July 18
The call wakes him up in the middle of the night. Miles knows before he picks up that it is one of his American friends. Only rarely do any of them ever bother to take time differences into account. His money is on Gumshoe as he rolls over and reaches for the nightstand: less likely than Larry to not think about it, but more likely to call. It is neither. After he squints at the illuminated name, he has to gather himself for a couple more rings.
"Wright," Miles answers shortly, voice bleary with sleep.
The man on the other end mockingly echoes his tone. "Edgeworth."
"…Yes?"
Phoenix Wright clears his throat. "Sorry," he says. "I just wanted to make sure—you're in London for a while right now, aren't you?"
"I am in London, yes," says Miles. "Where it is four-forty-two in the morning, incidentally."
"Oh—"
Talking to Phoenix is far less entertaining when Miles doesn't get to watch his expressions.
"Really sorry for waking you—but real quick, now that you're awake: there's an International Youth Magician's Convention over there next month that Trucy's been invited to." There is some inaudible chatter on the other end of the line. "Sorry, symposium, she says. International Youth Magician's Symposium. I wanted to ask if you knew of a good place for us to stay?"
Miles can assume they're not working with much of a budget here. He can also assume that Phoenix knows he will assume so, and therefore is declining to mention it at all. But even if he had all the money in the world, all Miles can recommend is where the Prosecutor's Office had put him up. This isn't Germany, after all. "I don't know of a good place for myself to stay," he says. "I've been in this hotel for four months."
"No problem; it was a long shot. I'll look into things myself—"
"I'll upgrade to a suite," says Miles. "You'll get the information in the morning. Goodnight, Wright." He hangs up.
He doesn't go back to sleep, though. He starts his travel teakettle boiling and looks out the dark hotel window over the city.
August 16
Phoenix and Trucy Wright arrive at Heathrow in the afternoon. Miles takes a long lunch to pick them up. Though she's gotten a different costume since he last saw her, he can spot the international youth magician in the crowd immediately.
Apparently he's just as recognizable. She points and skips over to him outside the gate. Phoenix, looking like hell as (now unfortunately) usual, follows.
They shake hands, warmly but stiffly.
He and his daughter have brought a baffling amount of luggage, but most of it seems to be magic things. Trucy lugs a sequined steamer trunk twice her size off the carousel.
"Can I…take something for you?" asks Miles as Phoenix balances a large hatbox on top of his rolling suitcase.
Trucy rolls the trunk over to him. "Yeah, thanks so much, Mr. Edgeworth!"
"My pleasure," he replies politely, with a respectful nod. As if she is a grown adult that he's also never met before.
Though undoubtedly pleased to see them, he's been apprehensive while waiting for the Wrights to visit. In all the time Trucy and Phoenix have been a family Miles isn't sure he's ever had a meaningful interaction with her. They've shared pleasantries like these but little more. Occasionally she's told him strange things as children do, and he's responded in feigned interest as adults do, and they've gone on their merry ways. He simply has no idea how to bond with a twelve-year-old stage magic enthusiast.
(He's asked Kay Faraday about it once. She is, of course, his most trusted resource on spirited young girls. She thinks he'a being a wimp.)
They arrive at the hotel and take the elevator the long way up to his floor. He's been staying in this room for two weeks now. Though Miles had looked up the International Youth Magician's Symposium to confirm that it was a real thing (who knew?), he had realized at once that he hadn't bothered to get the actual dates of their trip. Rather than go back on his terseness he had just booked the suite for all of August. He's waiting to admit this when he's ready to handle it (or just directly asked): it seems like something that will make Phoenix give him that one tender look of his.
It's given him some time to settle in. His files are all over the table still. As the Wrights set down their things he tidies them into a stack. "Your key cards are on the dresser," he says. "If there's anything else you need—"
Apparently not. Trucy's leapt across the room to press her nose to the wall-sized window. "Wow," she gushes. "Daddy, come look; maybe we'll be able to see in here from the Eye!"
"I'm afraid you'll have to share the second room," Miles continues as Phoenix follows her over to the window. "Unless one of you would rather sleep on the sofa, it's convertible—"
"Oh, we'll be fine," says Phoenix. He ruffles his daughter's hair and she squirms, giggling. "What else are vacations for but painful family togetherness, eh, Truce?"
