Shadows Passing, Parts 5-8/20 [Phoenix/Edgeworth]
Title: Shadows Passing
Pairing: Phoenix/Edgeworth
Rating: PG
Summary: Written for the kink meme. The prompt: Post GS3 (like way after), Phoenix and Edgeworth meet up with each other (possibly in a new workplace or something), but neither of them recognize each other, and they don't talk so they never get the other's name. After a short while, the two of them fall for each other but don't want to admit it because each still feels dedicated to his old lover. Eventually one caves and so on...
Author's Notes: This is a bit of a long read, with twenty parts and over 22,000 words, so... yeah, just warning you. Finding a reason as to why they wouldn't recognize each other was extremely difficult and ends up being the crux of the story. Also, I got a lot of inspiration from the movie Memento; if you haven't seen it, basically there's a color sequence and a black-and-white sequence that alternate throughout the movie. One sequence goes forward in time while the other goes backwards. Keep that in mind for the flashbacks. 1-4 spoilers; disregards the events of Apollo Justice.
FF.N Link (if you are so inclined): http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4184728/1/Shadows_Passing
Parts 1-4 | Parts 5-8 | Parts 9-12 | Parts 13-16 | Parts 17-20
Edgeworth, Part 3
They see each other every day over tea and, in Beckett’s case, coffee with plenty of cream and sugar. Edgeworth finds himself sneaking glances at him whenever he can. Everything the other man does makes him think of Phoenix somehow. He even takes his coffee the same way.
A coincidence, he knows, but it’s the best kind. Or the worst, depending on how you look at it. It’s a constant reminder of the man he loves-no, loved-he tries to tell himself it’s the latter but deep down he knows it’s still the former. It’s also a voice whispering in his ear: You can never have the real thing again.
He shoves the voice away every time.
On their sixth meeting, Edgeworth hopes they are comfortable enough with each other so that he can ask his question. Though to be honest, he has several questions for Beckett, but at this point, there is only one he can pose without feeling like he’s crossed some boundary.
“So how come you don’t have a first name?”
“I do,” the other says, a little too quickly; he can imagine the eyes he’s never seen widening behind the sunglasses. Edgeworth doesn’t quite understand his defensive reaction. “I just…” He pauses, mulls it over. “I don’t like it.”
“But it’s your name. Or do you enjoy introducing yourself as being ‘like Cher, just the other way around’?”
Beckett shrugs. “It’s not me.” He smirks teasingly. “I mean, you don’t look much like an Evan.”
The words sting more than the other man can possibly know, but he tries to smile. “Funny how that works.”
“Anyway,” Beckett continues, looking thoughtful now, “I guess you could say I’m… looking for a name. I mean, I know that in the end they’re nothing more than arbitrary labels. You could call me ‘Bob’ and I’d still be the same person. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, et cetera. I just… I don’t know. I can’t explain.”
He doesn’t know how to reply, being distracted by the way Beckett has a finger and thumb on his chin. It seems so familiar.
Fortunately, the other man is still talking. “I’m going to find my name, though. And then-and then I’ll… remember.”
Edgeworth isn’t entirely sure what he’s talking about anymore, but he smiles, a little sadly, at Beckett. He can never say it out loud, but he already has a name for him.
Phoenix.
-
Of course there would be an earthquake. It had been too long since he had felt the utter terror the jerking of the ground set off in him. The day had been perfect up until now: he had won a case, gone to dinner and a movie with Wright, and found no anonymous letters in the mail. And then it struck.
He went through the motions automatically: fall over, curl up in a protective ball, inhale, exhale, don’t cry. Repeat the last three steps.
Twenty minutes had passed when he heard pounding at the door. “Miles!” someone shouted from the other side. Wright. But he couldn’t bring himself to move. Inhale. Exhale. Don’t cry. He was tripping over that last step.
A crash, and then loud cursing. “Miles!” he heard again, this time accompanied by the sounds of feet running around.
“Wright,” he gasped, but the call was so silent he didn’t think anyone had heard.
Finally the feet got closer as they approached his bedroom. Light from the hallway spilled inside as the door pushed open, and there he was, looking decidedly out of breath. “Oh, God,” he said, rushing over to him. “Are you okay?”
Edgeworth tried to nod, but he couldn’t follow through with the motions, giving a low whimper instead. Inhale. Exhale. Don’t cry.
