This chapter contains some profanity and moderate sexual content.

Warm and soft were the first ideas to flicker into the young man's mind as he woke that morning. Slowly coming to, it occurred to him that warm and soft were really only qualities belonging to the state of being comfortable and that the reason he was so comfortable was that he was currently burrowed in his very comfortable bed, underneath a very comfortable comforter. Even his toes were warm, he thought with a certain satisfaction.

Light streamed in, in scattered lines pushing their way through cracks between the curtains. He opened his eyes, gradually taking in this new sensation. Saturday. It was Saturday, his mind registered. That was why he had the distinct pleasure of waking up in such an enjoyably easy way.

As his mind put itself in order, images from the previous night's dreams danced in his head, leaving flittering impressions just beyond his finger-tips. One image in particular drifted through his head and the sleepy man stretched with a certain satisfaction as he recalled it. He'd dreamed that his hands had been roaming over a certain delightfully handsome man while he kissed him. The dream-memory was so vivid he could recall the phantom touch of the other man's lips and the caress of his hands on his body.

Wait a minute.

The waking man's mind did a quick loop back, snapping immediately into full consciousness.

Miles Edgeworth shoved the comforter away from his face, frowning with displeasure. Those weren't memories of any dream. The entire night previous came back to him in a rush. He had, in fact, made out with Phoenix Wright.

Miles glared at his toes, his stomach clenching and unclenching as thoughts and confusions circled around his head. Hadn't he decided that was a bad idea? He had but, if he was going to be honest with himself, he'd never really acted on that decision. Flirting with, teasing, just talking to Phoenix was too easy and felt too good. Then they'd almost kissed just before Maya called. Miles had tried to distance himself then, to get his head back in order. But then Phoenix had gone and kissed him anyway and damned but Miles hadn't had any self-control.

Bravo, Edgeworth. He told himself. If there was an award for sending disastrously mixed signals, you'd surely when the gold.

Pulling his hands behind his head, he absently studied his bedroom ceiling and thought back to Phoenix's little speech at the end of the evening. It had been charming, despite its awkwardness. Sweet even. Miles smiled a little in spite of himself. And what was so awful about what about what he wanted, anyway?

The answer came like a cold slap. What was so awful was that the person he was asking was Miles.

Miles thought back over his relationship with Phoenix in the past year. It had been strange the way all the anger, frustration, and rivalry that had defined the man for him had somehow ended up melting in the face of a childhood connection- a connection Miles hadn't been eager to acknowledge in the first place. Before this year Phoenix had become a memory of a phantom to him. Then that phantom, that stupid boy of a man, he thought bitterly, had suddenly appeared and been able to out-smart him, out-wit him, and had handed him the first defeat of his career.

It hadn't been long after that, that Miles' world had crashed and kept crashing. The lake, the murder. The sudden discovery that he hadn't killed his father, after all. And then the equally oppressive and terrifying guilt of now knowing that he'd spent his life following the man that had. That, that man he'd admired so intensely had born him no real affection and saw in Miles' existence simply a way to strike yet again at the already dead.

Phoenix had saved him, he thought heavily. And he was determined to keep saving him, if Thursday's performance was any indication. And all Miles was capable of doing in response was to break, bit by bit, with each new pressure.

Miles brow knit itself violently in unpleasant contemplation. The truth was Phoenix really had no idea what he was asking. That stupid, naive idiot, Miles cursed him in his head. He was dumb and blind. Foolish and living in a dream.

His stomach knotted and Miles felt the distinct urge to cry. For the first time since he'd been a teenager he wanted to fall into someone, to embrace them, to be embraced, to feel light and seeped in affection, to loose himself in thoughtless and delightful ideas. To make it worse, this was the same person he'd spent so much of the darkest part of his childhood dreaming about, wanting to see again, wanting so badly to run towards, and now this very person was pulling up such feelings in him as a man.

Miles rolled over on to his side and glared at the closet that held the box with Phoenix's letters. A few small drops ran hot and unbidden across his face. He made no move to stop them or wipe them away.

The whole story up to the present might have been beautiful in some bizarre, cliche way if it weren't all so painful and impossible. Life was not, did not work like, and could not be anything like a cheap romance novel.

