damned_institute | Nightshift 39: M91-M100 Hallway

Miles felt the tension in Phoenix's body, and knew he was going to change the subject before it happened. He listened, feeling the tension ease only slightly as he spoke, and frowned.

"And I...I probably don't, either, because two years in the future, I'm too afraid of commitment or letting people get too close to tell you anything. But...I'm probably hiding it all beneath the surface, burying it so far down that getting on that plane hurts less and less every time." He closed his eyes, sighing. "And we keep on going like that. Years later..."

Miles swallowed hard. That was the last topic he wanted to bring up, and he'd gone wandering straight into it without a second thought. "God, I'm an idiot. Forget I ever said that last part. This isn't the time or the place to discuss it."

He sat up, tossing his jacket towards the end of the bed and undoing a button each on his collar and vest, then settled back in. "You don't need that, not now."

Phoenix was still and perfectly silent, eyes blindly following the sounds of Edgeworth sitting back up, then lying down again. Years later. In a numb kind of way, he didn't begrudge the slip. It was the logical conclusion of that thought, and he'd spent too much of his life following evidence and testimony to its logical conclusion to drop the habit in this one instance. Yeahs later, something happened that didn't put anyone's life on the line - something that couldn't be helped. And that would be that, then. There wasn't anything that brought them together, apart from their jobs, and Miles was in LA less and less each year. So one of them would keep chasing the horizon, and the other one of them would get along and raise a child and do who knew what. And they'd be fine. It would be perfectly fine.

Optimism had never sounded colder or more bitter. Home had never seemed more alien.

In a single movement he found Edgeworth again and wrapped his arms around him tightly, without commentary or preface, and breathed the smell of skin and dry cleaning and industrial soap until he was sure he wasn't going to fall off the face of the earth. "It can't be that simple," he finally replied, quiet and dry-eyed and dogged. He'd never believed in fate, not once. It would have been crazy for him to. There was no point in fighting a decided outcome, and there was no way he'd believe that so much of his life had been pointless. There had to be more to it than that.

"It doesn't have to be that simple." The words were meant to be reassuring. "You could tell me. I...I could change. Or..." Miles paused, swallowing thickly. It would be hard, when he had so little reason to stay there at the point he was from, but if he returned and remembered all this...

"I could stay. Or you could come with me. Or..." He let his voice trail off. "Something. I'm afraid of connections breaking... but if I know they would break otherwise. I could do something to stop it." His voice sounded strained, and there was no hiding it or trying to pretend it wasn't. Miles didn't want to see Phoenix shake like that, point at invisible rocks that weren't there.

I...I could do something like taking the weight of the world on my shoulders again. I could do that; I have before. I can handle that.

He finally settled for holding Phoenix close, listening to the sound of his breathing. There wasn't much else he could say.

Edited 2009-03-15 20:34 (UTC)

It all seemed so inescapable, and it was strange to watch Edgeworth, of all people be the one to rail against the seemingly inevitable, to raise one impossible idea after another. He was right. They were doing this all wrong. They'd know whether this was all preordained when the foretold actually happened, and not a second sooner. In the space until that point, they had a choice.

"We'll make decisions when we have to," he concluded, tone quietly earnest. "Until then-?"

Kissing in the dark took a bit of figuring, and he lifted a hand to bury in Miles' hair before he even tried leaning close. His lips brushed the hollow below his lower lip first, then found their way up another half-inch.

Edited 2009-03-15 20:56 (UTC)

The 'yes' that he was about to say was lost in a kiss that wasn't surprising or unexpected, but nonetheless caught him just a bit off-guard. He moved his hand up just a bit, stroking Phoenix's cheek as he moved closer. Of course...we'll cross those bridges when we get there. We're both fighters, the two of us...and we complement each other. We can do this, if anyone can.

With that, he moved his hand from Phoenix's cheek to the back of his neck, pulling him deeper into that kiss. It was as instinctual as anything else. When he pulled away for breath a moment later, he quietly murmured, "I...I'm glad I didn't lose you," before kissing him again, harder and a little deeper. If he couldn't say everything in words, he could certainly say it with actions.

There wasn't any of Phoenix's usual repertoire in this kiss: the grinning, the restless little movements, the breaks to catch half-breaths and quip, the wrestling for some intangible upper hand. The motions were subtler, fingertips firm to his scalp and elbow pinning him closer. The easiness came by degrees, in the same way that walking and seeing had done, and it was only when he leaned back again what seemed like minutes later, breathing quietly against the yielding silence, that he remembered how relaxation even felt.