She dashes off to choose her bed. He and Miles linger in the living room. "Is it alright if I get back to work?" Miles asks him. "You two will be fine here in the meantime?"
"Of course." Phoenix brushes it off with a shake of his head. "Don't feel like you have to entertain us; I know you're here to work."
Miles is sorry to bring his work so close to Phoenix. He's spent years trying to avoid doing so.
"Go ahead. I think we're going to do some wandering around before her thing starts tomorrow." Phoenix chuckles. "I've got to talk her out of that ferris wheel."
"I'll keep your stomach in my thoughts," replies Miles, with a snort.
Phoenix takes a moment to really look around the room, and as he does, his joking smile fades into a genuine one. "Thank you so much for this, Edgeworth," he says. "Really."
"It's no trouble at all," Miles replies. "If you really must thank me, you can do so by removing that awful hat."
"Oh, this?" His hand drifts up to tilt the beanie he's wearing even more rakishly. "Father's Day present from Trucy."
Miles's mouth drops open in horror.
Phoenix grins and claps his shoulder. "Don't worry, she's not behind you," he says. "But she knows what you're like. I told her when she gave it to me—I'm going to wear it every single day, and Edgeworth is going to hate it."
"I see." Miles sighs. "I really do have to go, but how about this: you can thank me by refraining from additional defamation of my character in the future."
"It's not defamation if it's true," calls Phoenix after him, amused. "I went to law school too, you know."
August 17
Trucy's magic symposium will begin at ten each morning. "You really don't need to come with me, Daddy," she's trying to argue across the breakfast table. "I promise."
"Youth magicians, Trucy," Phoenix replies calmly as he butters a slice of toast. "You're a youth. In a foreign country. This isn't negotiable."
She continues to negotiate. "I'm just going to be in the convention center! You can drop me off and pick me up; I'll be fine in between!"
As they squabble, Miles peruses the brochure she'd been given. It's colorful and dreadfully splashy, with beaming teenagers levitating on the front page. He is trying his hardest not to look outwardly disapproving.
He won't pretend not to have a chip on his shoulder about dishonesty. This manifests in a multitude of ways, but among them is a certain disrespect for stage magic. There's no such thing, after all. Miles doesn't see the appeal in being willingly misled, even if it is couched in glamour and stage lights. This isn't an opinion he's ever bothered to hide before. Not until the last few years. He hadn't ever expected to gain a loved one who cares for these things so wholeheartedly.
After Trucy and Phoenix reach an agreement (he will attend but remain at a ten-foot distance, and tomorrow they will re-evaluate based on evidence) she leaves the table to to go shower. Miles gathers the nerve to speak. "Has Trucy been to see someone?" he asks. "A counselor?" It seems likely. It had done wonders for Pearl Fey, after all, and he knows Phoenix knows that.
"Yeah, she goes once a month these days." Phoenix pauses to blow on the tea he's just poured. "Why?"
"Do you know what they think about the magic?"
"As I respect her privacy, no I do not." Brows quirked, he shakes his head. "But I can only assume that there's nothing wrong with it." He fixes Miles with a knowing stare. (Most of his stares are knowing these days.) "Again, why?"
It takes him a second to get it out, "I can't help but wonder if it's…some kind of attempt to hold onto her past," says Miles. "Her life before everything changed." Hesitantly, he presses his lips together. "It worries me."
Phoenix laughs, sharp and facetious. "Wow, Edgeworth," he says, "I can't believe you never told me you're a qualified mental health practitioner."
Defensively, Miles bristles. "Perhaps I'm not. But I have been a traumatized child." The environment he'd been thrust into hadn't allowed for personal expression, but if he'd had half a chance he thinks he might have lived and breathed Signal Samurai or something with the same intensity. An anchor to his happier bygone self.
"Fair point." Phoenix places a heavy hand on his shoulder and looks into his eyes with deadpan gravity. "Miles… I can't help but wonder if your obsession with my daughter's psychology is…some kind of attempt to exert control over your own past. It worries me."
Miles swallows. He knows Phoenix is just being an ass, but his assessment doesn't sound entirely implausible.
"I'm sorry," he says quietly.
