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It is Miles Edgeworth’s 36th birthday.
This has been a fact for four hours now, and his alarm will go off in three to remind him that it is time to start the first day that he is officially older than his father.
A groggy hand reaches out, and shuts it off. He had planned on going into the office today, despite it being a Saturday, but lamentation has gripped him too hard for both sleep and productivity. At least Phoenix, who is sleeping like a rock and has managed to turn himself into a pretzel sometime in the night, won’t be rudely awakened by the blaring of an alarm clock on a weekend. Miles swallows and shuts his eyes, and knows it will be a long day.
He has not felt this way in a very, very long time; helpless and scrabbling for a grip on himself, drowning in realities he cannot change. Not since Phoenix Wright stepped back into his life and shed the light of truth on fifteen years’ worth of grooming and lies. His thoughts are spiraling out of control, becoming erratic like a forest fire that starts with nothing but dry tinder on a blazing hot day. Miles Edgeworth is a logical, rational human being, who knows that thoughts such as “my father should have lived instead of me” are of no use to anyone. And yet…
And yet.
Miles knows in his heart, every time he closes his eyes and thinks of that elevator, thinks of what he did with his life after he escaped and his father did
not
, that the wrong person walked away that day. It is a deep, gripping guilt, and it rears its head when he mournfully acknowledges that his father deserved life
exorbitantly
more than he does.
And he is struck, now more than ever, by just how young his father was when he died. For so long Gregory was always his mind’s totem of older and wiser, but, now that he’s
here
… god, his father was so young. There is so much Miles still knows he has to do in life, so many things he must change and repair even just to make up for the damage that he himself caused, and even so many things he has dared to dream for. Gregory, however… he had so much good still left to do. Hope and belief and goodness that he would have given to innocent people within the 15 years after DL-6 that Miles wasted on hate and soul deep exhaustion and a lingering desire to drop dead.
It would still have been regarded as a tragedy, yes. ‘
Nine year old boy shot in elevator, father mourns bitterly. Manfred von Karma declared guilty.’
His father would have been devastated, but
he
also would never have been able to be swayed by Manfred in any regard. There was no chance he could have been used as a puppet to manipulate the law for evil. Gregory would have known immediately what it took Miles so many years (and essentially divine intervention) to figure out, had he been able to take a breath of oxygen and think clearly. His old mentor would have been locked up long ago, and wouldn’t have been able to hurt anyone else.
…
Father mourns bitterly.
Miles presses his face into his pillow and tries to swallow through the tightness of his throat. His memories have faded in the 27 years since he was a child, but the glimpses he has still mercifully remind him of Gregory’s love. Snapshots of being scooped up into strong arms and held tight to his father’s heart, novels read to him before bed in a gentle voice that lulled him to sleep, the feeling of bangs brushed from his face and kisses pressed to his forehead to give him good dreams.
It would have utterly destroyed him, had their roles been reversed. The part of Miles that is still nine years old and idolizing his father has never even considered the possibility that Gregory Edgeworth was anything less than unshakeable, but he was
only human. And he had too much love in his heart for his son (for
Miles
) to have taken that kind of a hit. And Miles is reminded, sharply, of the most loving and adoring father he knows currently, how frozen in place he feels when faced with the amount of love Phoenix Wright has for his daughter. Should anything ever happen to her, Miles can hardly bring himself to imagine the devastation. For Phoenix
and
himself.
As well as Trucy, another young lady enters his mind, another who gives him the privilege to feel like a father. Kay has certainly taken years off his life with the amount of times he has thought her to be in (more often than he would like, life threatening) danger. She is reckless, and stubborn, and too trusting… trusting, curious, determined, smart, steadfast,
kind.
Kinder than he has ever earned from her, and he doesn’t know when he started loving her as his own but he does and it is far too gracious a blessing to even know her, let alone have Kay embrace him as her family. And if he were to enter a room with her or Trucy and have to walk out alone, he’s certain he would just simply stop walking altogether.
Miles can’t wish that on Gregory. It is too great a pain, even if it means he’d be alive and his son would never have become someone that they would both resent.
There is a blissful fantasy he has, however. One he cannot ever indulge in, simply because everything that should have been hurts too much. But today, when faced with just how much he still wishes to do in this world and how much Gregory did not get to, all of the ways that day
should
have gone enter unbidden into his mind.
After losing consciousness in the elevator, he would have awoken in the hospital—not alone, with a nurse carefully trying to explain the worst news he would ever hear—but with his father by his bedside, waiting with feverish impatience to cradle him close and take him home. Phoenix would be there when they got back. He would have told him of the scariest elevator ride of his life, painfully honest whispering with all of the childlike trust and innocence that came with being best friends forever. Phoenix would have hugged him tightly and promised to take the stairs with him for the rest of their lives. DL-6 would instead be a case detailing the death of Manfred von Karma, either shot by the bailiff or succumbing to suffocation, and Franziska would have had the chance of growing up out of the reach of her father’s cold and unforgiving talons. Or, if their roles were to truly be reversed and this were truly a fantasy, Gregory wouldn’t be able to turn away from an orphaned little girl. She would get the kind of father she always deserved. Just the thought of his father taking Franziska in, giving his sister a loving upbringing that applauded her talents and intellect…
...he would have willingly died for that possibility alone.
And it is with a silent sob, a jerk of his chest and shoulders and tears on his pillow, that he acknowledges
again
that he will never be able to fix this. No amount of therapy or reparations to the legal system or even his own death will give Gregory Edgeworth the time he should have had. His father died, is dead, has
been
dead for a long time, and that is that. Heedless of whether the world would have been better off with Gregory alive and Manfred gone and Miles and Franziska safe from him forever. There is nothing in the world, no power that can take Miles’ life and give it to his father instead.
Finally, after an undetermined time of quiet sobbing, and Phoenix blessedly staying asleep where he lays strewn across the bed, his tears slow. Miles realizes that he must have fallen back to sleep, because the next thing he knows there is a hand gripping his shoulder and gently shaking him awake.
“Hey, rise and shine, Sleeping Gorgeous.”
Groggily, he rolls over, noting that his alarm has been turned off and the clock now reads
10:14.
Notable as well is that fact that beside him is the smiling face of Phoenix Wright. He looks at Miles with softened features, a grin that is fond and earnest and eyes that hold oceans of love, for
him.
He hasn’t shaved, and his hair is mussed with one strand stubbornly falling into his face. It is a sight that always sends Miles’ heart fluttering, without fail.
Phoenix leans in to press a lingering kiss to his lips, and pulls back to say, “Happy birthday. Have a good time sleeping in?”
And Miles, who is suddenly reminded as to why he turned his alarm off, why his eyes feel puffy and his throat feels tight, surprises both Phoenix and himself by immediately bursting into tears.
Honestly, he had almost thought he’d forgotten how to cry real tears. Panic attacks and nightmares seem to be the only time they escape him, yet here he is, the force of his weeping causing him to curl forward and clutch his arms tight across his stomach. He sounds like a wounded animal, and figures he must look like it too; curled on his side with his face pressing into the sheets.
There is a sharp intake of breath, followed by a near frantic scramble of hands coming to cup Miles’ cheeks and bring his face back upwards. His bangs are brushed out of his eyes, tucked behind his ear, and tears are swiped away as Phoenix caresses his cheek with the kind of panicked worried tenderness that only this man seems to be capable of offering. Miles opens his eyes, and Phoenix’s face greets him once again, this time with his eyes wide open, searching, and his eyebrows furrowed with concern and confusion.
Belatedly, he realizes Phoenix has been talking to him.
“—sy Miles, easy, easy, tell me what’s wrong, ok? Can you hear me? Miles? Talk to me
please
I—“
“I can hear you,” he manages.
Phoenix stops as soon as he speaks, and lets out a shaky breath, his hand coming to rest on the side of Miles’ neck. Miles can tell he's frightened him. His thumb idly strokes along the nape, patient, tender. There is the oh so enticing pull of exhaustion, and he feels his eyes slide closed as he fights the urge to simply turn his face into the pillow and let Phoenix soothe him back to sleep.
But he is
tired.
His bones are lead, his lungs are filled with syrup. And Phoenix seems to know, as always, when to stay silent and let him collect himself, remaining a solid presence for Miles to ground himself to.
My name is Miles Edgeworth. I am a prosecutor living in LA. I have a dog named Pess, a partner named Phoenix Wright. I am 36 years old.
I am 36 years old.
“I’m older than him.”
It’s hardly greater than a whisper, and when Miles looks up again to the face of the one he loves, he wants to selfishly drown himself in Phoenix’s warm presence and just forget everything for a moment. “I’m older than him,” he whispers again, because he doesn’t deserve to forget, and he can see in those eyes the moment Phoenix understands
everything.
He is always so good at that, Miles thinks, he has always seen the truth, whether it wants to be seen or not. And right now, Phoenix blessedly sees everything that Miles does not want to explain. His hands find Miles’ where they have been clenched tight to his chest, gently encasing them in his own. He murmurs a reverent “I’m so sorry”, and Miles sees him quietly mourn the loss of Gregory Edgeworth with him.
And god, Miles wants to tell him everything, pour out his tears and sins to the one man who could absolve him of anything.