“You’ll be alright,” Wright whispered, scooping him up in his arms and carrying him to the bed. He could feel himself being lowered onto the mattress, could feel the warmth of Wright’s body as he got in beside him.
“How…” He had to swallow a few times before he could get the rest of the sentence out. “How did you get here?”
“Bike,” he replied. “I’m sorry I took so long.” He kissed his forehead lightly before cradling him against his body.
Inhale. Exhale. Don’t cry. “It’s not your fault.”
“It’s not your fault either.”
Minutes passed in silence. Edgeworth could feel himself relaxing as Wright stroked his hair; the man was surprisingly gentle. Finally, he brought himself to speak. “Thank you, Phoenix.”
The hand on his hair paused for a second. “Did… did you just…?”
A small laugh bubbled from his throat. “I know, it took me eight months. Not including the time from before we were a couple. I apologize.”
“God, Miles, don’t be sorry,” Phoenix said, and kissed him again, this time on the lips. “I thought I was going to be ‘Wright’ forever. Which would have been okay, coming from you. But… wow.” Another kiss. “Here I am, supposed to be comforting you, but you’re the one who just made my day. Good job.” He flashed him a smile, bright and dazzling.
Edgeworth buried his face in the other man’s shirt. “Phoenix,” he mumbled, and he reveled in the way the name rolled off his tongue.
Inhale. Exhale. Don’t cry.
And say his name.
The steps suddenly seemed much easier to follow.
---
Phoenix, Part 3
He begins to adapt to a schedule. Wake up, shower, eat, look up Miles Edgeworth anywhere he can, meet Evan Morgan at the café, return to motel.
Eating is probably something he should be doing more of, he thinks wryly to himself as he stares at his gaunt reflection in the mirror-in the dark, of course, because the light still hurts his eyes. He’s been living off coffee and instant noodles. But he doesn’t find himself feeling very hungry all that often, so as long as he doesn’t collapse one day he’s probably okay. Hopefully.
He puts on his beanie and sunglasses and steps outside. Today his feet take him to the library, where he buries himself in old newspapers in the hopes of catching a glimpse of that elusive name. It’s exactly the same thing he did yesterday, except instead of obituaries, he’s looking at the local news.
Not surprisingly, there is nothing. However, he notes, Evan’s name crops up a couple of times-apparently he is quite the teacher. He smiles.
As he peruses a paper from four months back, grinning at yet another mention of Evan, he suddenly remembers their conversation from yesterday. They had been talking about names. And he himself had said that they were nothing more than arbitrary labels.
If Miles Edgeworth is just an arbitrary label…
Then he isn’t going to find him in these newspapers. He may be in D.C. But he also may be going by another name. But why?
Inspiration hits him like a ton of bricks: the internet. Maybe something there will give him some sort of lead. In his excitement, he nearly throws the newspapers back onto the shelves before dashing to a computer and frantically typing his name into the search box.
And there it is.
Nearly all of them are three-year old articles on Californian news sites: Miles Edgeworth missing, presumed dead. Jacket recovered from the San Gabriel River. Suicide note found.
Suicide note found.
With trembling hands he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the first sheet of paper. Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth chooses death. This must be it-which means he’s dead; he threw himself into the river.
No. No. He can’t be dead. His jacket may have been pulled from the waters, but there is no mention of his body. Miles Edgeworth is the man in D.C. Why else is he clinging to this three-year-old suicide note otherwise, standing here at the other end of the country?
He struggles to connect the pieces in his head. Miles Edgeworth made it look like he committed suicide and disappeared. For whatever reason, he refused to believe this, enough to track him down-somehow-and leave his present self with a single clue: he’s in D.C.
But it’s not enough, his mind hisses to him despairingly. If he staged his death, he is almost certainly going by another name. And because he cannot remember what the other looks like, he has nothing to go on.
There’s only one thing he can do, then. Wait for the memory to come back. It’s been three years, after all. He can hold out a little longer, as long as he gets to the truth in the end.
Just a little longer.
-
He stepped out of Page High School, feeling disappointed and elated at the same time. It had been the last school in Greensboro that he hadn’t checked out, and of course, nothing had come from it. Edgeworth wasn’t here.
After sliding into the battered red sports car, he brought out the second sheet of paper in his pocket and stared at the last two cities on his list. Greensboro, North Carolina. Washington, D.C. He had canvassed the former and found nothing. Which meant that Edgeworth was in the latter.