Phoenix hesitates.
"Did you ever see someone?" he asks.
"Yes, when I was young. About the nightmares." Miles takes a slow sip of his own tea. "My most bothersome symptom, I can only imagine." The last thing Manfred von Karma had wanted when taking in the child of his dead nemesis was for him to need comfort.
"Did it help?"
"In a fashion," he says. "I did get quieter."
Phoenix's hand moves gently over his shoulder.
He shakes his head. "She tried to explain that that sort of thing was common in trauma cases, that it didn't mean I was responsible. But as you well know, I couldn't make myself truly believe her."
There's an excruciatingly uncomfortable silence.
"You know how sorry I am," says Phoenix eventually. "But listen, go easy on Trucy. This magic stuff makes her happy, and it makes other people happy. I'm behind it." He lifts his hand from Miles's arm to give his cheek a pat. "I think you just don't like magic because of the time she scared you with Mr. Hat."
Miles sniffs. That's only a small part of it.
August 18
Last night he'd been reviewing his case notes on the couch while Trucy and Phoenix indulged in the cable TV. "Hey, Edgeworth," Phoenix had said during a commercial. "Lay it on me."
"You wouldn't be interested," Miles had said without looking up. It was a cut and dry breach of contract settlement out of court, hardly the sort of mystifying murder Wright & Co. had usually gone for.
Phoenix had gotten up to read over his shoulder anyway.
Their discussion had run through the commercials until Trucy had told them to stop talking over her movie. Miles spent the next section of the film constructing his question and deciding whether to ask it. Until now they'd done any consulting by email and phone. Would Phoenix even want to work with him, or would it hurt? If it did, would he say so?
Miles hadn't been able to keep his mouth shut. "Would you like to accompany me tomorrow?" he'd asked. "To the courthouse."
"What?" Phoenix had replied. "Yeah, of course."
They met eyes. There was a definite emotion on Phoenix's face, but Miles couldn't define it.
"I can't imagine you've brought any acceptable work clothes?" he asked instead
"Oh," said Phoenix, glancing down to dust lint off his knee. "Are they not cool with sweatpants in English court?"
Miles had barely been cool with them in their own hotel room. "We'll get you a suit tomorrow morning," he'd said, and swept his eyes up Phoenix's body. Reasonably-proportioned. "Off the rack should be fine for now."
Phoenix had laughed. "Well, it isn't like I've ever tried one off the magic suit tree."
"It's called tailoring," Miles replied, "and believe me, everyone could tell."
This morning after room service banana pancakes, the three of them walk down Oxford Street. One particular menswear display gives them pause. The center mannequin is dressed in a deep, saturated royal blue.
Miles and Phoenix lock eyes in the reflection in the window glass.
Phoenix grins.
"Daddy, your suits are so boring," says Trucy when he emerges from the dressing room. She's perched on the back of a decorative chaise, elbows on her knees. "Mr. Edgeworth's are better. At least he's got some flair."
"What, you don't like this?" Phoenix twirls on the heel of Miles's slightly-too-big-for-him spare shoes. "There's a vest and everything."
Trucy may be unimpressed, but Miles can't take his eyes off him. Hair combed, chin shaven, in well-made clothes that fit… He can't tell if he's experiencing some kind of sexual awakening fifteen years too late or if he's just missed the old Phoenix Wright so profoundly.
"I think you look good," he says, voice thin.
"See, Truce? Edgeworth thinks it suits me."
"Ugh, Daddy, stop."
His momentary return to the law means Trucy gets to win her supervision argument. He and Miles drop her off out front and fondly watch her cape flap behind her as she goes.
"Let me get dinner tonight," says Phoenix from the passenger seat when she's gone. "The room was ridiculous enough, but now the clothes… I'm starting to feel like a kept woman."
"Must you put it that way?"
He shrugs.
It's the opposite of Miles's intention to make Phoenix feel stifled, or emasculated, or kept. He is used to throwing around money for his loved ones. It's often been better-received than his words, and what's the use of money otherwise? "Well," says Miles as he pulls into his courthouse parking space, "here's your chance to earn your keep."
Phoenix drops his head back in laughter. Even Miles cracks a smile.
