God knows why Phoenix thought this would be fun. He'd been watching far too much Who Do You Think You Are? and had decided that getting a DNA test for the both of them would be "fun". Well, Miles reasoned, he supposed that going along with it was the least he could do for the man who was, frankly, his best friend. Apparently all you had to do was drool into a pot and the lab would tell you how closely related you were to the other guy.
Here goes, Miles thought as he locked the door to avoid anyone seeing his undignified dribbling.
ONE WEEK LATER
The lab results were back. As the two of them were such famous friends, they'd been invited onto the show affiliated with (kept afloat by) the company.
Miles spoke first.
"I hope this is good. From my experiences as a prosecutor, this sort of result usually takes half as long."
The techie looked nervous, unsurprisingly. His friendship with Phoenix and his cheery, burger-loving co-worker may have loosened Miles up a bit, but he was still an imposing figure.
"Well, you see, we... err... had to repeat it three times to make sure. You were both born on July 26th, right?"
"Yes..."
"In the same year?"
"Uh-huh..."
"It's just that, erm, you see..."
It was Phoenix who finally gave up. "For Christ's sake, get on with it!"
The techie sighed. "Your mitochondrial DNA indicates a 99% chance of a shared maternal line. The nucleic DNA also shows a similar chance of paternal similarity."
Phoenix knew exactly what those words meant, but it barely registered. "Sorry, what? Gumshoe-speak, please."
"More likely than not, you guys have the same parents."
Phoenix gasped. This was news to him. He'd been told he was put under witness protection as a toddler, but his mom had always said his dad had died. He remembered the events of DL-6. If this sibling thing was true, he probably would have been by the time Phoenix was old enough to understand. Killed by his best friend's foster father... He started tearing up.
Suddenly, so did Miles. He felt himself slipping into German, a language he had sworn to never speak again after his ghastly experience with the man he had once called Vater.
"Du bist...meinen Bruder."
The sheer informality of that simple statement made Phoenix break down completely. And, as the cheesy canned applause swelled, he pulled his long-lost brother into a hug.