I’ve found you, Miles, he thought to himself, heart pounding, as he scratched out the two names. With his luck, of course it had to be the last one he visited. But that was just it: D.C. was the last one. There were no more options after it. He had eliminated them all.
Hand trembling, he put his pen to paper and wrote.
He’s in D.C.
He swallowed heavily as he considered what that meant. He had finally pinned down Edgeworth’s location. In weeks-maybe days-he would find the man himself. And then he would learn why Edgeworth did what he did. Why he had staged his death. Why he had betrayed him.
He underlined and circled the words multiple times, as if doing so would solidify his resolution. The answers were within his grasp.
No time to waste, his mind sang, and so he pressed down on the pedal and peeled out of the parking lot. He probably shouldn’t have been speeding, but his heart was still pounding and he couldn’t help but think that the faster he got there, the faster he would find him.
Faster, faster, faster.
He never quite saw the tree until he hit it.
---
Edgeworth, Part 4
Sometimes he pretends that behind the sunglasses are blue eyes and wobbly eyebrows.
He knows it’s wrong. He knows he shouldn’t imagine these things. But he does anyway.
Let me see your face, he wants to say every time he sees him. Let me see it so I can finally stop deluding myself.
But Edgeworth realizes it’s Beckett’s choice. When he is ready, he will take the sunglasses off. Until then, though, the delusion remains.
He tries to determine what he feels toward Beckett. Friendship, certainly. Maybe a little more than friendship. But for what reason? Because of Beckett himself, or because of the way Beckett reminds him of Phoenix?
He doesn’t even have to ask. Of course it’s the latter.
And in that case, he feels like this relationship is something he needs to cut off. Beckett deserves better. And though it’s been three long years, he cannot help but feel that this would be betraying Phoenix. Phoenix, the reason anything good has ever come from his life. Phoenix, the man who did all he could to save him. Phoenix, the name he has forbidden himself to say aloud ever since he left him three years ago.
Tell Beckett you can’t meet up with him anymore, his mind keeps on repeating. And when he goes through another café meeting without saying anything of the sort, he reassures himself: Next time.
But he never goes through with it.
-
There were three words constantly on the tip of his tongue, but he could never bring himself to say them out loud. He was Miles Edgeworth. Affection was not his strong point.
But after the earthquake, he found the perfect opportunity to at least express it in actions, if not in words.
“I replaced the door,” he told Phoenix over dinner a few days following the incident.
Phoenix looked embarrassed. “Sorry about that. I just wanted to, um, get to you quickly. I can pay for it if you want.”
“That’s what I wanted to discuss with you, actually.”
The other man was already fumbling with his wallet. “How much? I only have a few twenties on me, but if we can go to the bank later, or maybe a check-”
Edgeworth shook his head. “Not that part, Phoenix.” He took in the way the other’s eyes lit up at the mention of his name and allowed a small smile to play across his face. God, he loved that look. “I meant what you said about you getting to me quickly. Because, you see, kicking my door down during an earthquake isn’t the fastest way. This is.” He slid a pair of keys across the table.
Phoenix looked at the keys, then at Edgeworth. “Miles,” he said. “T-thank you.”
And so he began the process of moving all of his belongings over. One of the boxes he brought to the house, Edgeworth discovered, was filled with loose sheets of paper and pencils. “Just old art junk,” Phoenix had answered dismissively when he asked him about it. “I still doodle every now and then.”
Edgeworth started to flip through them before suddenly pausing. “Is this me?”
“Oops, busted.” The other smiled weakly. “Couldn’t help myself, I guess. Sometimes, when you’re in your office and you’re really busy with paperwork and I’m just lying there on the couch…”
He stared at it, amazed at the way Phoenix had captured his likeness and touched by the effort he had obviously put into it. “May I keep this?”
“What? Oh. Y-yeah. Sure.”
They grinned at each other.
By the end of two weeks, Phoenix had moved in completely. All was well.
Then the second letter came.
So you are living with Phoenix Wright.
And as Edgeworth read it with shaking hands, he felt himself falling back into the litany he had recited back when the first letter had come, over two months ago. This means nothing. Someone is playing mind games with me. Nothing will come from it. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
But he would inevitably return to this means something.
The third letter would cement it.