The settlement is a banal, unworthy case for Phoenix Wright to come back to the courthouse with. Miles half-expects him to uncover a huge conspiracy in the middle. Though the facts are less cut and dry than expected, he does nothing of the sort. He doesn't even get to shout about anything.
Even so, he's spellbinding. There's a glint in his eyes that Miles hasn't seen in far, far too long.
That evening, Trucy tells them all about the day's panels and workshops at a Chinese restaurant near the hotel. After dinner Miles agrees to a few games of rummy. She brings out a score sheet and adds a column for him in the margin—this seems to be what she and Phoenix did the entire plane ride.
"Do you play poker too?" Trucy asks. "Daddy keeps trying to teach me, but I don't like it."
"I can't say I've ever cared for it either," says Miles, vaguely surprised to agree with her opinion on anything.
"It's just luck—"
"It's just luck the same way a trial is just luck," Phoenix interrupts. Miles gets the sense they have this argument with some frequency. "Yes, you get the circumstances you get. But it's not about that. It's about what you do with them."
"Whatever," Trucy replies as she splits the deck. "I'd still rather make my own circumstances."
Miles realizes, quite suddenly, that he's never once considered a career where that's possible. He's a manipulator of given circumstances by trade. Perhaps that's why he has no interest in games that rely on it.
Perhaps it's what Phoenix sees in them now.
He doesn't seem to put much stock in Trucy's take, at least. "That makes me wonder if I should keep letting you shuffle."
Though he shuffles instead, Trucy wins all three hands before triumphantly retiring to bed. Miles and Phoenix are left alone at the table by the kitchenette. It's silent except for the hum of the refrigerator, dark except for one hanging lamp. Miles wonders if this is a time to order up a bottle of wine. The hotel, though, probably doesn't stock anything cheap enough for his companion's tastes—and frankly, he's enjoyed the sobriety of this latest Phoenix Wright experience.
He wonders if Phoenix is doing it for him.
"You've been looking at me," says Phoenix, who is too clever by far not to have noticed.
"I've missed you," says Miles.
"I've been right here," Phoenix replies.
Miles shakes his head. "You know you haven't."
They've spoken of this before and never really come to a resolution. He hasn't realized how closely it was still hanging over them until now.
"I don't know what you're expecting from me, once all this is over," says Phoenix. "Even if I do get my badge back, I'm not going back in time. What if I've just grown up?"
"Even if so." Miles looks up at him, into those handsome eyes. "I think I like you more when you're fighting for something."
Phoenix's hand moves over the table to rest gently on Miles's forearm.
When they kiss this time it's unlike before. Intentional, deliberate, hot and open-mouthed. Strange and heady and overwhelming. Miles is overwhelmed long before Phoenix Wright is in his lap, hips against hips. Before his hand is open, palm burning flat on the plane of his stomach.
"Can I?" whispers Phoenix against his lips.
Miles has often wondered how much of his intimacy aversion stems from simple insecurity. The fear of being seen. Sometimes he's been tempted to acclimatize himself, force himself in the hope of getting used to it. But it's difficult to take the risk when he can hardly even conceptualize the reward.
It feels like less of a risk tonight.
He covers Phoenix's hand with his own and moves it down, flush against him.
August 19
They lie together in the yellow glow of the hotel bedside lamp. Miles is feeling very heavy and very warm, and very, very naked. He'll think about this sometime soon, he knows he will. But right now, the less physical aspects of the situation are on his mind. In the morning, Phoenix will be the eccentric, sweatpanted faux-pianist he's been these last few years. And Miles worries he'll miss the lawyer Phoenix all the more.
"Is your investigation getting anywhere?" he asks. "Into Gavin?"
Phoenix props himself up on one elbow and looks down at him. "Miles, you're terrible at pillow talk."
"That shouldn't surprise you," says Miles. "Well?"
"Not getting anywhere, no," says Phoenix. "But I am getting really good at Für Elise."
It's a deft conversational dodge. Something he'd said once about Trucy reading people makes Miles wonder suddenly if he's been honing his avoidance strategies. Oh well; he'll allow it. The last thing he wants right now is to ruin things. "…Tell me you don't play that all night long."
"Mostly I don't play at all. I just sit there and pretend to be doing something. But sometimes I'll screw around." He shrugs. "Improv. It worked for the jazz greats."