He hummed a quiet, satisfied noise, turning his face up under the edge of Miles' jaw and kissing a spare bit of neck lightly. "You're not all bad at the comforting thing," he murmured, smiling a little despite himself.

Miles let out a soft, pleased noise at that kiss. "It doesn't come naturally, but...I try," he said, and meant all of that. "I still don't think I'm doing it justice," he added, almost inaudibly. But did that really matter, when Phoenix was finally relaxing, whatever locks were there fading or shattering? He decided, in the end, that it didn't.

There was also the remaining anxiety; he shifted, trying to work a particularly stubborn bit of residual tension out of his shoulders. It only lessened a little, but...relaxing completely had never come completely naturally, either. Despite that, his lips quirked upward; not quite into a smile, but it was close enough.

"I think I still need more practice," he murmured, giving a low chuckle. He had to bite back a quip about bonding over trauma not being the healthiest relationship pattern in the world, but again, it was part of life here. If every traumatic experience wound up with the two of them in each others' arms - well, he wouldn't take the trauma happily, not ever, but it would be a lot easier.

"Will you give yourself a break?" There was a hapless, aggrieved chuckle on the tail of the words, the weight of a head nestling into his shoulder before coming to rest. The fingers in his hair untangled themselves, finally, following the trail of that short, tense movement. They pressed down through the layers of cloth, at last finding a band of tight, corded muscle and kneading idly.

"You know how I do things. As long as it works, the finesse isn't really that important." Sure, things being polished was nicer than them not being polished. Phoenix wouldn't even think of arguing that. But sometimes, if you wanted a job done, you just had to accept that you were going to have to cross-examine a parrot first.

. . . out of all of the possible relationship metaphors in the world, I come up with that. He didn't know whether to laugh or roll his eyes at himself. This is why poetry is out of my league.

"Phoenix? If I'm ever not hard on myself, please conduct an investigation, because something will have happened to me. Okay?" He laughed a little as he said that, but there was a touch of seriousness towards the end.

That was true, though, as much as his innate perfectionism argued against it. He sighed, feeling that tense muscle relax. "Though it's true. You have a lack of finesse that...has a certain charm to it, when it isn't driving everyone around you around the bend." That time, the laugh wasn't strained. "And it gets stuff done."

Miles sighed, kissing the top of Phoenix's head softly. "So it balances, somehow..."

You're such sweet-talker he didn't say, and he didn't smirk either - not much, at least, and no more than he blushed. For all that he would have liked to poke at the slightly underhanded compliment, he held Edgeworth to a different standard when it came to praise. He fell quiet for several moments, letting the odd thought sift down. He sort of wanted to ask questions about what Edgeworth's mission would have been tonight, what the goal of this club was and how they meant to get there, but it all seemed pretty transparent. Get information. Get assets. Get out.

"Here's a question," he spoke up after a pause. "How much do you really think they control what we see and hear, here?" There was no fatalism in the tone, only straightforward curiosity.

That hadn't been a question he had been expecting, and Miles had to think for a few minutes before answering. He lazily rubbed one hand over Phoenix's back as he mulled it over, the gears clicking and turning in his head. There had been that one interaction, though...the 'therapy' session. That had given him a thought.

"They're not just controlling what the patients see and hear, I don't think. The 'therapy' sessions they have... something unusual happened during mine today," he began. "Dr. House is normally the kind of doctor that - pardon my language - it's not easy to bullshit. The guy's straightforward, more than a little abrasive, full of himself, and cocky. You know the type."

He hummed thoughtfully. "Today he took a blood sample - enough for a standard blood test panel, but also checking for drugs and whatnot. And he seemed surprised when I mentioned the shoulder wound from a few nights ago. I don't think he expected I'd say it was from a patient."

Miles closed his eyes, frowning. "So if they can control the daytime staff that well - altering medical records and the like - I'd say they want us to see a lot of what we do."

They want us to see a lot of what they do. He remembered the question and the photograph, clear as day against the black screen of his eyelids, the way it had erupted in a cacophony of metal, the way-

Stop it. His eyes were already closed, but he pressed then shut harder, wincing as the added pressure goaded the dull throbbing back to the fore and sent phantom blots of light dancing in his vision. He couldn't let his mind keep wandering back up to that room. He wouldn't find anything else up there. Not right now.

The picture wasn't in that room anymore, though - it was in his pocket, and he still couldn't even say why he'd taken it. He'd thought he'd left her behind him once, and he knew she was behind him now. Keeping it now was masochistic. There was no point holding on to a cursed photo of a woman who was unequivocally gone. He could leave it in his pocket and go to sleep. It might be gone by morning.

