”

“Nah,” she says, picking up the briefcase. “I’ll give Junie a call, I haven’t had the chance to see her in a week or so.”

“Don’t stay out too late,” he says jokingly, and she rolls her eyes before giving him an ironic salute and heading out.

The courtroom is fairly quiet at this point. He didn’t pay much attention to Payne after the verdict was announced—the less attention given to his histrionics, the better—but it looks like he’s departed already. Athena grabbed Phoenix’s briefcase when she left, so he shrugs and heads out empty handed.

Alex is leaning against the wall outside of the courtroom, poking through the newsfeed on his phone.

“There you are,” he says, taking Phoenix’s hand.

Phoenix grins. “What, am I running late?”

“Nah, I’m just hungry.”

“Good,” says Phoenix. “I was going to invite you for lunch.” He tugs on Alex’s hand, pulling him down the hallway. “I know you hate Korean food, so I won’t suggest that, even though it’s clearly the most superior cuisine, so our remaining options are either that bagel place with the—”

And then he stops as they round the last corner, because there’s Miles Edgeworth, again. And really, Phoenix has no right to be so shocked by this, because they are at the courthouse. That won’t stop him from being pissy about it, though.

Almost instinctively, he plasters himself back against the wall, nearly knocking a potted plant over with his elbow. Alex gives an oof as he’s yanked along, and says, “Whoa, what’s the—” His eyes catch Phoenix’s then, and he follows his line of sight across the hallway, landing on Edgeworth. Who appears to have plastered himself to the opposite wall. Thank god Phoenix isn’t the only one being so juvenile.

“Oh, it’s you,” Alex says, sounding sort of resigned.

Edgeworth is silent. He looks like he’s seen a ghost; his lips part gently, and his eyes flick to the golden badge on Phoenix’s lapel, then back to his face.

“Look,” Phoenix croaks, “we were on our way out, so I think we’ll just…” He slides along the wall, trying to skirt the ficus, pulling an irritated Alex along with him.

“You have a badge,” Edgeworth says. It’s the first full sentence Phoenix has heard from him in thirteen years and almost-five months, and Phoenix feels winded. His voice has deepened a little, but his consonants are still clipped in the way they always were, even when they were kids, and he still rushes through his words like he’s offended by the prospect of wasting time.

Phoenix realizes he’s zoned out when Alex replies for him. “Oh, yeah, it’s been… what, four years?”

“Something like that,” Phoenix murmurs, still dazed.

“Four years,” Edgeworth repeats, eyes wandering down to the hand Phoenix is currently using to crush Alex’s. “I’d heard your name was cleared, but I didn’t know that you’d…”

“Yes,” Phoenix says, somewhat acidly. “What, you thought I’d need some special impetus to bring myself to pass the bar? Some grand design of justice and salvation?” Alex is looking at him curiously, and oh hell, he’s really getting too close to the truth with this one.

Edgeworth just folds his arms. “Not at all,” he says, but the slight flush on his cheeks shows that he didn’t miss the subtext. There’s a short pause, and then he clears his throat. “Congratulations.”

Oh, this was so much nicer when he could pretend they were mutually at each other’s throats. “Thanks,” he chokes out, surprising himself, and then he finally manages to get past that damned ficus, yanking Alex along with him.

“Does he always dress like that?” Alex asks when they’ve made it nearly to the exit.

Phoenix laughs bitterly. “Yep. I think he’s allergic to the idea of comfort.”

Alex hums. “I mean, you’re wearing a suit right now, but at least you wear jeans at the grocery store.”

“Look, we can’t all be Silicon Valley transplants,” Phoenix says, trying to smile. “Do you own a suit at all?”

“Nope.” Alex looks very pleased with himself. After a moment, he gives Phoenix’s hand a squeeze. “What was that weird jibe about passing the bar?”

Phoenix groans. “I was being immature. He didn’t take the bait.”

“Good for him, I guess,” Alex murmurs, and Phoenix sighs. Alex looks like he wants to press more, but instead he says, “Now are you going to buy me a bagel, or what?”

“So much for democracy,” Phoenix says, but they go to the bagel place anyway.

Phoenix knows now to keep his guard up in court, and manages to go another few weeks without running into Edgeworth. Rather, he would run into Edgeworth, if it wasn’t for his newly-developed talent at sliding into unoccupied conference rooms at the very last second.

He figures that Edgeworth probably sees him sometimes, but as long as they’re both happy to ignore each other, it’s good enough.

So time passes, and in mid-July, Maya gives him a call. 

“Nick!” she yells, and Phoenix almost drops the phone. God, he forgot how fucking loud she is.

“Yes, Mystic Maya?”

She snorts. “I’m inviting myself to crash on your couch for the weekend.”

“Why couldn’t you have come down two weekends ago?” he complains. “You know, for the Fourth of July? That holiday that Americans celebrate? When we would have had a long weekend?”

“Because the trains were sold out, dorkus,” she says patiently. “You know, because of that holiday that Americans celebrate?”

He sighs and walks over to his couch, dropping down on top of some ostentatious throw cushion someone bought him years ago. “Then, fine, you can come visit, but I am going to bed at a reasonable hour each night, and you cannot stop me.”

“God, I forgot how boring adults are,” she says.

“Maya, you’re thirty-two.”

“Yeah, despite my best efforts otherwise. Soon I’ll be middle-aged like you.”

“Hey, if you’re going to insult someone for their age, at least pick Alex. He’s already forty.”

“I can hear the wind whistling through his crypt,” Maya says solemnly, then adds, “So I guess you’re still together, huh? I was wondering about that.”

He frowns. “Why?”

There’s a shuffling sound, like Maya is fidgeting. “Just, you know, nothing ever stuck before.”

“Yeah, well, you know the reason for that. The reasons, plural, for that.” God, does she even know that Edgeworth is in LA now? He’s torn on asking, but she forges on before he can say anything.

“It wasn’t meant to be a criticism of you. Hey, we should go out for drinks while I’m in town. I haven’t seen Alex in ages.”

“Really?” he asks. “I thought you two were pretty close.”

“Moreso when he was still in San Francisco,” she says. “The train there takes less time than it does to LA.” Her voice turns sly. “That was practically the only reason I introduced you two. I knew he’d be lonely without me otherwise.”

“Thanks for the charity,” he says dryly. “Anyway, that’s fine, I’m sure he’d be happy to see you.”

“And,” she adds, “I want you to invite Larry too.”

“Why? Doesn’t he just hit on you every time?”

“Nah, not since the last time Pearly threatened him with a burning candle. I refuse to play third-wheel anymore. Even Laurice is better than that.”

He sighs. “Yeah, fine. With any luck he’ll be out of town.”

They chat for a little longer, ironing out the logistics (“Still no driver’s license?” she asks, incredulous. “You’ll make your dearest pal Maya Fey take a Lyft?”), and then he hangs up with a sigh.

It’ll be amazing to see Maya again—he hasn’t seen her since New Year’s, making it about half a year. Crazy how time flies, the older he gets. 

He flips over on the couch. Guess he can’t really get out of inviting Larry, even though that seems like asking for trouble, what with Edgeworth back in town. Well, actually, is it asking for trouble? Larry hasn’t mentioned him in years at this point, so maybe he’s yet another person Edgeworth managed to alienate. It wouldn’t even be a surprise. So, okay, fine. He’ll invite Larry.

Larry is, regrettably, available, and more than happy to be invited along. When Saturday evening rolls around, Phoenix grudgingly peels Maya off of him—they'd gotten their limbs tangled up while watching an ancient rerun of Planet Earth—and forces himself into jeans and a button-down. Waste of time, really, since Larry is guaranteed to be painfully casual and Maya never wears anything other than her robes, but someone needs to be the adult of the gang.

Larry’s already sprawled out in a booth, nursing a Bud Light, when Phoenix arrives with Maya. Some things never change.

“Hey, where’s the guy?” he asks immediately. Some things really never change.

“On his way,” Phoenix says, glancing at his phone. “He’ll be here in a few minutes.”

Maya slides in next to Larry, sparing Phoenix from having to do so. “Hey, Deauxnim. You’re not going to grill me on my love life?”

He grins. “I can if you want me to, but last time Pearly got kind of scary.”

“That’s because I’ve taught her well,” Maya says. “Anyway, the answer is and will always be ‘single.’ Great chat. Now, what’s up with you?”

“Well,” Larry says with a grin, placing his beer back on the table before cracking his knuckles.

Phoenix and Maya sigh simultaneously. “Wait, no, let me guess first,” Phoenix says. “Another model? No, actually, I’m going to branch out this time and say that she’s some kind of artist. A potter? Is that what they call them?”

“It’s the ceramic arts, Nick, I thought you went to art school,” Maya says, then adds, “I bet she’s a race car mechanic.”

“Where the hell did you get that one from?” Phoenix asks as Larry yells, “I’m not even dating anyone!”

There’s a stunned silence, and then Maya reaches up to touch Larry’s forehead. “Nick, get nine-one-one on the phone, I think we’re losing him.”

Phoenix is staring at Larry with narrowed eyes. “Hmm. You know, him being single might not be for lack of trying.”

Larry smacks Maya’s hand away, glaring at Phoenix. “What I was going to say before you started making assumptions is that I got another book deal.”

“Oh, shit,” Phoenix says, feeling immediately guilty. “Larry, that’s amazing. What’s this one?”

Larry grumbles for a moment, but seems too excited to sulk for long. “It’s an illustrated novel for kids aged eight through ten,” he says. “I haven’t had a chance to read through it yet, but there was something about a treehouse and the Titanic.”

“That’s a weird combination,” Maya is saying, when Phoenix feels a hand on his shoulder and startles.

“Sorry,” Alex says as he slides into the booth next to Phoenix. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Hey!” Maya says, leaning across the table at a dangerous angle to give him a hug. “Wow, and here I thought Nick was looking old and grey.”

“He’s in his fifth decade now,” Phoenix stage-whispers. “We need to treat him delicately.”

“How’s life with one foot in the grave?”

“Ha ha,” says Alex without humour. “Where’s the drinks menu?”

Maya hands it to him, quirking a brow at Phoenix, who subtly shrugs back. He knows he and Maya are kind of a lot when they’re together.

The server comes by to collect their orders, and then Larry leans forward, propping his elbow dangerously close to the edge of the table.

“So anyway, this book deal I got. We’re still working through the first draft, but she thinks it should be done by October, and then we’ll probably do a tour through the continental US.”

“Damn,” Phoenix says, impressed. “These things get more prestigious every time.”

“That’s because I’m getting famous, Nicky. Wait, did I even tell you that I got to visit Canada last year?”

“No, but I’m very sorry for your loss,” Phoenix says.

Alex laughs. “What?”

“Oh, Nick is an embarrassment when it comes to cold weather,” Maya says with a roll of the eyes. “Mostly because he never remembers to pack properly for it.”

Larry is shaking his head pityingly. “It was July, Nicky. You know, summer? That season when the weather is hot?”

“I don’t trust it,” Phoenix says darkly as the server drops their drinks off, and Maya slides his beer over to him. She seems to have gotten some sort of cider, and Alex has his usual neat whisky.

“Remind me never to take you anywhere north of the fortieth parallel,” Alex says with a smile.

“You’re missing out, you know,” Larry says with all the wisdom of a man who’s seen approximately four countries. “Montréal was nice, even if I couldn’t understand half of what anyone was saying. So anyway, the tour of the States is this fall, and if that’s successful then in the spring we’ll go to Europe, and—” He stops with a gasp, sitting upright.

Phoenix has a bad feeling about this, and his suspicions are confirmed when Larry says, “Shit, wait, Nicky, did you know Edgey got back to California?”

“Ha,” Phoenix says weakly as Maya’s gaze snaps to meet his. “Yeah, I uh, may have run into him a couple of times.”

“He seems like a bit of a stick in the mud,” Alex says, spinning his glass.

“Aw, he’s all right,” Larry protests. “Even if he has a bad habit of disappearing when you need him.”

Maya is still staring at Phoenix, looking concerned. He can feel that he’s flushing a little, which is not helping. She furrows her brow in that way he knows means, ‘Are you okay?’ and he tries to give her a faint smile back.

“Did you guys get dinner or something?” Larry asks, completely oblivious. Phoenix sort of wants to get mad, but to be fair, Larry has no idea of what went down, so it’s hardly his fault. Would have been nice if he could pick up on the atmosphere, though.

“No, I don’t think anything like that is going to happen,” Phoenix says, trying to keep his voice steady. Alex shifts a leg to press against his.

“Come on, Nick. Hey, we’re going to go out next week, you should join us! It’ll be like old times. I know it’s been a long time since he’s been back, but you guys were super close before, like I was kind of surprised you didn’t end up getting married, so—”

“Excuse me,” Phoenix says queasily, sliding out of the opposite end of the booth as Maya hisses, “Larry!”

Alex is silent as Phoenix makes his way to the exit, pushes through the door, and drops down on a bench just around the corner.

Would Athena defend him in court if he murdered Larry? Or Maya, for being the one who wanted to invite him along? Phoenix hadn’t really realized that Larry, of all people, had been so perceptive about his relationship with Miles back in the day. This is going to drag up a lot of questions from Alex that he really doesn’t want to have to answer.

He sighs and leans forward, propping his elbows on his knees. Absolutely ridiculous, that Edgeworth is still causing him this much grief after so long.

The door to the bar creaks as it opens, and he looks up guiltily, but it’s just Maya.

“Hey there,” she says in that tone of voice she only ever uses when she’s trying to keep from spooking him.

“I’m not that delicate,” he says, a little peevish.

She smiles faintly and takes his hand as she sits down on the bench next to him, and for a couple minutes they’re quiet. Phoenix counts the cars as they pass: two SUVs, seven sedans, a lone pickup truck. A flash of white as the headlights approach, which melts into red as the vehicle passes. Look, he’s doing so well with his mindfulness. He could do this all day.

“You didn’t tell me Edgeworth was back,” she says eventually.

“I’ve been trying not to think about it.”

A short pause. “God, Nick, how long has it been? Thirteen years?”

And five months, but he says, “Just about.”

She squeezes his hand. “And you still react like that when you hear his name, huh?”

“Maya,” he says, exhausted.

“Nick,” she replies, mimicking his tone of voice. “Look, I know Larry didn’t help things with that marriage comment, but you were looking pretty green even before it got to that point.”

“Yeah. It really wasn't great to see him,” he says. “We ran into each other at a grocery store, and once at the courthouse. Well, a lot at the courthouse, but we’ve been ignoring each other since the first time it happened.”

“Have you spoken at all?”

“Not really, no.” He sighs. “He was surprised I’m a lawyer again, but we didn’t exactly have a full conversation or anything.”

She hums, pulling his hand into her lap. “And I guess Alex was with you?”

“Yeah. Both times, actually.” Phoenix laughs a little. “So at least Edgeworth knows that I haven’t been waiting around for him this whole time.”

She doesn't immediately respond, and after a moment he winces. Maya takes his chin with her opposite hand and stares him down. “Nick… why was that the first thing you thought of? It’s been so long, it probably wasn’t on his mind at all.”

He averts his eyes as best he can with a Fey iron grip on his chin.

She sighs and lets him go. “I knew you’d loved him, but I guess I didn’t—I mean, things were bad after you guys slept together and then he went back to Europe, but I always sort of figured most of the grief during that time was because of getting disbarred. Not because of him.”

“A lot of it was the disbarment,” he says. But after a moment: “Yeah, no, a lot of it was him too. The disbarment didn’t help, obviously, but…”

“Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised,” she murmurs. “You two were… crazy about each other. Like, obnoxiously in love.”

“I can’t believe even Larry noticed,” he grumbles.

She laughs a deeply unsympathetic laugh. “Nick, we just finished talking about how you guys were starry-eyed all over each other. Even Larry can do basic math, you know.”

He leans his head back against the brick with a thunk. “Whatever.” A pause. “He should have stayed in Europe.”

“Hey, you can’t make an entire city off-limits just because you broke someone’s heart a million years ago.”

“He broke mine too,” he complains.

“Yeah, I guess he did,” Maya says, sounding unconvinced. “But let’s put your thinking cap on. He’s here now, and—I guess he’s probably sticking around for a while?”

Right, she doesn’t know the full story. “Yeah, he’s, uh. He’s the chief prosecutor for LA now, actually.”

“Damn,” says Maya. “Good for him.”

He grumbles, and she squishes his metacarpals in a death grip.

“Nick, I know you’re moping, but it’s been so long. You’ve got to figure out how to just… make this all work. Like a grown-up.”

“At least let me mope for a while first,” he says, knowing he sounds petulant.

“And how long, exactly, have you known about him being back?”

“That’s, uh.” He cringes. “Around a month?”

“Moping time over, then,” she says sternly. “You’ve been in a relationship with someone else for, what, a year now? You’re being super unfair to Alex, you know.”

“Yeah.” He sighs. “Listen, it was a shock to see him again, and Larry yelling about marriage didn’t help, but it’ll be fine. We have this—” he waves vaguely, “—this great tacit system in place where we pretend we don’t see each other when we meet in the courthouse. I’ll get used to it.”

“That’s the spirit,” she says, bopping him on the arm. “Now let’s go back in there before Larry bores your boyfriend to death.”

They do, and catch Larry at the tail end of his second beer, gesturing frantically as he recounts what sounds like the end of a bad romcom.

“—so I asked the gate agent, and he said that they’d be departing in fifteen minutes, but that I couldn’t get through unless I had a ticket too! But I’d just got paid the day before, so I bought a—oh hey, welcome back!”

Alex quirks a brow as Phoenix drops back down next to him. “Sorry,” he mumbles, and gets a pat on the thigh in response. 