Why anyone goes to this restaurant is so far beyond Miles that he's given up trying.
"I hate knowing you're there," he mutters, rolling over to face Phoenix and tucking one arm under his pillow. Sitting there and pretending to be doing something, when he had the talent and the drive to make a difference in the world. "It's just such a waste."
Phoenix laughs. "Funny. That's exactly what my grandma said when I declared my art major."
Miles has always been curious about this. Ever since reading the transcripts of Dahlia Hawthorne's second court appearance, years before they'd even met again face to face. Even now his college years aren't something Phoenix brings up much. "You were an illustrator then, weren't you?" he asks, not to waste the opportunity.
"Mostly, yeah."
"Do you still do it?"
"Sure I do. Just ask the sets for Trucy's fifth grade school play."
This, too, seems like a waste.
"You should start again," says Miles.
Phoenix shakes his head. "Honestly, for me it was just because I didn't have a real passion. I had something I was okay at and wouldn't have to do math about. I thought it would be the easiest thing to do."
"And then you chose law?"
"Well, if we're being specific, I chose you."
Miles draws in a thin breath. He truly is in love with this man, he realizes, with the sudden clarity of window drapes swept aside in a dark room. All else, all doubts, all peculiarities and inconsistencies aside…there is nothing else this feeling can be.
He revels in it in silence for a minute.
"Did you actually get my letters?" asks Phoenix quietly. "I've just realized I never asked."
Miles sighs helplessly. For years he's been dreading the day he'd have to admit this. "Just the one you sent to the Prosecutor's Building," he mutters. "It referred to…years of attempts to contact me, met with my silence. You didn't even seem to blame me for it, but I…still couldn't bring myself to reply."
"Don't worry about it," says Phoenix. "I probably should have stopped years before that; I knew it was weird."
"I'd forced myself not to miss you, by then," says Miles. "It was easier when the break was clean." If he had to give him that advice, at least Manfred von Karma had apparently gone to the trouble to clean it himself. He'd known Miles never would on his own. For all his faults the man had certainly been clever. "I think I believed I was keeping it so for your sake as well as my own."
"Huh," says Phoenix, inscrutably. He shakes his head.
"How many were there?" Miles asks after another moment. "Your letters?"
"A bunch at first. And then one a year, eventually." Phoenix laughs quietly. "After a point it got kind of like writing to an imaginary friend. Just telling the Miles in my head about my life."
This is heartbreaking to hear. Miles has had thoughts of the friendship they could have had before, imagined being twelve, sixteen, twenty with Phoenix and Larry at his side, and that familiar mourning rushes through him now. "I'd have liked to have heard it," he murmurs.
Phoenix leans down to kiss him one more time, slow and sweet.
"…I should probably get back to my real bed," he says when he pulls away. "I don't want to be gone when Trucy wakes up."
Miles, still soft and kiss-dazed, mumbles, "No, of course you don't."
With one last stretch, Phoenix stands. Miles rolls back over and stares up at the ceiling, so as not to watch him dress. All this, and he's still a nervous child about it all. Humiliating.
Phoenix chuckles. "You can look now."
Miles's eyes snap over to him in embarrassment.
His shirt is untucked, the tie and jacket and waistcoat are draped over one arm. He sits on the corner of the bed. "Miles, I…" His lips twitch as he hesitates. "I hope I didn't pressure you into something you didn't want."
"Of course not." Miles sits up to meet him and looks back into his eyes. "I don't know how you think you can pressure me into anything."
"Good point," says Phoenix. His eyes crinkle in a fond grin..
"Likewise, I hope I'm not…" It takes Miles a moment to think of the phrase. He's not familiar enough with these things to know. "…Leading you on."
Phoenix shakes his head. "I'd ask how you think you could," he says, "but I think it's been proven you can lead me anywhere."
Likewise.
Miles holds his breath for a second. "Regardless of what I want or what I don't," he says, "I do love you, Wright." Wrong. "Phoenix."
"Don't worry," Phoenix replies. His fingertips drift affectionately over Miles's bare arm as he stands again to leave. "I know."
August 20
"There's a trapdoor underneath."