---
Phoenix, Part 4
Sometimes he pretends that his life isn’t clobbered together from disjointed bits of memory, that all he has now is all he will ever need. He wishes that he could do something-anything-without Miles Edgeworth looming in the back of his brain.
But he can’t. And so even as he feels himself being pulled in by Evan’s depthless gray eyes, there is always a voice telling him that he cannot be distracted until he has found the truth.
God, Evan Morgan. There’s just something about him that he finds himself incredibly attracted to-his looks, his intellect, his wit. Okay, several somethings. The man was reserved in the beginning, when they had first met, but now, a few weeks in, Evan has proven himself to have quite the sarcastic streak of humor. And he loves it.
Loves it, but also hates it, because he can’t help but wonder what this will mean for him when he finally meets Edgeworth. What is his relationship with him? From what he knows, Miles is apparently extremely important to him-enough so that he will travel the country to find him, even if he doesn’t want to be found.
It wouldn’t be a surprise, he reflects with some amusement as he considers the fact that he seems to be attracted to men, if he had maybe loved Edgeworth once. And maybe still does.
And so they both vie for his attention: Miles Edgeworth, the man cloaked in shadows and the key, perhaps, to his past; and Evan Morgan, the man right here before him and quite possibly the key to his future.
If he wants, he knows he can quit the search for the former and focus only on the latter. It would be so easy. Edgeworth faked his death, after all, which means he’s trying to escape something. Maybe him. If he gives up, Miles can continue on with his life, doing whatever he’s doing. And he can get to know Evan a little better without feeling so guilty.
But something tells him he shouldn’t. There are so many questions he has, and he wants to see them answered. When they meet again, he says to himself, he’ll determine how he feels. Except he doesn’t know how long it will be until that moment comes, and all the while, Evan is still here.
Get your mind off him, a voice whispers in his ear. Just stop coming to the café.
But he returns every day.
-
He was sitting in a coffee shop in Seattle when he saw the picture of the smiling woman. Local history teacher wins teaching award, read the caption-not that he particularly cared about that. There was something far more interesting in the photo: the background. It was blurry and out of focus, but he could make out the back of a man who was holding up one finger near his ear.
He would recognize that arrogant pose anywhere.
“Edgeworth,” he gasped out loud in shock. He stared at the picture again. It was Miles, he was sure of it, even without the magenta suit-not that it would have shown up anyway in a black-and-white photo. After nearly two years of searching, he had finally found some sort of confirmation that the other was alive.
Alive, he thought, and breathed in the word like air. Edgeworth was alive.
His eyes flew to the article, which he had previously skipped over, and went through it multiple times. It wasn’t long, but it told him enough. Semifinalists include teachers from Pine City, MI, Richfield, UT, Portland, OR, Greensboro, NC, Corpus Christi, TX, Aurora, IL, Washington, D.C., Akron, OH, and Knoxville, TN. Nine cities. If Edgeworth was at this ceremony, whatever it was, then he must have been a nominated teacher. And so he must be living in one of these cities.
He took out a sheet of paper from his pocket, which was scribbled over with false leads and fleeting hopes. At last, something concrete. Eyebrows creasing in concentration, he scratched out everything and wrote down the names of the nine cities, going from west to east to the best of his abilities. It was wild, it was inefficient, but he had already laid out his plan. He’d go to each city, each school. And he would search the classrooms, the yearbooks, everything. And eventually…
Eventually he would find Edgeworth.
His breath caught as he wondered what would happen. What would he say? What would he do?
Slap him, of course. Except even as he thought it he knew he would never do such a thing. Because even though Miles had left him, had betrayed him, he still loved the man. There had to be a reason behind his actions. And he would find them out.
“Miles,” he whispered, tracing a finger over the blurry figure. For some reason he could feel his eyes burning. God, was he about to start sobbing? Maybe it was understandable. He had been right all along. Edgeworth hadn’t killed himself.
He took a few deep breaths to calm the emotions coursing through him. Inhale. Exhale. Don’t cry. Miles’ mantra during an earthquake, he had told him once.
Thirty minutes and a cup of coffee later, he was calm enough to pay his tab and get into the car without his eyes watering. One more night in the motel, he decided.
And then he would go to Portland. Then Richfield. Then Corpus Christi. And so on and so forth.
Until he finally, finally found him.
---
Parts 1-4 | Parts 5-8 | Parts 9-12 | Parts 13-16 | Parts 17-20