- O -
The first thing Phoenix sees, when he sets foot in the office, is the ruffled fabric on the desk.
The second thing he sees is the note.
- O -
Phoenix does not remember the breaths between when he notices, when he first becomes aware of the swaying weight in a shadowy corner, and when he's there. He does not remember fumbling a pocketknife out of god-knows-where. All he remembers is perching recklessly on a stepladder, hacking at the rope with all his might, while doing his best to support the dead weight against his shoulder and take some of the constricting pressure off of—
He does not remember his screams, echoing down the empty hall, at half past two, for an audience of one: one solitary living soul, the night guard eleven stories below far too far to hear.
With a final slash, the rope snaps free. Phoenix gasps as the full, precious weight sags into his arms. He stumbles down the ladder and across the room and, with infinite tenderness, lays the precious body across the couch.
Silver moonlight illuminates Miles Edgeworth's pale form, unnaturally still and serene. His eyes are closed, lashes resting delicately against his lovely face, the ever-present furrows of his brow grown smooth in death—
"Miles," Phoenix calls, an urgent whisper, a hushed prayer. He knows even as he fumbles for a pulse, first at the wrist and then at the neck, that his search will come up empty; he can tell by the unnatural way the head lolls away from his touch, the cold that's settled into every limb. Yet it hits him with breathtaking finality: Miles is so beautiful, lying spread on the couch and seemingly at peace for the first time he can remember, his lovely features faintly glowing in the ghostly light, with only the vivid bruising around his neck bearing witness to his last moments of horrible violence—
Phoenix shudders and clasps the cold hands to his chest, rests his forehead against the corpse's cold one until it takes on the illusion of warmth. Trembling fingers caress the silver hair again and again without pause, too little, too late. He deliriously wonders whether the tears scalding his face might seep into Miles's body and stir him back to life.
- O -
He can't bring himself to leave Miles, beautiful and still, alone in the building. He imagines the police discovering him the next day, evaluating him with impersonal stares, zipping his body into an unmarked bag and transporting him like cargo. The body, they'll call him, or maybe the specimen. Phoenix thinks of Miles's velvet skin split open and peeled back with medical clamps, his gleaming body pinned between harsh fluorescent lights above him and a steel gurney below, and he thinks he might be violently sick. Miles deserves to be laid to rest on feather-down pillows and silken sheets. Miles has suffered enough. He will treat Miles with care, for once in his life—
He carries Miles down eleven flights of stairs, because Miles hates elevators.
He parks Miles's too-flashy car back at the Gatewater and carries him across the street curled in his arms. Miles's head rests against his shoulder, his hair soft against his cheek, almost as if asleep in his arms, safe and trusting. Wright and Co. Law Offices is deserted for the foreseeable future, Phoenix notes in relief, with Maya safely away at Kurain Village for training. He gently carries Miles into the back room, which he's converted into a living space, walking softly so as not to disturb him.
He lays him on the bed and carefully arranges the pillow behind his head, making sure to support his neck.
- O -
And even now, he almost walks away—almost turns his back on Miles, except he can't, can't tear his eyes away. He knows in his heart that if he walks out now, it will be for the last time. He will never have another chance to. . . to sit in the same room as the brilliant, determined man, indulge in the feverish madness that only Miles can make him feel. In the moonlit darkness, the body before him commands reverence and intimacy both. Something warm and protective unfurls in Phoenix's chest: If he doesn't now, then he will never.
Phoenix leans over Miles, so helpless and still in the bed, and presses his lips to his cold forehead.
The touch of Miles against his lips is an electric current in his veins. He pulls back, startled, his lips tingling despite the cold, and stares at Miles's face. Miles's mouth is slightly parted, open and vulnerable, as though waiting—waiting for a touch he'd never known in life, and before Phoenix can think better of it, he kisses those beautiful, unmoving lips, a chaste, soft kiss. Miles's lips are pillow-soft and too cold against Phoenix's, horribly cold and wrong. Something in him is shattering—He surges forward and cups Miles's lifeless face in his hands and kisses him desperately, coaxes his lips apart, tracing out the contours at the corners and the gentle curve in between. He laps over his mouth in a futile attempt to make him respond. He catches Miles's tongue between his lips, holds it there with his eyes squeezed tightly closed, drawing out the seconds until he's breathless.
With a heartbroken sigh, he releases Miles's tongue and winces when it falls limply back into place, pulled nervelessly into its slack-jawed expression, parted and wet with his spit and tears. And Phoenix—Phoenix is a sideways step from coming undone, from the stolen kiss that he'd move time and space to have returned.
He should undress him, he thinks—Miles would never be so undignified as to sleep in his clothes. He reaches for the shirt, undoes each button deliberately, taking care not to snag the fabric. He knows how particular Miles can be about his shirts. He stops to run a finger through Miles's hair, again to caress his face. The shirt falls open.
He unzips the stiffly-pressed pants. Slowly, carefully, he tugs them down, off Miles's hips and past his knees. He hangs them neatly, making sure to line up the creases the way Miles likes. Next, he eyes the shirt, pinned under Miles's back. Gently, he pulls Miles into his arms, his weight slumping against his shoulder, and eases the shirt off of him. Miles is supple and yielding in his arms, and Phoenix gasps at the feel of him. He tosses the shirt aside—he'll wash and iron it later. He holds Miles oh-so-tightly, one arm supporting his back and the other pressing his head to his shoulder, drunk on the indescribable scent of Miles, and rocks him in the dark room, offering too late the comfort that the man had so desperately needed.
With a shuddering breath, he carefully lowers Miles back down onto the pillows. He stares helplessly at the beautiful man lying in his bed. Miles's pearly skin shines faintly with an ethereal light, cross-crossed with narrow scars, yet somehow pristine, untouched by a lover's kiss. Cold. Tears gather Phoenix's eyes. He collapses into heartbroken sobs, and he knows then with cold certainty that he can never let Miles go.
- O -
He doesn't know how much time passes. He thinks bitterly that at last, some part of him will always be with Miles. . . the same way Miles will always be with him, from this day forward. With the utmost care, he cleans him with a warm washcloth, lifting his heavy limbs one by one to wipe in all the creases. He brushes his hair until it shines against the pillow. He covers him with a sheet up to his chest and folds his arms over top.
Phoenix steps back and regards Miles in the bed. The thin material drapes delicately over his sculpted form; Phoenix swallows. He musters every ounce of his strength to step away, to hold back from throwing himself onto the tragically broken figure in the bed and dying there. Instead, he kisses him good-bye: a trembling, devastated press of the lips. Last of all, he lays the jabot across the torn neck—Miles would feel exposed without it.
- O -
Due to overwhelming evidence, Miles's disappearance is ruled a suicide. That week, amidst a murder and two armed robberies, his case is relegated to the bottom of the priority queue. Two weeks later, the search ends.
The next morning, Phoenix hauls in a sack of lime powder. When he reopens his office six months later, a heavy oak door, padlocked and reinforced with iron, guards the back room.
Miles's body is never found.
