Dogsbody | Chapter Three: Undo-It-Yourself
Title: Dogsbody
Pairing: Edgeworth/Gumshoe
Rating: Final chapter is NSFW, penultimate chapter contains some sexual references.
Word Count: 37,918
Synopsis: It's summertime, and Edgeworth needs his swimming pool cleaned. Looking to make a quick buck, Gumshoe volunteers to be his handyman for the whole weekend, little realising that Edgeworth will come to look at him in a whole new light...
Chapter Links: Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3 | Ch. 4
As he reentered the lounge he could hear Pess growling, and looking for the collie Edgeworth found him in a deadlock with the Detective, playing tug o' war over one of Pess' toys; a piece of thick, knotted rope. Pess was crouched low, legs braced apart and paws imprinting the carpet as he pulled, shaking his head vigorously and making his collar jingle as he tried to jerk the rope out of Gumshoe's hand. But the Detective held on doggedly, the cords in his arm standing out with the effort - Pess had a lot of strength when he dug his heels in like that. Gumshoe would let Pess tug his arm forward occasionally, and the dog would shuffle back on the carpet, delighted to have gained some ground and renewing his efforts to shake his prize out of the Detective's grip. But then Gumshoe would haul his arm back, pulling the dog back across the carpet, paws skidding through the pile.
Edgeworth couldn't help but smile as he could tell Pess was loving it, though he did squat down and pull the coffee table out of harm's way, for Gumshoe's arm was being flung all over the place as Pess tried to tug the rope away. Edgeworth would've let him have it by now - that rope started burning one's hand after a while.
"I think he's met his match at last," he commented to Gumshoe, who grinned.
"He just brought this over and dropped it in my lap, pal - he's pretty good at saying what he wants, huh?"
Edgeworth nodded, sitting down and taking a sip of his tea.
"This is his playtime anyway. When I'm working late at the office I'll usually come home to find a pile of toys on my chair - making sure I haven't forgotten."
"Must be kinda hard getting up the energy to play with a dog when you're tired, boss."
"Well, one shouldn't keep animals if one cannot make the time for them," Edgeworth said loftily. "I have employed dogsitters occasionally during very busy cases, but entertaining Pess is actually quite cathartic. Let me demonstrate. Pess!"
Pess immediately let go of the rope, ears cocked and tongue lolling slightly from his exertions. His eyes were bright, playful, and he awaited command.
"Go and find Wright," Edgeworth instructed.
Pess immediately shot out of the room, paws thudding on the stairs a moment later. Gumshoe blinked in confusion.
"Mr. Wright?"
"Wait and see."
Pess announced his return with a loud squeak. He held a blue, spike-studded rubber ball in his jaws.
"Ah! I getcha," Gumshoe exclaimed. "Hey, wow, that's pretty cool - you can tell him to get you anything you want!"
"Oh, only if it's a toy of his. I've tried to train him to find other things with no success - he's very single-minded," Edgeworth took the Wright-ball from Pess, then squashed it under his foot. It emitted a drawn-out squeaking noise and Pess immediately tried to get it out from beneath his foot, but Edgeworth had a hold on it.
"Though let me tell you, Detective," he continued, "if you ever had need of a tennis ball, he's the dog for the job. He has this unerring ability to produce them from thin air. Even on walks we've never done before, he still manages to find one. And they're often disgusting. Aren't they?" he said to Pess. "Dis-gus-ting," he punctuated this with squeaks of the Wright-ball, and Pess began to bark. "Shhh now," he tapped Pess on the nose with one finger. "No need to get overexcited - it's late."
The collie quietened down, and made another attempt to get the Wright-ball out from under his master's foot, but Edgeworth whipped it up out of reach. Pess sat, watching its every move.
"He loves squeaky toys to the point of hysteria, hence he's only allowed a few."
"Uh," a thought had occurred to Gumshoe. "Is there a Detective Gumshoe toy as well, then?"
"Oh yes," Edgeworth said airily, "he's been through a few of those. Well-chewed."