In that moment, there was no other truth in the world that struck Miles as so disastrously unfair.

A distinct and aimless anger at this fact welled up inside of him. Before he knew what he was doing, Miles turned on to his stomach and buried his face in his pillow. He inhaled sharply. Then he screamed into the fabric, the cotton muffling the sharp sound even to his own ears. He screamed and screamed in frustration stopping only when his breath so dampened the pillow beneath him that he could no longer breathe.

O O O

Temper tantrums, Miles decided, did not suit him. It was disturbing and rather repulsive that such moods were striking him of late. What he required, he told himself, was discipline and organization. By force he would bring order to himself and within that order he would recover his senses.

At 9:35 he climbed out of bed, washed his face and combed his hair. Then he dressed himself in sweats and put attached a small mp3 player and its holder to his arm.

At 9:45 he left his apartment and went for a run. He did not let himself think of anything but the beat of his own breath and the music distracting him in his ears.

At 10:30 he returned to his apartment and stretched his tired muscles, paying attention only to the routine of doing so. Feet, calves, thighs, upper thighs, and so on. Ignoring the ache of his limbs he did a few sets of sit-ups and push-ups, focusing on counting as he did so.

At 11:00 he climbed into the shower and washed the sweat from his body. Then he toweled off and dressed for the day.

At 11:15 he made himself a late breakfast and read the paper carefully, taking the time to cover the local news, international news, the op-ed pages, and finally the arts section.

At 12:05 he checked his e-mail. There was a short letter from Franziska trumpeting her latest victory. While he smiled vaguely at the account, it was the two paragraphs at the end which caught his attention.

"I am unsure of when I shall be able to see Papa. They are less than accommodating of the condemned in your country, particularly when the condemned disavows any desire to meet with the one requesting visitation. I assume that you will use your influences to correct this foolish situation.

I hope it is not too long before we see one another. I tire of suffering foolish fools and would like to see someone who is not an entire fool."

Coming from Franziska, it was practically a plea.

At 12:30 Miles sat down with a pen and a legal pad and attempted to solve the issues which currently distorted his life.

He made a list: He had not taken a case for two weeks. Franziska needed him and he was no where near her. His relationship with Phoenix had become needlessly complicated. Living in Los Angeles was becoming increasingly unpleasant.

He drew an arrow down from each issue and elaborated below.

He could not bring himself to take a case because he was tired of being pushed around by the system. He no longer trusted anyone above him, his faith in those below him was waning (with, of course, certain exceptions), and even his own instincts seemed to be threatening to fail him.

Franziska was still a child in many respects. While not tied to him by blood, she had considered him her brother since she was three years old. As long as she could remember really. If he had any soul to him at all, he ought to go to see her and behave like the brother she saw him as.

Phoenix. He'd already spent too much of his morning on Phoenix. That didn't need to be elaborated upon.

Los Angeles itself was becoming more and more of a problem. It was his childhood home, the location of his worst trauma, and the reminder of so much he'd tried to forget. When he'd been on top of the system and on top of the world, it had been more than tolerable, even engaging. Now the system was biting back and his pedestal had been shaken. There was little about the place to love.

Miles stared at the notes on the yellow paper, trying to decipher a code in between the lines which would give him an answer.

Underneath everything he wrote in sharp capital letters:

SABBATICAL

And then underneath that.

EUROPE

He frowned contemplatively as he looked at the words. It did seem like they spelled out a reasonable answer for everything. A change of surroundings would help him to get his head back together. The prosecutors' office and the Bar would forget about him for a time. It would put some distance between himself and Phoenix and give them both some time to cool off. And he would be able to be there for Franziska.

All perfectly logical and practical.

So why did it feel like running away?

Miles spent the rest of the afternoon making arrangements. He wrote letters to various bosses and the human resources department requesting a leave of absence be authorized. Then he sent an e-mail to Franziska, informing her of his plans to come to Germany. Then he fired off another set of e-mails to various parties demanding, with varying degrees of intimidation, that Franziska be permitted to see her father- no matter what the old bastard said.