He ran his hand down Edgeworth's side, corner of his mouth tugging up in something that couldn't exactly be called a smile. "I thought so," he replied, voice hushed. "At least we get this, though." He turned his head up, kissing his cheek before pulling back gradually and pushing himself up. His head reeled and he swallowed thickly, taking a moment to get his balance again. "Stay there. I'll be right back."

"Where are you going?" Miles had to bite back the 'by yourself' part, or the lecture on how he was in no shape to go anywhere alone. There was also the panic about him running straight back upstairs for whatever reason, and that...he couldn't let that happen.

"There's nothing for you in that room that the others won't find," he said, in a stern voice. "They were planning a thorough search. So..."

He sat up, taking Phoenix's right wrist in his hand. "If you're going anywhere...let me come with you. You're in no shape physically or mentally to go anywhere alone."

That caught him off-guard, and a protest threatened to well up and just as quickly died before it got past his chest. The sudden sharp edge to Miles' voice, the way he moved in a crisp rustle of linens and grabbed his arm, as if . . . As if I'm going to turn into just another one of the people who leaves him.

Though I guess I already did, didn't I?

"Miles. I'm just going to the closet." He dislodged his arm as gently as he could, curling Edgeworth's hand shut and kissing it in an attempted reassurance before reaching for the dresser to pull himself upright. He gave himself a few seconds once he was up, then took the few steps until his hand brushed the reassuring solidity of the desk, ghosting fingertips over the clean surface until he found the flashlight. He clicked it on low, using it to make his way the rest of the way to the closet and pull the door open.

He frowned at the row of gray garments, sliding them to one side and finding the suit way back in the corner. What does he think I am, crazy? The simple thought of going back up there made his spine crawl, never mind the fact that he was pretty sure that, even if for some reason he felt like he needed to go back there, he wouldn't even get past the stairs before the night was out.

You tell me, Mr. Making Sure I Don't Lose Murderous Dead Ex-Girlfriend's Picture.

It- it's not like that. He kept himself from shaking his head, if barely, pulling out the photo and barely glancing it before stuffing it hurriedly in the pocket of the jacket with unsteady hands. It's just evidence.

There was no inner rebuke, asking evidence of what, against whom. Phoenix knew that question didn't even need to be asked.

Edited 2009-03-20 02:43 (UTC)

"All right," Miles said in a quiet tone. "Changing into your suit? It might help...", he commented, watching as the shapeless grey masses were pushed aside. There was something a bit strange about how Phoenix was doing this - as if there was something he wanted to hide, or to protect.

"You're hiding something." There was no judgment in the words, no immediate jump to disapproval. "I'll understand if you tell me no, and won't ask again or go looking for it." The last part of the sentence rang true. At one time, he would have looked, but...not now.

"This place will eat you alive from the inside out if you let it. If it's important, in any way, to either our past or future...I'd like to know what it is."

Phoenix didn't answer immediately. He didn't look back, either, not when he knew he'd just see more of the chains looping around him quick as a reflex, locks clanking into place. He could hear himself shiver, the long, slow shivers of skin trying to crawl off of bones - it ratted the metal, producing a faint afterthought of a noise, like a distant tree full of iron sparrows.

"We really can't stop asking questions, can we?" he returned rhetorically, tired and strained, hooking his fingers in the links running down from his shoulder. They didn't shift or pull like he thought a real chain would have; they barely even bent. He tightened his hand, as if he could somehow steady himself that simply, and forced himself to breathe. He railed against the thought of capitulating again, saying something he'd never wanted to just because of the implicit threat of being restrained. What was more, he couldn't be completely open with everyone in the Instiute. That was as dangerous as it was impossible.

I'm going to lie, and people are going to lie to me. I can't keep panicking every time I see these. He swallowed - God, what he wouldn't give for a glass of water right now - feeling bit by bit as he settled. His brain ached like a deep bruise from the effort, but the locks never even flickered.

Returning to the bed was difficult - walking with the locks was different in a way he couldn't articulate, an act of will imposed upon the stubborn assumption that what he was doing should be impossible. As he sat down on the edge of the bed, he turned the flashlight off and let it drop to the sheets, but he did not lay back down. He knew that the bonds would melt and re-form to anything - a chest pressed to his, hands on his back - just as they had for the mattress. But he didn't want to lay beside Miles like this, metal snaking into every unguarded space and fissure between them like a particularly cruel metaphor. "You probably know enough, between what I've told you and what you've seen," he said at length, in the safe invisibility bringing up a hand to touch his eyelids lightly. They still stung. "If you really want to see, go look for yourself. I won't stop you."