Gumshoe swallowed.
"Uh... guess it's a favourite, then?" he said weakly.
"Absolutely," Edgeworth smirked, throwing the ball to Pess, who caught it in his jaws. The collie lay down on the rug, chewing contently and producing the occasional soft squeak.
"You know, I used to think it'd be great to be a popular Detective - you know, like Columbo, or something. Now I'm not so sure it’s great to be the favourite..."
"You've got the coat for Columbo, but sadly I think there is a distinct lack of penetrating intelligence beneath your absent-mindedness."
"So if I thought about stuff more, I'd get chewed out less?"
"No, Detective, it's the thinking that sends you astray. That brain of yours isn't designed for such abuse."
"Guess that's why I leave all the thinking up to you, huh, boss?" Gumshoe chuckled, draining the last of his coffee.
"That's the way it's supposed to work, yes."
Though it frequently didn't, thanks to the Detective's innate ability to secondguess what Edgeworth wanted, and yet still manage to screw it up. But he no longer thought of this with irritation - more resignation. And besides, he was wasting swimming time.
"Now," he said, getting up, "the pool's ready to use, so I'm going for a dip. And as you've sweated and toiled over making it fit to swim in, it would be only fair to let you try it out as well, would it not?"
"Aw, that's real generous of you, boss - but I don't have any swimming trunks, and I can't really swim in these," Gumshoe looked down at his boxers, "or I'd have nothing to wear for tomorrow!"
I can't believe that's a primary consideration - never mind the fact that chlorine would ruin them, or that they'd be highly likely to fall off...
Not that he would object, Edgeworth realised.
"No need for any of that," he said hastily, "I have a spare pair of trunks you can use. Come, it's a nice evening; perfect for a swim."
Gumshoe was looking Edgeworth up and down, shaking his head.
"Boss, I wouldn't be fooling anybody if I said I could get my big butt into a pair of your swimmers."
"It's not bi-" Edgeworth cut himself off just in time. "Er, that is to say, it's not a problem. These ones are a little on the baggy side. I think they'll fit you."
"Guess I can try 'em on and see!"
Edgeworth dug them out and left them in the spare bedroom for him to try. It didn't take him long to get into his own swimming togs: a pair of magenta Speedos. He could have opted for something more modest with the Detective around - he did have boardshorts - but part of him wanted to deliberately flaunt his masculinity after his cack-handed wielding of the drill. Needless face-saving, he knew; it wasn't as if the Detective would ever tell anyone. But damn it, he had pride. Though he could feel it slipping little by little whenever he looked at Gumshoe's scantily clad body - now he had been reduced to a near-constant state of awareness, with errant, dirty thoughts intruding on the fringes. The Speedos were as much to ensure he maintained his self-control as anything else - and if that failed, there was the monotony of laps.
The pool water was just at the right temperature as he slipped in, and it was wonderful to be swimming again - he had missed it over the winter, for the public pool was a total no-go area as far as he was concerned. Miles Edgeworth didn't share his lap space with anyone. Today, however, was going to be the exception - although he suspected that Gumshoe would probably be the type to splash away happily down one end of the pool, in which case he could just swim a shorter lap.
He turned onto his back, about to start a lap of backstroke, but for a moment there, that feeling of weightlessness and the soft lapping sound of water circulating through his ears gave him a feeling of contentment. Instead of moving off he floated, closing his eyes. He couldn't hear much over the water in his ears, but he could imagine the birds singing, and half opening his eyes the night sky was clear above him without a cloud to be seen, much as it had been during his morning walk with Pess. But now all the stars were out.
Eyes still half-closed, he looked sideways towards the house - to see Gumshoe standing there at the pool gate. He hadn't opened it - he was just standing there in his borrowed magenta boardshorts, one hand paused on the latch, eyes on him and an unusual expression on his face. One of contemplation, almost.
Edgeworth didn't move, made no sign of acknowledgement, allowing his eyes to fall shut naturally. If Gumshoe had opened the gate, he definitely would have heard it. But there was no sound. He was still being watched, and the idea of that made his stomach twist a little with excitement.