“I shouldn’t be alive,”
he wants to cry.
“I should have been shot in an elevator 27 years ago. I am 36 years old and I still have so much time, and so should he. Father deserved his life. He deserved life.”
Miles cannot say this.
As much as Phoenix assures him that he can tell him whatever is on his mind if it means he’ll be more at ease… Miles cannot burden him with this. Because Phoenix’s mind will hear
I shouldn’t be alive
and jump to
Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death
, and that is a cruelty Miles could never inflict upon him again, and may never forgive himself for, even if Phoenix has.
“I don’t know how to stop missing him,” is what he settles for instead, because it is truly the most present problem that he has no solution for. He is so tired,
exhausted
every single time he finds a new way to miss someone who was, for a long time, his very definition of love. He is tired of the ache that snaps up his entire chest and throat when he catches a glimpse of his reflection wearing his glasses. He’s tired of looking at Kay and Trucy and wishing that they knew what a doting grandfather they would have had. He grew taller than his father, he recently found out. A stash of old files delivered by Detective Badd revealed an old passport that reads
5’9”,
and Miles never would have known if not for mere chance. It settles deep in his bones, weighing him down, and he wonders how many new and freshly painful discoveries he will have to endure before they drown him completely.
He is
tired.
And Phoenix, bless him, must be able to read his thoughts, because the next thing Miles knows is that he is being gathered close and held fast. He feels Phoenix’s breath shuddering in his chest and his nose resting in his hair.
“Miles,” Phoenix whispers, shaky, barely a breath of air against where the man’s lips brush against the crown of his head, “I’m so, so, unbelievably grateful that you’re here, I—“ his breath hitches, and he swallows, “I don’t know where I’d be without you.”
The confession is punctuated by Phoenix holding him impossibly closer, curling around him; protective. A shield against the world that has tried to take him away from Phoenix again and again. It makes Miles’ heart swell with affection, and love, and gratitude. It makes him want to sink further into Phoenix and weep, overwhelmed by the impossible force of this man’s love. That same love chased after him for 15 years, ignored the venom he spit and believed in his innocence and goodness, fought tooth and nail to rescue him from his captor. Miles has never been a religious man, but the only way he can describe Phoenix is as an angel of biblical proportions; wielding love as both a guiding force and a weapon to protect, unafraid in the face of pure evil. It takes Miles’ breath away every time he is faced with the fact that he is somehow the object of such love.
Phoenix’s hand slides up his back once more and finds its way into his hair, stroking, carefully and reverently. Is it possible, he wonders, to miss his father so horribly for the rest of his life, knowing that Gregory Edgeworth deserved to live until he was old and grey, while still cherishing parts of the life he ended up with? Parts that would never have happened, people he wouldn’t have met, had such tragedy not occurred?
He thinks again of those two beautiful girls that he has the honour of calling his daughters. If the worst were to happen again, and they fell into these same thoughts… what would he say to them, if he had that chance?
Go, child. Live. I love you. I love you.
Miles shudders and sinks into himself, into Phoenix, becoming as small as he possibly can as he remembers that his father truly loved him. Gregory loved him, Gregory is dead, and these are facts that Miles must live with. Phoenix responds by pressing lingering kisses to his hairline, still dragging his fingers through Miles’ hair. Another fact, one that shapes his reality as he knows it, is that Phoenix Wright loves him. It is terrifying, and beautiful, and utterly exhilarating. Not to mention the fact that he loves Phoenix right back with all the force of a raging tsunami inside him.
Facts can be easier to stomach, he knows, if you just accept them as they are.
He allows himself enough deep breaths to calm himself down, and lets out a long sigh into Phoenix’s shirt, who whispers, “You okay?”
“No,” he replies, “I’m utterly famished.”
A series of wet, surprised laughs bubble out of Phoenix, and Miles feels warmth touch every bone in his body at the sound. He is dragged upward into a sitting position by strong arms that have held him this whole time (and numerous others), and meets Phoenix’s brilliant eyes. They are concerned, attentive, but smiling.
“Well,” Phoenix says, “I made you Belgian waffles, but those are probably cold by now.”
“Mm, and I know you wouldn’t dare reheat them.”
“Absolutely not, I learned my lesson the first time, thank you.”
Miles smiles, remembering Franziska’s hour long shouting lecture at Phoenix last Christmas. “Good. I refuse to eat soggy, rewarmed bread on my birthday.”
Phoenix mutters something along the lines of 'yeah, the both of you'
as they both make their way off the bed. He takes Miles’ hand, linking their fingers, and leads him to the kitchen.
And on this, the first day that Miles Edgeworth has grown older than his father, he smiles, and knows that his father would be smiling too.