Edgeworth braced himself for the next onslaught; willing his body to relax in order to make the pain less intense. His breath came in rasps and gasps, barely even filling his lungs enough to keep him conscious. Many would call what was happening abuse, but he knew it wasn't true. He also knew that the man responsible for it all, his intention was to show him how much he loved him. That was why he had taken Edgeworth to a nice dinner (as nice as he could afford, anyway). That was why he had then taken Edgeworth to a nice hotel, with the most amazing vibrating beds. As the quarter had been placed in the machine and it started to rumble gently, Edgeworth's nightmare had begun.
Edgeworth switched the lights off in the hopes that the inky atmosphere would stave off the fear, but it was futile.
Ever since that fateful day, any sort of vibration, any sort of shaking had always brought Edgeworth back to the time and place of his father's murder. Trapped in a small elevator; the air depleting rapidly as the baliff was panicking and screaming; his own screams; pulling out the gun in desperation; the flickering lights; and the sudden gunshot and his father's own scream. The lights came back on and he saw the blood, pooling around his father's body, the smell filling the small space. He was sure he would stink of his father's blood the rest of his life…and Von Karma's face would loom over it all, smiling maliciously as he walked away from a frozen, broken Edgeworth—a murderer.
That had been his life for over 20 years. And he had been willing to go to jail because he had thought it was all his fault. And then HE came…at the last minute, he had somehow had pulled out a magic trick out of thin air and had saved him. Had proven that the suffereing he had had every night had been a lie. He had ridden in like a shining knight and brought him back out into the light of truth. He had given him his life back. Had given him…everything.
That stupid, spiky-haired, goofy-one-minute-serious-the-next man-child was his savior.
So, when they had suddenly ended up walking alone together back to his apartment; slightly drunk, and he had confessed to Edgeworth the love he had been harboring for him since gradeschool…Edgeworth couldn't tell him he had never swung that way? That Edgeworth thought the affection he offered was nothing more than misplaced hero worship? Those might have been the words he needed to hear, but they were also the words that would destroy him. So, Edgeworth thought that the only thing he could do for the man who had saved his life was to give it to him. He wasn't sure he had much else to live for, anyway.
He knew that the hair by now was no longer spiky; they were both covered in sweat and going faster and faster. The vibrating bed was moving full blast Edgeworth had no choice but to take the punishment as he lay supine on the bed. Sometimes he was so delirious that he was no longer in the present. The nightmares would swirl around him, faster and faster. Sometimes he would be his father, watching in horror as he imagined his boyhood self pulling the trigger. Usually, at some point his lover would turn into Von Karma, and it was all Edgeworth could do not to scream and lose his sanity.
His lover leaned over to him, and licked over some of the bruises he had created.
"Tell me you love me."
Edgeworth knew that all he had to do was ride one last wave of pain; of pleasure; of psychological terror; and that it would be over for a few hours, before another quarter was inserted and the vibration would start again and crush another piece of his psyche.
They both moved together one more time, and Edgeworth was finally able to let the tears fall in silence, as he always did at the end.
"Well?"
"I love you…Larry."