AN: some intentional OOC for Edgeworth and a pre warning that the next chapter might not come so speedily as its still WIP as we speak!

Ooooooooooooo

Breathing out through his nose he reminds himself that he is a grown man with a job that he loves and that, theoretically, should bring in enough to pay the bills and leave enough for a little fun on the side, as well as a happy, well balanced, teenaged daughter.

That he's bigger and better than the shear panic response that's come to strangle every last word right in his throat and make him look even more like a giant bumbling idiot in Edgeworth's eyes.

It really, really, doesn't help that he's only had this conversation once before in his life and that, that time, he'd been unwittingly talking to a crazed psychopath plotting already to use him as a patsy in her next grand scheme.

Add to that the complication that every time he does manage to form what feels an acceptable balance between placing some frame about the depth and breadth his feeling for the other man, while also insuring there's not even a shred of an implication that he expects any form of response from him, his head gets caught in the same little irrational thought circle.

I can't really call him by his last name for this right? I mean, for all that I'm sure I'm getting shot down faster than the wrong evidence in a trial, I don't want it to come off as a joke or a minor issue. 'Miles' is still that dorky kid who saved me at school that day right now so that'd be all sorts of wrong...Edgy is Larry's stupid nickname and I really don't want to be shunted into the same category as him...so it's going to have to be his last name, but...

"Wright, as much as watching you flapping your mouth like a goldfish without air is, somewhat depressingly, the highlight of my day so far, I do have a job I need to get back to."

Condescending and all together exactly what he needs to get him just the right side of angry so that just blurting out, "I love you, ok," is rationalised away with 'if nothing else it'll break that smug ass look off his face' no matter how childish and somewhat nasty about the edges such thinking is.

For a moment there is nothing, the sharp, beautiful, face settled the blank neutrality reserved only for when he's processing a particularly perplexing or foolish statement.

Then one hand raises up, a single finger extends and the long buried gesture of ultimate chastisement and smug derision makes an unwelcome reappearance.

"I'm sorry but I don't accept."

"What?! You can't get all passive aggressive about me even jokingly suggesting you aren't a normal person and then respond to a love confession like that."

"But that wasn't a confession, that was something you said to get a reaction because, apparently, you believe me some dimwit unable to see even the hand before his face despite ample evidence to the contrary."

Feeling distinctly as though somehow the conversation had gotten ahead of him, he massages gently at his temples in the desperate hope of suffocating the headache before it quite begins and remarks,

"In English, Edgeworth."

"I have been aware, for quite some time now, that you were attracted to me."

"How long is 'quite some time'?"

"Hm, I would say seven years for certain though I had my suspicions before that."

"Oh god." He can feel the blush on his face which can only mean he's heading towards being able to blend in with Edgeworth's courtroom attire right about now and, tossing every prayer he can possible think of out into the either for the ground to just open out and swallow him he states, "I'm so sorry, you should have said something sooner and I would have...well I don't know but I sure as heck would have done something, I mean you must have been feeling so uncomfortable and I kept forcing myself into your face and..."

"Phoenix, shut up."

If the utterance of his first name hadn't instantly fried all his major cognitive abilities, then the shear casual nature of the command would have, which of course Edgeworth had realised ahead of time if the smug ass grin there on his face now is anything to go by and yet, unsurprisingly, he can't seem to find it in himself to feel angry at the manipulation.

"Your interest in me has not been discomforting, in fact I have found the idea that something about me had interested the Phoenix Wright more than a little flattering."

Mostly broken still the strange, strange, turn his day had suddenly taken his head clicks itself onto auto pilot and shapes about a semi snarky,

"Huh, at what point did I become a the?"

"Oh the fan-club appeared somewhere mid hobo, there's nothing sexier than a man that can be fixed, apparently, though I, personally, am very, very, glad that you found this whole hot lawyer dad aesthetic even if it is terribly distracting."

Ok and he's pretty certain he can hear the spronk as his cerebral cortex just collapses in on itself with that one.

Still his mouth seems to have run off on its own accord and he internally winces at how star stuck fangirl he sounds as it enquires, "distracting?"

"Well yes, I mean that waistcoat does all sorts of favours for your figure and those new trousers..." a shiver and then, with the clearing of the throat, he is again very much his stiff shirted courtroom rival, "but that's all by the by."

It's the perfect verbal equivalent of a cold shower and, for all that he feels still as though he's stepped into the twilight zone, he's again a man completely in control as he responds,

"By the by?"

"Given that you flirt with everyone you've known for more than ten minutes straight, and that I have just witnessed you attempting to use your supposed infatuation with me as a weapon, you will forgive me for not being particularly motivated in pushing for 'more' between us."

It's not the first he'd been told that what he always thought of a being 'friendly' actually came across as 'flirty' and, long since tired of trying to plead his case in this matter, he simply smiles and, throwing all caution to the wind, enquires,

"How would you feel about me getting you motivated?"

A raise of those fine eyebrows then, with a smile that's one hundred percent challenge he responds,

"Bring it on."