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“Honestly, Wright, you need to stop doing this.”
“Hey, Edgeworth,” Phoenix mumbled out groggily. His head was slowly clearing from a fog, and he couldn’t remember where he was or how he’d gotten here, but Edgeworth’s voice – tetchy as it inevitably was – put him immediately at ease. Edgeworth would take care of everything until Phoenix found his head and screwed it on right again. “What happened?”
“Presumably you were driven over by a tank, given your luck,” Edgeworth huffed, but it was an ‘I was worried about you’ huff, not a genuinely angry huff.
“A tank?” Phoenix tried to laugh, and that was clearly a mistake. Maybe Edgeworth actually wasn’t being sarcastic; his ribs certainly felt like he’d been run over by a tank. “You’re joking, right?”
“No, there are now military vehicles systematically sweeping down all the bike lanes and—” Edgeworth paused, reassessed the level of painkillers Phoenix was on, and finished with: “Of course I’m joking. It was only a bag, thrown out the window of a passing bus.”
“A what from a what?” Phoenix asked. “And, if that’s all, why does my chest hurt?”
“Because when the projectile struck you, your bike veered off course and made intimate acquaintance with a concrete wall at top speed,” Edgeworth explained. “Somehow, you didn’t break anything, although you have a concussion and several bruised ribs.”
Phoenix groaned. That was also not a good idea. In fact, breathing in general seemed not to be a good idea right about now. “Did you catch whoever was trying to kill me yet?”
Edgeworth sighed wearily and nudged up his glasses so that he could rub his eyes. “We have yet to conclude that someone was trying to kill you. Your associates seemed to be of the opinion that the tossed object was the way an anonymous informant with particularly poor judgement chose to deliver some sort of decisive clue. And, no, I don’t know what; Ms. Cykes would not let me see it.”
Phoenix cut off his question that Edgeworth had answered before he’d even had the chance to voice it. “Fuck, my case!” he realized in sudden alarm. He tried to push himself up out of the hospital bed (of course, it was a hospital bed; it was always a hospital bed when Edgeworth had that expression on his face like he’d just swallowed a lemon). Much like everything else, pushing himself up out of the hospital bed was also a terrible idea. Phoenix forced his way past the pain, though, because his client needed him and—
“Would you lie still for once in your improbably hazardous life?” Edgeworth said in alarm, and landed his palms on Phoenix’s shoulders to force him back down to the bed.
“Ow!” Phoenix cried out when Edgeworth pushed him down, but Edgeworth looked exceptionally unsympathetic to Phoenix’s self-imposed plight. “The trial must’ve started by now,” he insisted. “Isn’t it some kind of ethics violation for the Prosecutor’s Office to kidnap the defense attorney?”
“Your associates have taken up the case in your stead and, I have no doubt, are currently trouncing Prosecutor Gavin with your firm’s typical on-brand nonsense of adlibbing as you go. Now, will you please rest?”
Edgeworth sounded genuinely weary at that last request. Phoenix let up his struggles in response, and studied Edgeworth carefully – as best he could, given whatever drugs the hospital had put him on – and saw even more worry-creases furrowing Edgeworth’s brow than usual.
“Wait, you were supposed to be prosecuting this case yourself, weren’t you?” Phoenix offered as a sort of olive branch.
“Yes, well, some of us understand the importance of planning back-ups in case of emergency.” Edgeworth deliberately did not look Phoenix’s way when he said it.
“No fun without me on the defense bench, huh?” Phoenix teased.
Edgeworth glared at him and announced haughtily, “The Chief Prosecutor’s office is sacrosanct and is not permitted to indulge in such trivial, personal favoritism. The law must be applied to all equally.”
“Yeah, I feel better about missing the trial, knowing that at least I’m not missing out on going up against you, too,” Phoenix agreed.
Edgeworth blushed horrendously and proceeded to fuss over an overly large assortment of red roses and yellow sunflowers that someone had purchased for Phoenix’s hospital room. Phoenix had just enough of his brain intact to remember that his last courtroom encounter with Edgeworth had featured some prime sniping about Edgeworth’s ability to secure a recipient for said flowers.
“And, if you’re literally willing die in order to argue with me about legal matters—” Edgeworth began.
“You yourself said: it was evidence thrown out a bus window, not an attempt of my life!” Phoenix protested.
“—Then we could achieve the exact same end if you would simply agree to have dinner with me,” Edgeworth concluded primly.
Phoenix blinked up at Edgeworth.
Edgeworth stared very pointedly at the sunflower whose petals he seemed to be straightening.
Phoenix scratched at his head – uh-oh, bandages there too! – and considered the evidence before him very carefully.
Edgeworth immediately began to distract Phoenix from the matter at hand with a good, old-fashioned “Ergo, verily!”
“Did you just ask me out on a date?” Phoenix blurted out before Edgeworth could completely change the subject.
“I merely offered a sensible alternate to listing me as your emergency contact and then hurling yourself off edifices and in front of moving vehicles,” Edgeworth insisted.
Phoenix tried very hard not to smile, but failed miserably.
“I knew you’d laugh at me,” Edgeworth grumbled miserably, looking away.
Phoenix reached out and grabbed Edgeworth’s hand before he could fly off to Europe to hide for the next two years. “I would love to have dinner with you to argue about legal matters,” Phoenix assured him.
Edgeworth paused, blinked, ducked his head, and said, “Really?”
“Absolutely,” Phoenix assured him. “Now, help me break out of here, and you can take me home, and then we can get take-out and yell at each other about all the ridiculous tricks we’ve pulled on each other in court.”
Edgeworth frowned slightly, his concern over Phoenix’s medical state weighing against the very cozy evening Phoenix had described. Finally, Edgeworth concluded – quite logically – that the only thing really medically wrong with Phoenix was that his life was patently absurd, and that no doctors could cure that. Edgeworth’s hand squeezed Phoenix’s once, in promise, and then he huffed off again: “Yes, I’ll see to getting your discharge papers sorted immediately.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Phoenix agreed fervently.
“Forsooth,” Edgeworth agreed wholeheartedly.