"Believe me, there's not," says Phoenix. "She sprained her ankle practicing this in the living room."
During the show Miles had had a difficult time suppressing his commentary. He's sharing his theories now, as he and Phoenix wait in the lobby for Trucy to return from the showcase dressing room. (Trapdoors feature in many of them.) Among other, flashier things, she had contorted herself into a small handheld suitcase which an assistant then carried around the stage.
"Is it always so hazardous?" he asks.
"Oh, no. Usually much more." Phoenix chuckles at his alarm. "Only joking; her fire tricks are perfectly safe. Except for our carpet."
This intrigues Miles in spite of himself. One needs bravery and skill to attempt even trickery with fire. "How does she do them?"
"Come on, quit it." Phoenix elbows him. "I'm not at liberty to reveal a magician's secrets."
Typical. He grimaces.
"I was joking about Mr. Hat, before," says Phoenix. "I really think it's that you like knowing things too much."
Miles scoffs. "Are you trying to tell me that's a personality flaw?"
"Only when there's no idiot defense attorney on the other side willing to argue it out."
Sometimes Miles has wondered why he bothers forming any opinions at all without an idiot defense attorney to argue it out. It's always taken both of them to get anywhere.
The last night of the International Youth Magician's Symposium has ended in a participant showcase. Other kids have begun emerging in their stage makeup now. Miles nervously grips his bouquet. It's custom, he knows. Parents and friends are handing them to young performers all around them. But still he feels ridiculous. He looks away from the teeming lobby back up at the spangled event banner where Trucy Wright's name is emblazoned in the list.
"Do they know she's a Gramarye?" he asks in a quiet murmur.
"I don't think so," Phoenix replies in kind.
(His lips so close are bringing up thoughts of two nights ago.)
"She's not allowed to use any of their tricks, actually. There's copyright." Phoenix rubs the back of his neck. "We ran up against it when she was a kid and didn't know. Had to dust off my legal charisma to get it dropped." He sighs. "Given that everybody thinks they're a gang of nutjobs now, it's probably for the best."
Miles nods, lips pressed together.
"Of course, 'Wright' isn't much better. At least at home." Phoenix shakes his head. "I should have told her just to make up a stage name."
"Perhaps she's proud to be your daughter," says Miles.
Phoenix sighs. "Perhaps."
"So this is all her work?" asks Miles. Just to come up with a unique illusion must take more creativity than he's ever had himself, much less to figure out how to stage it. "I'm impressed."
"I didn't do anything," Phoenix replies, nudging him with his elbow again. "Tell her that."
Perhaps Kay had known what she was talking about.
Trucy finally leaps over to them. Her proud father meets her with a bear hug that lifts her feet off the floor. Miles stands there while she launches into the show's highlights, strangling her bouquet in his fist, but Phoenix places a warm hand on his back.
"Hey, Truce."
Miles holds out the flowers to her, stiffly, and she takes them with a brilliant grin.
"I couldn't believe it when you got into that suitcase," he says. "I hear it took a lot of practice."
"It did!" Before he can say anything, she loops a lightning-fast arm through his and Phoenix's to lead the way back out into the summer night between them. "Daddy was telling you about my ankle, huh? I wish he'd stop bringing that up. It ruins my mystique."
September 9
At two-eighteen in the morning his phone buzzes. Americans!
Miles is back in Germany now. Here he can stay in Franziska's vacant apartment instead of a hotel. Convenient, since he's just spent a month putting up three people out of pocket, but everything is also covered in a thin layer of dust. He hasn't bothered taking the sheets off most of the furniture. Just the table, where he'd eaten a late, cold dinner, and the bed, where he's currently being prevented from sleeping.
It's just a message. If it were anyone else's name there, Miles would leave it until the morning.
He opens it to find a photograph of a half-finished drawing. He recognizes Trucy's old easel in the Wrights' living room, an open palette of ink balanced on Phoenix's thigh. The reference photograph is pinned up to the side. Miles recognizes that too: he and Trucy side by side, looking over the railing on the Thames.
"Thought I'd start again," reads the message beneath it.
Miles taps the photograph and zooms in on his little ink form. He knows it's foolish to think it, but it feels like there's some affectionate quality in the brushstrokes.
"Don't stop this time," he types in reply.