De-anoning myself, yet again. This is a request from the Phoenix Wright kink meme on LJ: an Ike/Soren crossover foursome with Phoenix/Miles. Forgive the crackiness and sheer lack of context for the presence of Fire Emblem characters in Los Angeles, and the fact that I'm going through a huge Soren phase right now.

Also for the overly long exposition.

Actually the whole thing is overly long.

And the seme/seme—uke/uke thing just doesn't make sense.

WHATEVER.

~~ Lose Control ~~

We could hear the music even before getting through the front door; Edgeworth groaned, and glared at me. "I'm going to be deaf by the end of the night, aren't I?"

I shrugged, a bit sheepishly. "Maybe. Don't worry, after you have a few drinks you won't even notice. Kidding! Kidding!" I added hastily, as his hand tightened on mine, the other clenching in the air as if around my neck. He moodily turned his eyes to the inside of the club, and I breathed a bit easier.

This was definitely going to be our most difficult date so far. I still wasn't sure how I'd extracted the promise from him, but after much resistance, Edgeworth had finally agreed to visit a gay bar with me. And thus far, he'd even allowed me to treat him as a normal gay male would treat his boyfriend.

What I hadn't mentioned was that tonight was the drag show. I also hadn't bothered to explain much about the club, the clientele, or the general atmosphere of a gay bar... mostly because it would have been just too hard to explain such things to Edgeworth.

From inside the front booth, a girl with inch-long purple hair took my five dollars: Edgeworth winced as he handed his bill over, and I knew it wasn't at the sight of the hair or her pierced lip, but at her outfit, crafted entirely out of black leather. Obviously it offended his overly sensitive sense of fashion.

I slipped an arm around his waist as we passed over the threshold. "I know you don't like wearing those clothes, but you look hot."

He looked down at his own outfit in distaste, looking almost as uncomfortable as I'd been in his tuxedo last weekend, when we'd gone to the opera. It seemed sensible for us to exchange clothing for this date, too, seeing as how he owned as little casual clothing as I owned formal wear.

The effect, however, was somewhat different than I'd expected. The jeans I'd lent him looked great, despite the fact that his longer legs kept them from breaking properly at the ankle. And his normal dress shoes went right with what the other guys were wearing: curved brown leather with laces, they were just dressy enough to be stylish.

No, it was the shirt he hated most. Edgeworth was substantially broader across the shoulders than me, and hadn't fit into any of my button-ups. Despite being relatively stretchy, the cotton t-shirt he was wearing now was still tight enough to show his muscles underneath the Steel Samurai logo. Not to mention that it had somehow been shorter in the waist than I remembered, and every few minutes he tried to yank it down over his belt buckle.

"I feel like an idiot," he muttered to me—or rather, said in my ear, seeing as how the music was too loud to allow muttering. "You can see everything."

I tried to keep from snorting with laughter: it was true, you could see his nipples standing tightly against the fabric. "Trust me," I said, gesturing around. More than one other male in the bar was already eyeing him, and I tightened my grip, grinning at them. "You don't look like an idiot, Miles."

Edgeworth made a derogatory sort of hmph, but his body language relaxed a bit as we delved deeper into the club, arms around each other. On our right was the bar itself, the bottles lit with rainbow-colored neon lights and the counter two deep in customers. Bartenders ran back and forth, somehow managing to look unhurried as they not only poured and mixed, but flipped and banged bottles.

"So, uh..." Edgeworth asked, sounding uncomfortable, "what exactly do we do here?"

I cleared my throat, gesturing around like a tour guide. He glared at me, but I ignored it. "Well, we could sit at a table here, and get some munchies and drinks. I myself prefer going into the back room: the two bars back there are less crowded. Then we can dance, or lean on the rail and check out other guys who are dancing..." Hesitating briefly, I added, "Then at eleven there's a show."

We had walked almost all the way through the bar area, and were ready to enter the back room. Abruptly, Edgeworth stopped, halting me in my forward momentum. His eyes were blazing daggers at me. "You said... a show?"

I nodded, and the gaze narrowed into shards of glass. "Wright... did you bring me here for a drag show?"

I gulped. "Um... well, we don't have to stay for it..."

Another couple brushed past us, entering the dimly lit back room. Edgeworth's eyes were inscrutable: I couldn't tell if he was about to throttle me.

To my surprise, he heaved a sigh and continued walking into the back room. "So, you've been here before?" he asked, without a hint of emotion.

"Y-yeah, once or twice," I answered warily. He paused as we entered the dance room: I couldn't blame him. The place was a sensory overload. Even before the show, the music was blasting, lights were dancing back and forth, and a sizeable crowd was gathering in anticipation of the show. "So... are you okay with seeing the drag show?"

He didn't say a word for a minute: I took his arm, pushing through a group at the bottom of the stairs and arrowing for the first bar. Finally, he said, stiffly, "I've... I've never really had any experience with something like that, Wright. Nor have I had much experience dancing."

"Wow, I'm so surprised," I muttered, too low for him to hear. When he eyed me, I hastily said, more audibly, "Look, let's just get some drinks and stand at the rail. Once you get a feel for the place, we can figure out if we'll stay."

Edgeworth exhaled slowly, eyebrows furrowed: he clearly didn't expect to get used to this madness anytime soon. "Do you want a drink?" I asked. "I'm buying." I had forced him to resort to a more plebian means of transportation (the metropolitan bus system), on the express knowledge that we would both end up drinking. Or at least I assumed I would have to get him drunk to do anything.

He waved a hand, nodding and distractedly staring at a female couple down in the pit around the circular stage, who seemed to be doing their best to lick one another's tonsils. I spotted an empty space at the bar, next to a musclebound, bare-armed young man, and dove in, dragging Edgeworth with me.

A bartender appeared, bearing a pair of beers, and handed them to the young man. As he gave her a bill, squeezed out of the crush, and staggered off, she turned to me. "One of whatever lager you have on draft, and then whatever he's having!" I shouted over the music, pointing a thumb at Edgeworth.

He eyed the bar for a minute; then to her he said, "Tanqueray and tonic."

As she nodded and vanished, I asked, "What's that?"

"Gin," Edgeworth said shortly. "I'm relieved that even in this place there's something half-decent to drink."

I shrugged: to someone who knew less about Edgeworth, the comment might have seemed harsh. But compared to the few bars to which he'd taken me, this place was a bit sketchy. And I knew better than most just how picky he was.

As the bartender returned with our drinks, I handed her a credit card and told her to keep a tab open for me. It seemed unlikely that Edgeworth would be drinking the same cheap beer as me all night: I'd rather not know how much of a bill he was running up until later. He made a face when I handed him the drink—probably disgusted at its being served in a plastic cup—but took a sip nonetheless, and followed me to the rail surrounding the pit and stage.

We didn't speak to one another for a bit; I loved this place, especially the amazing people-watching you could get in on drag show nights. The two lesbians were still going strong, lipstick smeared between their faces: I only hoped they'd stop before the show started. In a show last summer, I'd seen one of the queens actually stop in the middle of her number, stare at a couple vigorously making out, and hit one of them over the head with her microphone. Bitches, she'd said angrily, you wanna do that up here on stage, or are you gonna pay attention to my show?

Another couple leaning against the rails nearby caught my eye. One of them was the same young man I'd squeezed in next to at the bar. I couldn't quite tell in the pulsing light, but it looked like he'd actually taken a perfectly good flannel shirt and ripped the sleeves right off. I had to admit it was an attractive, if somewhat stereotypical outfit, especially paired with jeans and a large metal belt buckle. His muscles flexed unconsciously as he handed a beer to the person next to him, and leaned down to kiss them.

I saw Edgeworth was staring in the same direction as me; he lifted his own drink and took a healthy swallow, looking pained at the sight of that abused shirt. I found myself wondering if the muscled young man's slim companion was a teenage boy or merely a petite female; his or her back was to us, nothing visible but a sleeved t-shirt and a long, dark ponytail. I decided he had to be male: muscles was too overly macho to have brought a girlfriend to a place like this.

Turning to Edgeworth, I winced. His posture, still as perfectly proper as it had ever been in the courtroom, made him stand out like a Marine. Actually, a Marine would probably blend in more easily.

I set my beer on the rail counter. "Want to dance?" I asked.

