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Miles Edgeworth marks easily.
He always has. It is a perfectly regular and inane fact about the body he inhabits, and hardly something to be perturbed about, especially for a man hurtling toward middle age, and for whom there are no underlying medical causes for concern.
And yet, perturbed he remains.
An expanse of pale skin stares back at him balefully in the mirror, still dewy and flushed awfully pink from the shower, and across it mars an array of bruises and scars that demand his attention, no matter how loudly logic demands that he ought to put on his pyjamas, or at least begin to towel off, lest he get a cold.
Miles doesn’t.
He stares instead at the bruises on his shins, countless in number over the years and more of a consequence of being tall in a world not entirely built for him than anything else, and in a fit of ill-advised disquiet allows the queasiness at the stains of them on his skin to truly set in, green and purple and yellow markers of imperfection on an imperfect body.
You’re being ridiculous, Miles tells himself, severely, but he doesn’t move from the glass. He sees then the hives on his shoulders, angry red from the shower he’d let run too hot for pleasure’s sake, and follows their arc down to the crescent moon scar on his ribcage, ugly grey and looming huge in his mind’s eye despite the fact that, in reality, it is no larger than a thumbprint.
Imperfection, says a deep, grave voice in his head, with an inflection uncannily like his sister’s, and the hold of Miles’ self-control wavers, despite the years of practice and therapy strengthening its grip.
It is from boyhood, that scar. He knows that much - though the memories from before DL-6 waver at the edges like old color film, warped by time and fatigue and too much repeated playback. And yet, he knows Phoenix was there - knows not quite when, or how he’d hurt himself, but that Phoenix had come to him in the playground afterward, and that even amid the pain, magnified in the mind of a child, he had been awash with gratitude to be steadied so by another’s presence. A friend, at last.
Even amid the maelstrom, that much brings life to the edges of Miles’ mouth, curling upwards despite himself. Valiantly, he tries to remind himself how this particular scar is something that binds him and that very significant person together - something to be grateful for, rather than resent. Ordinarily that is enough, but not today. With that particular obstacle cleared, his eyes skip across in rebellion instead to a scar of similar vintage.
Of this one, his memories are unfortunately very clear. A shattered teapot, the only remains of which still cascade across his left foot in a nest of scars, scratches clustered in a bramble long faded and yet somehow indelible. So, too, is the sound of the ceramic hitting the floor, and what came after. That scar has many brethren, most of which he would rather not remember, and yet he does, eye wandering to the nigh-invisible crater by his temple from that accursed kidnapping, and the faint line across his cheek, rent by tempered elevator glass.
Those are not your fault, he reminds himself, and yet there is a certainty in his gut that argues otherwise, argues that if he had only been cleverer and avoided such situations, if he had been faster and stronger and more intellectually agile - if he were only perfect - then he would be as unmarred as that benediction claimed he should be.
When he is like this, even his freckles bother him - gifts from one long-departed, though these languish in pallid fluorescence and not the sun like his father’s had, once.
Then there is the eczema that spirals up his fingers and whorls around the bone of his wrist in a florid embrace, a flareup he’d failed to manage during a stressful case more than a month ago and had stubbornly hung around even in the weeks since. It intertwines with the bitten skin around his nails, rebukes for what seem constant missteps of behaviour, and Miles hangs there in the space before the mirror, heart in his throat, a hunted animal. Only, in this case, hunter and prey are the same entity, feeding on itself as if that will provide any sustenance.
It’s a long time before he can wrench his gaze free from his imperfect body to level towards itself in the mirror, grey staring into grey, the faintly purple wells under his eyes seeming somehow deeper than when he had stepped in here - thoroughly illogical since he has been in the bathroom a mere ten minutes, though each has oozed by with far more weight than it has any right to.
That stare has been hollower, he reminds himself. He has much to be thankful for.
In fact, he has a marker to prove it.
There is indeed one imperfection he has been studiously avoiding - oddly, out of a feeling he does not deserve to look at it in his current state, like his misery will taint it somehow - but there it is, now unavoidable where it is nestled into the hollow of his collarbone. A hickey, so freshly red it may as well be neon.
This blemish in particular is a sweet kind of agony, for it is proof that, until ten minutes ago, Miles had been having an uncharacteristically wonderful evening. It is entirely ridiculous that what plagues his mind are ghosts, not recollections of how a warm sunset had wrapped itself around a set of broad blue shoulders as they led him into the restaurant - which he had booked, but that was of no consequence. Or, for that matter, the entirely inconsequential argument they’d had over dinner and the treat of seeing Phoenix with his blood up. Ah, and then the absentminded haze on the way home in the car, and the way Phoenix had still raced to open his door despite how long he’d insisted that was wholly unnecessary, and-
Ah, how foolish he is to have been trapped here in misery when there is so much to delight in.