It's just idle curiosity, he tried to tell himself, to quell that feeling and stop it chasing further down.
But surely such observation would have been accompanied by a Gumshoe-style exclamation, of the "Wow, you sure look different in swimming trunks, boss!" variety? The silence was incriminating to an analytical mind currently residing, he was ashamed to realise, in the gutter.
He kicked his legs and sent himself into a backwards roll, feeling an even more incriminating change taking place underneath the fabric of his Speedos, and as his head broke through the surface of the water he heard the pool gate clang. The spell had been broken.
"They're not a bad fit, boss!" Gumshoe called out, pointing at his boardshorts.
"Glad to hear it," Edgeworth replied, treading water and making waves around him. The refractive properties of water could hide a multitude of sins, for which he was truly thankful. "Are you coming in, then?"
"Here comes the Superdive! Yeeeeeeha!"
Edgeworth saw it coming and propelled himself out of the way, ducking under the water to avoid the worst of the huge splash as the Detective cannonballed into the water.
"There was no need for that!" he scolded when he resurfaced, but Gumshoe's dive had taken him so deep that he didn't come back up again for another few seconds, so the prosecutor's rebuke was wasted.
"Heck yeah, that was good!" Gumshoe shook his head violently, spraying water droplets everywhere. "Hey, fancy a game of waterpolo? I used to play that at school, it was pretty fun in the pool!"
"I don't have a ball," Edgeworth replied, pushing his wet hair out of his eyes.
"Easily sorted!" Gumshoe paddled over to the side and hopped out, dripping across the decking towards the house.
"Don't you DARE cross that carpet while you're dripping wet!" Edgeworth bellowed, and Gumshoe froze at the French doors, then turned and saluted.
"Alrighty, let's go for Plan B, then. Pess!" Gumshoe whistled. "Go get Mr. Wright - g'wan, pal!"
A moment later Pess appeared at the doors, and Gumshoe took the ball from his jaws.
"Tell him to get the Judge instead," Edgeworth called from the pool, realising what he was doing. "It's bigger."
So Gumshoe returned to the pool with a grey ball - it was round and shiny, rather like the Judge's pate. He threw it up, then closed his hand around his other fist and bumped it towards Edgeworth, who caught it one-handed with ease.
Another Superdive later and Gumshoe was back in the pool.
"Again, that was completely unnecessary," Edgeworth said sourly, lobbing the ball back to him.
"So here are the rules!" Gumshoe declared. "That compost bin's my goal," he pointed at it, "and that bench is your goal. If you let it past, it's a point to me! And if you can bump it back past mine, it's a point to you. Let's see if we can get a rally going, pal!"
"That's not proper water polo - you've just made those rules up!"
"Well, that's what we did at school," the Detective said stoutly.
"What, jump up and down in the pool like loons?"
"You'll see, boss - it's a real buzz once the ball's going! And you'll have a hard time beating me - I was the champ in fifth grade," Gumshoe said proudly, spinning the ball on one finger.
Well, he couldn't refuse that kind of baiting.
"Hmph," Edgeworth sculled backwards a little so he was in line with his goal. "I'll show you how proper water polo is played. May the best man win!"
Gumshoe hadn't been bragging with his claim - high shots, low shots, even a few crafty ones rebounded off the side of the pool, he fielded them all and returned them. They'd managed a rally of twenty-five shots so far, and Edgeworth was having a tough job of trying to break through his defence, though he was managing to hold his own and had yet to concede a goal. Gumshoe lobbed him a high return, and he threw his arms down to propel himself up out of the water, reaching up to slap his wet hand against the slick ball, but there was a spin on it and it flipped over his fingertips. Desperately he pumped one leg down to get an inch of extra height and managed to bat it with his other hand - it was a clumsy return but Gumshoe had been wholly expecting a goal from that trick shot of his, so his reaction was delayed.
