Miles opened his eyes.
His heart was pounding, beating hard in his chest as though it was trying to escape from him and from the images lingering in his mind. His whole body was tense and his breath came to him in shallow, ragged gasps, pathetic and tinged with panic. He could still hear the shrill sound of his own scream echoing in his ears, but he knew that he had been silent, that it had only been a part of his dream.
At only nine years old, he was not yet accustomed to nightmares.
He blinked, and in the darkness behind his eyelids he could see the monster once more. It was a huge oily mass that had the face of his father, twisted and jeering, and it loomed over his father's twitching body which lay trembling in agony beneath it. Miles had screamed at it, reached out with quivering fingers, but shadowy ropes had held him back and dragged him down into a pool of blackness. He was certain that the monster would consume his father, take his place, and poison every person Miles had ever loved, one by one.
But the darkness surrounding Miles now was not the ink-black, oppressive abyss of his dream. Pale streetlight slanted through sturdy wooden planks, crickets chirped, and the distant roar a car speeding down the road slowly filtered in. He rolled onto his back, his chest still rising and falling rapidly. He glanced around, gaze skittering like a frightened animal. There were board games stacked in the corner, and a pile of robot action figures strewn by the ladder, and the nearby lumpy form of Phoenix tucked away in his sleeping bag, and he remembered he was in the treehouse.
There was no monster, and his father was sleeping safe and sound in their house the next street over.
He drew in a long, shaky breath, wondering what had provoked his nightmare and feeling vaguely ashamed about it. Why couldn't he have just slept peacefully, like a normal kid?
"M-Miles?"
Phoenix stirred, lifting onto his elbow and turning toward him. He stared blearily, eyes still half-closed and unfocused. He reached out his hand, patting against the wooden floor until he found Miles, and poked gently. "What's wrong?"
Miles had just started to calm down, and he hesitated. He licked his lips; they'd gone dry and stiff. "Nothing," he said, his voice hoarse. He couldn't let Phoenix know about the dream. What if he laughed at him?
"'S not true." Phoenix inched closer in his sleeping bag like a caterpillar. His eyes had opened more fully, the blue piercing in the dark. They searched his face, and Miles could feel himself turn red, burning with embarrassment.
He stared at the roof of the treehouse. "It was just a dream," he said, trying to sound aloof.
"A nightmare?"
He swallowed, and couldn't reply.
"'S okay, you know." Phoenix lay next to him, hands tucked behind his head and staring at the ceiling with him. "I get them sometimes."
"But I don't," he answered before he could stop himself.
Phoenix was silent, and Miles closed his eyes, certain that Phoenix was going to laugh. His whole body tensed up again, and he felt too hot in his own sleeping bag. He unzipped it, fingers fumbling, and wound up kicking the covers away. He couldn't tell what upset him more – the nightmare, or having his friend see him rattled afterward.
"Mom always sings to me when I wake up from a nightmare," Phoenix said, quiet and thoughtful. "Same song every time."
Miles made a low noise in response, wishing that he could go back to sleep and pretend this was just a dream, too. But soon he heard Phoenix begin to sing: a gentle melody, crooned softly into the darkness. The first notes evoked an instinctual embarrassment in him, burning in his cheeks; but as Phoenix's voice drifted over him, steady in the night air, the sense of awkwardness eased into a curious comfort. The tune was simple, and by the final refrain the panic that had constricted around Miles's heart had grown loose.
The last notes faded. Miles slid his gaze over to Phoenix, who looked at him nervously, eyebrows hitched up in question.
"Feel any better?"
How could a song make a nightmare go away? It was a silly idea. It made no sense.
But maybe that wasn't the point.
Miles nodded slowly, one corner of his mouth lifting into a soft smile. Phoenix returned it, his usual thousand-watt grin dampened with drowsiness.
A second later Phoenix rolled over, slinging his arm across Miles's chest. Normally Miles would have complained, but right then he found it soothing. Phoenix was close enough that Miles could hear the rhythm of his breath change as he slipped back to sleep.
Miles held on to Phoenix's arm and waited for the sunrise.