“Don’t worry about it for now,” Alex replies under his breath.

That ‘for now’ is kinda ominous, but not much he can do about that.

Unexpectedly, Alex doesn’t press the issue at all for the rest of the night, and Phoenix and Maya spend most of Sunday wandering through LACMA and debating the female form.

“Look,” Maya says, “I don’t know a single thing about art theory, but I don’t need to, to know what I like.” She pauses in front of a large painting of a woman, draped nude over an expensive-looking bed. “See, this? This is nice.”

Kind of incredible they’ve managed to get the Rokeby Venus on loan. Phoenix should really come by the museum more often. “Didn’t you just tell Larry that you were planning on staying single forever?”

“Oh, my interest is purely academic,” she says airily.

“Sure,” he says with a snort. “Anyway, you should probably avoid Renaissance sculpture. I can say with reasonable certainty that those guys had never seen real human women before. They basically sculpted men with breasts.”

She wrinkles her nose. “No appreciation for true art.”

They have a late lunch at a Korean place on the way back to his apartment—and this is why he needs Maya in town more often, so that he has someone to share his banchan with, even if she has a humiliatingly weak spice tolerance—and right as he’s paying, his phone rings.

“Phoenix Wright,” he says, answering without looking at the caller ID first.

“Hey! Hi,” Alex says, sounding a little out of breath. “Sorry, I wasn’t sure you’d answer.”

“Anything for you,” he says, teasing, even though he does have a pretty shitty track record for answering his phone.

He can hear the smile. “Is Maya heading back to Kurain tonight?”

“Yep,” Phoenix says, catching her eye. “We need to grab her stuff back at my apartment, but her train’s in a couple hours.”

“Okay, good,” says Alex. “Can I come over after?”

Ah. Well, it was bound to happen eventually. “Sure,” Phoenix says. “Let’s say seven-thirty?”

“Sounds good,” Alex says, and they hang up.

Maya smiles, a little ruefully. “Guess he’s probably going to want to talk about Edgeworth, huh?”

“Guess he is.”

“Hey, you’ll be okay. Just tell the truth.”

Slightly offended, he says, “Of course I will.”

She looks at him levelly for a moment, then abruptly asks, “You’re not still in love with Edgeworth, are you?”

“What?” he asks, taken aback. “God, no, it’s been a thousand years. That’s not why I reacted badly to seeing him, it was just… a lot.”

She meets his eye for a moment longer, then says, “I’m not the one with a magatama, but I think that was the truth.”

“Obviously it was,” he says, annoyed. “You’re the one who keeps reminding me how long it’s been since we spent any length of time together.”

She pats him on the hand, but doesn’t say anything else.

They have to make a mad dash to get Maya to her train on time, and when he gets back to his apartment afterwards he’s a bit sweaty and off-kilter. He hops in the shower, knowing he’s short on time, but also knowing that he’s not equipped to handle a grown-up conversation in his current state, and when he gets out he hears a rustling in the living room that tells him that Alex has let himself into the apartment.

If only he’d brought more than a pair of boxers into the bathroom with him.

He puts them on and sticks his head out into the hallway, eyes landing on Alex, who has found his stash of kettle chips and ripped a bag open. 

“Mi casa es su casa,” Phoenix says.

“Thanks for the chips,” Alex returns innocently, and they both smile.

“Give me a second,” says Phoenix. “I’ll get dressed.”

“Wow, I even get the pants treatment tonight? You’re spoiling me.”

Phoenix rolls his eyes with a smile, and goes to get changed. When he gets back out, Alex has installed himself on the couch, arms spread out on the back.

“Ah, well, sweatpants are still fancier than no pants.”

“Hey, it’s Sunday,” says Phoenix. “Cut me some slack.” He joins Alex on the couch, placing himself just far enough away that they’re not quite touching.

He considers trying to prevaricate, but it’s probably best to just get this over with. As he’s trying to think of a way to start the conversation, Alex makes a slightly garbled throat-clearing noise.

“I can’t really think of a good way to be tactful about this,” he says, “so, uh.”

Phoenix interjects. “I didn’t lie to you, if that’s what’s bothering you,” he says. “We weren’t in a relationship. We had sex once.”

“All right,” Alex says slowly.

Phoenix sighs. “It’s—things were weird. We were close, yes, but it wasn’t any sort of romantic relationship.”

“But… Larry’s comment,” Alex says.

“I don’t really know what to tell you,” Phoenix says, slightly frustrated. “You know Larry just says shit sometimes. That was probably his weird way of describing us being close.”

Alex taps a foot. “If you were so close, then why did one—”

Phoenix doesn’t really want to antagonize him, but… “Look, can we just, uh, not talk about this? It was ages ago, it wasn’t great, I told you the basics of what happened. I don’t want to be an asshole about this, but it’s not actually relevant to our relationship in any way.”

“I guess not,” Alex says, looking irritated. “No, you’re right.”

“But you’re still unhappy about it.”

“Well, yeah.” He sighs. “You’re saying that it was long enough ago to be irrelevant, but I’ve also seen you guys freak the fuck out when you so much as make eye contact.”

Phoenix presses his lips together. “We don’t like each other all that much, no, but I think we were both just shocked to run into each other after all that time. If it helps at all, we’ve encountered each other at the courthouse several times since you last saw him, and we’ve just ignored each other.”

Alex’s lips quirk a bit at that. “I guess that’s probably the best either of you can hope for,” he says.

“Yeah, probably,” Phoenix says, sliding down the couch so his head is resting on Alex’s forearm along the back. “Whoever said that adults are pros at handling emotions was a fucking liar.”

“I don’t think any adult has ever actually said that.” Alex looks amused. 

“It’s a lie we sell to the teenagers to get them to fall in line.”

“Did that ever work with Trucy?”

“Of course not,” Phoenix says with a laugh. “She’s been smarter than me since the day we met. It’s so much worse now that she’s financially independent and can convincingly play the adult card.” He snuggles further down into the couch cushions, and Alex leans forward, brushing that stubborn lock of hair out of his face.

“You look pretty tired,” he says.

“I feel pretty tired, but I’m not going to bed at eight p.m.,” says Phoenix. “At least give me until my mid-forties before that happens.”

“I’ll do the polite thing and blame Maya for your exhaustion.”

“Please do,” Phoenix says cheerily. “You’ve been putting up with her for years too, you know what she’s like.”

“Don’t tell her,” Alex says solemnly, “but I moved here from San Francisco so she couldn’t crash my apartment twice a month anymore.”

“Pretty good tradeoff,” says Phoenix, curling up so he’s facing Alex. “You got me instead.”

“That’s true,” he responds with a smile.

“Even if I do own a suit, and am therefore tragically stuffy,” Phoenix adds gravely.

Alex shrugs. “I know you have to wear them for work.”

Okay, not really the answer he was looking for, but he’s not really in the mood to explain the joke. After a moment, Alex slides his fingers down to Phoenix’s chin, brushing his thumb across the scar at the corner of Phoenix’s mouth. “I won’t stay too late, but do you want me to make coffee or something?”

“Sure,” Phoenix says, stretching out. He trails Alex into the kitchen to watch while he makes the coffee, and they chat about their respective days; Alex had spent most of it trying to find a new area rug, and they spend a few minutes grumbling about how they’ve become old and boring. Phoenix mocks him gently for hating Korean food, and when they part for the night, he’s able to go to sleep with a smile.

Life continues more or less as usual, and Phoenix just about manages to forget about Edgeworth’s presence. It’s inevitable that they encounter each other sometimes, but clearly there’s something to the idea of extinction therapy, because after a few weeks, magenta scarcely bothers him at all.

But.

Friday, August 27th.

He and Athena are leaving courtroom five after a particularly disappointing showing on Payne’s part—“When will the wacky prosecutors return from the war,” Athena had asked him sadly, and he had shushed her for fear of jinxing their winning streak—and he’s absorbed enough in their silly argument that he misses the quiet, “Wright,” from behind his left shoulder.

“Oh, uh. Boss?” Athena says.

“Mm?” he says, still dreaming of the heady days of near-death in a Khura’inese court.

“Someone is trying to get your attention.”

And his heart drops into his shoes, because it’s Edgeworth, looking stoic yet deeply displeased, propped up against the hallway wall.

“Ah,” Phoenix says, and glances behind himself in the vain hope that Edgeworth is addressing someone else.

“I’m talking to you,” Edgeworth says in clipped tones.

Delightful. Athena looks worried, so he pats her on the shoulder and says, “You can probably head out. Can you bring the paperwork back to the agency?”

“The chief prosecutor?” she hisses, and Phoenix gives her a smile that he hopes looks only about a quarter as terrified as he feels.

“Run along now,” he says tightly.

With one last concerned glance, she does.

Phoenix heaves a sigh and turns to face Edgeworth, who still looks as though he’s smelled something bad.

“You needed me?”

“Yes,” says Edgeworth, though he looks brutally unhappy about the admission.

Phoenix crosses his arms. “Let’s hear it then.”

Edgeworth glances at the sheaf of papers in his hands. “My understanding is that you served as the defense for State v. Trent two years ago?”

Trent? That does sound vaguely familiar, it… Ah. “Yeah,” he says.

“And it was you alone, not with the assistance of any employees?”

“I’d have to check my records, but I think so,” Phoenix replies reluctantly. 

“Wonderful,” he thinks he hears Edgeworth mutter, then he adds at a higher volume, “We have reason to believe that the defendant’s then-fiancée, now-wife, is the new target of the criminal organization that framed your client.”

“I see,” says Phoenix noncommittally. 

Edgeworth attempts to plaster a professional smirk on his face, then says, “We would like to retain your services as a consultant for this case.”

A pause. “And who would I be working with?”

A longer pause. “Me,” says Edgeworth.

“Ah,” says Phoenix.

Edgeworth shifts a little against the wall. “The case is sensitive enough that it would be inappropriate for anyone else to handle it.”

“Got it,” Phoenix mumbles. He wishes he had a good reason to refuse this, then wishes he wasn’t so petty that he actually wanted a good reason to refuse this. “So, um. I don’t work as a consultant very often.”

“Don’t worry too much about the logistics,” Edgeworth says with a dismissive gesture. “The Prosecutors’ Office does this all the time. I’ll have my secretary send you the paperwork. The bigger concern is the timing; are you able to begin on Monday?”

“Monday?” Phoenix chokes out. “What if I had another trial on Monday?”

“Do you?” Edgeworth asks without skipping a beat.

Phoenix sighs. “I can start Monday. Just… send me the paperwork or whatever.” He turns to leave.

“All right,” says Edgeworth, apparently determined to get the last word. “I trust this will be a productive working relationship.”

Phoenix turns back with a huge false grin. “Of course, Chief Prosecutor. You know me.”

Edgeworth stares him down for a moment, trying to determine whether or not he’s being made fun of. He is, but ultimately it doesn’t matter, and maybe he realizes that, because he says, “I’ll see you Monday, then,” and spins on his heel to depart.

Phoenix drags a hand over his eyes and begins the trip home.

“So you’re in a relationship,” Edgeworth says, flipping steadily through a bookshelf with feigned casualness.

“Excuse me, what?” Phoenix snaps. “You’re trying to insert yourself into my personal life now? It’s not enough that I have to work with you eight hours a day for the foreseeable future?”

Edgeworth doesn't even blink; it barely seems like he heard Phoenix's response at all. After an incredulous couple of seconds, Phoenix goes back to sifting through the cabinet in front of him, hoping that he got his point across. 

Bright and early Monday morning—well, it’s eleven a.m., so bright and early by Phoenix’s standards—and Edgeworth is going for the nuclear option right out of the gate, it seems. They’d met in the lobby of the courthouse, and Edgeworth had brought him down to the records room to look for cases that potentially tied into Phoenix’s from two years prior. Phoenix had hoped they’d be able to get through the day without too much conversation; it seems that Edgeworth did not share his wishes, though maybe now that Phoenix has been snippy he’ll leave well enough alone.

No such luck. After another few minutes, Edgeworth continues calmly. “I was a little surprised he’s a man.”

Phoenix can’t help but turn to him, startled. “What?”

“I was under the impression that you were heterosexual.”

For a moment, Phoenix can’t even remember how to blink. “Edgeworth. You and I had sex. What part of that involves me being straight?”

“The part where you were in a terrible state emotionally because of the case we’d just tried, which involved a former girlfriend, and we were both drunk, and then you refused to speak about it afterwards,” Edgeworth says, all in a rush, then makes a face and turns away.

There’s a long silence, and neither of them moves.

“Oh my god,” Phoenix says eventually. “You… what, you thought I was experimenting? Out of—of grief, or confusion?”

“Something like that,” Edgeworth murmurs.

Phoenix sucks a breath in through his teeth. “I didn’t realize you had such a dismal view of my morals,” he says, and then when Edgeworth turns to him with a question on his face, adds, “No, this is a ridiculously inappropriate conversation to have, for about sixteen reasons that I can think of off the top of my head. We are colleagues, because apparently I can’t get out of that. We are not having tragic personal conversations about things that happened a decade and a half ago.”

“Thirteen years and seven months,” Edgeworth says. 

“Fuck off,” Phoenix replies, because how dare he say that so easily, like it doesn’t rip Phoenix approximately in half to know that Edgeworth has been tracking the time as carefully as he has.

Edgeworth doesn’t respond.

What the fuck is wrong with the two of them, that it’s been less than half a day and they’re already dredging up the sordid details of their shared past? Phoenix is near-dizzy with how quickly this has already gone off the rails. Never even mind the fact that Edgeworth has apparently spent the last thirteen-years-and-seven-months thinking that Phoenix is a shitty straight guy who took advantage of a friend, but if Phoenix thinks about that much more he might actually experience some variety of cardiac event. For a smart man, Edgeworth can be dangerously, extravagantly stupid.

Or maybe he just values himself little enough to make that scenario plausible to him. Probably best not to examine that possibility too hard.

“Ah, here’s one,” Edgeworth says suddenly, sounding so relaxed that Phoenix nearly gets whiplash. 

“O-oh?”

“Have a look,” Edgeworth says. “Part of the prosecution’s case against Trent was based on the use of bromine, correct?”

“Yeah,” Phoenix says absently, taking the file. “Because she worked at a pool supply store.”

“This case is from eight months ago. It seems as though bromine was used for scene cleanup here, as well.”

Phoenix flips through it with a frown. “The bromine always struck me as opportunism, though. I mean, they used it because they wanted to frame Anabelle—Trent, the client—not because of any intrinsic property of bromine.”

Edgeworth shrugs. “Maybe so, but right now we’re just collecting any files that might be relevant, and we don’t see bromine used all that frequently.”

Phoenix adds it to the pile, and they go back to ignoring one another.

If it’s like this all day, or week, or however long it takes them to sort this mess out, then fine. He can debate crime scenes all day long. Debating their disastrous one night stand is something else entirely, and if Edgeworth tries to bring it up again Phoenix refuses to be held responsible for his actions.

God, Edgeworth thought he was straight. He can’t figure out whether that’s more embarrassing for him or for Edgeworth. Both, probably. This explains a lot, actually, and Phoenix wishes they weren’t in the absolute middle of a workday so that he could have a chance to process this, and probably have a swift yet comprehensive breakdown. 

He should probably talk to Maya about it, though she’s going to mock him mercilessly for it.

Shortly after noon, Edgeworth calls for them to break for lunch. Phoenix manages to narrowly restrain himself from making a rude comment about being ordered around, instead heading up to the main floor of the building. As he stress-eats two chocolate bars from a vending machine, he lets his mind wander.

The weekend had been pretty awkward; Alex had been, not surprisingly, unhappy to hear about Phoenix’s consulting job, though he did seem to understand that there wasn’t really a reasonable way for Phoenix to opt out of it. He’d been working overtime on a project at his own job, anyway, so there hadn’t been much chance for them to talk it through. Phoenix had spent most of Saturday moping and talking to Trucy, and most of Sunday cycling, but even the exercise didn’t lift his mood much.

He’s a bit worried about handing all of the agency’s work over to Athena. It was fortunate timing that they’d just finished a case; their workload had just dropped to something much more reasonable, so she’s probably able to manage it, but Phoenix still feels guilty. She is a wonderfully competent attorney, though, and this will likely be good for her once she’s had the chance to adjust.

He’s just looking for things to complain about, really.

He sighs and checks his watch. He’s not due back for a couple minutes, but there’s little point to sitting here and stewing, so he decides to head back down. If he beats Edgeworth back, so much the better.

He does not beat Edgeworth back, regrettably, but neither of them comments on it, and they spend the rest of the day working without further incident. By five, they’ve only made it about a quarter of the way through the cases they wanted to scan, and part with an agreement to meet back in the courthouse lobby in the morning.

Phoenix cycles home, somewhat speedier than usual, and throws himself onto the couch with his phone as soon as he makes it back into his apartment.

“Edgeworth thought I was straight!” he yells as soon as the call connects.

A pause, then, “What the fuck?”

“That’s what I said! I am so fucking glad you picked up the phone for once.”

“Hey,” Maya says, “you’re not one to talk.”

“Sure, sure, whatever, turn the—”

“Wait, stop, we’re already derailing. He thought you were straight? I thought you sucked his—”

“Whoa, do not go there.”

“Am I wrong?”

“No,” he says, wincing, “but I’m trying not to remember the details, okay?”

“I mean, I guess,” she says, bemused, “but why the hell did—”

“I don’t know!” he says despairingly.

“How did this even come up?”

Phoenix makes a noise not dissimilar to the one the fridge did a few months ago, just before it started leaking freon. “He just… brought it up out of the blue. It was honestly the weirdest thing I’ve ever experienced from him.”

“Which is saying a lot,” Maya points out.

He laughs. “Yeah. It really is.”