"YES!" Edgeworth roared his triumph as he landed back in the water, seeing the ball go right past Gumshoe's shoulder. "A hit - a palpable hit!"
Gumshoe trod water for a moment, grinning at him.
"Wow, nice to see you're enjoying yourself, boss!"
Edgeworth abruptly came to himself, realising he had just acted like an overexcited child in front of the Detective. How embarrassing - he'd gotten carried away.
"Hm, well," he said gruffly, looking away, "anyone would be satisfied, successfully returning a sneaky shot like that."
"That's a point to you," Gumshoe conceded with a wink, noticing the victorious smirk briefly crossing the prosecutor's face before Edgeworth managed to summon a look of indifference. "Guess I'll have to stop holding myself back, huh?"
"Do your worst, Detective - I doubt it will exceed my best," Edgeworth replied confidently, flicking back one of his wet bangs.
There was a glint in Gumshoe's eye - Edgeworth could see it from across the pool, and he responded to it, his body tensing and eyes fixed on the ball. They faced off, man to man, Gumshoe bringing his arm back with the ball in hand.
The next shot came at Edgeworth with enough power to make his hand sting as he returned it, making it clear that the gloves were off and it was no holds barred. The smack of palm against ball reverberated around the pool enclosure, the volleys fast and furious and water droplets flying in all directions. They leapt up like dolphins and crashed back into the water like whales, arms extended in semaphore signal to intercept and return the relentless rallies. Edgeworth had no time to think about how ridiculous they looked to the outside observer - all his energy was focused on keeping that ball out of his goal, on maintaining his advantage. He felt invigorated, alive, able to leap higher and reach further in his desire to win - and in the end the rediscovery of his youthful endurance was what won out over Gumshoe's power serves and trick shots. Gumshoe just blocked his final rally rather than returning it, and the ball landed between them.
"Phew, I'm pooped, pal!" Gumshoe panted, sinking back into the water. "You win - I guess I'm getting too old for this kinda stuff. But that was a blast!"
Edgeworth ducked underwater, throwing himself forward into a private little victory somersault. He felt full of energy, all of a sudden - he'd almost call it hyperactivity, though that was rather silly and most unbecoming of him. He popped his head back up, trying to keep the foolish smile off his face.
"Your proclaimed prowess is certainly not unfounded," he replied. "I had a hard time returning your shots." His palm and fingertips were actually starting to tingle a little now from the power with which he'd been slapping the ball back, the sensation reminding him of his earlier desire to grab and squeeze the Detective's rear end.
"That used to be my supertechnique," Gumshoe said cheerily. "The Gumshoe Spin Slam! But I'm pretty outta practice, I haven't played since school."
"Hm, well, as ex-captain of the Corpus College waterpolo team, I've certainly met a worthy rival." Edgeworth extended his hand. "Well-played, Detective."
"Thanks, boss!" Gumshoe shook his hand.
The Detective's calloused skin was softened by the pool water, and the tingle in Edgeworth's hand eased at the warm contact. But as he let go, it returned, blossoming into an ache, a longing. They stood opposite each other, water running in rivulets down their chests and damp hair darkened down to almost matching colours under the pool lights. A breeze was beginning to blow, and now they were stood still Gumshoe gave a convulsive shiver.
"Hm, I suppose that's the weather's way of telling us we're not quite out of the winter yet," Edgeworth remarked, swimming over to the side. "Hot shower called for, I think. Agreed?"
Gumshoe followed him, hauling himself out of the pool.
"Sounds pretty good right about now," he said, taking the towel the prosecutor handed him.
"I'll go first - then you can have all the hot water to yourself."
Normally he would've let a guest go first - but he rather suspected that Gumshoe would use up all the hot water. Though admittedly he did have an additional, altogether more shameful ulterior motive.
After he'd finished, he called downstairs to the Detective,
"All yours. I'll be retiring now. Good night."
"G'night, boss!"