Edgeworth stirred in the warm bedsheets, uncertain of what pulled him out of his dreamless sleep. The darkness had barely lightened to a dull grey, and the gentle ticking of his clock counted down the last hours until morning. He rolled onto his back, mind already sinking back into unconsciousness – but as he resettled, he realized the familiar weight that should have been nestled against his side was missing. A frown crept across his face, mind inching toward alertness.
In the stillness he heard a shaky inhale. The sound was suddenly choked off, a hard sharp-edged stifle, in an obvious attempt to remain quiet.
He sensed movement, weight shifting on the bed. When he opened his eyes he found Phoenix sitting up. His elbows were perched on his raised knees, body tense and shoulders shaking with little tremors. His partner's face was turned away, staring at the wall. Though he could not see his expression, Phoenix's folded-in stance told him all he needed to know.
Edgeworth had not had a nightmare – had not had the nightmare – for years, but he still recognized the effects of one.
As Phoenix's breath quickened, short gasps coming faster and louder, Edgeworth kicked away the clinging covers and drew himself up. His hand hovered near Phoenix, hesitant; he remembered the shame he felt when he'd examined the contorted images of his own nightmares with the clarity of wakefulness. The embarrassment, when the cold logic of day mocked his terror.
But Phoenix was not like him. Gently, he laid his palm on Phoenix's shoulder; the muscles tensed beneath his fingers, and he could feel the last traces of sweat cooling on bare skin. The only acknowledgement he received was another sharp inhale.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, voice still low and hoarse with sleep.
Phoenix let out a shuddering sigh and didn't answer. At last his head turned, and Edgeworth could finally see his haunted expression. Those ocean-blue eyes, usually filled with unfathomable faith, were watery and rimmed in red.
"Just one of those dreams," Phoenix finally managed, voice tight, with a grimace that some might have mistaken for a sarcastic smile. "Everything went wrong. Maya was in jail, and Trucy, she… in the space center…" He trailed off, eyes turning distant and glassy. He swallowed, throat moving conspicuously in the dim light. "And you- you'd really…"
Edgeworth could guess how that sentence ended.
Wordlessly he maneuvered around Phoenix, his pajama-clad legs sliding along either side of his partner to rest against worn fleece sweatpants. He piled all their pillows behind him and slipped his arms beneath Phoenix's, wrapped them loosely below his navel, and gently coaxed him to lay back against his chest. It had taken years for him to become comfortable with such easy touch, with tactile comfort. He let his chin rest on Phoenix's shoulder, inhaling his partner's scent.
They breathed in silence – Edgeworth calm and steady, Phoenix taking in deep lungfuls of air, each one slowly losing their shakiness as he lay in Edgeworth's arms. Edgeworth could still feel the stress in his partner, the anxiety still too raw and close. Phoenix's eyes remained open, staring dully ahead.
A memory surfaced, one from a long time ago, almost like a dream itself. In the recesses of Edgeworth's mind he recalled the sound of Phoenix singing to him in the dark, so long ago. The words were lost to him but parts of the melody remained.
A lullaby, to banish the monsters.
His cheeks burned, the blush unseen behind his partner. He closed his eyes and drew in a long breath, arms tightening around Phoenix.
Soft and slow, barely audible in their room, he began humming the tune from his childhood, the one Phoenix had offered as comfort for a nightmare.
It was unsteady, the half-remembered song, and it sounded strange in his own voice, his deeper baritone a far cry from the high-pitched boyish tenor of their youth. His flush deepened, warm with embarrassment, as he fumbled his way through the chorus. His throat lay against Phoenix's skin and he wished he could remember the lyrics, wished that he could whisper-sing them and let his lips shape them against the delicate curve of his partner's ear.
For all the nightmares that Phoenix had saved him from, he deserved more than just a wordless melody.
The last refrain finished haltingly, Edgeworth unsure if there was more to the tune or not. As the last note faded he realized his own body had grown rigid as he fought off the feeling of awkwardness. He rolled his shoulders back and loosened his hold, signaling he that he was finished.
Phoenix shuffled around in his arms, turning to face him. Edgeworth glimpsed his expression – his eyes were less clouded, lips pulled back in a soft smile – and the last dregs of uncertainty about his impromptu performance floated away. Phoenix leaned down and buried his face in the crook of Edgeworth's neck.
Together, they waited for the dawn.