“Okay, let’s rewind this and start from the top, because I think I’m missing a lot of detail here. He just turned to you and said—” and here, she puts on that ridiculous transatlantic accent she always affects while mocking Edgeworth, “—‘Wright, despite our passionate tryst thirteen years hence, I have been labouring under the illusion of your dedication to heterosexual norms?’”

“That sentence makes no sense. That’s not even what ‘hence’ means.”

“I’m not a lawyer, whatever. Just answer the question, asshole.”

“Fine!” he says, unable to decide whether he’s irritated or entertained. Both, probably. “Okay, so I need to work with him for a while because there’s some issue with the wife of one of my previous defendants, which really sucks, by the way. He tried asking about Alex, and I wouldn’t let him, and then he was all ‘wow it was super weird to see you dating a man!’ and that’s how I found out that a guy I fucked thought I was straight anyway.”

“That’s super embarrassing,” Maya says with a laugh in her voice.

“God, I know. I can’t tell if it’s more embarrassing for me or for him.”

“Oh, definitely both of you idiots.”

He sighs. “Yeah. Probably.”

“Did he at least explain why he thought it?”

“Ugh,” Phoenix says feelingly. “Yeah, it’s because I didn’t want to talk about it after we had sex.”

Maya is silent for a moment. “You didn’t?”

Oh. “Did I never mention that?”

“No!”

“Um.”

“Nicholas.”

“Look, it was a mistake for us to sleep together when I knew he was going back to Europe!”

“You and I both know that, but did you tell him using adult words?”

There is nothing he can say.

“I hate you both!” Maya says cheerfully. “I can’t fucking believe you two even managed to fall into bed together in the first place, though it would have been a hell of a lot better if you hadn’t.”

“Yeah, then we might still be friends,” Phoenix says, and he knows he sounds bitter.

“Ouch,” Maya says with zero sincerity.

They’re both quiet for a moment. “Did I lie about us having talked about it?” he asks.

“Now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t think so? But it was so long ago that it’s hard to say. I guess I just assumed that two functional, independent adults in their mid-twenties would manage to accomplish that much.”

“But if—”

“No, you know what,” she interrupts him, “that’s my mistake, assuming you two could ever communicate normally about anything. The closest you morons ever got to emotional honesty was while yelling at each other in court.”

He laughs, because she is correct.

“Christ,” she mutters. “Okay, so you boinked, he flew on his private jet back to Germany, and… what, you never spoke again?”

“We did a bit,” he says. “Just a few texts here and there, though, and then… Well, you know what happened. After that I, uh, didn’t want to talk to anyone still in the legal system.”

“Yeah,” she says softly. “So you ghosted him?”

“Pretty much,” he says, trying to ignore the pang of guilt. “He must have found out about my disbarment somehow, because he was surprised to see me at the courthouse. He said he knew that my name had been cleared, but not that I was practicing law again.”

“Huh,” she says. “I wonder how he heard about Kristoph going down.”

He shrugs, even though she can’t see. “I think it was big enough news in the legal world, between my involvement and Kristoph's.”

“Well, you’d know better than I would.”

They both lapse into silence.

“What a mess,” Maya says eventually.

“Sure is,” Phoenix agrees tonelessly. “I kinda lectured him about professionalism after that part of the conversation, so hopefully he leaves me alone.”

“I would have loved to see that,” she says with a chuckle.

“It wasn’t nearly as impressive as it sounds.”

“I have no comment,” she says in a tone that means, ‘believe me, I didn’t think it sounds impressive at all.’

“Thanks, Maya.”

“You know,” she says thoughtfully, “he’s gotta have a lot to process on that front. He went from thinking you didn’t want to acknowledge sleeping with him because he was the quote-unquote wrong gender, to thinking that you didn’t want to acknowledge sleeping with him because it was him specifically. I don’t know which is worse.”

“Oh, fuck,” he says.

“Yeah. Have I ever mentioned I hate you both?”

“Maybe once or twice.”

She sighs. “Though I guess if you ran into him with Alex a couple months ago, he’s had some time to work through it.”

“Didn’t make him any less hostile.”

“Well, why would it?”

He rolls noisily over on the couch.

“Oh, you hate when I’m right,” she says.

“Only sometimes.”

“Nick.” She makes a fond little noise. “You are such a dumpster fire. I love you.”

He smiles despite himself. “I love you too.”

“So, homework assignment. Pretend you’re a grown-up, no more weird intimate conversations at work, get the case over with, move on with your life.”

“I can’t wait,” he says sincerely.

When they hang up, he sees that he has a couple text messages from Alex, checking in and asking how everything went. He sends back a noncommittal reply, but the lecture Maya just gave him is turning him off the concept of romantic entanglements entirely tonight; when Alex responds a little while later, he sends a quick “going to go for a walk, sorry” and tosses his phone clear across the room.

If it breaks, so much the better.

He spends the rest of the night stress-cleaning the bathroom and goes to bed too tired to dream.

By Thursday afternoon, he and Edgeworth have finished combing through the backlog of case files, and Edgeworth bundles him along to a glass-walled conference room.

“Before we continue,” he begins, “it would be prudent for you to give me an overview of the Trent case.”

Phoenix raises an eyebrow. “You don’t know the case? Why didn’t we start with this?”

Edgeworth seems a little embarrassed, which has never been a good look on him. “I read the prosecutor’s records,” he says. “I’d like to hear your telling of it.”

“Ahh,” Phoenix says knowingly. “Bad note-taking, was it? This why they brought you in? To clean the place up?”

“That’s neither here nor there,” says Edgeworth.

“I’m right, then,” Phoenix says cheerfully. “Anyway, here’s the deal with the case.”

The night of October 14th, 2030, Jeremy McCormick was found dead in the alleyway behind Poseidon Pool Supply (“If that’s not an uncreative name, I don’t know what is,” Phoenix says, and Edgeworth steadfastly does not smile, though he looks like he wants to). Autopsy determined that cause of death was icepick wound to the carotid artery; McCormick would likely have died within several minutes.

There was little evidence to gather at the scene, largely because a significant portion of the alleyway was drenched in concentrated bromine. The police attending the scene determined that it was likely sourced from the nearby pool supply store. Anabelle Trent, the only staff member on duty at the time, was the only person with a key to the back room where the bromine was kept. Store inventory showed that no product was missing, but the police arrested Trent regardless. Their argument was that as a manager, she’d be able to fudge store data to cover for herself.

Edgeworth interjects. “That was their entire basis for arresting her?”

“It sure was,” says Phoenix with a grin.

He looks appalled. “That is astoundingly shoddy work.”

“Hey, you should be pleased. The shoddiness of their work is the whole reason you got your fancy new job title.”

Edgeworth grumbles, but doesn’t disagree, and Phoenix continues on.

It had been simple enough to prove, through interviewing the other store employees, that the inventory data hadn’t been faked, meaning that someone was attempting to frame Trent. With a little more investigation, Phoenix had determined that the store McCormick worked at, a pet groomer’s a little further down the block, was a front for the Leighton crime family. McCormick, as it turned out, was a mole for a rival family, and he’d been disposed of once the Leightons had figured it out.

“So in summary,” Edgeworth says, “your client was caught up in some mafia feud simply because she happened to work nearby.”

“That was the size of it, yep.”

Edgeworth taps his fingers on the documents in front of him. “I can’t imagine that must have given you much trouble in court.”

Phoenix laughs. “Do you know, I think it was probably one of my easiest cases ever? Not that I’m complaining or anything. I’m too old for assassins and burning bridges now.”

Edgeworth almost smiles again, and catches himself at the last moment. “That does raise the question of why her wife is getting tangled up in this, though.”

“Mm,” Phoenix says, and drapes his upper body across the tabletop. “It’s a little weird, I guess. What exactly is the deal with her?”

Edgeworth leafs through his stack of papers for a moment, then pulls one free. “Catie Zhang called the police non-emergency line about three weeks ago, claiming that she’s been followed to and from work every day by a man—or it may not be a man, she’s unsure—in a dark blue sedan. Her name raised flags in the system because of her wife’s previous involvement with the courts, and eventually it was escalated to my attention.”

“So they think it’s more crime-family stuff.”

“That’s the working hypothesis, yes, but we’re not clear on why it’s happening.”

Phoenix hums, thinking. “Even though we proved Anabelle innocent—incredibly easily, as you’ll recall—a lot of the public sentiment was still against her. Dark Age of the Law, and all that.”

“I thought that was considered over and done with,” Edgeworth says with a frown.

“Well, basically, but it’s not an overnight change. This was a couple years ago, remember. Trust in the courts was still pretty low at the time.”

“Right,” Edgeworth says absently, tapping his fingers again. He kept that little tic, it seems. “So you're saying that they may be planning on framing Zhang for something else, in the hopes that she’ll be an easy scapegoat.”

“Yep, that would be my guess for why they've chosen her, though I sincerely hope people aren’t that stupid,” Phoenix says, despite having seen the proof for himself.

The pointed look Edgeworth gives him says that he’s thinking it, too. “Regardless,” he says, “I do think we need to do some research here. My predecessor had been attempting to untangle the Leighton family for years. If Zhang is getting caught up in this somehow, and there’s an opportunity for us to catch them in the act, we should take it.”

“You really think you’ll be able to predict what they’re planning?”

Edgeworth shrugs. “I don’t know yet, but we should try, at least. We’ll be keeping an eye on Zhang—and Trent, as well—regardless.”

“All right,” Phoenix says. He hadn’t honestly thought he was getting out of this so easily, anyway. “So what’s the plan? Look for patterns in this enormous stack of case files?”

“More or less,” says Edgeworth. “I may need to delegate to others on some days, but I’ll be maintaining oversight.”

Phoenix sighs. Desk work still isn’t his favourite, even now that he’s old and falling apart, but at least the money will be steady. “Just like old times,” he says, knowing he’s being catty and not really caring. “Coming and going as you like.”

Edgeworth coughs briefly, and Phoenix realizes he was hiding a laugh. “Same as you ever were, too, it seems.”

Phoenix leaves the courthouse a little later than usual, and hasn’t quite made it home when his phone starts ringing in his pocket. By the time he arrives at the bike rack outside his apartment building, he’s missed the call; he fishes the phone out and sees Alex Ward and feels a smile tug at the corner of his mouth.

“Hey,” Alex says, when he picks up after two rings.

“Sorry, you caught me while I was still on my bike,” Phoenix says.

“Safety first,” Alex says gravely.

“But of course,” Phoenix says, equally serious.

“Are we still on for tonight?” he asks.

“Yeah, nothing has changed for me. I’m not sure when you were planning on coming over, but if I’m in the shower you can just let yourself in.”

“I always do anyway,” Alex says, and Phoenix can hear the smile. There’s a shuffling noise, and Alex adds, “I’ll head over in… maybe half an hour?”

“Works for me,” Phoenix says, and they hang up.

By the time Alex arrives, Phoenix has showered, stuck a lasagna in the oven, and started on the salad. He’s elbow-deep in the greens when the door clicks open.

“I’d come say hi, but there’s spinach stuck to my hands,” he calls.

“Ehh, we dropped the formalities months ago,” Alex says, coming into the kitchen. He’s holding a bottle of wine.

“Is there an occasion?” Phoenix asks.

Alex shrugs. “Not really, but you’ve been a little distant this week, so I thought you were tired and needed cheering up.”

Phoenix frowns. “I have?”

“Well, maybe not so much the past couple of days, but early this week, yeah.”

“Oh.” He thinks for a moment. “Yeah, I guess I was kind of grumpy on Monday.”

“Edgeworth being a pain?”

He really doesn’t want to mention their excruciating ‘Phoenix Wright is not, in fact, straight’ conversation, so he settles on sighing and saying, “Yeah.”

Alex hides a smile. “I’m trying very hard not to make some snide comment about your taste when you were younger.”

“Thank you for your discretion and generosity,” Phoenix says dryly, and shoves a tomato at him. “Chop this, please.”

They chat as they finish dinner, and Alex grabs the wine as they bring the food to the table. They are both pretty tired, and chat aimlessly about not much at all, and once they’re done washing up Alex touches his wrist.

“I brought an overnight bag,” he says. “Is it all right if I stay over?”

Phoenix can’t remember if that was their original plan or not, and doesn’t want to ask. “Yeah, of course,” he says. And it is fine; it will be soothing to have him around.

Alex smiles gently and goes to move his things to the bedroom.

They argue about the news, and then they argue about what time to set the alarm for, and then they settle into bed, Phoenix feeling ready for sleep even though it’s barely ten. He sighs as he snuggles down into his pillow, grateful that he just did the laundry a couple days ago.

He twitches, surprised, as Alex rolls over and smooths a hand up along his flank.

Ah. He should have figured.

Alex scoots closer, burying his face in the nape of Phoenix’s neck. “Hey,” he whispers, muffled by Phoenix’s skin.

“Hey,” Phoenix whispers back.

“Is this okay?” Alex asks.

Phoenix considers. “Yes,” he says.

He can feel the smile on the back of his neck. Alex tugs backwards on his hip, rolling Phoenix over, and moves so he’s hovering over top. “You’re not too tired?”

“Nah,” Phoenix says, even though he sort of is.

He can see the faint flash of Alex’s smile in the streetlight filtering in through the curtain. He curls his fingers under the waistband of Phoenix’s boxers, tugging them down, leaning forward to press a kiss to the hollow of Phoenix’s throat.

Well, he supposes he can handle this.

Alex continues his downward progression, kissing his way down Phoenix’s chest; Phoenix relaxes, sinking into sensation, reminding himself that this is nice.

When Alex reaches his cock, he’s pleased to realize that he’s fully hard. The puff of air on his skin is pleasurable, too, and he lets his eyes flutter closed, focusing on the small burst of desire as Alex licks up along his length and then takes him fully into his mouth.

It’s easy, then, to just stop thinking. He doesn’t need to think of who’s in his bed, or how the person he had loved for the longest time thought he was straight, fuck, how did I fuck up so badly to make that happen, or how he’s still not sure that he’s in love right now even though it’s been over a year and he knows, intellectually, that he’s happy enough to pass. 

Alex knows him by now. He knows to press the flat of his tongue against his frenulum, and how Phoenix likes a light touch in the hand at the base of his dick, and how when he goes silent and his muscles of his thighs are shaking he’s just about there. Phoenix comes without ceremony, and he reciprocates dully, barely paying attention, and when they separate and fall asleep it’s a relief.

It’s Saturday afternoon, and Alex left after a breakfast of pancakes, and all Phoenix wanted out of life was to talk to his daughter.

“Hey, Daddy,” Trucy says with a yawn.

He smiles. “Hey, honey. Late night?”

“Not really?” she says. “But we’ve been busy lately, so I usually take it easy on my weekends.”

“Am I interrupting your beauty sleep?” he asks, teasing.

“Nah, it’s cool,” she says. “I don’t get to talk to you that often.”

It’s true, and Phoenix hates thinking about it. “Still living the dream?” he says, because it’s not fair to impose his own emotional neediness onto his child.

“I’ll never tell,” she says with a real, honest-to-god twinkle.

They chat for a while, about bunny names and coworkers and how Trucy is still trying to refine that one trick with the thing, which Phoenix has never understood but nods along with anyway.

“So then the pigeon has to go through the second slot, which can be hard to manage since they’re, y’know, pigeons, and they’re really cute and all but not the smartest and—” She cuts herself off to say, suddenly serious, “You’re taking care of yourself, right?”

“Wh—” Where did this topic change come from? “Of course I am, honey. Can’t you tell just by looking at me?”

She squints, the pixelated image probably not enough for her to tell.

“You seem grouchy,” she says eventually.

Maybe he should buy a shittier phone, so the image quality is bad enough to stump her. “I had a long week,” he says instead. “But Alex was over the past couple of nights, and I feel better now.”

She perks up. “Did you make him pancakes? I know he loves those.”

“I did,” he says, laughing. “Considering you’ve only met him twice, that’s quite the memory you’ve got.”

She tips her hat at him. “Magician’s tricks, Daddy. But hey, as long as you’re keeping occupied, I won’t worry about you.”

“That’s what Alex is for,” he points out.

“I hope you keep him around for more than just that,” she says.

Phoenix frowns. “Of course.”

She’s quiet for a moment, holding eye contact the best she can via iPhone camera. “If you say so, Daddy,” she says after a time.

He scowls, and changes the subject, and she lets him.

Monday afternoon and he’s been stranded with some hopeless intern since nine a.m. and is just about to rip his hair out when Edgeworth strides into the conference room, looking for all the world like he was meant to be there all along.

“Progress, Wright?” he asks, and Phoenix tries desperately to scowl at him, and lands instead on a half-fond smirk.

“Sorry to disappoint, Chief Prosecutor,” he says, putting a sarcastic emphasis on the title, “but I’m not sure any of these cases actually have anything to do with your crime family.”

The intern looks like they can’t decide whether they’re thrilled or terrified by this snarky turn of events.

Edgeworth crosses his arms, just like Phoenix had hoped he would. “You disappoint me,” he says, completely neutrally. Phoenix catches the sarcasm, though the intern has shifted solidly into terror.

“You know those zany criminals,” Phoenix says. “Always one step ahead of us. It’s almost like this is their career or something.”

Edgeworth half-smiles again, which is something Phoenix doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to. “Perhaps I’ll provide some guidance, then,” he says. He nods at the intern, still frozen in fear, who scampers from the room as soon as they parse the dismissal. Once they’re gone, Edgeworth sits at the table, a couple chairs down from Phoenix. “Let’s hear it,” he says.