"Asking questions is in my blood, but at any rate, I'm just worried about you," came the answer. "You're shivering with every step, you can hardly walk..." Miles glanced over towards the closet. Even the explicit permission he had made him feel as if he were walking into something he shouldn't; a locked door that he shouldn't open. "I can't take that weight off you myself, as much as I wish I could but I'll do whatever I can to make the burden easier. "

He slowly stood up, taking the flashlight from the bed and clicking it on, and began walking to the closet. Before touching anything inside, Miles' dark eyes met Phoenix's blue - a duller blue than usual, almost lifeless - with all the seriousness he could muster. "This is the last chance, Phoenix. If you really don't want me to see what's in here, tell me now. But... frankly, while I know you wouldn't intentionally lie to me - especially not now - I..."

Miles swallowed hard. "It's easy to want to run away from the past. But...if it holds a clue..." He sighed, leaning against the wall nearest the closet. "The decision is in your hands."

I'm not lying...not lying. Please don't see any locks on me, Phoenix. I'm being honest. Because...because I love you and I want to protect you. Even as he thought, he kept his eyes on Phoenix's, as if looking for a sign.

Edited 2009-03-20 21:01 (UTC)

This was all wrong. It was supposed to be Edgeworth hedging the truth, turning his head from the ghosts at the corners of the room. He was supposed to be the one with the maddening whims and the hidden, sharp fears. Phoenix's place was there at the other end of the room, holding the light, ready to uncover some old and awful truth. That was Phoenix's job, to ask those questions, to look on with that terrible, transparent sincerity.

That thought, the brief, insane conviction that they'd forgotten who they were, was almost worse than the locks.

It could be just a picture - but there could be something in it, too. He thought of trying to ask something of it again - a stab of cowardice kept him from considering it more seriously. It could have just been his state of mind and the chemicals in his blood that had made him see what he had in the room. It was ridiculous to think that the locks had tried to kill him. And yet . . .

He lifted his eyes again and nodded,less determination in his face than trust. "Left pocket," he answered, two words trying to cover for all the 'I know's and 'thank you's and 'don't worry's that he couldn't find quite the right words for.

“It was a test, I guess," he explained, talking if only to get his mind off of the itching finality of the weight wrapped around him. "He asked me how many I saw. At first, I didn’t know what he meant. I thought maybe-“ He caught the reason before he had a chance to speak it, backpedaling when he realized that it sounded nonsensical without some kind of explanation. “Once he’d finished with an eye, I couldn’t see much out of it for a little while. So I thought maybe it was a vision test, or making sure he hadn’t hit something in my brain, or-“ The ramble trailed off and he slouched back, burying a hand in his hair. “I know, it was stupid," he gritted, looking down at his feet. "I wasn’t really thinking.”

Miles simply nodded, reaching into the pocket and - he wasn't sure what he'd been expecting. One of those pieces of stone, maybe, but not a photograph. Once he got a clear look at the subject of the photograph, however, everything became clear. "They wanted to test you with someone they knew would get a reaction out of you, even if she's dead. They knew she was hiding things, and probably hadn't come clean before her execution, and..."

I know. We've switched positions. But... I'm the only one that can do this right now. You'll be back to your old self sooner than you think you will, I'm sure of that, but right now... right now let me face the shadows. I've had to grow used to them, as much as they frighten me. He wanted to say all that, but the words wouldn't come out.

Instead, he fell silent, putting the photograph back, then clicking off the light and tossing it to one side as he sat down next to Phoenix and wrapped both arms around him. "Whatever your response was, don't worry about it. You don't want to know what kind of shape I was in when they were done with me, but...I can't imagine you were in much better shape. Whatever you said or did, remember that you were in no shape to think critically. You were going on instinct because you didn't have anything else to go on."

He got a stern tone in his voice when he continued. "Phoenix? Do not blame yourself. It doesn't get you anywhere. You can't play the what-if game, not here. It will eat you alive."

By degrees, it occurred to Phoenix that Edgeworth wasn't pressing anything. He wasn't particularly subtle when he was after information, even he'd contented himself to bide his time. He doesn't actually need to know. He touched his shoulder, where there still should have been a chain. It was gone, as if it had never been there in the first place. He wasn't sure if he should attribute it to the epiphany or the remnants of a drugged haze, still clearing bit by bit from his head. He breathed a little noise of relief, at last considering those words.