He made travel arrangements, buying a one way ticket with a flexible departure and writing yet another letter, this one informing the co-op board that his property would most likely be vacant for some time and that while he did not wish to sell at this moment, he would contact them again, should such a thing be necessary. In all of this he paused only briefly in the early evening to throw together a sandwich before diving back into the details of his now impending departure.

By 8:00 everything was set- or, at the very least, in an electronic limbo in someone's e-mail box where it would be very soon.

As he stretched out in his favorite chair, Miles had to admit that his head felt a good deal clearer having a definitive plan that made good clear logical sense.

At the same time, it felt awful.

Even though his mind felt settled, his chest seemed hollow and removed from his body. He just needed to calm down, he told himself. The chill was nothing more than an understandable reaction to the stress of having made such a large decision. He rose and getting a short glass and a few ice cubes, poured himself a scotch, hoping the alcohol would calm his nerves and put that nagging feeling at bay.

He put a CD in and let the pragmatically cheerful notes of Dvorak's Slavonic Dances drive out the emptiness of his apartment, while the sounds washed over him, playing with his ears and loosely jostling his thoughts while he drank.

By the end of his drink, he'd had admitted to himself that "the Phoenix Question," as he now dubbed it, was what was putting him on so edge.

Still feeling unsettled, he poured another drink as the collection of Dances on that particular album relented to the laboriously slow first notes of The New World Symphony and continued to let his mind slide from one thought to another.

By the end of the second drink he'd begun to wonder if perhaps Phoenix might have had a point with his little spiel about giving "whatever it was" between them some sort of a shot. After all, from time to time, Phoenix was known to have a reasonable thought in his head and to not be totally ludicrous.

By the third drink Miles had talked himself back the other way and was sure the other man was delusional.

By the fourth drink he'd started to wonder if really they ought to just have a frank discussion between the two of them and talk about things reasonably.

By the fifth drink Miles was beginning to become angrier the more he thought about it. Who was Phoenix to demand such things form him? If anyone in the world should have had some understanding of his position, it was Phoenix. But there he had been. Asking anyway.

By the sixth Miles was simply furious. The rush of the symphony had long ended but he no longer cared. He poured yet another drink in anger.

By the seventh he knew he had to talk to Phoenix immediately. The man deserved a good slap back into reality and Miles was going to have to be the one to give it to him.

Miles stumbled across the apartment to find his phone. His eyes had suddenly become hazy and he had to squint to find Phoenix's name on the contacts list.

"Hello?"

"Phoenix, it's Miles."

"Hi."

"Are you home?"

"Yeah. What's going on?" The voice sounded hopeful but confused. Miles felt a moment of pity for him but then brushed it off.

"Good. I'm coming over." And then he hung up, without waiting for an answer.

O O O

Drunk as he was, Miles could not miss the confusion in Phoenix's eyes when at nearly half-past midnight the prosecutor showed up on his doorstep.

It occurred to him, that first of all, he ought to explain some things.

"Number one," he said holding up a single finger. "I think you should know that I'm very drunk. Number two," he held up a second finger. "I took a cab here, so no drunk driving lectures. And number three" he held up a third finger, his hand wavering, "I'm here because you are an incredible idiot." Miles took in the man in front of him. It wasn't entirely right to say something that harsh, he decided. "Although, I will admit, you are an incredibly good-looking idiot."

Phoenix didn't seem to be moving and his saucer-like blue eyes seemed just as confused as when Miles had started to explain.

Finally, Phoenix sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Come on in," the sober man said, "I'll make some coffee. I think we could both use some."

Phoenix moved aside, letting Miles into the apartment and closed the door behind him.

"You know," Phoenix joked as they walked towards the kitchen, "I'm not entirely sure if I should be glad you think I'm good-looking or upset that you think I'm an idiot." The joke was somewhat uncomfortable, however, and neither man responded.

Phoenix was wearing pajama pants and a t-shirt, Miles, realized belated. In the back of his alcohol soaked mind, it resonated that this meant something and more than likely added another layer of rudeness to what he was doing. Too late now, though, he reasoned.

"We need to talk," Miles said, leaning back against the kitchen counter. It was rather surprising how much better he felt with something solid behind him.

"Well," Phoenix said dryly as he spooned coffee grounds into the basket. "That's just about the most terrifying sentence in the English language. I think most people would rank it just below "I have a gun."