Phoenix sighs and shuffles his papers as he figures out his phrasing. “Well,” he says, “as you know, there are several cases in LA County that involved bromine, several more that involved ice picks—and why is that so common as a murder weapon? People are gross—and some more that revolved around pool supply stores. But we couldn’t find a single common thread between any of them and Anabelle’s case. I’m almost one hundred percent sure we’re barking up the wrong tree with this.”

Edgeworth shrugs. “That may be the case, but we were obligated to be methodical.”

“You’re paying me an awful lot to get no results,” Phoenix says, maybe a touch pointed. “Couldn’t you have just handed this off to an intern once we’d finished reviewing the original case?”

“Phoenix Wright, complaining about steady income,” Edgeworth says, voice very dry. “I never thought I’d see the day.” Before Phoenix can say anything, Edgeworth continues, “You spent the morning working with Gilgan. Tell me, do you really think the interns can handle this?”

“Ah,” Phoenix says delicately. “They, uh, had the right spirit for the job.”

“Thank you for proving my point,” Edgeworth says, leaning an elbow on the table. “The Prosecutors’ Office badly needed some reforms, but that also means we’re saddled with children.”

“I’m sure they’ll be very good at their job eventually,” Phoenix says.

“And in the meantime, I’d like to try to catch a criminal or two. Maybe three, if we’re very fortunate,” Edgeworth says, still dry. “So if you don’t mind, let’s get back to work.”

Phoenix hides a smile. “Yeah, all right. Well, like I said, I’m fairly sure that the last week was almost entirely a waste of time, so don’t tell LA’s voting public that disgraced attorney Phoenix Wright is exactly as useless as the city’s general opinion considers me to be.”

Edgeworth is frowning now. “You were proven innocent in court.”

“Yeah, and?” Phoenix asks. Edgeworth’s expression doesn’t change, so he sighs and adds, “I swear, sometimes you’re the smartest person I know and sometimes you’re terrifingly stupid.” Like when you think the guy who sucked your dick is straight, he doesn’t say. “Remember, like, last week? When we were talking about Anabelle and how her not-guilty verdict didn’t mean anything to the public? I was basically LA’s premier cautionary tale for nearly a decade. Do you really think people would be willing to let that go that easily?”

Edgeworth actually looks pretty furious by this point—not at Phoenix, but for him, which would be kind of cute if Phoenix thought about such things, which he does not. “Kristoph Gavin was found guilty nearly seven years ago. Surely the public would be swayed by now?”

“I don’t think most people spend that much time thinking about it,” Phoenix says. “Maybe some lawyers do, but not the average bear. So yeah, maybe Notable Forger Phoenix Wright isn’t top of mind, but I’d be willing to bet that a lot of people would be happy to get riled up about it once they start thinking about it again.”

Edgeworth still looks pissed, and Phoenix is starting to regret bringing this up, so when Edgeworth opens his mouth to continue the topic, Phoenix interrupts. “Listen, let’s just get to work, okay? The faster we do that, the faster we can actually accomplish something, and then everything I was just whining about will be irrelevant.”

“All right,” Edgeworth says reluctantly. 

Phoenix spends a while walking him through the case summaries he and the parade of clueless interns compiled, and Edgeworth doesn’t look any less stormy by the end.

“I think your instincts on this were correct,” he says.

“Yeah,” Phoenix says with a shrug. “So what’s the next step? I think we’d be better served by focusing on the details of the family you’re going after.”

“Most likely,” Edgeworth says, reaching into a briefcase to pull out a very hefty stack of files. “This was drafted by another one of the office’s interns—it’s an overview of everything we know about the Leighton family members.”

Phoenix sighs a little at the volume of paperwork, but accepts the pile that Edgeworth gives him. He spends a short while flipping through the pages as Edgeworth pretends to wait patiently, tapping his fingers against the tabletop in some offbeat tattoo.

It’s driving Phoenix nuts.

After a few minutes he smacks the file back down. “Were you always this fidgety?” he demands.

“Fidgety?” Edgeworth looks genuinely surprised by the question.

“You know,” Phoenix says with a vague gesture. “The… fidgeting.” Edgeworth is frowning now, looking a little offended on top of the confusion, and Phoenix sighs and leans back. “Never mind,” he says. This is probably some weird side effect of having spent too much time around Trucy and Apollo, because now that he’s thinking of it, though he never noticed it before, Edgeworth always was fidgety. Franziska and von Karma were, too—one of the less terrible family characteristics, all things considered.

Apparently that influence never faded. Phoenix wonders what Edgeworth sees in him now, too: what’s changed, what’s stayed the same. Probably nothing good.

This is not a route to let his thoughts go down during work hours. Edgeworth has chosen to stay silent after Phoenix’s little outburst—a wise choice—so Phoenix goes back to scanning the page. There are a few names he recognizes in there. He doesn’t think he’s been involved in too many mafia cases, aside from Anabelle’s, but perhaps he’s picked up some of the information by osmosis.

“Is there anyone in here you want to focus on in particular?”

“Not especially,” Edgeworth says, still damnably calm despite Phoenix’s frankly baffling behaviour over the past several days. “Any of the younger Leightons—those under thirty, both immediate and extended family—are good prospects. Two years ago I would have said that Orton would be a good choice, but you dealt with him quite handily during Anabelle Trent’s case.”

Phoenix flushes slightly. It feels odd to get praise for this, when really all he did was walk halfway down a block and ask enough questions of the so-called pet groomers to establish that none of them knew the first thing about animals. And, considering that Phoenix doesn’t either, in spite of all of Trucy’s efforts otherwise, that is saying something.

“It was hardly a tough deduction,” he says to Edgeworth. “You know that the receptionist at the Leightons’ front didn’t even know the difference between poodles and shepherds?”

“I’d ask how that became a topic of conversation,” Edgeworth says, “but truly, I don’t want to know. Either way, all I’m saying is that regardless of your methods, you managed to remove a troublesome cog from the family’s machine.”

Phoenix narrows his eyes at him a bit, but he seems to be genuine, and there’s no hint of wanting anything in return except Phoenix's best work. Where did this well-adjusted Edgeworth come from? Why couldn’t they have had conversations like this thirteen years ago? He almost laughs, then, because he knows exactly why they didn’t have conversations like this thirteen years ago, and it has a lot to do with how they were essentially maladjusted children—but that doesn’t take the sting away.

Fuck. Maybe someday he'll be able to get through an hour in Edgeworth's presence without waxing poetic about their messed-up history. At least this time he kept it inside his head. 

He lets his eyes drift back down to the page in front of him.

“Terence,” he says almost absently, “or maybe Anika. They’re both in their late twenties, and from what your interns have written, my guess is that they’re currently in a power struggle for inheritance of the so-called family business whenever the patriarch dies.”

Edgeworth takes the file from him. “How did you come to that conclusion?”

Phoenix shrugs. “I’m hardly an expert on this sort of thing, but they’re the only two who seem to leave traces of themselves behind at scenes. Normally I’d chalk it up to clumsiness, but it’s only been within the past couple of years—prior to that they were barely even on the cops’ radar as people of interest—and yet they’re still talented enough to evade capture over and over again. It seems to me that they’re trying to get people’s attention, and when you consider that there have been rumours of the current leader’s ill health…” He trails off, shoving his hands into his pockets. “It’s just a guess.”

He watches Edgeworth’s eyes flick over the page for a minute or two. “I see,” he eventually says.

Phoenix props his chin on his fist. “Questions? Comments? Concerns?”

Edgeworth smiles briefly. “You may be right,” he says. “We did previously think that Orton was next in line for head of the family, but then you were able to get him arrested after establishing that it was he and his lackeys, not Trent, who’d killed McCormick. Since then, the police have been less sure who might take that place.” He hums for a moment. “I do suppose that Anika and Terence would view this as an opportunity. Zhang hasn’t reported any difference in the activity following her lately, so…”

Phoenix watches him put the pieces together, a small smile on his face.

After a moment Edgeworth continues. “I’ll take this back to my flock of interns and see if they’re able to collect any more relevant information.”

“And what about me?”

“You can head out,” Edgeworth says, glancing at him briefly. “It’s three p.m. already; that’s close enough to the end of the day. I’m sure I’ll have more for you tomorrow.”

Miles ‘if you suggest I take a vacation again I will personally launch you into the surface of the sun’ Edgeworth, telling him to take an afternoon off? He’s billing by the day, too, so this won’t even affect his income. He stares Edgeworth down for a moment, waiting for a gotcha moment that doesn’t come. Edgeworth has stood and is rearranging his files in his briefcase, paying him no mind at all.

With a confused half-laugh, he gets to his feet and collects his things too. Well. He may as well do something nice with the next couple of hours. Alex’s hours are pretty variable, so Phoenix could check in with him, but some part of him protests at that. It’s the interns, he thinks; they’ve worn him down, and he needs some time alone to recharge. He’ll get a latte and go for a walk instead.

Maya calls him on Friday evening.

He’s flopped on the couch in boxers and not much else, eyes fixed on some hideous courtroom drama he’s barely even paying attention to. He almost considers letting the phone ring out, but Maya typically calls when she’s on the warpath for something or another, and he may as well save himself the grief.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asks in a terrible false English accent.

She is, apparently, not in the mood for humour. “What’s going on with you and Alex?” she asks without preamble.

He sits up, dislodging a throw pillow onto the floor. “What do you mean? Nothing’s up.”

“Exactly,” she says.

He’s lost. “I’m lost,” he tells her.

She makes an irritated noise. “How many times have you seen the guy in the past couple weeks?”

He thinks for a moment. “A few?”

“And how often do you normally see him?”

“I don’t know,” he says, confused and becoming annoyed. “I don’t keep a tally in a fluffy pink diary or anything. What are you getting at?”

“He’s worried,” she says bluntly. “He says you’re being kind of chilly lately.”

“Why are you gossiping about our relationship?”

“I’m one of his friends,” she says slowly, like explaining the concept to a child. “It’s pretty normal for close friends to discuss this sort of thing.”

“Not when you’re also one of my best friends,” he says, “and then take it upon yourself to interrogate me about it.”

She pauses. “How do you know he didn’t ask me to?”

“Because he wouldn’t,” he says without skipping a beat.

Maya is quiet again. “I’m a little worried too, Nick. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that all this weirdness started when Edgeworth showed up again.”

“If you’re going to imply something, just go ahead and do it,” Phoenix says, rubbing his eyes with his spare hand. “Stop dancing around the subject.”

“I know you said you’re not still in love with him—”

“I’m not.”

“Fine, you’re not, but being in love with someone and being weirdly fixated on them are two different things,” she says. “And I think you’re weirdly fixated on him.”

“You’re getting all this based entirely on me spending less time around Alex?”

“And the look on your face when Larry brought him up again, and the fact that you’re still trying so hard to hate him after almost fourteen years, and—”

“I get the idea,” he says tersely.

She sighs. “Haven’t you spoken to your therapist about this?”

“I, uh, haven’t been in a while,” he admits. “It was his recommendation, though.”

“Really? Because judging by—”

“Maya,” he interrupts her, “It came up a few times, but I was mostly focused on other stuff with him. Like, you know, raising a kid while being the laughingstock of an entire legal community.”

She’s quiet again for a moment. “Should you go back to see him again?”

He groans and lays back down across the couch with a fwumph. “I guess maybe? It’s been long enough that I’d probably have to get on some waiting list or something.”

“It’s probably still a good idea, Nick. When I saw you in July you said you’d be fine soon, but this is… I mean, it doesn’t really seem like things are getting better.”

“Yeah, I guess not,” he says with a sigh.

There’s another pause, and he allows his mind to wander. He’s been avoiding thinking about the topic, but Maya really does have a point. Yeah, probably some of it is attributable to being busier, but it’s impossible to deny that he just hasn’t wanted to spend much time around Alex lately. There’s not even anything wrong with Alex, or with their relationship, it’s just… Phoenix has been various degrees of single basically since Edgeworth left, up until Maya dragged him out to meet Alex at a bar one night. Staying single wasn’t even really a deliberate choice; he just hadn’t had much interest in trying to get to know another human being that deeply.

Maya was right in her guess, though, that he and Alex make a decent pair. Alex doesn’t take him too seriously, which is a welcome change of pace from how things can get while Phoenix is at work, and they’re smart enough to keep up with one another. Their relationship is perfectly fine, and if something in Phoenix says that that’s hardly a ringing endorsement, well, that’s all right. It’s unreasonable to expect anything more for himself; he tried the chest-crushing love thing twice before and it didn’t pan out. 

If he’s going to commit to this thing, he’d better commit, weird nebulous feelings about Edgeworth or no.

“I’ll call him,” he says to Maya. “I’m not trying to push him away, I’m just… confused.”

“That’s why you need to call your therapist,” she says sternly. “This is the first time in a billion years that you’ve maintained a long-term relationship with someone. I’d hate for that to be ruined because of a mess from so long ago.”

“Yeah, I know,” he says. “I’ll do it.”

But he doesn’t leave a message at the clinic that night, and he doesn’t call Alex either. Instead, he goes to bed at eight p.m. and spends too many hours trying not to contemplate the terrible exhausting vastness of the future he’s laid out for himself.

He is, after all, happy enough.

Saturday afternoon, he works up the energy to give Alex a call.

Alex seems relieved, if not precisely thrilled, to hear from him, and they agree to meet at a café. Alex beats him there, and as Phoenix approaches the patio, he pauses to watch for a moment with a small smile on his face.

He’s leaning over the wrought-iron table, both hands wrapped around a steaming ceramic mug, dark hair slipped forward to cover an eye. This is the first time Phoenix has been in a relationship that’s lasted more than a year, and there’s a certain comfort in recognizing the way his eyes follow a familiar path from Alex’s eyes, down along the slope of his nose, skidding along the line of his mouth.

He’s never had something like this before. It’s odd. He thinks he likes it.

He makes his way over, dropping his phone onto the tabletop. Alex looks up with a slight twitch.

“Sorry, did I startle you?”

“Not much,” Alex says with a shrug. “How are you feeling?”

“I’ll be better once I’m more thoroughly caffeinated,” he says with a faint smile. “Did you want anything else while I’m in there?”

Alex requests a croissant, and he heads off to acquire that and something with an extra espresso shot for himself. They’re both quiet for a bit when he returns, Alex fiddling with a flake of pastry that’s dropped onto the plate.

Phoenix takes the initiative. “I know I don’t know, like, Thing One about technology, but how have things been at work lately?”

Alex smiles without seeming to realize he’s doing it, pushing the crumb across the plate. “Nothing too inspiring. I think the project I’ve been working on is finally winding down, which is great because we’re a couple weeks behind schedule and the client is not pleased.”

“So, more normal work hours coming up soon?”

Alex stretches. “Yeah, I think so. What about you?”

“I’m not sure,” Phoenix says. Do they really need to talk about his work right now, when it’s been the source of their problems? “With some cases, it’s hard to know when the end will come until it’s snuck up on you.”

“No end in sight?”

Phoenix eyes him for a moment. “Not right now, no. Most of what we’ve been doing so far is reviewing cases, but now we’re going to focus more on some probable suspects. I think that will be more productive.”

Alex smiles, a touch blandly. “You know, I don’t think I ever really asked before, but is this the first time you’re working with him?”

Phoenix huffs a startled laugh. “Oh. No, we worked together a lot when we were younger. That was how we knew each other, pretty much.” An oversimplification, maybe.

“Is it weird?”

“Of course it’s weird,” Phoenix says with a lopsided smile. “But that’s okay, I’m a grown-up.”

Alex smiles back, and the conversation switches to other topics, and eventually, like a curse that Phoenix cannot escape from, they end up talking about the Steel Samurai.

“You know,” Alex is saying animatedly, waving a fork around, “even though a lot of people didn’t like season four of the original series because there was that arc in the farming village, I thought it was kind of sweet. Idyllic, even.”

“Sounds like riveting television,” Phoenix says, stirring his coffee with a grin.

“Maya disagrees with me, obviously.”

“Yeah, Maya doesn’t really go in for much more than the fight sequences.”

“And the romance,” Alex points out. “I mean, the whole reason we ended up becoming friends is that we got into an argument at a panel like six years ago.”

“Oh, right. Something to do with the Pink Princess?”

“Yeah, she gets touchy about the details because she says the whole character was based on her.”

Phoenix laughs. “You know that’s actually true, right?”

Alex freezes. “She what?”

“No, it’s true. I was there when Manella had his whole brainwave.”

Alex looks dazed. “I’ve been in the presence of Steel Samurai royalty this whole time and I never knew.”

“You did, you just chose not to believe her.”

“You never told me!” 

“I didn’t think I had to!” Phoenix says with a helpless laugh. “I didn’t realize this was such a point of contention!”

“Oh, she’s never going to let me live this one down,” Alex mutters, pulling his phone out and anxiously typing away.

“Yeah, probably not,” says Phoenix, leaning back and stretching. “Holding fandom grudges is kind of a Maya specialty.”

“Oh my god.” Alex groans, burying his face in his hands. “Then this explains the—the whole bit in season one of the Pink Princess series, where the—oh my god, the magatama was—”

Phoenix laughs into his mug. “It’s surprisingly satisfying, watching you realign your whole Steel Samurai worldview.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Alex says in the tones of a man who has just been konked over the head. “So then in episode four, when she—that small village in the mountains, where there’s the—”

“You never even entertained the possibility before? You know, as a vehicle to explore the meta or whatever it is you nerds say?”

Alex deflates slightly. “Sorry, this is probably irritating. I’ll stop.”

It feels like missing the bottom step of the staircase, almost. Phoenix is expecting the ground to be there to catch him, and instead he’s walking into air, dropping to the ground with a nauseating twist. “W-what?” he says. “No, that’s—I thought this was a bit we were doing.”

“It’s fine,” Alex says with a smile. “I know you’re not really into it. I just got carried away.”

“No, I liked it! It’s fun watching people talk about things they’re into.” Phoenix is lost. He’s certain he’s had conversations like this before, an easy rhythm of volleys back and forth, making an argument out of an inconsequential topic like this. He knows these conversations; he has memories of late nights lying upside down on the couch while pretending to care about the finer points of costume design, debating with Maya or with—

Ah.

“Still,” Alex says, not noticing Phoenix’s distraction, “there’s got to be something we’re both into that we can talk about.”

Phoenix misses the arguments so viciously he can feel it in his chest. “I guess so,” he says.

“Like…” Alex waves a hand. “Didn’t you tell me a while ago that you’d started watching that show with all the royal infighting in Russia?”

“Yeah,” Phoenix says with a faint smile, “but since when are you into it?”

“Ehh, I gave it a try a while ago,” Alex says. “It was decent enough.”

“I can really feel your passion,” Phoenix says dryly, regaining some of his equilibrium. But hey, it’s a safer topic than whatever the hell he was just thinking about.

The next two weeks pass in a blur. Evidently Edgeworth decided that studying Anika and Terence Leighton was the right way to go; the first Monday back, he and Phoenix spend the entire day arguing over which is more likely to be the one trailing Catie Zhang.

“Neither of them was really much of a heavy-hitter until recently,” Phoenix points out.

Edgeworth crosses his arms, leaning back in his chair. “That’s true enough,” he concedes. “However, from what we can tell, Terence has more connections.”

Phoenix frowns down at the page in front of him. “Yeah, that seems kind of weird. Is Anika from a more distant branch of the family or something?”

“You could say that,” Edgeworth says, still the picture of easy disaffectation. When the hell did he learn to do that? “Her father was a core member of the family in his youth, but struck out in his late twenties. That coincides with the date of Anika’s birth, more or less.”

“Ah,” says Phoenix. “A classic example of wanting a better life for his kids, huh?”

“It seems so,” Edgeworth agrees. “We unfortunately don’t have much information about him, but it seems like he became an electrician after that. Several years later, he was found to be working at some municipal facility in the suburbs.”

“He managed that with a criminal record?”

“Now, Wright, don’t be judgmental,” Edgeworth says with his most obnoxious smirk. “A central tenet of our justice system is rehabilitation.”

Phoenix rolls his eyes. “Please, spare me the talking points, Chief Prosecutor.”

Edgeworth coughs lightly and continues. “Within a couple years of her father resurfacing, Anika appears to have become involved in the family.”

Phoenix hums. “So they think she met someone who brought her back in?”

“That’s the best guess we have. She may have met someone at school, but we also know that she spent evenings at her father’s workplace—he was a single parent—so it may have been someone there, as well. Or, of course, any number of other places.”

“Huh,” Phoenix says. “If that’s the case, maybe she’s trying to assert herself. Got a lot to prove, you know.”

“Because she’s likely to be viewed as somewhat of an outsider in the family? Yes, perhaps,” Edgeworth agrees. “It would be irresponsible to disregard Terence’s connections, though. His parents are both quite high-powered within the family. It wouldn’t surprise me if they viewed it as a matter of pride, to get him installed as the new head.”

“I could see that,” Phoenix agrees absently. “So he grew up in the business?”

“Precisely,” Edgeworth agrees. “He does have a bit of a criminal record, though not as much as I had expected. Part of the corruption, most likely,” he adds grimly. 

Phoenix smiles a bit at his tone. “What specifically is the record for?” he asks.

Edgeworth scans the page. “Fraud, mostly,” he says with distaste, “but all fairly minor. There are several murders that they think he’s responsible for, but nothing enough to arrest him.”

“And his parents have been involved the whole time?”

“As far as we know, yes. His mother spent several years in jail when he was a teenager—much more significant wire fraud—but aside from that brief gap, they’ve likely been helping him along.”

“Yeah, probably best not to disregard that,” Phoenix agrees, “but you know me. I have a soft spot for the underdogs.”

Edgeworth smiles faintly. “Yes, all right, duly noted.”

It eventually becomes clear, however, that they don’t have enough evidence either way when it comes to who is more likely to be their culprit, and they declare a grudging stalemate and resign themselves to more data collection. So, two Mondays after, when Phoenix arrives at the Prosecutors’ Office to find Edgeworth smirking in the lobby with arms laden down with an evidence-collection kit, his heart leaps.

“Did something happen?” he asks.

“You could say that,” Edgeworth says, striding out onto the steps, leaving Phoenix to skid on his heel as he turns to keep up. “There was a call this morning about a murder near a bus depot. We’ll head there now.”

“Ohhkay,” Phoenix says. He knows from experience that trying to pry more information out of Edgeworth is a waste of time, so instead he trails behind to the parking garage, allowing Edgeworth to lead him to—

“Is that the same car?” Phoenix asks, delighted for a reason he can’t put his finger on.

“Hardly,” Edgeworth says snottily. “It is the same model, however.”

“Same colour, too,” Phoenix says with a grin. “You know, I always assumed it was a quarter-life crisis that led you to get that thing, but I guess it’s an intrinsic part of your personality. Unless this is a midlife crisis thing, since—” He stops.

“Since what?”

Phoenix double-checks his phone. “Oh, uh. Happy birthday,” he says.

Edgeworth gives him an odd look. “Thank you,” he says, sounding uncertain.

“I did get the day right, didn’t I? The twenty-seventh?” Phoenix asks, suddenly unsure.

“You did,” Edgeworth says distantly.

There is a silence, then Phoenix grins again. “Wow, hang on, so it really could be a midlife crisis, since you’re forty now.”

“Don’t sound so pleased,” Edgeworth says with that familiar, dear sharpness. “It’s not as though you’re much younger.”

“I’ve got two whole entire weeks,” Phoenix says gleefully. “You better believe I’m going to enjoy them while they last.”

“Don’t make me fire you,” Edgeworth mutters as he unlocks the car and deposits his armful of belongings in the trunk.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Phoenix says, still grinning, as he gets into the passenger seat. “That would be very unprofessional of you, Chief Prosecutor.”

Edgeworth shakes his head as he starts the car and they pull out onto the street.

“Man, this brings me back,” Phoenix says, running a hand along the dashboard. “I can practically feel my IQ regress.”

Edgeworth gives a startled laugh. “You weren’t that stupid in your twenties,” he says.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Phoenix says cheerfully. “It’s been a while since I ran across a burning bridge.”

“Have you had occasion to run across a burning bridge?”

“Well, I guess not,” Phoenix says. 

“Likely for the best,” says Edgeworth with an odd tension in his voice. “There’s no saying whether you’d be so lucky the second time around.”

This is wandering towards dangerous territory, and they both feel it. “Any dead bodies in the trunk of this one?” Phoenix asks in a feeble attempt at salvaging the conversation.

“Not yet,” says Edgeworth, “but the day is young.”

Phoenix chuckles. “Still, I guess that explains why this one smells a little nicer than the previous one.”

“I had it professionally cleaned,” Edgeworth says snidely. “It didn’t smell.”

“Maybe it was just the emotional immaturity in the air, then,” Phoenix says without thinking, and Edgeworth makes a choked noise. “Oh my god,” adds Phoenix, brain finally catching up to his mouth. “I didn’t—I was talking about myself, I didn’t—”

“Wright, shut up,” Edgeworth says, amused. “You can only put your foot so far into your esophagus before it becomes fatal.”

“Right,” Phoenix mumbles, mortified. Fuck sake. Speaking of regression.

Edgeworth stays silent afterwards, and Phoenix has no idea whether it’s an act of pity or of revenge. He risks a glance over and Edgeworth has a small smirk on his lips, which honestly doesn’t really help answer his question at all. At least one of them is amused.

They reach the bus depot without further incident, and Phoenix trails Edgeworth around the back, where most of the parking lot has been cordoned off. They duck beneath the tape, and one of the senior detectives sees them and heads over.

“Chief Prosecutor,” he says with a nod.

“Detective,” Edgeworth replies. “This is Phoenix Wright.”

“Oh, I recognize him,” the detective says cheerily. “Strange to see the two of you together again, you know?”

“Thank you, Detective,” Edgeworth says sharply as Phoenix tries not to flinch.

The detective gives an odd smile and turns away to gesture towards the crowd of staff. “The techs are just finishing up. Your timing is good. I think we’ll be able to let you at the scene in a few minutes, if you want to wait around.”

Edgeworth nods and turns to Phoenix. “I believe there’s a coffee shop around the corner, if you’d like to grab anything.”

“Right,” Phoenix squeaks, and makes his escape. When he returns several minutes later, more caffeinated but not any less embarrassed by the events of the day so far, Edgeworth has approached the body, crouching a few feet away.

“Been a while since I saw an actual strangling,” Phoenix says, queasy.

Edgeworth makes a similar face and gets to his feet. “At least the weather is cooling down a little,” he mutters. “It helps with the smell.”

“Small mercies,” Phoenix agrees. He glances away. “So why did they think we needed to see this one?”

“Because of the victim’s identity,” Edgeworth says. “Similar to Trent’s case, we have reason to believe she’s a member of a different crime family. Do you know the Kitakis?”

“Yes,” Phoenix says with a frown. “Personally, actually. I thought they’d switched to baking.”

Edgeworth raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t press. “The main family did, yes. We think there was a small branch that resisted the change, and struck out on their own.”

“That’s too bad,” Phoenix says. “I’ll have to ask Plum about that.”

“Wright, what have you done?”

“Befriended some nice bakers,” Phoenix says airily. “You know, support your local businesses, all that.”

“Why do I get the sense that it’s something more than that?”

“You wound me,” Phoenix says, dramatically clutching his heart. “I was still disbarred when the Kitakis got out of the business, remember?”

“That doesn’t preclude your involvement,” Edgeworth says, crossing his arms. “You were also disbarred when you implemented the jurist system.”

“Mm, sorry, trade secrets,” Phoenix says with a grin. “It doesn’t matter, anyway, since I only know the main family.”

Edgeworth huffs. “Fine. Our victim is Rose Kitaki, age twenty-nine. Estimated time of death is between ten p.m. and midnight last night.”

Phoenix sobers. “And she died by strangulation?”

“Apparently so,” Edgeworth says, glancing at the document in his hand. “They’ll have to do a full autopsy to confirm, but they think that’s what’s most likely. There are signs of other blunt-force injury, but not enough to kill, they don’t think.”

Phoenix sighs. “Do they have leads for the murderer?”

Edgeworth makes a see-saw gesture with a hand. “Not as such. The lead detective suspects that Terence Leighton is the one behind it, but that’s more of a hunch than anything else. They’re processing some DNA samples right now, so in the meantime, I’d like for us to have a look and see if we can find anything else that might help.”

“Suits me,” Phoenix says, and accepts a pair of nitrile gloves.

They work quietly for a while, poking through the bags of evidence that were already collected and adding a few more pieces as they find them. Eventually Edgeworth beckons him over to a picnic table with a tarp over it, where he’s laid out everything collected so far.

“Any ideas?” Phoenix asks, crossing his arms.

“I thought that’s what I was paying you for.”

“Ha ha,” says Phoenix. “It’s taxpayer money, anyway.”

“All the more reason for you to do a good job,” Edgeworth says smoothly, and Phoenix rolls his eyes.

“Did getting this position turn you into a politician or something? You keep saying shit like that.”

Edgeworth smirks. “There are certainly aspects of the job that require deft handling, yes.”

“Better you than me,” Phoenix says distantly, while internally screeching at the idea of Edgeworth glad-handing with the governor. When did he learn to be tactful enough to handle office politics? Who is this well-adjusted Edgeworth?

Heedless of Phoenix’s private meltdown, Edgeworth leans over the table, grabbing a bag with several strands of hair inside. Phoenix wrinkles his nose at it as Edgeworth idly says, “None of the hairs collected match Anika Leighton’s last known appearance.”

“Was it particularly distinctive?”

“She had bright red hair, yes. Actual red, not that orangey colour that people sometimes refer to as red.”

Phoenix takes the bag from him. “So if you’re calling it red, her hair is actually pink, yes?” He grins as Edgeworth narrows his eyes at him. “I kid. Maybe she just wore a hairnet.”

Edgeworth shrugs. “She may have, or maybe this was Terence’s doing.”

“Hmm.” Phoenix scans over the rest of the bags. “This would be simpler if they’d be kind enough to just leave us a calling card or something.”

“Oh?” says Edgeworth. “I wouldn’t think you’d have the best associations with calling cards.”

Phoenix winces, thinking back to a case fifteen years ago. “Yeah, maybe not,” he says. “Something simpler than hair, at least. This is just… gross.”

“You long for the halcyon days of indictment via Larry’s art?”

Phoenix snorts. “Not especially. He has a tendency to massively complicate cases.”

“I can’t really be too harsh on him,” Edgeworth says, sounding thoughtful. “He usually serves his purpose eventually.”

Phoenix makes a face, recalling an even older case, Larry bursting in with an objection at the last second—after the last second, actually, yet still managing to save Phoenix’s case.

Of course, by saving Phoenix’s case, he also saved—

“Yeah,” Phoenix says softly. “He does.”

Neither is much in the mood for conversation after that, and they’re quiet again, Phoenix mostly frowning at the evidence as he thinks and Edgeworth occasionally jotting notes down in a small Moleskine notebook. After a while, the lead detective comes over with hands shoved in his pockets.

“We heard back from the lab about the blood,” he says.

Phoenix and Edgeworth both turn towards him, relieved at the distraction.

“As you probably noticed,” the detective continues, gesturing at the scene, “Kitaki died via strangulation and perhaps blunt force trauma, so we were a little surprised to see blood. The splatter suggests a small stab wound, but there’s nothing around that could cause such an injury. Our hypothesis is that Kitaki stabbed her attacker, probably in self-defense, and they took the weapon away after she died.”

“Odd,” Edgeworth murmurs with a frown. “I thought they’d been deliberately leaving evidence behind lately.”

The man shrugs. “Who knows why they wanted to take this specifically. It doesn’t matter much anyway, since there was blood left behind, and the DNA profile matches Terence Leighton.”

“Just like you thought,” Phoenix says to Edgeworth, who nods.

“Thank you, Detective. That was a quick turnaround.”

The detective smiles crookedly. “Yeah, the chief prosecutor showing up at your scene will do that.”

“I live vicariously through you,” Phoenix says to Edgeworth. “No one cares when I try to throw my weight around.”

The detective hides a grin.

“Thank you,” Edgeworth says to him, and he nods and walks away. “It’s unlikely the blood was planted,” he continues thoughtfully. “Unless they somehow had the expertise to fake the splatter from a stab wound.”

Phoenix taps a foot for a moment. “I don’t suppose we’d be so lucky that they’d seek treatment at a local hospital?”

“Unlikely,” Edgeworth says. “They’ve never made that mistake before, and I know for a fact that there have been other, more grievous, injuries sustained by various members of the family. They must have their own staff.”

“Figures,” Phoenix says with a sigh, and sits on the bench of the picnic table. “So Terence, huh? Maybe you were right after all. Too bad. It would be much more interesting if it was Anika behind it all.”

Edgeworth sits at the opposite end of the bench. “Terribly sorry to disappoint, but it does seem that way. As I recall, there have been at least two other murders within the past few months that are also attributable to him; he’s quite active lately. The evidence does appear to be pointing to him as the one tailing Trent’s wife.”

“Maybe,” Phoenix says slowly. “But that reminds me—when did Catie Zhang report being followed?”

“A moment,” Edgeworth says, paging through his little notebook. “She called the police on August thirteenth, reporting that she’d been noticing the activity for about a week.”

“So it started around the sixth, give or take,” Phoenix says thoughtfully. “And has Anika been a suspect in anything since then?”

“I don’t believe so,” says Edgeworth with a frown.

Phoenix thinks he knows where this trail is taking him. “Do you have a list of murders attributable to Terence on hand?”

Edgeworth digs around in his briefcase until he finds the paper he’s looking for, handing it over to Phoenix. He scans it rapidly.

“Aha,” he says, satisfied.

Edgeworth doesn’t say anything, only watches with a half-smile.

“See here?” Phoenix says, holding the sheet back out. “The first of the recent wave of criminal activity associated with Terence took place on August third.”

“I suspect I know where you’re going with this, but explain it to me anyway.”

“I’m sure you know,” Phoenix says with a grin. “Anika has been almost silent since then, and the timing coincides with Catie being tailed. Remember our hypothesis that Catie’s being singled out as an easy scapegoat? Anika must be planning something big, spurred on by Terence's successes, and wants to pin it on her.”

“Didn’t you believe that she wants to draw attention to herself? Blaming a crime on an outsider would defeat the purpose.”

“Actually,” Phoenix says thoughtfully, “I don’t think it would. There’s no way she could expect the police to fall for this again, right? So there must be some other reasoning to support her actions.” He taps his fingers against his leg. “Crime families always need to balance public opinion. If she manages to divert public scrutiny to Catie, it might help the family’s reputation, and help her out if she ever gets arrested and the case ends up in front of a jury.”

“And the police?” Edgeworth asks.

Phoenix shrugs. “The family keeps on top of what the police are up to, right? If the cops suspect her, she’d be able to gain the notoriety she wants within the family, even if they ultimately don’t have enough evidence to arrest her.”

Edgeworth has a hand at his mouth, still smiling. “Not bad,” he says. “That makes logical sense, shockingly enough.”

“Thanks,” Phoenix says with a snort.

“Well,” Edgeworth says, getting back to his feet, “I still should have some of my staff focus on Terence as well, just in case your verve for the underdog has led us astray.”

“Probably smart,” Phoenix says, standing up too. “Have they seriously just been following Catie every day for, what, nearly two months? Nothing else?”

“She hasn’t reported anything else, no. It does seem odd.”

Phoenix presses his lips together. “It would be good to talk to her at some point. I know her from when her wife was on trial, but that was ages ago.”

“All right,” says Edgeworth. “I’ll try to arrange something, though we’ll have to be careful to avoid tipping the Leightons off.”

“Makes sense,” Phoenix says. “As long as she’s safe for now.”

“She’s adequately watched,” says Edgeworth. “I agree, however, that two months is quite a long time to follow someone without attempting anything else. I would not be surprised if something happens soon.”

“Yeah,” Phoenix says, frowning. “It worries me a bit.”

“I’ll arrange something,” Edgeworth says again, more decisively this time. “I’ll let you know as soon as I can. In the meantime, we ought to head back to the office.”

Their work does pick up after that, with long afternoons scouring Anika Leighton’s case history in search of patterns. Phoenix keeps grilling Edgeworth about getting an interview with Catie, but gets only bureaucracy in response. 

One afternoon about a week into October, an exhausted Edgeworth sweeps into the small conference room where Phoenix has set up shop.

“We’ll meet with Zhang tomorrow at her place of work,” he says with no lead-in. “We were trying to arrange an interview elsewhere, somewhere safer, but she’s reluctant to disrupt her routine in case it alerts whoever’s following her.”

“I can’t really blame her,” Phoenix says. “Remind me where she works?”

“She’s an engineer,” Edgeworth says. “She works at one of the municipal water treatment plants.”

“Huh. All right. Do I need to meet you there, or will we head over together?”

“Together, I think,” Edgeworth says, frowning. “I think we’ll have difficulty with subtlety regardless, but one vehicle arriving is better than two.”

“Ha, yeah, vehicle,” Phoenix says with a crooked grin.

“You still can’t drive?” asks Edgeworth with some exasperation.

Phoenix leans back in his chair. “Made it to thirty-nine without ever learning,” he says, spreading his hands in a flippant gesture. “I kinda thought people would stop giving me shit for it at some point, but nope. It’s impressive, really.”

“Truly,” Edgeworth says dryly, “expecting good sense from Phoenix Wright is asking too much.”

“And yet you retained me as a consultant anyway. Need I remind you who determined that it’s probably Anika Leighton behind all this?”

“That is your guess,” says Edgeworth in snide tones. “We have yet to determine whether you’re correct.”

“But if you thought I was wrong, you would have said so. Very bluntly, in fact.”

“Yes, well,” grumbles Edgeworth. “We should plan for our interview with Zhang.”

“Sure,” Phoenix says with a smile, and they get to work.

Preparing for their interview takes longer than expected, and when he arrives home it’s almost dark out—a sign of the changing seasons. When he finally gets through his front door, nearly dropping the keys a couple times in his exhaustion, he’s surprised and then suspicious to see that the lights in his living room are on.

“Hello?” he calls out.

“Oh,” says a familiar voice from his living room, and then Alex’s head pokes around the corner.

Phoenix sags against the wall in his relief. “You kind of scared me,” he says, a touch breathless. “Did I know you were going to be over tonight? My brain is a sieve lately.”

“Yes,” Alex says acidly, “since you’re spending all your time around Miles Edgeworth.”

Phoenix feels his blood go from cold to hot in a flash. “What? We’ve talked about this,” he says. “It’s my job right now. What was I supposed to do? Refuse the work because he and I were idiots when we were kids?” He hasn’t even taken his shoes off yet and this is already a mess.

Alex shakes his head, looking pissed. “Just come into the living room so I can talk to you.”

He retreats back into the room and leaves Phoenix dangling in the hallway. What the hell is going on? He thought they’d worked this all out weeks ago. He toes off his shoes in a slight daze and removes his suit jacket as he enters the living room. Alex is seated on the couch, holding what looks like a magazine.

Phoenix sits on the armchair, a safe distance from Alex, and for a moment they stare at each other.

“So,” Phoenix says, trying to rein this car crash back in, “can we start from the beginning? I’m not sure why you let yourself into my apartment to yell at me.”

Alex glares at him. “I’d like you to explain this to me.” He hands Phoenix the magazine he’s holding, which turns out to be—

“This is a tabloid,” Phoenix says, holding onto the shreds of his patience. “You’re one of the smartest people I know. Please tell me you’re not taking news from a tabloid.”

Alex makes an irritated noise. “Okay, look, I know this probably seems really stupid, but a coworker gave this to me because they thought I’d want to see it, and they were right.”

Phoenix stares at him for a moment longer, then flips it open to the page where Alex has folded a corner over.

How is it that lawyers are considered hot gossip in LA? There’s a large, glossy photo of him and Edgeworth leaving the Prosecutors’ Office, and yeah, they’re walking side-by-side and appear to be joking around, but Phoenix can’t see what there might be to object to.

He looks back up at Alex. “There is a photo of me walking next to a colleague. I don’t see how this is news.”

Alex outright rolls his eyes. “Did you read any of the article?”

He hadn’t, because he enjoys his intellect and would like to keep it at a functional level for the rest of his career, but apparently he doesn’t have a choice. He gives it a quick scan, and it’s more or less as he expected—a lot of sensationalist bullshit, including the term “Demon Prosecutor,” which he hasn’t seen in ages, and “Turnabout Terror,” which still pops up from time to time. But then, near the end of the article, some dig about “hot” court behaviour in 2016 and 2018.

He sighs. “This is pretty much the standard tabloid garbage,” he says to Alex.

For the first time this conversation, Alex looks uncomfortable, borderline guilty. “I found some of your early trial tapes,” he says.

Alex has never really cared much about the track of Phoenix’s career—it’s one of the things that drew Phoenix to him, actually. Especially post-disbarment, it was a relief to have conversations that didn’t involve evidence, the forging thereof, or—worst of all—Edgeworth. So he’s mostly been skating by, for the past year, without going into much detail about any of the ridiculous antics that happened in his early career. He hasn’t seen any of his pre-disbarment trial recordings in at least a decade, and it’s not exactly pleasant to consider what Alex may have seen in them, particularly if he was trying to find something to be angry about.

“I see,” Phoenix says, trying to sound neutral. “And why did you do that?”

“Because,” Alex says, and he still looks uncomfortable but is also starting to look angry, “it was weird to me that shit that happened so long ago was apparently still notable enough to make it into the news.”

“I would not call this ‘news,’” Phoenix retorts.

“Can you let me finish?” Alex snaps. “I haven’t been living in LA that long so I don’t know most of what is and isn’t considered news here, but the coworker who gave me that said that you two made headlines all the time in the mid twenty-tens. And then I found out that Edgeworth was accused of murder.”

Phoenix clenches his fists so hard that he’s surprised his nails don’t draw blood from his palms. “Yeah, and I proved him innocent,” he grits out. “He was gaslit to within an inch of his life and then the man who did it tried to get him executed, so don’t try to talk any shit about that.”

It was not the correct thing to say. Alex stares at him for a second, then says, “I think you better explain this whole story to me. Your history with him, I mean.”

Phoenix crosses his legs, trying to not look defensive. “Do you have a good reason for demanding that, or are you just trying to pry into my personal history for fun?”

“It’s hardly personal,” Alex says. “A surprising amount of it is public record, and if your behaviour in court is any indication, there’s a lot else you’ve been trickle-truthing me about.”

Phoenix looks at him for a second. “Exactly which trials did you watch?”

Alex crosses his arms. “I saw Edgeworth’s trial and Engarde’s.”

Well, not much of a surprise, because those were two of the most sensational, but if Alex is looking for ammunition he couldn’t possibly have picked better.

“I see,” Phoenix says. “And they made you believe that I’ve been lying to you?”

Alex snorts. “Like I said, if you two were that obviously in love while in court, I can only imagine what happened outside of it.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you think you have a right to hear about all of it.”

“Because rumours are starting up again, and it was really shitty to hear from a coworker that my boyfriend is allegedly dating someone else.”

A short silence.

“What?” Phoenix asks, stunned. “That’s a rumour?”

“It sure is,” Alex says. “And since it seems to me that there’s a logical basis for it, I think I’d like to hear the backstory.”

Way to bury the lede. Phoenix slouches against the armchair back. He’s resentful that his dirty laundry is, once again, getting aired by the press, and even more resentful that it’s invading his personal life. A lot of the anger went out of him once Alex dropped that last bombshell, but a small, stubborn part of him wants to hold his history with Edgeworth deep inside him, close to his heart—things went sharply downhill between them, yes, but sometimes it reassures Phoenix to remember who he was at twenty-four. He was almost irredeemably stupid, but he also cared, and sometimes he likes to pretend to himself that he’s still that person. This feels like picking at an old scab.

There’s no getting out of this, though, not with Alex staring at him like that. He’s worried, borderline scared, Phoenix realizes. It must have been a long day for him, and now Phoenix is making things so much worse by being this defensive. He drags a hand across his face.

“All right,” he says, exhausted. “Just… remember that this was all a very long time ago, okay?”

“Okay,” Alex says, suspicious but mollified.

And Phoenix tells him—all of it, really, starting from elementary school, all the way through college, the mess with Dahlia and Iris—which Alex knew about already—and seeing Miles’ photo in the newspaper.

“That’s where that ‘Demon Prosecutor’ epithet came from?” Alex asks with a frown.

“Yeah,” Phoenix says, trying to thread the needle of defending Edgeworth without pissing Alex off. “I just… couldn’t imagine that was really him.”

“And that’s when you changed your major.”

Phoenix makes a frustrated noise. “It’s—I was an idiot, remember? I was clinging to this idea I had of him from when we were kids, and then after the whole Dahlia thing, it sort of felt like all I had left.”

Alex looks at him for a second, tapping his fingers on his thigh. “You changed your entire life for him.”

“Yep,” Phoenix says, because there’s not a whole lot else he can say about that.

“I see,” Alex says after a moment. “And you ended up facing him in court pretty soon after you first passed the bar?”

Phoenix smiles faintly at the memory. “I did. He really was an asshole at that point, but then he got accused of murder, and—well, you saw that trial.”

“Yeah,” Alex says absently. “That was something else.”

“It was,” Phoenix agrees, blood heating with remembered anger. “That was something I didn’t truly understand the ramifications of until after I adopted Trucy. Just, the idea that you’d take in a child out of hatred—he was brutally abused for a decade and a half, just because his father committed the cardinal sin of being smarter and more ethical than von Karma.” His voice is cracking now, and he can’t bring himself to care.

“Out of curiosity,” Alex says, tentative, “was that part of your reason for adopting Trucy?”

Phoenix looks at him, startled. No one has ever connected those dots before or, at least, confronted him about it. “That was—I mean, it was a big enough decision that I can’t give you a single reason for it, but…” He sighs. “Yeah, the parallels were pretty striking. Zak disappeared from court, leaving behind an elementary school kid, and—I don’t know how much you remember from Edgeworth’s trial, but his dad was shot in the courthouse. And then what happened to him after was…”

“I remember,” Alex murmurs, looking thoughtful. He looks like he wants to say something else about that, but instead he says, “What was the deal with Engarde’s trial? There was some weird energy between you guys. Hostile, almost.”

Phoenix laughs, a little wetly. When did he get teary? Dredging up these memories—and thinking about Trucy—is making him emotional, apparently. This next part of the story is the worst, too. “Do you know anything about State v. Skye?”

“I don’t think so, aside from knowing that it was a case of yours,” Alex says with a frown. “What does this have to do with Engarde?”

“Just—I promise it’s related.” Phoenix leans his head back against the chair back and takes a deep breath. “I’m sure you know about the so-called Dark Age of the Law, right? State v. Skye was a pretty big part of the lead-in to that. It was a mess of a case, but what it boils down to is that the chief prosecutor at the time was being blackmailed by the chief of police.”

“That does sound a bit familiar,” Alex says, sounding thoughtful.

Phoenix sighs. “Edgeworth was the prosecutor for that case too, so he was prosecuting his boss, and towards the end of the trial it came out that she’d given him some falsified evidence in previous cases, including at least one where it resulted in someone being given the death penalty.”

“Was he disbarred?” Alex asks.

Phoenix laughs outright, even if it’s a little tense. “That is not a conversation I want to get into tonight, but no, he wasn’t. The corruption was—the rules were different for prosecutors, basically, in practice if not in theory. So no, he wasn’t disbarred, but this all happened right after the truth about his dad and his mentor came out, and he was a mess from that, on top of already being a mess from the years of abuse, and—” Even after all these years, it’s hard to talk about. Alex doesn’t say anything, and the silence is almost expectant, like he knows what’s coming.

“He left a suicide note,” Phoenix says, choked. “For almost a year, I thought he was dead. We never had a real conversation about it, so I don’t really know his reasoning behind the note, but I suspect he meant it and changed his mind later. He was… really unwell, and I said something pretty stupid to him after the trial, and then he disappeared.”

“You blamed yourself,” Alex says.

“Yeah,” Phoenix says, and his throat hurts with the effort of holding his voice steady. He closes his eyes. “I know now that suicide is a hell of a lot more complicated than that, but I was twenty-four and thought I’d killed him, basically.”

“Christ, no wonder you needed therapy,” Alex mutters, and Phoenix gives a soggy laugh.

“It was overdue, but yeah, my twenties were a fucking mess.”

Alex makes a soft noise, then says, “So the Engarde case…?”

“Right,” Phoenix says, rubbing irritatedly at his wet eyes. “That case was when I found out he hadn’t died, except Maya was kidnapped at the time and I didn’t have time to process it. I was pissed, though. I’d been grieving, and my coping skills were utter garbage, so I’d—well, it’s not important, but I made some bad decisions that year.”

“You slept around?” Alex asks.

Straight to the heart of the matter. “Yeah,” Phoenix says with a shrug. He’s too worn out to lie. “I was already in love with him by that point—or something close to it, anyway—and I blamed myself for his apparent death. Casual sex was not the correct decision for me at the time, but it happened a lot anyway.” He sighs. “So Edgeworth showed up during Engarde’s trial, and he didn't even apologize for what he did. In retrospect, I realize that stonewalling was his coping mechanism, but at the time I didn’t understand. I just thought he was being a cryptic asshole for fun, or because he didn’t care, and I’d been in hell and it was for nothing. So we weren’t on the greatest terms during the trial, but we still had to work together.”

“It did seem like he was trying to help you,” Alex says, which is probably the nicest thing he’s ever said about Edgeworth.

“He was,” Phoenix says. “It just took me a while to realize it, and to realize that I trusted him even notwithstanding the whole faked-death thing.”

Alex hums. “Is that when you slept with him?”

“Oh. No.” Phoenix hikes his knees up so he’s curled up on the chair, even though he’s still wearing most of a suit. “After Engarde’s trial, he moved back to Europe. He wasn’t really practicing law at the time—he was mostly doing research instead. We became pretty close that year, even though we were on different continents. And then suddenly Dahlia came back to haunt me, which you know about.”

“Right,” Alex says. “I don’t know a ton about that trial, but it sounded like a nightmare.”

“Yep!” says Phoenix, fake-cheery. “It sure fucking was. I fell off a bridge—” He ignores the sound of horror Alex makes, “—and Larry called Edgeworth to say I was dying, in typical Larry fashion, and he, uh. He chartered an entire plane to get back to California as fast as possible.”

A brief silence. “That seems like the first time he did something for you, rather than vice-versa.”

“That’s a little unfair,” Phoenix says with a slight smile. “We just talked about the Engarde trial, remember? But yeah, that was the first hint I really got that maybe it wasn’t all one-sided. I’d started to suspect, a couple times we talked on the phone that year, but he’s even worse than I am at handling emotions, so it can be hard to tell. But renting a whole plane… it’s a little hard to refute that.” He’s still smiling a bit. “We had sex after that trial.”

“Huh,” Alex says. “And you fell out after that?”

Phoenix’s smile vanishes. “It wasn’t really a falling-out. I knew he was moving back to Europe, and that I was in love with him, or something like that, and I’d just had my murderous ex-girlfriend come back literally from the grave to screw with me and my loved ones, and I just… chickened out, I guess.”

“You were afraid of him hurting you more.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” says Phoenix with a shrug. “By that point I wasn’t angry about the suicide note anymore—that year was awful for me, but it must have been just as bad for him—but he’s always put his career first, and I knew that if I let myself get any closer, it would just fuck me up more. We talked a few times, after we had sex, but I wouldn’t let him broach that topic, and then I got disbarred shortly afterwards and didn’t really want to talk to anyone.”

Alex is quiet for a moment. “So it was your decision, not his, to end your… friendship, or whatever it was.”

“Yep. He tried getting in touch with me for the first year or so of my disbarment, but I never responded. He gave up eventually.”

“I see,” Alex murmurs. “I wish I didn’t find that as reassuring as I do.”

Phoenix smiles, and if it’s a little lopsided, well, he doesn’t think anyone can blame him for it. “I think it makes sense. It doesn’t bother me, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“You guys had a pretty fucked-up relationship,” Alex says bluntly.

Phoenix scrubs his face with his hands. “Yeah. We did. Obviously there was more to it than just all the drama, since we kept up a friendship while he was in Europe that year before we slept together, but yeah. It wasn’t ultimately healthy.”

“Is that why you were so pissed when you first saw him again?”

This question is harder to answer, largely because Phoenix isn’t really sure. Edgeworth’s anger would make sense; Phoenix fucked him and then basically called off their whole friendship within a couple of months. Edgeworth isn’t angry, though. He seemed initially unhappy to have to work with Phoenix, and he was weird for the first day or so, but he’s been fairly pleasant since then. Phoenix’s own anger makes less sense. He doesn’t blame Edgeworth for anything he did during their twenties, not anymore, and it was his decision to cut off all contact. Why, then?

He has a sinking feeling that it’s some weird variety of resentment for the way he felt when he first heard Edgeworth say his name after nearly a decade and a half.

He closes his eyes. “I don’t really know,” he says. “There’s just… a lot of baggage.”

Alex sighs, and there’s a rustling sound as he shifts on the couch. “Well. Thanks for telling me. I guess it makes some type of sense that those rumours would start up.”

“I guess it does,” Phoenix grumbles. He drops his head back to rest against the cushion again and takes a deep breath. It’s enough to catch him off-guard when Alex says abruptly,

“Do you love him?”

“After almost fourteen years?” Phoenix asks flatly, eyes shut.

“Can you answer the question?”

“No, I don’t,” Phoenix says. “That would be—ridiculous. Why do people keep asking?”

A short pause. “Who else asked?”

Phoenix sighs. “Maya did. She said you’d talked to her a bit.”

“Oh. Yeah, I did,” Alex mumbles. A moment passes, and he adds, “I know she knew Edgeworth way back when, so I thought I’d—”

“I don’t really care, to be honest,” Phoenix says. 

“Okay,” Alex says, a touch offended. “Why did she ask you about it?”

“I don’t know,” Phoenix snaps. “I have no idea why people keep asking me this when all I’ve done is work with him. I’m not the one who searched him out. I didn’t want to work with him.”

“I know,” Alex says, “but that was a while ago, and now it’s—” He stops.

Phoenix lifts his head to look at him. “It’s what?”

“You don’t seem unhappy to be working with him anymore.”

“I’m not, I guess,” says Phoenix with a frown. “I got used to it, but that’s really not the same thing as being in love with him.”

Alex makes an irritated noise. “This feels like we’re talking in circles.”

“I don’t know what you want to hear from me,” says Phoenix. “I gave you our whole history, just like you asked. What is it that you want out of this conversation? Because it feels like you’re angling for me to call off the whole consulting thing, and that’s not reasonable.”

“I don’t know either, if I’m being honest,” Alex says with a half-laugh. “This has felt like a months-long slide downhill, ever since the very first time we ran into him. You can’t honestly tell me you haven’t noticed, right?”

Phoenix glances away uncomfortably.

“Yeah,” Alex says, voice soft. “You just—listen, I’m sorry to put you on the spot about this, but—do you love me?”

Phoenix’s heart lurches.

“Because it’s been almost a year and a half,” Alex continues, still quiet. “I’m not saying you have to, it’s just that…”

“Alex,” Phoenix says, a pit in his stomach.

“No, it’s okay,” Alex says. Another half-laugh. “At least you don’t love him either.”

Phoenix tries to think of some truth that might make this situation better. He comes up with nothing.

Alex gets up from the couch and walks over, bending down to kiss Phoenix on the crown of his head. “I’m going to go home for tonight. We’re not really accomplishing anything anymore. I’ll come over again in a few days, okay?”

“Okay,” Phoenix whispers, exhausted. 

Alex smiles crookedly and lets himself out. 

The magazine is still on the coffee table. Phoenix flicks it shut with a toe, splashes his face with cold water from the bathroom faucet, and goes to bed hungry.

He tries to ignore his haggard appearance in the mirror the next morning as he shaves, but he knows Edgeworth will pick up on it immediately. Well, nothing for it. None of his business anyway.

Cycling to the Prosecutors’ Office helps wake him up fully, though as expected, Edgeworth raises a brow at him when they meet in the lobby.

“I assume you know how to get us to the plant?” Phoenix asks shortly, then winces at his tone.

“Yes, of course,” Edgeworth says in mild tones. “Are you unwell?”

“I’m fine,” says Phoenix with a sigh. “Let’s just head out.”

Edgeworth shrugs slightly and leads them both out to the car. He keeps quiet for the whole drive, and Phoenix doesn’t try to pick up any of the threads of conversation that pop into his mind. Eventually Edgeworth pulls over to the side of the road on a quiet residential street, turns the car off, and pulls out his phone.

Phoenix glances around. “This, uh, doesn’t look like a water treatment plant.”

“Good observation, Wright,” Edgeworth says blandly. “We need to wait to hear from the plant manager and the police stationed here. We can’t risk attracting too much attention.”

“Right,” Phoenix says. “Hopefully it doesn’t take too long.”

“I can’t imagine it will,” Edgeworth says, placing the phone back down on the center console.

They lapse into silence, but it’s not uncomfortable; Edgeworth has never been a chatterbox anyway, and Phoenix can’t be bothered to put the effort in today. He wonders whether Alex managed to get any sleep.

Eventually Edgeworth does speak. “How is Ms. Cykes?”

“Oh, Athena?” Phoenix says, shaking himself slightly. “She’s fine. At first she was a little nervous to take cases without me, but honestly, she’s been ready to strike out on her own for a while now. It’s been good for her confidence.”

“She isn’t too busy without you in the office?”

Phoenix smiles a little. “What, are you feeling guilty for taking me away from my business? Nah, it’s been all right. She’s keeping busy, but she’s under strict instructions to let me know if the workload gets too heavy.”

Edgeworth makes a soft noise. “It bodes rather poorly for Los Angeles, if there aren’t enough innocent clients to keep two of you busy.”

Phoenix sticks his feet up on the dashboard of the car, knowing it’ll piss Edgeworth off. He chooses to stay silent.

“Actually,” Phoenix says, “I do take cases from guilty clients sometimes. I got over that hopey-changey stuff years ago.” It’s weird to talk to Edgeworth about this, the man whom he arranged his entire life around, the one who watched him struggle with justice versus self-interest. He doesn’t look over. He doesn’t want to see the look on Edgeworth’s face.

And Edgeworth is quiet for a while, long enough that Phoenix starts to get worried. He tilts his head the opposite way, looking out the window. There is a group of sparrows hopping down the sidewalk, and he watches them poke at pebbles and dust in the hopes of finding seeds.

Eventually Edgeworth speaks. “With what was done to you, I could hardly blame you.”

Phoenix scoots down a little further in his seat. He can’t decide if the understanding is worse than disappointment would be.

“I know a decent amount about what happened with Gavin, you know,” Edgeworth adds. “Gavin senior, I mean. It must have been a long seven years.”

“I’ve had better,” Phoenix says quietly.

“And when I got back to Los Angeles… It was a relief to see you practicing law again.”

Phoenix snorts. “Don’t read too much into it. I honestly thought I’d never come back, but…” He spreads his hands. “I got bored. That was it, really. It was half-boredom, half-spite. Like I said, I don’t really go for idealism anymore.”

Edgeworth is quiet for a moment, tracing the edge of his thumb along the wheel. Phoenix tracks its progress out of the corner of his eye.

“I’ve also heard,” Edgeworth says abruptly, “about what happened in Khura’in.”

“Oh?” Phoenix says, raising an eyebrow. “That all happened before you knew I got my badge back.”

Edgeworth shrugs. “It came through the grapevine. You know how it is.”

He does, so he stays quiet.

“I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit,” Edgeworth continues after a second. “The DC Act was…” He shakes his head.

“Ahlbi was a kid,” Phoenix says, flushing, not entirely sure why.

“I’m not arguing with you,” Edgeworth says mildly. “Getting caught up in the coup was an idiotic decision, but that’s never stopped you before. It was also an act of incredible mercy. Like I said, you’re not giving yourself enough credit.”

Phoenix turns to look out the window again.

Edgeworth is silent for another minute or so, then says, “And with regards to the guilty clients… Our justice system is an adversarial one. All defendants, whether innocent or guilty, deserve a determined prosecution and a spirited defense. It’s not a concession or a failing to choose to serve a guilty client. Sometimes losing is the just thing to do.” Phoenix can hear the smile as he adds, “I learned that from you, you know.” He’s perfectly serene as he says it, no trace of the brutal self-consciousness that held him back years ago.

Phoenix can’t think of a single thing to say, but it doesn’t appear that Edgeworth expects a response.

“I always thought it a little odd, really,” he continues, “that you were so vehement that I ought to choose to lose when it was the right thing to do, and yet you’d be so reluctant to take on cases where you would be expected to lose.” He huffs a soft laugh. “Our situations were different, of course. My cases were assigned; you have the liberty of taking on whichever clients you choose. Yet… I’m still pleased to hear that you’re taking your own advice. You’ve grown up.” There’s a gentle teasing note in his voice. Phoenix can tell that it is Miles’ honest truth; no judgment, only a genuine approval of the person Phoenix has become.

This is not precisely how he expected this conversation to go.

With cosmically good—or perhaps cosmically poor—timing, Edgeworth’s phone vibrates on the console.

“Here we are,” he says, glancing at the screen. “They think we’re safe to head in. We’ll have to take a back entrance.”

“Fine by me,” Phoenix murmurs shakily. 

Edgeworth exits the car without further comment, and Phoenix follows along behind. It’s only a few minutes before they reach a large iron door set in the side of a tall, mostly-windowless red brick building; Edgeworth must have let someone know they were coming, because as they approach, the door swings open and an unfamiliar police officer sticks her head out.

“This way, Chief Prosecutor,” she says, and beckons them in.

The inside of the plant is labyrinthine, despite the building’s plain outward appearance. Several feet beyond the door, the floor drops away into a cavernous room, criss-crossed with catwalks and ladders. Phoenix glances up; there are at least six floors of catwalks that he can see. He shudders briefly, and Edgeworth gives him a small smile. 

“Still not a fan of heights?”

“Not even a little,” Phoenix mutters. 

The cop leads them, thankfully, along the perimeter of the building, past several closed and bolted doors through which Phoenix can hear loud machinery. After a couple minutes she stops in front of yet another samey door, this one slightly ajar. “In here,” she says, and pushes it open all the way.

“Oh, Phoenix!” The woman inside hops to her feet.

“Catie, hi,” he replies, smiling.

She’s tall and no-nonsense; her sleeves are pushed up, and the edge of an intricate linework tattoo is visible on one forearm.

Phoenix likes her immensely.

“How are you?” he asks. “It’s been ages.”

She rolls her eyes with a smile. “You mean, how am I aside from the ‘hunted by the mob’ bit?”

“Aside from that,” he agrees, grinning back.

“Ehh. Same old, really. Aren’t you going to introduce me to the other guy?”

Phoenix stifles a laugh. “The other guy is the chief prosecutor of Los Angeles.”

“Oh, you’re Edgeworth then,” she says, unphased.

“That’s right,” Edgeworth says, looking bemused. “We spoke briefly on the phone.”

“Yeah.” She crosses her arms. “Thanks for coming all the way out here. I know it’s kind of a pain.”

Phoenix shrugs. “I get it. I’d be a hell of a lot more spooked than you are, if I had people watching me all day every day.”

“You get used to it, weirdly enough. Anabelle is kind of pissed, though.”

He laughs. “Well, she would be.”

“Not a lot of patience, that one,” she says with a small smile. “She’s all right, though. I think I’ll keep her.”

“Yeah, you guys got married?”

She snorts. “It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing. We’d been engaged for like… six years by that point, and we got a little drunk the night after you got her acquitted and woke up to find a purchase confirmation email for a wedding ceremony in the Maldives. In two days’ time. We had to book it to the airport.”

Edgeworth is almost outright laughing. Phoenix shoots him a small smile and says, “Well, I’m glad it worked out.”

“As entertaining as this is,” Edgeworth says, still smiling, “we probably ought to get the interview over with. The less time we spend here, the better.”

“Yeah, all right,” Phoenix says, feeling much more cheerful now.

Catie leads them over to a small table in the corner and offers them coffee; Edgeworth declines, but Phoenix, running on maybe four hours of sleep, could honestly kiss her. Even if the coffeemaker looks to be a couple decades old and makes coffee the consistency of mud.

They settle in battered chairs and Edgeworth pulls a notebook out of his briefcase. Flipping to a blank page, he says, “You told the officers keeping an eye on you that there’s been almost no variance in the activity since you noticed you were being followed; is that correct?”

“Yeah.” She leans back in her chair and crosses an ankle over her knee. “It’s kind of impressive, really. I mean, I keep a pretty normal routine, so it’s probably pretty easy for them to keep tabs on me: I work eight to five, five days a week, and on Sundays I go climbing. Occasionally Ana and I go out for dinner, but that’s not a super common occurrence.”

Edgeworth is writing rapidly in his small, tight script. “To your knowledge, were there any days that you weren’t followed?”

“None at all,” she says with a slight frown. “It always seems to be the same car, so it’s pretty easy to catch them.”

“Out of curiosity,” Phoenix asks, “does it seem like they’re trying to be sneaky? Or do they not really seem to care whether or not you see them?”

“Good question,” she says. “I’m not sure I’d be able to tell the difference. They do keep their distance, if that’s what you mean. They’re not, like, showboating or anything like that.”

Phoenix hums. “What about at work? Have you noticed anything about your routine here?”

She shakes her head. “This is a pretty secure place, since we’re responsible for part of the city’s water supply. It’s hard to get in unless there’s a good reason for it.”

“What if someone was here for, say, maintenance?”

“Nope,” she says. “We have our own staff for that. We almost never have to hire contractors. If we did, they’d be vetted.”

“Huh.” Phoenix frowns.

“There have been no new hires lately?” Edgeworth asks.

“That’s actually one of the things I wanted to talk about,” she says. “That’s why I dragged you out here instead of waiting until we could find a better place to meet. All the jobs here are unionized, so we only do hiring during designated periods, three times a year. The new batch of staff starts on Monday.”

Edgeworth and Phoenix exchange glances. “Who made the hiring decisions?” Edgeworth asks.

“The plant director,” she says. “He does background checks, obviously, but I’m sure there are ways around that.”

“Yes,” Edgeworth mutters. “How many new staff?”

“No idea. We’d have to ask him. There usually aren’t many, though. Maybe four tops.”

“That narrows it down for us, at least,” Phoenix says thoughtfully.

Edgeworth nods. “I’d like copies of the hiring paperwork. And we should return here on Monday morning, just in case. If one of the new hires is involved somehow, they’re not likely to bide their time.”

Phoenix shrugs. “That’s fine with me.”

Catie nods, and they stay in the office as she goes to request the paperwork from the director. Phoenix finishes his mud coffee with a sigh and slumps back in his chair, rubbing at his eyes.

“You’re sure you’re all right?” Edgeworth asks.

“Just great,” Phoenix mutters, and glances over to see Edgeworth shoot him an odd look.

Whatever.

Catie returns quickly enough, fortunately, carrying a stack of printouts. “These are all the hiring documents, plus background checks. Only three new kids.”

Edgeworth nods, getting to his feet, and takes the papers from her. “Thank you. We’ll review these and return on Monday morning, when the new staff start work.”

“Thanks,” Catie says. “Can you get here by seven-thirty?”

Phoenix groans faintly and Edgeworth hides a laugh in a cough. “Yes, that’s fine,” he says for the both of them, and Phoenix resigns himself to a very tragic, exhausted fate.

Back at the Prosecutors’ Office, Edgeworth installs himself in Phoenix’s de facto office while Phoenix stifles a yawn.

“Do you need more coffee, Wright?” Edgeworth asks absently, digging through his briefcase.

“Nah,” says Phoenix. “Any more caffeine and I’ll be able to see into the future. I’ll figure it out.” He holds out a hand and, bemused, Edgeworth hands over part of the file.

“We ought to spend the rest of the day attempting to determine which, if any, of the new hires is likely to be our culprit,” Edgeworth says.

“There are only three of them. Hopefully it’ll be easy enough.”

“Mmm,” Edgeworth says vaguely, eyes flicking over the sheet he’s holding. “Have a look at the one I gave you and we can compare.”

Phoenix props an elbow on the table and scans the page. Ed Gint, age fifty-six, hired as an electronics engineer. His degree, though a little dated, is from a well-known university in San Diego. He flips to the back of the file and finds proof of it in the form of a stamped letter from the university. Simple enough. The background check was performed by a third-party company, and they’re pretty good at catching fakes; it’s probably only worth digging more if none of the other hires are interesting.

Gint’s work history is pretty standard, too. He moved to Los Angeles a couple years after graduation, spending most of his career at a power plant just outside the city before accepting this new position. No gaps in employment; no criminal record.

A pretty boring guy, all in all, though if Phoenix was trying to throw off the cops, he’d try to be as boring as possible, too. They should probably double-check for a criminal record, though if he’s under a fake name they’d probably not find anything. It’s almost a shame that employers don’t collect fingerprint data as a matter of course, except for that pesky little issue known as ‘privacy concerns.’

He glances over. Edgeworth is frowning at his own file, though Phoenix is unsure whether that’s because he’s actually angry or whether it’s because his face just does that.

“What’s up?” he asks.

Edgeworth’s eyes lift to meet his. “This file,” he says. “Robert Traim. Something feels off, but I can’t tell if I’m being suspicious over nothing.”

“Oh?” says Phoenix, perking up. “Do you want me to have a look?”

“Mmm,” Edgeworth says, looking at the page again. “Traim was hired as custodial staff, which requires somewhat less training than the other positions they were hiring for.”

“It might be easier for them to sneak someone in that way,” Phoenix says. “Faking a degree isn’t impossible, but it takes a lot more work.”

“Yes,” Edgeworth says. “That’s just it. It feels uncomfortable to suspect someone based on education level, though.”

Phoenix smiles. Politics indeed. “Is that your entire basis for suspecting him?”

“Well, no,” Edgeworth concedes. “He allegedly spent several years out of the country—in England, specifically—caring for an older relative.”

“And you think that’s a cover for something else.”

“It may be,” Edgeworth says. “There is, however, a letter here signed by a physician in England, certifying that he was the caretaker.”

“Huh. I’m not sure whether that would be easier or harder to fake than a degree.”

“Easier, I’d think,” Edgeworth says. “Particularly for a doctor out of the country, some employers might not bother with the verification process.”

“It should be easy enough for us to figure out,” Phoenix says. “I’m sure the physicians’ college over there has a database we could consult.”

Edgeworth makes a vague noise of assent, eyes still flicking over the page. “Here,” he says suddenly, handing the whole file over to Phoenix. “Can you speak to one of the detectives about it? I’ll review the third employee and see if there’s anything worth pursuing there.”

Phoenix lifts an eyebrow. “I’m a defense attorney,” he points out. “I don’t think the detectives will be happy to just hand information over to me.”

“Oh, they know to expect you,” Edgeworth says dismissively. “I made sure the staff was informed of our collaboration quite early on.”

Phoenix laughs. “Yeah, okay,” he says, a little surprised that Edgeworth had bothered to go that far.

Edgeworth doesn’t respond, so with a shrug Phoenix takes his papers and heads out.

He snags the first detective he can find at the precinct, who hands him off to someone much more junior, who looks terrified at being faced with Phoenix Wright and the clout of the chief prosecutor. Once Phoenix explains his task, though, she becomes quite eager.

“Oh, I learned about this in a different case a few weeks ago! It’s dead simple,” she says, bustling off towards a bank of computers. Phoenix follows along behind. “We can try to match the registration number to someone in the database, and if there’s no match, we can enquire by email. They usually respond pretty fast.”

“Thanks,” he says, smiling at her enthusiasm.

She gets straight to work, typing rapidly as he leans back against the desk and scans the rest of the office. It seems like he barely recognizes anyone around here anymore, though they seem to be familiar with him. Maybe he’s just not paying attention.

He sighs. Things were a lot simpler when he could pretend he was as invested as everyone else.

The detective makes an odd noise, and he looks down at her. “It doesn’t look like there’s anyone in here with that number, Mr. Wright,” she says. “I thought maybe I misread it—doctors’ handwriting, you know how it is—but I can’t get a match for the name either.”

“Oh?” he says, heart rate picking up a bit. “The letter is from several years ago, right? Maybe the doctor retired.”

“I don’t think that’s it,” she says, frowning at the screen. “They keep their records for a long time. I’ll have to email to ask, but this may be what you’re looking for.”

“Thanks,” he says sincerely.

“Not a problem,” she replies with a grin. “I’ll take a photocopy of the letter, is that okay? I’ll contact them today and hope we hear back soon.”

He heads back to the Prosecutors’ Office much more cheerful than before, and even a classic Edgeworth glare when he bursts into the office can’t bother him.

“Guess what?” he says with a dramatic flourish.

“The doctor is a fake?”

“Maybe! They’re doing a little more digging for me, but it’s looking pretty suspicious.”

“That’s excellent,” Edgeworth says, “because this last employee is looking quite solid. What about the one you were reviewing before?”

“It looked like all his documents were in order, too,” Phoenix says. “We should probably do a bit more digging just in case, though.”

“Yes, probably,” says Edgeworth. He glances up briefly. “Why don’t you head home, Wright? These database searches are better performed by those with more training.”

“I’d be offended,” Phoenix says, “but a nap sounds great right now.”

Edgeworth hums, a slight smile on his face. “Go rest. I’ll see you on Monday morning.”

“Monday? You remember it’s Thursday today, right?”

“Of course I remember,” Edgeworth says. “I’ll get in touch if I need anything before then, but there’s likely not much you can help with tomorrow. Take the day off.”

Phoenix narrows his eyes, but Edgeworth is outright ignoring him now, and he decides against arguing this one. A day off is a day off, after all.

Or so he thinks, until he wakes up from an afternoon nap and remembers that he and Alex are in the middle of a fight.

How long can this drag on for? They haven’t fought much before, so he doesn’t have much in the way of a frame of reference. He could reach out, but Alex had said he’d get in touch, and Phoenix doesn’t want to pressure him. Or, wait. Is this a mind game? He doesn’t think it’s a mind game, since Alex has never tried to play those before, but this is also, as noted, a bigger fight than they normally have, so—

He breaks himself out of his internal game of eleven-dimensional chess with a sigh. He should really just take Alex’s words at face value; worst case scenario, Alex does get angry about it, but that feels unlikely and would also not really be Phoenix’s fault.

Having Friday off still doesn’t feel as nice as it should, though. He wakes up at a truly unreasonable hour, goes for a long walk, and treats himself to a late lunch at a new Thai restaurant he’s been wanting to try, but the buzz under his skin won’t go away. So much for mindfulness; he’s doing everything right and it’s still not working. He’d binge a show or something, but that just reminds him of the afternoon at the café with Alex and their abridged debate about the Steel Samurai.

Around four p.m., his phone rings, and he fumbles when he sees that it’s Edgeworth.

“Did something happen?” he asks.

“Good afternoon to you, too,” Edgeworth says mildly. “Yes, you could say that. We heard back from the physicians’ college in England. Traim’s physician’s note was forged. The detective who performed the search did a little more digging and found that he was incarcerated in Washington state during that period. His true name is Robert Friedman.”

“He kept the same first name? That’s kind of ballsy.”

“Or just lazy,” Edgeworth says dryly.

“Still, this is great news,” Phoenix says. “Do you have any idea what his connection to the Leightons could be?”

“Unfortunately not, but if we’re able to interview him at the plant on Monday, we may be able to figure it out.”

“Mm. I’m sure we can figure it out, especially if you put on the threatening face.”

“Yes, thank you, Wright,” Edgeworth says. “I’ll let you go; I just thought you’d want to know about this development.”

“Definitely,” says Phoenix. “I’m not nearly enough of a morning person to be able to handle this information at seven-thirty a.m. on a Monday.”

“You had better not be late,” Edgeworth says.

“Relax, I’ll take a taxi. I’m a grown-up, I can handle it.”

“Very well.” And he hangs up, leaving Phoenix to flop back on the couch with a sigh. 

He muddles through the rest of the day, eventually drifting off to a restless sleep, and awakens on Saturday to a text from Alex, asking to come over on Sunday night. He agrees easily enough; he’d prefer to get the conversation over with as quickly as possible, but pushing back won’t accomplish anything.

Knowing what to look forward to—or perhaps dread, as the case may be—makes the time go quicker, somehow. He gives Trucy his usual Saturday-morning call, and then occupies himself with tidying and laundry, and before he knows it he’s going to bed. Sunday passes in much the same vein, and all of a sudden it’s seven p.m. and Alex is texting him to say that he’ll be over in an hour.

But he doesn’t make it to the apartment until nearly nine; there was a pileup on the I-5 bad enough that he got stuck for an hour.

“I apologize in advance if I’m not in the greatest mood,” he says as soon as Phoenix opens the door to the apartment.

Phoenix pauses. “Are you sure you want to do this tonight?”

“I’m sure,” Alex says, taking off his shoes. “I was a mess at work on Thursday and Friday. I can’t let this screw up another week.”

“Okay.” Another pause. “Can I… get you something before we sit down?”

Alex sighs and cranks his neck one way and then the other. “Water, I guess. I’ll make myself comfortable.” He heads into the living room, and after a moment Phoenix forces himself into action, grabbing a couple of glasses before joining Alex on the couch.

“You sound like you’ve come to some sort of decision,” Phoenix says. His hands feel oddly cold.

“Not really, actually,” Alex says. He sighs. “Sorry. I’m coming off stronger than I mean to.”

Phoenix clasps his hands together. His knuckles creak. “But there was something you wanted to talk about?”

“Well, yeah, we have to figure this thing out.”

“Yeah,” Phoenix mutters.

There’s a brief silence. “Do you know yet when the case will end?”

“I don’t,” Phoenix says with a sigh. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we’ve almost figured it all out, but we’re still working with a bunch of assumptions, so if those turn out to be wrong…”

“Makes sense, I guess,” Alex says, and kicks his ankles up on the couch, poking Phoenix with a toe. “What are the odds of working with him again in the future?”

“Probably… pretty low?” Phoenix says. “I can almost guarantee I’m going to run into him, though.”

Alex hums and then lapses into silence.

Phoenix takes a long breath and tilts his head back against the cushion. Alex's foot is still propped up against his leg; it disturbs him in a way he’s not quite able to verbalize.

Eventually Alex speaks. “You’ve spent a lot of time alone with him.”

Phoenix lifts his head and turns to look. Alex’s face is cool, impassive; it’s not an expression Phoenix is used to. “What are you asking?”

“Nothing, really. Just pointing it out.”

“Really?” Phoenix asks pointedly. “Because I definitely felt an implication in there.”

Alex sighs. “You know, when I was talking to Maya, she pointed out that there was a lot of sexual tension between the two of you.”

“When we were twenty-six,” Phoenix says. “Almost fourteen years ago. Get to the point, please.”

“You say you’re not in love with him—fine. But have you—has there—”

“You’re asking if I’ve cheated on you,” Phoenix says dully.

Alex is quiet for a moment. “Yes,” he says eventually.

Phoenix drops his head back against the couch cushion. “If you trust me that little, why are we having this conversation?”

“It’s a simple enough question to answer, Phoenix,” Alex snaps.

“Nothing has happened,” Phoenix shoots back. “Glad to know you have such a low opinion of me, though.”

“I was just—”

“You remember what happened with Dahlia, right?” Phoenix says, lifting his head to look directly at Alex. “How she and Iris lied to me for the better part of a year? I know what that kind of betrayal feels like. Why would I do that to someone else?”

Alex makes a derisive noise. “It’s hardly the same thing.”

“It’s close enough, I’d think,” Phoenix says. “I loved her, or I loved Iris, or I thought I loved one or both of them, and the whole time it was a fucking joke so they could do whatever they wanted behind the scenes. I have no interest in doing something similar.”

Alex’s mouth makes a complicated line, and his gaze drops. “Yeah,” he says eventually. “Yeah, okay.”

Phoenix laughs shortly and drops his head against the couch back again. 

Alex makes a soft noise and pokes him with his toes. “Look, I’m just—I’m rattled. You knew Edgeworth for like three or four months as an adult before you fell in love with him, but we’ve been together for nearly a year and a half and you’re still—”

“I don’t know,” Phoenix says. “I don’t even know what that’s supposed to feel like. The first person I loved nearly killed me, and I nearly killed the second person I loved, and now it’s—I don’t know. I don’t want to be the same person I was when I was twenty, or when I was twenty-four, and I don’t know what the hell it’s supposed to look like when I’m forty and maybe, possibly in love. The way I felt about Dahlia—or Iris or whoever the fuck—and about Edgeworth was… You said yourself that it wasn’t healthy. But what is it supposed to be like?”

“Phoenix,” Alex says.

Phoenix closes his eyes and laughs again. “Never mind,” he says. “This stupid crisis doesn’t have to be your problem.”

“It can be,” Alex murmurs.

Phoenix can feel the sneer on his mouth. It doesn’t fit, but he can’t turn it into anything else. “Nah.”

There’s a rustle as Alex shifts on the couch, and Phoenix startles as fingers are touched to the line of his jaw. “I’m sorry,” Alex says in a half-whisper.

“I am too,” Phoenix says, eyes still shut.

“I just don’t know what to do.”

The corner of Phoenix’s mouth twitches up. “Yeah,” he says. “Me neither.”

Alex sighs and shifts back on the couch. “It was good for a year,” he says. “Like, really good. It wasn’t earth-shattering or anything, but it was… comfortable. I liked what we had. But if this is how things are when you’re around Edgeworth, and you don’t know whether it’s possible to avoid him going forward…”

“Can we just…” Phoenix clenches his jaw. “Can we wait until the case is over? And reassess then?”

Alex is silent for a while. “I guess I could probably do that much,” he says. 

Phoenix fights a bitter smile. He deserves the reluctance, he supposes.

Alex touches his cheek again. “This doesn’t really feel like we reached any kind of resolution, but I… guess that needs to wait for after the case, huh?”

“I’m sorry,” Phoenix whispers again.

Alex makes a soft noise and shakes his head. “Let’s just… go take a shower and go to bed, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Phoenix says quietly.

Alex gets to his feet and pulls Phoenix along with him, bringing them both to the bathroom.

This is not exactly unusual; they’ve showered together probably a hundred times before. It’s always been a quick way to fit some extra quality time into their lives, whether it was after sex or just at the end of a long day, like now.

But Phoenix’s chest tightens as they undress. He can’t account for why—physical affection is a perfect, simple way to resettle things between them. So he gets in the shower and stands under the water, digging his fingernails into the palm of his hand when Alex steps in behind him and touches his waist to rebalance himself. They shower quietly, speaking only in murmurs when they go to pass some bottle of product or another, and Phoenix does his best to not react any time Alex touches him.

When they exit and get dressed for bed, Phoenix tries not to be too obvious about his relief. He’s not sure how much longer the case will last, but it’s likely he’ll have at least a few days to sort through his emotions and, hopefully, come out the other side with some minimal understanding of what his brain is trying to do to him. For tonight, he’ll just have to accept that he’s a mess.

It’s hard to hide a physical reaction, though, and when Alex scoots across the bed to loop an arm around Phoenix, he’s unable to suppress the shudder.

Alex recoils instantly. “What was that?” he asks.

“You took me by surprise,” Phoenix mumbles into his pillow.

A short silence. “Okay,” Alex says, and reaches across to hold Phoenix again.

This time they’re both expecting it when Phoenix tenses up, and Alex pulls back with a sigh. “Care to explain that one?” he asks.

Phoenix is silent.

Alex sits up and turns the light back on. “Okay,” he says. “Great. So are you physically repulsed by me at all times, or only when we’ve just finished talking about your dramatic long-lost love from fifteen years ago?”

Phoenix sits up too. “We just had an argument. I don’t think it’s that weird that I’d want a little physical space.”

“Yeah?” says Alex. “Because, not to put too fine a point on this, this was never an issue after our arguments until Edgeworth showed up. And when was the last time we had sex?”

Phoenix feels himself flush. “We’re arguing about sex now?”

“Yes,” Alex snaps, “we are. Can you maybe not be dismissive about this?”

“Okay,” Phoenix says shakily. He takes a deep breath through his nose. “To answer your question, it’s been… maybe a few weeks since we had sex?”

“And before that?”

“I don’t know,” Phoenix says with a touch of desperation. “I haven’t been keeping track.”

“But the fact that you had to think that hard is pretty telling,” Alex says.

Phoenix fists his hands in the covers. 

Alex makes an irritated noise and shakes his head. “I can’t have this conversation in bed. Come to the kitchen.” He leaves without a backwards glance, and Phoenix trails listlessly after him, feeling uncomfortably exposed in his boxers and tee-shirt.

Alex is sitting in the dim overflow light from the kitchen alcove, elbows resting on the dining table. Phoenix sits down at the chair across from him.

“I seriously can’t remember the last time I felt so undesirable,” Alex says bluntly.

Phoenix takes a shuddery breath. “I thought we just decided we were going to wait until the case was over before we talked this out again.”

“Yeah,” Alex says with a snort. “That was before I was reminded that my boyfriend of nearly a year and a half can’t handle me touching him.”

“It’s only—”

“Please, Phoenix,” Alex says. The anger is draining from his voice. “Asking me to give you a bit of time so you can sort your thoughts out is one thing. Being unable to handle me touching you for months on end is something else entirely.”

“Has it really been that bad?” Phoenix asks quietly.

“Well, you tell me,” says Alex. “Like you said, we’ve barely had sex for quite a while now, and not that you were ever particularly physically affectionate in the first place, but I can practically feel your skin crawl when I so much as touch your hand.”

Phoenix thinks for a moment, breathing slowly. “Yeah,” he says.

“And you can’t say that it’s just because of the case, either,” Alex continues, “because I’m pretty sure this has been a problem almost since the very first time we ran into him. So forgive me if this doesn’t exactly instill me with confidence for the future. It just—rough patches happen, I get it. I just don’t see a resolution with this particular one.”

Phoenix considers. He realizes that he doesn’t, either.

He looks up, and Alex is smiling, just barely. “Hey,” he says. “It was a pretty good run. This kinda sucks, but I’m still glad I got to meet you.”

Phoenix can’t quite manage a smile, but he does reach his hand out, and Alex takes it. They sit quietly for a time. It’s odd, this mostly-amicable breakup, sitting here holding the familiar hand of a person he’s not likely to ever see again.

Alex runs his thumb along the edge of Phoenix’s finger, just once, and gets to his feet. “I probably need to change,” he says with a small, ironic smile. “Or I guess I could drive home in my pajamas, but something about that feels kind of illicit.”

Phoenix leans forward to drop his forehead against the table. “Take your time,” he says. “It’s my fault you have to drive home so late anyway.”

There’s an awkward silence, and then he hears the shuffle as Alex heads back into the bedroom to change.

Hopefully he grabs whatever stuff he’s got lying around, too. This whole mess has already dragged on for too long.

He keeps still as he listens to the noises from down the hall. Alex is moving quietly, but Phoenix can hear him take a couple trips from the closet to the bed and back, and after a few minutes he returns to the kitchen.

“You should probably let me out,” he says. “I’ll leave my key and you’ll have to lock up behind me.”

“Yeah,” Phoenix mutters into the table, and forces himself to his feet. Alex is hovering by the door, an odd half-smile on his face. They look at each other for a moment.

“I really do hope you figure this out,” Alex says. “You’re not happy, and it’s pretty obvious.”

Phoenix sighs. “I’m sorry you got caught up in it.”

Alex shrugs but doesn’t respond, and after a moment he turns towards the door. “I’m probably going to tell Maya tomorrow. Just so you know.”

“Okay,” Phoenix says.

Alex sighs quietly and lets himself out, and Phoenix locks the door behind him.