Not blaming himself sounded easy, but it was hard to do without falling back on the same what-ifs that in the end incriminated him. His innocence depended on a guess, nothing more than a game of probability and mysteries, and the odds that he knew most intimately of all had failed him. It never ended like that. He never went down like that, not without achieving something for someone.

I can't say that I didn't get anything. These psyche-lock aren't so different that they can't conceivably help me, he told himself in an attempt to pull himself back up, leaning into the embrace and resting his cheek on Edgeworth's shoulder. He remembered the fathomless, reeling spiral of the staircase, and the voice at his ear, promising in that quiet, decided way that he wouldn't fall.

He'd been looking at him. He'd been telling the truth.

He turned his head enough to plant a silent kiss against the smooth fabric, speaking past it. "Thanks for being here."

"I had to be," Miles murmured quietly. "You don't remember doing the same for me, but...you did. And going after you and making sure you were safe..."

He pulled Phoenix closer, rubbing his shoulder lightly and kissing the top of his head. "I promised myself that night that if anything ever happened, I'd do the same for you. I meant every word. You went through a lot more that night; a monster that was out of one of those movies we watched when we were kids was in the hall, and they'd dumped me there waiting for the thing to get me. But even if that had happened to you - and don't get me wrong, I am very glad that it didn't - I would still go. And I'd be here now."

He paused, just long enough to tilt Phoenix's chin up. "Because...I don't want to lose you a second time." He didn't let Phoenix respond, instead leaning forward and kissing him.

Phoenix leaned into the kiss harder than even he expected to - it was firmness or melting into insensibility at those words, and he chose the former. Relief snaked down his spine at the familiar retreat into that world that was nothing but the ordered chaos of tongues and lips and teeth, the almost-familiar taste of another mouth.

There'd been a time when he had barely been able to imagine himself so knowledgeable and sure here, organizing rescue parties and charging through darkened hallways full of monsters. It was the same time when he hadn't been able to imagine kissing Miles Edgeworth, or being allowed to kiss him. Those certainties, little less than a week old, seemed ancient and fragile now, fossils of strange and simple creatures.

Being kissed held an immediacy that was soothing - no past recrimination, no future threat, no questions, no evasion. He half-turned into the embrace, hands moving on autopilot to brace him against the solidity of a hip and a thigh.

Edited 2009-03-21 03:16 (UTC)

There were times when actions spoke volumes more than words ever could, and this was one of those times. Miles was almost regretting not doing this sooner, rather than slipping into the kind of speech that was far more suited to Phoenix than it was to himself. It was easier to pull the other closer, move a hand to the back of his neck and let his fingers curl in that dark hair.

It was easier still to lean further into the kiss, sliding his tongue past Phoenix's lips, making a soft, pleased noise as he did so. There was a touch of possessiveness in that noise, too - as if he were saying 'you're mine and I will never let you go'.

This was probably the only thing that made Phoenix admit to himself, if only briefly, that being stuck in a place without hair gel might not have been entirely bad. He turned his head into the hand, just enough to press that pressure harder against his scalp, permissive and prodding at once. His mind wandered in close, idle little circles, but didn't trouble itself much for the moment beyond things like the the stitching under his thumb, or the way that noise made him wish he was in better shape to just grab Miles' lapels in both hands and flatten him back against the bed.

(I . . . kissed you then? he'd never found a chance or a way to ask. Some maniac just finished experimenting on and torturing you, your dead dad was talking in your head, and I decided that then was the perfect time to make out? He was glad now, that he'd never had the opportunity to utter those words. It was the kind of thing that was hard to explain, and besides, he just would have felt stupid now.)

He leaned a little closer into the embrace, past a point he was sure would have made the room wobble around him again if he hadn't been held so solidly, giving a low murmur of approving encouragement.

Trauma leads us to this every time. I...don't know what that says about us, or our need for an adrenaline rush or....something before this starts...

Then Phoenix let out that murmur and all those thoughts were gone. Whatever it said about them didn't matter now - it seemed to be their way of saying what couldn't be said, or comforting each other when that seemed impossible. It was hard to explain it. He broke away, breathlessly whispering, "Lie back, Phoenix. Let me take care of you tonight. You've been through hell, and thinking about it more won't help."

He silenced any protests by tossing his suit jacket over a chair, then pulling him into another tight embrace and kissing him hard. As he did, Miles slowly, carefully began lowering Phoenix down against the pillows.

Nightshift 39: M91-M100 Hallway

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