damned_institute | Nightshift 44: M51-M60 Hallway

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Nightshift 44: M51-M60 Hallway

Sai changed quickly. Whether he was less emotionally stable that usual or not, he was far better off than he'd been the night before. He would perform the mission required of him tonight. It was nothing that should put anyone's lives at stake, and holing himself up would only decrease his ability to perform his duties later.

The vial of sedative was secured safely in the sweatshirt he used as a makeshift belt. It was important that he got the item to Sakura tonight. They might not get an opportunity to get hold of a replacement if this one was lost.

M90 was in the men's block in the opposite hall. He should make haste so that his teammate wasn't delayed.

[to here]

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If he'd had his way, Phoenix knew he wouldn't have wanted to do anything but stand here half the night and talk. Well, alright, by half an hour in he probably would've been getting the same ideas into his head that he always got when it was the two of them and a closed bedroom, but the point still stood. Some immature, skittish part of him didn't want to go back out there where it was dark and malicious - not with Edgeworth, not when he was making wry observations and standing with some semblance of relaxation and still in one piece.

Car shopping. Phoenix whistled lowly at the comment, and how Edgeworth made the note as if he were observing that he needed to pick up a loaf of bread on the way home from work. "Yeah, maybe I'll splurge too. Get my bike some new rims," he replied, scanning the room and realizing exactly what it was he wasn't seeing. "Hey, didn't you say you still had my coat?"

"Or you can just get a ride from me when you want one," he replied, letting the implications of that statement sink in for just a moment. If he had to admit it, he wasn't immediately inclined to leave, either. He was trying to play it off, but Edgeworth had a nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach after that intercom announcement. But there were things that needed to get done, and while it would be nice to stay inside and plan on doing them tomorrow, it wasn't as if they could just ask to run up to the second floor to grab something they'd left up there during the day.

"I didn't see it in my closet just now...hm." He walked over to the bed, then lifted the pillow. It had been bloodstained the night before, but now it was folded neatly and looked like it had just come back from the dry-cleaners'.

In a way, Phoenix wanted to twist Edgeworth's response into some kind of innuendo, because at least that was easier than imagining home with the inclusion of such an approachable Edgeworth, one he could bum rides off of like a high-schooler and who was unquestionably attached to him.

What's wrong with me? That's what I want, isn't it? I want to see him every day. I don't want there to even be a question of how much we care about each other. He strolled closer, picking up his coat and shaking it out to look it over. Even after sitting under a pillow all day, it looked about as good as it usually did coming out of his closet. The cleanliness didn't escape him, either. He knew exactly where the marks had been - right breast, a bit on the right shoulder, both cuffs - but the jacket was just as clean as his paper-white shirt had been this evening.

No. Phoenix put down his bag and pulled the coat on in a few quick, shrugging motions, once he'd straightened it out fishing in his pocket for his badge and fixing it to the lapel again. He couldn't keep doing this. He couldn't keep looking for the bloodstains that proved how easy that dream would be to shatter, just like he couldn't keep thinking about how irreconcilable it seemed with the world he'd left behind. He didn't trust the word 'impossible' until he'd tested it much, much more strongly than this.

". . . yeah." He straightened, shouldering his bag again, smiling a little. "I think I'll do that." He wanted to lean closer, to kiss him, and honestly he didn't know what he was waiting for (other than traumatic injury? his internal peanut gallery piped up). It was just - hell. Six years out from being a lovestruck idiot in front of an entire courtroom, and he was still hopeless when it came to relationships.

"You were looking for the bloodstains." The words came out before Miles could stop them, too honest to be kept in, even if he immediately regretted them. He shook his head, sighing before turning away just long enough to put his things down.

"It shouldn't be my place to apologize for putting you through hell last night - it should be the bastard that runs this place apologizing," he continued, stepping in close. "Still, though...I've been running the whole mess through my head all day. I can't not say something."

He gestured to that rapier - an item he didn't think he would ever need to own, much less need to use. "I couldn't protect you last night, or the night you were taken. For that, I'm sorry." With that, he pulled Phoenix close, kissing him softly. When he pulled back a moment later, it was with a bit of an awkward smile. "I think you're rubbing off on me."

Even if he knew that he wasn't very discreet, Phoenix winced subtly at the observation, averting his eyes. It wasn't that he was ashamed of having looked; anyone who knew him knew that sort of thing was in his nature. It was that he'd given Edgeworth a chance to address last night again. Last night was something he still didn't know how to handle: a murder with no casualties, no weapon, no perpetrator. No evidence at all that it had happened, except for the lingering, strange tension between them.

So being kissed came as a surprise, but a welcome one. Phoenix lifted his hand instinctively to curl around Edgeworth's collar, fingertips hooked into the nape of his neck, and a moment's flitting desire raced across the surface of his brain a second later. It would be so easy to turn his head and bite, entirely unexpected, and though he'd never bitten anyone, the impulse seemed convinced that doing so would be extremely satisfying. He wrestled it back, and felt a moment's relief as it submitted to being shelved. Definitely better than last night.

"With what? The protecting thing?" He grinned crookedly as Miles leaned back, thumb rubbing idly at the spot just behind the angle of his jaw, and really, really wished that there wasn't a possible mob heading toward their objective (even if most mobs in this place purportedly moved at a glacial crawl). "It's okay. I got that from you in the first place."

"There's that, but there's also the fact that you are very slowly turning me into what some people would call a sap," he replied. "You can't say you got that from me." Miles laughed, and if he hadn't seen the bulletin board that afternoon, would have suggested putting off the upstairs trip until another night. That didn't mean the temptation wasn't still there, though.

The logical part of him wanted to press onward, say that they needed to head out, that there was no time to waste in figuring out what in the world had happened, and had he forgotten that there was some mob mentality going on? There was a second, also rational, part that was simpler than that, and it had only one thing to say: if the past two nights had been bad, what did that 'new level of training' encompass, and what was the best way to handle it? On the one hand, he had an alert mechanism for danger now, but on the other, what if this was something less obviously sinister, something that crept up on you slowly over time?

"If I wasn't concerned about the possibility of a very angry group of teenagers actually managing to destroy people's things, I would suggest we put off the upstairs trip until another night," he admitted, a bit of a sheepish look on his face. "That said...well. If they can regenerate the entire roof of this place after that explosion..."

Even if Phoenix had to pull a bit of a 'hey, now,' look just to salvage his dignity upon being called a sap, that was still point and match. Miles had been the kid who would raise his voice to anyone he thought was being stupid, up to and including the teacher. Phoenix . . . well, he'd been the kid who cried in public. Into his second decade.

"Yeah, having a roof's in their best interests, though, so they'll fix that. I'm not sure they're going to be as concerned about replacing anything that helps us out," he replied, audibly displeased. He took his hand back as if he wasn't sure he actually wanted it, tempted to huff a petulant sigh until a thought occurred to him.

"Here's an idea. If we've got to beat the crowd anyway, this should be quick. We can come back down here to actually inspect what we find." He laughed under his breath, struck by the absurdity of a pillaging run up to the second floor, then an escape before the torch-and-pitchfork brigade showed up. "It'll be like Halloween, except without Larry eating a pillowcase of candy and puking."

"That's fair. And I was being an idiot, so thank you for not indulging me," Miles said, nodding once. "All right. Lead the way on this trick-or-treat expedition," he said, gesturing to the door.

[oh god don't kill me my brain is just not wanting to work right now.]

"Hey, easy on that idiot stuff. You're going to do a number on my self-esteem." Phoenix smirked, waiting until Miles had his things together before leading them back out the door and down the hall.

Edited 2009-10-13 01:43 (UTC)

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