He shrugged uncomfortably, standing ever more still than before, if that was possible. After a minute, he set down his drink next to mine, but said, "I... I don't really know..."

I grinned, and was promptly glared at. He didn't know anything but patterned ballroom dancing, learned long ago with Franziska as a partner, and I knew it.

I put a hand on his shoulder to turn him away from me; moving close, I spooned up close to him and began swaying back and forth to the music, holding his hips so that they moved with mine. "Don't think, just go with it," I said in his ear.

After an impossibly long and uncomfortable series of mismatched movements, his hips finally began synching with mine. I put my arm around his waist, making the movements sharper and deeper, forcing him to dip his knees. "This..." he said faintly, "... feels a little obscene."

"It's supposed to," I yelled, laughing. "Just wait and see how some of these other guys dance."

Abruptly he broke away from me, turning around. I was startled to see that his cheeks were flaming red, visibly suffused even in the club's colorful half light. He didn't have to say anything; it was obvious that he was embarrassed.

My heart sank; maybe it had been a bad idea to bring him here. But before I could say anything, he moved forward and put his arm back around my waist. "Sorry," he said in a low voice, his bangs tickling my cheek. "Maybe... maybe after a couple more drinks, we can try again."

"All right," I agreed, secretly rejoicing. This really had been the most ludicrous thing I'd ever done, after all, and if it ended even half-well I'd be excited. Who could possibly imagine Miles Edgeworth, the former Demon Prosecutor, dignified tea-sipping scourge of the courtroom, dressed in mufti and dancing to pounding hip-hop music at a flashy gar bar in the West End?

As we went back to drinking and crowd-watching once more, my eyes were drawn back to the strange, mismatched couple. The shorter of the two had at last turned around; I was still unsure because of his extreme androgyny, but it seemed more certain that he was, in fact, a teenage boy. There was something that made me think he was older than he looked, despite the long hair and small, almost pixie-like face.

Startled, I realized why it seemed so: his cool gaze, fixed intensely on nothing in particular, reminded me of Edgeworth. I looked over at my own companion; it was eerie, now that I'd noticed the similarity, how their stiff, forced posture was almost identical as they leaned against the rail, pulsating lights dancing on their pale features.

Suddenly it became apparent that Edgeworth was looking at me, and with a strange expression. One eyebrow rose querulously. Feeling a little awkward, I nodded towards the other couple: the flannel-shirted young man had bent down for an affectionate kiss.

Edgeworth watched with me as one of the young man's muscle-bound arms snaked protectively around the boy's slim waist, the shorter leaning back against the taller. I felt a little bit jealous: Edgeworth would probably turn and walk out of the club if I tried to kiss him in front of all these strangers: in fact, I was surprised that he didn't turn away from such a public display of affection.

Then I noticed his drink was gone: that might have had something to do with it. I nudged him. "Want another drink?"

He shrugged, still watching moodily. After a moment, I stepped away, going back to the bar; my beer glass was still half-full, and as the same bartender gave me the instant's opening to yell a drink, I simply pointed to the bottle of gin she'd poured from last time.

It took longer for her to return this time: the bar was really starting to crowd up, obviously in anticipation of the show, and I was apologized to more than once as someone bumped into me, jostling for a place at the bar. By the time I got back to Edgeworth's side, drink in hand, the crowd had shifted about so much that I had to squeeze through a second layer of people even to get next to him.

It did seem a little unfair, I thought guiltily, that we were both pretty tall, and yet we were standing on the front rail. I looked behind us; three or four college-age girls were making moues of disappointment as they stood on tiptoes, trying to see the stage. Inwardly, I sighed; Edgeworth probably didn't want to watch the show anyway.

The group of girls looked up in surprise as I yelled, "You guys want to stand at the rail?" Grins split their faces, and two of them nodded frantically, ponytails bobbing. Edgeworth turned, surprised, as I took his arm; as he saw what I was up to, a surprisingly relaxed smile lit his face. He stepped around, beckoning them forward.

