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Miles couldn’t help but shiver as he sat delicately on the plastic stool in the tub. It wasn’t just the winter air that was making his bare skin prickle, but also the cool and unreadable gaze of his mentor.
Von Karma had to be disappointed in him. Surely he had more important activities planned for the evening than bathing his eighteen-year-old ward who couldn’t wash himself – especially when Miles’s predicament was one wholly of his own making. He’d been careless, too excited by the brand-new sports car von Karma had bought him for his birthday to follow the speed limits. Even somebody as rule-abiding as Miles was bound to have his vices.
And now he was paying the price, one crashed car and several cracked ribs later, and his mentor’s disappointment emanating from every pore of his body. Miles felt the desperate desire to cover himself, not only due to his nudity, but because von Karma made him feel exposed in the worst possible ways. When his mentor cast his eyes over Miles’s naked form, Miles knew he saw right through him, to his very wretched core.
They had never spoken about Miles’s recollections of what had happened in that elevator the day his father had died, but a near-decade spent in the von Karma household had taught Miles to read between the lines.
Sometimes, when Miles’s nightmares weren’t filled with his father’s final words and that terrible, haunting scream, his mentor’s face wafted into view instead. You’re a criminal, Miles Edgeworth, von Karma would tell him, and every time Miles would throw himself at his mentor’s mercy.
Yes, sir. Yes, I am, sir. How can I repent, sir?
Truly, there could be no adequate penance for the crime of patricide, and nothing would ever absolve his guilt. Nothing short of confessing in a court of law – but Miles’s heart ached whenever he considered that option. How could he throw all of von Karma’s hard work in his face like that, the years his mentor had invested in molding Miles in his own image?
And what if Miles was wrong? What if von Karma didn’t know? Miles’s actions with the car last night had been embarrassing enough, but if it was uncovered that von Karma had knowingly raised a murderer as his protégé… it would surely spell the end of the older prosecutor’s career as well.
Part of the punishment for the crime Miles had committed was to forever walk this tightrope pulled taut between justice and reformation.
He would do whatever was deemed necessary to repent for his mistakes, both of the distant and more recent past.
And that’s why he hadn’t argued when von had Karma ordered him to strip.
Why he’d acquiesced when his mentor had helped him take off his shirt because he could barely lift his arms.
And why he barely flinched when von Karma finally turned on the detachable showerhead, drenching Miles in a blast of ice-cold water.
His injuries prevented him from crossing his arms over his chest. Yet, even with his training and composure, he couldn’t stop his teeth from chattering.
“Fret not, boy,” von Karma said dispassionately. “It’ll warm up soon.”
Miles swallowed thickly, steeling himself against the cold water. “Yes, sir.”
True to his mentor’s word, the water heated up more quickly than he’d anticipated, and despite himself, Miles relaxed into the warmth, eyes fluttering shut as his tight muscles expanded under the heavy flow of water.
There was the sound of a bottle being uncapped, a squirting noise, and without any additional warning, von Karma carded his shampooed fingers through Miles’s hair, massaging the liquid firmly into his scalp. It was a surprisingly relaxing feeling. Miles couldn’t remember the last time he had been touched, let alone in this way. It made him feel tingly all over, like… like…
A new heat suffused Miles’s body, one that had nothing to do with the temperature of the water. God, he hoped that the embarrassment of being naked in front of his mentor would prevent him from having an inappropriate response, but it was like his body was being deliberately contrary – like the thought of von Karma witnessing his arousal was tantalizing instead of humiliating.
He felt it then, his cock beginning to stir, and he desperately sought to think of something that might dampen his enthusiasm. A particularly boring bit of case law, a recent trial he had witnessed…
Von Karma’s hands slipped down Miles’s neck.
He could smell the lightly lavender-fragranced soap that von Karma favored, and the path his mentor’s fingers traced over his skin felt hot enough to brand. Miles had long known that his neck was an erogenous zone, but there had never been an opportunity for another to take advantage of this fact.
Until now.
There was no denying it. Miles was sure that by now his prick would be standing at full attention, bobbing up towards his stomach, aching to be touched. “Pl-please,” he stammered, unsure what action, precisely, he was begging to be undertaken.
Then von Karma’s fingers lightly ghosted his nipples, and Miles almost came right there and then. His hips moved with an involuntary jerk, and he bit back a cry.
“There’s no need for theatrics,” von Karma scolded as he soaped up the rest of Miles’s torso, standing so close that Miles swore he could feel the rumble of his chest. “Behave yourself, and this will all be over with shortly.”
The words were both threat and promise.
When von Karma removed his hand from Miles’s stomach to rinse the shampoo from his hair, it was equal parts punishment and reprieve. Miles wanted… he couldn’t name exactly what it was he wanted, but surely von Karma could sense his desire all the same. He was hyperaware of all the other man’s movements, every bit of contact electric.
Next came the conditioner, applied in firm stroking motions by his mentor, and Miles hated the part of him that hoped for another scalp massage. Maybe that was what he wanted: to feel like he was deserving of a tender touch, of being looked after, of receiving such intimate contact in a setting that wasn’t borne of necessity and punishment.
Miles realized, with a dawning horror, that he wanted to be loved. Loved wholly and wholeheartedly, with no barriers between him and his partner.
But he was not worthy, and he had to make peace with his penance. To do whatever von Karma told him, to submit, in the hopes that one day, he might be a person who was deserving of receiving a fraction of that affection which he craved.
So when von Karma ordered him to shift forward on the stool, Miles did it unthinkingly. His mentor had led him this far. Any further instruction would surely be in the aid of molding him into the man he needed to be.
When von Karma soaped up his back, Miles didn’t bother repressing his shiver. He let go of the self-consciousness he felt when his cock twitched in renewed interest, paying special attention to the direction of von Karma’s hand.
And when von Karma pushed one slippery digit between Miles’s ass cheeks, he didn’t say a word, and let out little more than a sharp exhalation at the intrusion of the finger in his tight hole. His mentor’s other hand reached around to Miles’s front and gave his balls a cursory cup before grasping the base of Miles’s shaft.
The world seemed to narrow down in that moment, as though nothing mattered apart from von Karma’s fingers on his skin. He was there, in that moment, but also outside of it, like he was watching himself. Watching this happen to someone else.
Then, von Karma’s hands began to move, the finger in Miles’s ass moving in and pushing inside him with expert precision, stimulating that spot Miles had always had difficulty reaching on his own, and the hand on Miles’s cock setting a brutal pace. It was obvious that von Karma did not plan to linger. In this, just like everything else in his life, the old man was efficient.
There was no time to be wasted. There were only results.
And Manfred von Karma was perfect. He did not fail.
Miles’s orgasm crashed into him like a wrecking ball at a demolition site. One moment he was tensed, anticipatory, and then he was gone, ribbons of cum covering his mentor’s hand. He didn’t dare open his eyes until his cock had stopped pulsing, but when he did, he found von Karma gazing at him with another one of his inscrutable stares. Without a word, von Karma wiped his hand against Miles’s stomach.
There was a moment where it seemed like his mentor’s gaze softened, and like he might say something kind, or meaningful – but it must have been Miles’s imagination, or a trick of the light, because instead, he simply said, “Clean yourself up,” before rinsing his hands in the running water and turning to leave the room.
I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, Miles wanted to say, all too aware of how his ribs ached in the aftermath of his orgasm. But he couldn’t force himself to say the words.
It was only once Miles heard the door click shut that he allowed himself to cry.