So this is another fan-fiction that I started a couple years ago. I've decided to go through it and clean it up, and I've changed the plot a little since then. Thanks to xStormyx for going thru it as well and correcting my horrible grammar! Anyway, it's a bit AU and i've taken some liberties on the time line! Bet this is a pairing that is rarely thought about! Thoughts and comments are welcome and much needed and appreciated!

Poem and lines chanted by Kristoph belongs to Maya Angelou. I also do not own the characters mentioned in this fan-fiction. Just the bars of rage surrounding Kristoph.

[:::]

But a bird that stalks

Down his narrow cage

Can seldom see through

His bars of rage

His wings are clipped

His feet are tied

So he opens his throat to sing.

[::::]

Kristoph clenched his jaw and put on a face of indifference as he turned to scrutinize the gentleman that stood on the other side of the thick glass. In a past life, he'd loved this elegant man because of what he'd represented; a Von Karma — his family's greatest rivals — which meant acquiring something he could possibly never have. Or maybe it was for the sheer fact of loving, of being loved. The latter scared him. He never knew he was capable of loving someone. It was an enigma to Kristoph and it fascinated him. He felt alive whenever he was with this man; whether it was by holding a simple conversation, or the passionate romps they would enjoy in either family estates under the cover of the German countryside.

But Kristoph should have known love was too good to be true for someone like him; the affair ended on a harsh and violent note. A culmination of events leading up to (and sometime after), left the attorney a cold and vindictive person. His emotions got the better of him after the jurist trial and Kristoph was taken to solitary confinement, his rage never ceasing. He ranted and spewed nonsense and took his anger out on himself. The staff finally intervened and strapped him, kicking and screaming, on one of the metal beds made for confinement. Only when he heard Klavier's voice a day later, the screams and rants ended suddenly and eerily. He was then transferred to maximum security where he paced and talked to himself for five days.

On the sixth day, he was informed he had a visitor.

"Well," Kristoph's voice was low and haggard. "Never in a thousand years would I have imagined seeing you, of all people, here to visit me. Has your latest lover failed you again?" The blond adjusted his glasses, showing the souvenir that the other had left on him. "Have you come to stare at perfection?"

The other man cringed and drew in a deep breath. "I had to see for myself that you were actually incarcerated." His words came out slowly and thoughtfully as he touched the cold glass with his fingertips. "I find it slightly comforting to know that you are locked in this glass cage where you can't hurt anybody anymore."

The blond crossed his arms and tilted his head slightly. With a gentle, yet poisonous smile, Kristoph quietly — so quietly that the silver-haired man had to step closer to hear — chanted. "The caged bird sings with a fearful trill, of things unknown, but longed for still, and his tune is heard on the distant hill, for the caged bird sings of freedom."

"I believe you have lost your mind Kristoph," the other said as he placed his hand on the glass again.

"This ridiculous system can't keep me in here forever." Kristoph's voice returned to normal."Someone will see that there is no better defense attorney than I." The blond played with his hair and turned his haughty gaze toward his visitor. "Besides, is not the caged bird longed for still?"

The other man held his gaze.

"I believe you've hurt everyone who ever tried to help you. You are angry that your greatest rival turned your own apprentice against you. Now you are stuck in your own cage, stuck in your own head. Apollo and Phoenix did well."

"He was always one of your greatest weaknesses, wasn't he?" Kristoph gave an evil chuckle that set the others hair on end.

"Excuse me?"

"That Phoenix Wright." He practically spit out the name.

"What are you talking about?" The prosecutor furrowed his brow at the man behind the glass.

"You know perfectly well what I am talking about, Miles Edgeworth!" Kristoph narrowed his eyes and started pacing. "I should have known that you carried a torch for that foolish excuse of a defense attorney when I found that stupid box of letters from thatman!"

Miles opened his mouth to say something but Kristoph suddenly turned and approached the glass.

"I'm the one that burned that box so long ago, Miles," he hissed as he gestured toward himself. "Not Manfred Von Karma. I'm the one that destroyed your relationship with that stupid ex-attorney. I am the one you should have, and could have loved, if you'd only learned to let go of your past." Miles looked at Kristoph with nothing but contempt, which made the blond smile sinisterly as he straightened himself. "Von Karma should have tried a lot harder with you. You could have been a great prosecutor, Miles Edgeworth. You could have been the greatest prosecutor this city has known but you let yourself be ruined." The blond paused and looked Miles up and down with a heavily critical eye. "I see nothing has changed."

"Von Karma pursued perfection to the bitter end." The other tilted his head and threw Kristoph a steely gaze. "He pushed perfection on me until I learned the truth. It seems it's landed you in the same predicament."

"You really have become soft." Kristoph looked at the prosecutor over his glasses. "Did you run away to Germany with your tail between your legs because you were hoping to find me again? Did you run from the States because you were afraid? Afraid of the truth? Afraid of what you had become?" Kristoph suddenly raised his voice and slammed his hands against the glass wall between the two men. "Because you've lost yourself Miles Edgeworth! You've lost all of your edge and all of what made you the Demon Prosecutor: that was the man I ever loved. You lost against that filthy, wet-behind-the-ears, whiny defense lawyer, Phoenix Wright! He deserved to loose his badge all those years ago!"

Miles started when the blond slammed his hands against the glass and took a deep breath, knowing full well that this was not the full extent of Kristoph's rage. He was going to respond, but a movement to his right stopped him. He looked over and saw four large guards coming down the long gray hall to the room where he stood. Miles squinted and behind the guards was a blond man with a very stoic look on his face. If Miles didn't know better he would have thought he was Kristoph's twin.

"Wright and Apollo deserve each other! Apollo is just as weak. You all deserve each other! Even my pretty boy rock star brother can go to hell for all I care! You can all laugh at me..."

Kristoph had been pacing like a caged animal and he didn't notice when Klavier approached his cell. He crossed his arms and a dark look that mirrored Kristoph's crossed his handsome features. Miles regarded them both with a sidelong glance and gave the guards a nod that things were okay. They stepped away.

"So, this is what you really think of me? A pretty boy rock star? You've never had any real respect for me have you, Kristoph?"

"Oh, my brother, I have always held the utmost respect for you. I have to; you are family after all." Kristoph's expression softened and he gestured toward his brother. "Besides, you went to the same brilliant law school as I and Miles here, how could I not have respect for you?"

Klavier narrowed his eyes at his brother's sarcastic tone, then turned and nodded at Miles. "So you are Miles Edgeworth, ja? You were labelled the Demon Prosecutor at one point in your career, were you not, Herr Edgeworth?" Miles nodded back and cringed slightly at the bitter tone in the other prosecutor's voice. "Those were some very large shoes for me to fill."

"I can't say that I am proud of that label," the silver haired prosecutor started to say, before Kristoph interrupted him.

"Wright turned you soft didn't he, Miles? Stripped you of that title when he defended you?" The blond attorney threw a pointed gaze at Edgeworth. "Then he got all nostalgic on you, brought up all of those childhood memories of you and him. Scared you didn't it Miles? And you ran away to Germany, to me."

Klavier was watching the two, unsure of what he was hearing. Miles knew that Kristoph had an incredible memory but he wondered how the blonde knew all this private information about him. Granted they'd been in a very personal, very intimate relationship, but Miles generally kept bits of information like that to himself.

"The Miles I knew wouldn't be standing here now. The Miles I loved would be getting the paperwork ready to get me out of this cage!" He pounded his fist on the glass. "I should have poisoned you instead of Vera."

"Kristoph!" Klavier stopped him before he started on another tirade. "I didn't come here to yell at my brother, or trudge up old memories. I came here to get an explanation but I see that is not going to happen anytime soon. Maybe Wright, or even Miles here can offer some insight on this... sudden turn of events, ja?" Miles started to shake his head and noticed that Klavier had the same bright ocean blue eyes that would get him in trouble with Kristoph.

"HA!" Kristoph's mad chuckle startled both prosecutors. "You two are a pretty pair, trying to get to the bottom of my madness. You wasted your law career on some stupid rock and roll gig. Now look where that has gotten you!" Kristoph crossed his arms in an eerie calm. "Your prosecuting skills are lacking, boy."

"Lacking?" Klavier raised an eyebrow at his brother. "Those skills landed you, the coolest defense in the west here, did they not? It's going to be a long time before you earn my respect, as a defense attorney," Klavier winced slightly at his next words. "And as a brother."

Kristoph turned a stony expression to his brother. He adjusted his glasses, making sure both Miles and Klavier noticed the scar, before he went on, his voice a low growl. "Fools. Wright is a sniveling, pitiful excuse for a defense attorney! Apollo is going to be just as weak. If Phoenix Wright had any sort of cahones, he would have figured everything out a long time ago." A deviant smile crossed his lips. "He was easy to manipulate. And you were easy to convince to leave, Miles. I had my eye on all of you. If only that rat bastard had—"

"Guards!" Klavier interrupted him again as the guards entered the cell and violently grabbed Kristoph, struggling to get him chained to the chair.

His laugh echoed throughout the cell.

"I will find a way to ruin everyone's lives while I'm in here! I managed to poison poor little Vera didn't I?"

Miles regarded the chained man with contempt as both him and Klavier were escorted out by the guards.