"That was very kind," he shouted to me, as the girls thanked us profusely and giggled, leaning over the rail. I shrugged, and he added, "Phoenix... I'm sorry to be a wet blanket. It's just—"

Either he didn't get to finish, or I never heard the end of what he said. Someone crashed against me, practically knocking me off my feet—one of the floor-to-ceiling poles caught me in the lower back—and beer splashed up into my face, the rest of what was left in the glass sousing the front of my shirt.

"What the hell, man?" said the angry voice of the person who'd crushed me, and abruptly vanished.

I shook my head, trying to clear the beer from my eyes, and wheezed uncontrollably with laughter. The person who'd completely destroyed my drink had been the young man we were watching. As the girls offered ineffectual and somewhat overacted hands, and Edgeworth put an arm around me, I managed to stand up straight, and watched the teenage boy trying to keep his rather large friend from punching another very drunken patron.

"Ike, no!" I heard him yelling in annoyance.

"Are you all right?" Edgeworth asked. He looked horrified and pissed off: it didn't surprise me. Even wearing my clothing, he would probably be the one doing the punching if there was beer all over his chest.

I nodded, feeling the beer drip from my chin. "I'm fine. Not the first time it's happened." The problem was really that I hadn't brought an extra shirt, I thought in amusement.

"What a goddamn douche!" came an angry voice. "Yeah, you'd better run!" A general explosion of laughter from the group of girls followed this threat, and there was a light smattering of applause from the gathered crowd. Edgeworth continued to look both offended and protective, glaring at the person fleeing out into the main bar.

I suddenly realized that the young man called Ike was stomping over toward me. Upon approach, he said woefully, "Sorry about falling on you." His eyebrows were still humorously contracted in rage, but blue eyes danced with chagrin. "It's just, that guy knocked into me... Aw, your beer and everything—hold on."

He abruptly thrust his own beer into my hand, and made a mad dash for the bar, leaving us with his companion. After a minute, the boy looked toward us and asked, almost like an afterthought, "Are you all right?"

I nodded, grinning like an idiot. He was even more androgynously beautiful close up, with large, darkly inscrutable eyes and small, clear features: I had to keep myself from staring. "Yeah. Totally fine, this has happened before. Did he...?" I gestured after Ike, who was determinedly holding a place at the bar.

The boy shrugged. "Yes, he's conscientious about fixing things after accidents." He looked painfully aware of having to speak with anyone else. Again I got that strange feeling that he was akin to Edgeworth: as uncomfortable as he felt, it was obvious that he would think it rude to try and join his friend at the overcrowded bar.

I couldn't think of anything else to do, and thrust out my hand. "I'm Phoenix—and this is Miles."

After a moment, he slipped his small hand into mine, shaking it as if he were afraid I might suddenly grow fangs and attack. "Soren. And in case you didn't hear me shouting his name, he's Ike."

I laughed obligingly, undoubtedly too loud even with the music pounding around us. God, why was I acting so weird?

Fortunately, my companion actually had social skills, albeit strangely misplaced. "Do you come here often?" Edgeworth asked, his voice unbelievably calm. I looked at him, wondering if his sudden recovery of demeanor was in part because of this boy's coolness.

"No," said the boy, disinterestedly. He looked around at the stage, and I sensed rather than saw him make a moue of distaste. "But Ike thought it might be a good time."

I couldn't help but stare at him. And I, the underlying implication said, will follow Ike absolutely anywhere. Something in the back of my head was crashing and thumping hotly; too frightened to try and figure out what it was, I lifted my replacement beer and took a healthy swallow.

The subsequent awkward silence—if you could call such loud music "silence"—lasted only a few moments. The bartender must have seen the incident and been prepared, and Ike was suddenly at our side, swigging from a fresh cup of beer. "Well, that was an adventure," he shouted cheerfully. "I'm Ike, by the way."

"Yes, we've been introduced," I said, feeling a gush of relief. His grin was irresistible. "I'm Phoenix, and the one with the dry shirt is Miles."

Expecting Edgeworth to glare at me for drawing attention to his overly revealing shirt, I was astonished to see him unreservedly smile. "Nice to meet you," Ike said.

"Likewise," said my companion. I stared at him; as he reached forward to shake Ike's proffered hand, the expression on his face was so open and unaffected that I momentarily felt a stab of jealousy. It wasn't often that Edgeworth looked so plainly pleased to meet someone.