"I'm serious."

"Alright." The blue-eyed man seemed to take forever pouring water from the carafe into the machine before he turned to face Miles again. "What do we need to talk about?"

"You. And me. And us. And..." Miles mind spun. Just where were the words now that he wanted them? Eloquence had turned traitor, the words had fled. The bastard syllables were gone and he was mumbling.

He straightened himself. If that was the way it's going to be, then just out with it, he thought.

"We need to talk about what you said last night."

"Okay."

Phoenix seemed cold and far away. It wasn't a sensation Miles was finding he enjoyed. It made him feel mean. Well, damn Phoenix, Miles thought. He wasn't being mean, he was just being honest.

"Look, you can't honest expect me to come running at you with open arms after everything we've been through. You can't really think that it's that easy, that I'm that stupid, hell that I'm even okay." Phoenix was still looking at him with that silent face that hurt him so badly. Was Miles even getting through to him? "It'll just be a huge mess. It's already a huge mess. I mean, just because once upon a time we were childhood sweethearts doesn't mean that now..."

"Childhood sweethearts?" Phoenix repeated with half a smile, his words wedging into Miles' tirade, stopping him in his tracks.

Miles gave a short, sharp inhale, as if he were trying to pull the words back into his mouth. His face was hot with embarrassment. Dammit, what are you doing. Miles Edgeworth, you do not blush, he told himself.

"Can we sit down?" Miles asked, suddenly feeling quieter.

"Sure." Some of the coldness seemed to have melted off of Phoenix and Miles followed him into the living room and to the couch gladly.

The couch, Miles noticed, was actually rather worn. Not in unpleasant manner, mind you, but the dark brown upholstery had seen more than the few years it must have had in Phoenix's possession. Then again, it really wasn't that unusual for people their age, normally not long out of college, to have second hand furniture...

"Can I ask you a question?" Phoenix's voice snapped him out of his revery on the state of upholstery as relative to the owner's age and Miles glanced up. Phoenix sat facing him, one arm on the back of the couch.

"Alright." Agreeing seemed easier than not at this point.

"Do you like me?"

Those damn blue eyes were fixed on him. Miles pressed his lips together.

"I'm serious. Be honest with me. Would you really be in my apartment, at midnight, completely drunk, if you didn't like me?"

"I don't think that's the point." Miles found himself gripping the edge of the sofa and trying to think about living room furniture again.

"I think that's exactly the point."

Miles looked back at Phoenix. He was wearing that same face splitting grin that adorned his face when he'd just found an extremely clever argument in the courtroom. A grin really ought to be wiped off his face, Miles thought.

The longer he looked at it, the more he was determined to do just that.

Miles practically lunged at the other man, taking his face in his hands, and kissed him wildly. If Phoenix did little in response, presumably rather surprised, but has Miles persisted, he recovered returning the kiss and placing his hands on Miles' arms. All other thoughts were swept away from Miles mind as instinct coupled with intoxication and he could think of only one thing: raw desire.

He kissed down Phoenix's neck, maneuvering his weight so that as Phoenix relented and lay back, he was on top of the other man. He pushed up Phoenix's t-shirt with one hand, his fingers grazing a nipple as he did so, and he felt the man shiver lightly beneath him. Shifting his attention downwards to that now mostly exposed chest, he picked up his attack on Phoenix's skin making a lazy trail of damp kisses from the top of his chest down to his stomach and then lower. Phoenix's hands were delightfully buried in his hair as he tugged gently on the elastic Phoenix's pajama pants, kissing gently the hipbone that emerged. It all felt so good, his clouded senses were so delightfully engaged and as he kissed down the line following the hip, he was increasingly aware that Phoenix was appreciating the attention, as well. He began to pull the pajamas lower.

And then Phoenix was suddenly pushing him away, sitting up quickly and pulling his clothing back to where it had been minutes before.

Miles' mind managed to hit confusion and resentment together in a dissonant emotional chord.

"Phoenix," he said resettling himself seated on the couch. "I don't know what the hell you want from me." Miles stared at the floor for what seemed like an age while Phoenix remained silent. Finally, deciding he'd waited long enough for an answer, he stood up shakily. "I should go."