His skin is already dry, the air in the bathroom no longer humid but drifting toward uncomfortably chill, and yet here he stands, gazing into the mirror like some warped Narcissus, too ensnared by how hideous the reflection appears to look away.
There is so much he could do - there is so much he should have done - and yet, and yet...
Just as he thinks he’s almost gained the courage to break the stalemate, his own gaze merely reflecting the same patterns in an ouroboros back at him, Phoenix walks in.
To his credit, he doesn’t even flinch in regards to Miles’ clothing, or lack thereof, which is a feat of restraint that is as impressive as it is amusing. Instead, he stops and closes the door softly, pausing close enough behind that warmth oozes between them. Miles’ aching jaw relaxes in reflex, imperceptibly.
“What’cha looking at?” says Phoenix, voice light with its usual amused sparkle, but his eyes softly serious where they meet his in the mirror.
Damaged goods, says his mind's eye, and there is no escaping it to reply with something else, so Miles stays mute, jaw locked for his own safety. Miles is even more grateful than usual for the gravity he finds in Phoenix’s mismatched gaze. Even armed with the strength of his worst instincts, he could not look away even if he wanted to.
“Struggling?” he says, carefully not-touching, voice held quiet with deliberate restraint, and Miles teeters with fear and awe and guilt and relief at being so immediately understood. He isn’t sure why he’s surprised, and a little irritated at himself for being so.
In another life, he would have been unable to reply at all, but Miles takes a breath to steel himself, and through gritted teeth, he says, “Yes.”
Phoenix’s eyes go soft in the mirror. He always was hopelessly transparent.
“Do you want help, or space?”
Another breath in, and out. “Help. Please.”
Almost before he’s even uttered the words, Miles is swallowed in Phoenix’s embrace. There are tanned arms winding around his torso and holding him back against that broad chest, closer than he once ever dared imagine, and closer than he still feels he deserves, some days.
It’s ridiculous and Pavlovian that only now Miles’ battered heart finally starts to slow into a proper rhythm, but past the flash of petulance at the proof of his poor independence, he is raw with gratitude for it. Phoenix tucks his face into the curve of Miles’ neck, and Miles leans back into him as though his knees may give out, mostly because he knows he will be caught there - and he is, held fast in the steadiest pair of arms Miles has ever had the honor of falling into.
The mirror finally gives up its vice grip on his gaze and, gratefully, Miles’ eyes fall shut.
It’s only then Phoenix begins in earnest. There’s a hand sweeping slowly across his chest, thumbing over the little crescent moon on his ribcage just as fondly as it deserves - a memento, not a failure - and then coming to rest nestled over his heart. Then there are lips brushing faintly across the border of awful collar-tan from this summer that Phoenix knows he hates, and an arm snared tightly around where his waist nips inward beneath his ribcage, at a starved angle that makes Miles’ stomach turn.
I love even the parts of you that you despise, say Phoenix’s hands, so loudly Miles can almost hear it in words, as he traces paths long memorised after Miles’ last confessional, after all the other demons had been excised and defeated. Who was he to be remembered so precisely in Phoenix’s mind? A mind that can barely recall what day of the week it is, or how to refer to penal codes correctly, and yet holds him in such esteem as to know by heart all of his flaws; the aches and burrs that need smoothing over, once in a while. It’s a gargantuan effort, he’s painfully aware, and part of him is wounded it is even necessary, that Phoenix always has to be the one to soothe him - but the rest is pure relief, and a warm, awed vibration in the back of his chest at being so improbably beloved, and to be able to love so soundly in return.
It doesn't extinguish the pyre of long-smouldering self-hatred, nor mask the smoke entirely. But it comes close, so very close, and it is easy now to rest back on his heels, supported so by the one person on this earth who knows him fully and entirely.
Miles’ eyes flutter back open to find Phoenix still staring at him, eyebrows knotted together.
“Better?”
“Better.”
“You need anything? Snacks? A nap?”
Miles lets his eyes roll a little in the reflection, but suppresses his instinctual replies (‘Wright, we just ate’ and ‘I am not a three year old’) and instead turns in Phoenix’s arms to face him, letting their foreheads tip together.
“I want for nothing, so long as I have you,” says Miles, and kisses him soundly. There are no words left to him then, not even overly saccharine ones, so instead he pours the devotion he feels into the kiss as he cradles the achingly familiar line of Phoenix’s jaw in his hands.
“So cheesy,” teases a breathless, wobbly Phoenix after they break apart, there where he melts between Miles’ palms. Phoenix’s pique is only a thin, unconvincing veneer, betrayed by the waver in his voice and the way his eyes widen, softening at the corners.
“I learned that from you, dearest.”
He earns a laugh for that, and it glows at the base of his chest like a coal.
They’ve been here long enough, so Miles lets himself be led by Phoenix away from the mirror and out of the bathroom, letting the door fall soundly shut behind them.
***