Title: Blowing Off Stupidity
Rating: PG
Summary: Conversation can break the silence fine, but Phoenix and Miles prefer beating each other up.
Author's Note: Written for the gyakuten100 community on Livejournal (theme: "Exercise")
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Neither Phoenix nor Miles were sure of why they took their quiet walk in the park as an opportunity to beat each other up. It wasn't triggered by any particular event, not by any aggressive feelings, not out of amusement, either.
It was a baseless, unjustified punch given by Phoenix to Miles' jaw that started the fight. Miles quickly recovered from the shock of the impact to return the gesture with a powerful punch to Phoenix's stomach. Wind was knocked out of him and his recently eaten dinner nearly went along with it. Clutching his stomach and swallowing quickly, Phoenix attempted hitting Miles in the ribs, but Miles was quick to catch his fist first. Phoenix didn't bother putting up a struggle when kicking Miles in the shin would do. Miles grit his teeth, his fingers still tightly grasped around Phoenix's fist, still ready to land the next punch if he could figure out how—
"You can't get a bloody nose and a black eye from slipping on wet concrete, Nick!" Maya snapped at him the next morning.
"I wasn't thinking," he replied groggily, "I, er, ended up slipping twice. That's all."
"Nick, I don't need the magatama or evidence to prove that you're making this up. Come on, tell me what happened already!"
"Alright. I wasn't thinking. Neither of us were."
"'Us'? Who else did you get involved?"
"It's, uh, kind of complicated. He was alright with it."
"You beat each other up? Why? What were you thinking?"
"I just said we weren't thinking," Phoenix said with a weak grin, Maya returning it with a scowl, "I guess we just needed to do something about our blank mindset."
A few hours later, Detective Gumshoe arrived to Phoenix's office and gave him a second black eye.