Phoenix grabbed the other man by the wrist before he had a chance to take a single step.

"Sit down." His voice ordered. Miles didn't move. "Please." The voice softened. Miles sat.

"I do want you," Phoenix began, slowly, his gaze resting on a downward nowhere. He paused, choosing his words carefully. "I just don't want you this way. Not drunk or sad. I want to make love to you, I don't want to fuck you." Even drunk, Miles was surprised to hear the words come out of Phoenix's mouth that way. "I mean, I do want to. I really want to. Just... not like this." He looked up at Miles, daring to make eye contact for the first time since they'd separated.

Miles was out of words and at this point in his day, rapidly running out of thoughts. He said nothing.

Phoenix sighed again and stood up, walking over to a window, where he stared out, his hands balled into fists and stuffed into the pockets of his pajama pants. He looked, to Miles in that moment, oddly fierce and incredibly attractive.

Still watching him but no longer able to abide with sitting up, Miles allowed himself to lay down on the couch, his head swimming as he did so.

"You really weren't kidding about liking me, were you." He blurted out, in a sentence that made a lot more sense in his head than it did on his lips.

Phoenix shook his head. "You've always been first in line for me." Miles noticed that he didn't turn to look at him and he watched the man's back and profile as he spoke. "I never really realized it, I mean, I guess I never really admitted what that meant until recently, no." Phoenix chuckled lightly, a sideways grin working it's way on to his lips. "I had the biggest crush on you when we were kids. And then I always had this crush on this idea of you. Even when I fell in love..." Phoenix looked up, the smile becoming more pained, "after it was gone, there was the thought of you. And then I met you again, the real you, not my idea of you," his shoulders sank and his gaze dropped a look of defeat crossed his face. "I found out I liked you even more. Probably adore you." He paused. "I'm scared to death by the idea of sex with a man but all I want is you. It's crazy." He glanced over his shoulder at the inebriated man on the couch. "I'm sorry I'm an idiot," he said simply.

A confessional silence hung over the apartment and Miles felt he ought to respond with something, anything.

"I still have all your letters," Miles said, finally.

Phoenix looked at him surprised. "Really? I... I guess, I just assumed you never got them. I never heard from you and you never mentioned..."

"I got them all. Or at least, I think I got them all. That is to say, I think all the ones I have are all the ones that are. You wrote until we were thirteen, right?"

Phoenix nodded dumbly.

"And again when we were twenty for a couple of years?"

Another nod.

"Then I got them all." Miles said rolling on to his back with a satisfied tone in his voice. "I kept them all. I have a box for them, too." Phoenix watched him as he spoke, the stunned gaze still on his face. "I used to read them and pretend that I could write back. I'd read them and pretend for a minute that I had something worth telling you, some kind of a normal life. 'Dear Phoenix, I met a nice boy, we're going to law school together. On the weekends we picnic on the beach.'" Miles let out something that sounded somewhere between a choke and a giggle. "Hilarious," he said.

It wasn't though and Phoenix wasn't laughing. Instead he walked back to the couch.

"Sit up."

Miles propped himself up on his elbows, slightly confused. Phoenix sat down on the emptied portion of the couch.

"Okay, you can lie down, now." he said more quietly. As Miles did so, he realized as he did that he was now laying on Phoenix's lap. He tried to look at the face above him, to meet those blue eyes but his eyelids were getting increasingly heavy. He could feel Phoenix's fingers brushing silvery locks hair off his forehead, then running his fingers through Miles' hair. It felt good. Better than good, in fact. Miles felt himself relax even more into the other man's lap, no longer even trying to open his eyes, just feeling. It felt warm. And safe.

"What am I going to do with you?" He heard Phoenix murmur. Miles tried to say something but even he could tell it was just a mumble on his lips.

Phoenix brushed a finger over the elegantly shaped lips and then moved in a line to trace the man's jaw. Miles swallowed lightly at the contact and made some undefinable noise in approval when Phoenix's hands went back to his hair.

He heard Phoenix's voice, sounding soft and far away.

"I wish I could heal you," he said. "I wish I could take away whatever you're going through and make it better."

And then Miles heard nothing, having finally slipped into oblivion.