In the privacy of his own bedroom, with the door shut, he let the towel drop to the floor, listening as Gumshoe entered the bathroom next door. The Detective was heavy-footed, and Edgeworth heard him getting into the shower unit. He let his imagination do the rest of the work, and his body responded accordingly. The ache in his palms was now an ache all over, and he headed for the bed, his erection waving from side to side as he walked. It rubbed against the sheets as he got into the bed and he let out a sigh at the sensuality of it. But he didn't just want to wank himself off tonight, to the sound of Gumshoe showering next door, whistling away. He felt the need for something deeper, more thorough.
He reached in the drawer of the bedside table, thinking back to what had happened at the pool before. In his aroused state it was easy to entertain the possibility that a confession might prove fruitful after all. The idea made him go hot all over. But he couldn't be sure... he couldn't be sure. And yet, it couldn't hurt to be prepared. Well, it would, but it was a pain he wanted more than anything else right now. He poured lubricant over the vibrator, rubbing it up and down the length of it. He rarely used it, which was why it would be sore, and mechanical stimulation was a poor imitator of the real thing that he craved. But it was better than nothing, with a good enough fantasy to accompany it.
The next morning Edgeworth awoke to a knock on his bedroom door.
"Boss?"
The best he could manage was a groggy sound halfway between a groan and "Yes?"
"I made you some tea - that Early Grey stuff you like. Can I bring it in?"
It took him a moment to process the question, and as his higher cognitive functions began to reawaken he was aware firstly of a dim ache in his rear, which was nothing new, and then of a tight sensation in his pants, which eventually translated into the realisation that he was suffering from an acute case of morning wood. But the puffy eiderdown comforter hid it from the observer, all evidence of his dirty activity the night before had been cleaned away, and he'd remembered to put his pajamas back on before flopping into bed - so the coast was clear.
"Mmm," he replied, and the door opened tentatively, Gumshoe popping his head around it to make sure it really was okay to come in.
Edgeworth had sat himself up in the bed, rubbing one eye. He felt rather tired - he would have happily slept some more. Gumshoe put the teacup on the bedside table and the prosecutor groped for it, co-ordination still a little clumsy. Then he realised something wasn't quite right.
"Where's the saucer?" he asked.
There was a pause.
"Oh yeah!" Gumshoe exclaimed. "I forgot about that bit."
"Typical, Detective - good intentions, half-baked execution," Edgeworth sniffed the tea. There was a hint of lemon. "You found where I put the lemon juice?"
Gumshoe looked proud of himself.
"Well, boss, you organise your kitchen in the same kinda way you do the office. Everything matches up, so I looked in the cupboard above the kettle and whaddaya know, there it was!"
"Hmph, anyone would think I was predictable." Edgeworth sipped the tea. There was a little too much lemon, but he could put up with that - it was hot, freshly made, and it chased away the residual fog of sleep. "Did you sleep well?"
"Uh, well," Gumshoe yawned, stretching. "You'll laugh at this, pal - I just couldn't seem to get off to sleep. And I was rolling around, and rolling around, and then I fell right outta the bed onto the floor, and bing! Out like a light. I reckon I'm used to a hard mattress, y'know?"
"Are you sure you didn't knock yourself out when you fell out of the bed?" Edgeworth hadn't heard anything go thud - but over the past year since his nightmares had stopped, he had turned into a deep sleeper.
"Heh, I did that once! But not this time," Gumshoe sat on the edge of his bed, bouncing up and down on it experimentally a few times. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was the mattress - if you did this on the one at my place, you'd bruise your butt."
"What the hell do you sleep on - bricks?!"
"You could say that, boss! One of the bed legs is busted, so I had to prop it up with a few. Anyway, yeah, so I had trouble getting off to sleep, and then I woke up really early for some reason. I guess it's being somewhere different that does it, huh?"
"Hm, perhaps. So what's the-" Edgeworth looked over at the clock radio on his bedside table. Blinked. Looked again. His face darkened, and he turned back to the Detective.
"It's seven am."
"Sure is! Shaping up to be a nice morning, too, pal."
"And what day is it?" