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The judge’s gavel slams once, twice and silence echoes across the courtroom.
“Court is adjourned for the day,” His Honour announces, “to reconvene tomorrow morning with the evidence gathered in the meantime. Hopefully then we can finally find an answer to all this madness.”
The gallery file out rather quickly, no doubt exhausted from this madhouse of a trial running long over time, but despite how eager he is to rush back to the crime scene and dig up some new evidence, Phoenix finds himself lingering. He gives his forlorn client a thumbs-up as the bailiffs lead them away and manages to hold himself steady until the door closes behind them, leaving him alone in the courtroom. He then proceeds to kick the shit out of his desk.
“Charming, Wright.”
Edgeworth’s voice is absolutely basted in sarcasm, and the thrill Phoenix gets from ignoring him is perhaps a little greater than the situation warrants.
“Perhaps if you put such energy into your investigations, you wouldn’t need to expel it onto unsuspecting furniture.” Edgeworth’s voice is quite close now, and Phoenix doesn’t have to look up to know he’s standing close by, arms folded and eyebrow cocked.
“Maybe if you practiced what you preached, we’d actually be able to go home tonight,” Phoenix replies, and it’s definitely not because his toes are starting to hurt.
“Oh, so your failure to do your job is now my fault?” asks Miles as Phoenix begins to aggressively dump his paperwork back into his briefcase.
“Of course not,” says Phoenix, brimming with false cheer. “You’re at fault for not doing your job.”
Now that really gets Miles going, and in no time flat he’s crossed that invisible boundary and stepped into the defence’s space.
“Do forgive me,” drawls Edgeworth. “I had forgotten it was my job to acquit every last one of your clients even when the evidence runs contrary-”
“The only thing the evidence runs contrary to is your need to make me look like an idiot every chance you get,” Phoenix snaps as he slams his case shut.
“Please, Wright, you don’t need to set up insults for me.” Miles moves to lean against the wall behind the desk and considers his rival carefully, his slow gaze analysing Phoenix just as he’d studied the terribly inadequate evidence for the case. “Although, to be fair, you are a veritable buffet of easy targets.”
“Praise from Caesar,” Phoenix replies.
“You can jibe at me all you like,” Edgeworth responds immediately, perhaps a fraction of a second too quickly, “it won’t change the fact that you were the one claiming that your client somehow escaped a locked room-”
“They have an alibi!”
“And the only thing backing it up is a single witness’s testimony – I know you’re quick to assume only the best in everyone but has it slipped your mind that human beings are occasionally capable of lying?” Miles snaps.
“That is your witness.” Phoenix is nearly yelling now, and his throat is starting to burn with one of his favourite heats. “You’ve banked your whole case on him telling the truth-”
“Excuse me, but I am not the one structuring whole cases around hearsay and nonsense,” Edgeworth barks.
“Oh, you could have fooled me, considering how much more time you spend sucking up to the judge and embellishing your points than actually proving them.”
“Fine talk from you, Phoenix Wright, the man who spent seventeen minutes riling up the witness about a brand of root beer to stall the trial instead of just admitting-”
“Stop mocking me,” hisses Phoenix.
He shoves his face close enough to taste Edgeworth’s breath but his courtroom rival barely blinks. Instead, Miles draws his glasses from his nose and fixes him with a glare just burning with Phoenix’s favourite malice.
“I am not mocking you, Wright.” Edgeworth rolls his eyes as he speaks, but doesn’t let their gaze stay broken for more than a second. “I’m flirting with you.”
Phoenix’s hand hitting the wall beside Edgeworth’s head would be loud enough to jolt anyone, but Miles’ only reaction is a deep inhale and a tilt of his head, as if he were trying to draw Phoenix closer without touching him.
“You think I don’t know that by now?” Phoenix’s voice has gone low, quiet, and he tells himself it’s just to ensure they’re not overheard. “I’m telling you to make a move.”
“Oh really?” asks Miles. The man somehow has the ability to evoke a crossing of his arms with just the tone of his voice, and a good thing too because they’re close enough now that any movement might jostle an arrangement that is proving to be far more enjoyable than anticipated. “And why might the onus of action fall upon me, and not you?”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Phoenix drawls. “How could I demand something so hideous from you-”
“Wright.” Miles gets about halfway through an actual arm-fold before he stumbles, and genuine worry mixes with his simmering blush.
“-When you started this whole affair?”
Now that gets Miles moving, forcing his face to mere millimetres from Phoenix’s.
“I started it? Is this really the level of analysis we’ve fallen to?”
“Well, since you’re so loathe to admit you’ve fallen for anyth-” Phoenix taunts.
“Oh please.” Miles rolls his eyes again, and fixes Phoenix with a raised eyebrow. “Get it over with, Wright.”
“Make me,” Phoenix whispers, desperate for the quaver in his voice to sound like a growl and not a whimper.
Maybe he should be embarrassed that Miles is laughing when their lips and chests and hips meet, maybe he should take it as a sign that he has to work on his banter. But he doesn’t. He’s got so much more to focus on, like the sharpness of Miles’ canines and how wild it is that Edgeworth’s hands can be so cold while his face is on fire.
He shoves Miles back up against the wall perhaps a little too hard, but his prosecutorial counterpart doesn’t grunt or even gasp, he moans, and Phoenix suddenly doesn’t have enough hands. A bolt of worry makes him wonder if he’s pushing too hard, if his insistence on pushing his tongue as deep into Miles’ mouth as possible is a choking hazard, but that disappears the instant Edgeworth regains some control over his faculties. Those pale fingers rake lines across his cheeks as Phoenix is drawn ever closer, a movement he isn’t even sure is possible. But Miles is braced against the wall and their legs tesselate so perfectly together, and there’s absolutely nothing left to worry about, no source or sink for all this roiling energy besides Miles Edgeworth and his warm, grinning mouth. The fingers that were on his cheeks before are now in his hair, pulling and playing just like Miles’ earlier words.
But the need for oxygen is an inescapable one, and in what seems like a cruelly short time, Miles is dragging his mouth up and away from Phoenix’s, panting heavily as Phoenix takes the movement in stride and simply attaches his mouth to Edgeworth’s neck instead.
“Must you always be so intense?” Edgeworth murmurs, his fingers surprisingly gentle in Phoenix’s hair.
“I could tone it down,” Phoenix tells Edgeworth’s clavicle. “But then where would all your frustration go? You’d destroy the courtroom before first recess.”
Edgeworth probably rolls his eyes, but Phoenix can’t tell because it’s always been hard to keep his vision focused in moments like these.
“Yes, of course, thank you for providing such a vital service-” Edgeworth’s voice spirals away into nothingness as Phoenix grinds against him yet again, and thankfully it doesn’t take him long to get the hint, to return his tongue to where it belongs: deep and angry inside Phoenix’s mouth.
Edgeworth is a weird creature, and not just because of all the obvious reasons. He’s a man of contrast, of putting anime figurines on doilies and listening to weird experimental Korean electronica while wearing a cravat. He’s hot and cold at the same time, just as he’s somehow bony and soft in the same places and in the quiet of the night he once admitted to Phoenix that he’s scared of confrontation, even though that’s literally all he ever does. And because nothing Miles ever does is allowed to make sense, the way he kisses is confusing. He’s furious, fervent, incensed at being interrupted and absolutely brutal, just the way Phoenix demands. He knows full well that the next time he looks in a mirror he’ll wince at the way his lips look, at how completely Miles Edgeworth has ruined him. But it can never be only that, it’s never simple angry sex. Because Miles has to linger in the strangest moments, in the pauses for breath and the first brush of lips before the onslaught resumes. He has to make quiet, little noises along with the moans and grunts and all the other expected stuff. He’s absolutely destroying Phoenix’s mouth in a continuation of a pretty furious argument, and yet he still finds time to make it obvious that he’s in love with that same idiot.
And just like everything else about Edgeworth, the contrast is the best part.
“You better take me home this instant,” Phoenix gasps eventually. “Or I will humiliate myself in this public building.”
“Are you inviting yourself over to my apartment?” Miles asks, and Phoenix falters.
Has he stepped too far? Sure, only a few seconds ago he’d had Miles help up against a wall, demanding his tongue down his throat, but hey, it was still Edgeworth. Though Phoenix might not know exactly where he drew his boundaries, at least he knew that the last thing he wanted to do was cross them.
“-Or do I have to drag you there myself?” And the smile on Miles’ face sets Phoenix’s heart fluttering all over again.
Phoenix slips his hand around Miles’ waist as they make their way to the stairs, his head once again resting in the hollow of Edgeworth’s neck. Although, admittedly, with far less teeth than before.
“Y’know,” Phoenix mutters, just because he likes the way Edgeworth’s skin prickles when it meets his breath, “I had actually planned to go evidence gathering this evening.”
“Oh well.” Edgeworth’s smug cheeriness is almost enough to break what passes for Phoenix’s patience, almost enough to get him slammed back up against the wall. “I guess you’ll have to settle for losing.”
“I suppose that means you’ll have to settle for getting sued for a mistrial, then,” Phoenix snaps back immediately.
“Why of course,” replies Edgeworth as the two reach the bottom of the stairs and the door to the underground carpark. “Assuming you can manage that paperwork.”
“I don’t see why that would be a problem, considering I actually do my own legwork instead of shoving it on my employees, thanks to – y’know – running a full law firm singlehandedly for the past few-”
“Yes, how is your law firm?” asks Edgeworth, and the interruption stings more than any of his insults. “I do hope it is doing well – last I heard you had your lights shut off last month because you refuse to actually charge any of your clients.”
“Oh no!” Phoenix cries, and slumps against Edgeworth’s car, that ridiculously expensive European monstrosity that looks like it was made to be soliloquised upon, with its stupid wood-and-leather interior and that bright red paint job that just screams “I take it up the ass”. “You got me. My biggest flaw. I’m simply too charitable, oh no, however shall I manage such an insult?” Like the thespian he was born to be, he flings an arm across his forehead and lets out a sigh that was perhaps too reminiscent of their earlier activities, judging from how Miles jolts towards him.
“Wright,” and Miles is back in his space again, frustration burning in the air. “You’ve more faults than I can name.”
“Aw, you won’t even try?” Phoenix laughs, batting his eyes. And then, all too earnestly, “Won’t you please?”
Edgeworth somehow tastes even better than before, or perhaps its just the sting of how hard he bites down on Phoenix’s lip and grips his hips. It kinda feels like he’s trying to eat Phoenix’s tongue, but that feels so much better than it sounds, and suddenly the courthouse carpark is exciting and sexy instead of ugly and smelling of petrol because it’s Edgeworth he’s with and he’ll be damned if Edgeworth can’t make everything a dream.
“There’s that ridiculous grin again,” Miles mutters, grabbing Phoenix’s chin.
“I dare you to try and get rid of it,” Phoenix replies, feeling that self-same expression light up his face.
And now Miles is at his chest, his collarbone, and the top button of his shirt has come undone and his tie is loose – how long has it been loose? – but none of that matters because Miles is whispering again.
“I don’t accept dares, Wright.”
“Coward.”
And if Miles would give him a bite that hard every time he said something stupid, well, then Phoenix might never shut up. But, then again, it’s a little hard to find something coherent to say when one of the best prosecutors in the world is gnawing at his skin and grinding on his leg. Oh, who is he kidding? Miles is the absolute best prosecutor in any possible universe, the best lover, the best rival, the most gorgeous man genetics could ever assemble-
“What inanities have you got for me now?” Edgeworth asks, and while he may have been going for exasperated, it just comes out desperate. Phoenix’s knees nearly give out on that alone, but the slick paintjob of Miles’ worst financial decision catches him and holds him steady, quite unlike his rival’s trembling hands.
And Phoenix simply has to stare at him. That intoxicated gaze demands to be reciprocated, just as those messy bangs demand to be fiddled with and Edgeworth’s mouth demands to be kissed, urgently, constantly, adoringly.
“There is no way I am gonna be able to make it all the way to your apartment,” Phoenix says, his honesty shining through his laughter.
Miles stares back. Licks his lips as if that doesn’t drive Phoenix insane, and takes a quick glance at the car they’re slammed up against.
“I have… a rather spacious back seat.”
All of Phoenix’s cognitive functions shut down. There is absolutely no way Miles “please use a coaster for the lube” Edgeworth is suggesting that they have a quickie in the back of his car while still on court premises. That is absolutely not possible. Except that, according to the tightness at his temple and the rapid pace of his breathing and the continued pressure of a bulge against Phoenix’s hip, yeah, that is exactly what he’s saying.
“One of these days, you are gonna kill me,” gasps Phoenix. “And it’s the only way I wanna go.”
But Miles doesn’t raise an eyebrow or roll his eyes or perform any of his standard quip-responses. Instead his brow twitches, and his confidence immediately starts to fade.
“Is that- Are you-?”
“It’s a yes, Miles, of course it’s a yes.” His hands are back in Edgeworth’s hair, drawing their faces back together because, really, why even bother separating them when there’s fun like this to be had, and all the while Miles is fumbling for the door handle and it’s kind of hilarious to watch Edgeworth be anything but perfectly suave, but on the other hand it’s incomprehensibly arousing to know that he – Phoenix Wright! – was the one to get Miles so flustered, that he was the source of-
And then the door was open, and Phoenix was tumbling in. He landed hard on his back and Edgeworth’s head peeked in, worried and nervous and at just the right angle to be tugged in by the cravat.
“I cannot believe this is happening,” he mumbles into Phoenix’s neck after closing the door.
“You don’t have to believe it,” says Phoenix with a grin. “I know you tend not to believe most very-real things, like the fact that my client absolutely managed to escape from the locked bathroom.”
“Oh, for the love of-”
Phoenix silences him by dragging him down for another kiss, this time perhaps slightly kinder than all the others.
“But it’s okay,” Phoenix continues. “As usual, I am more than happy to convince you.”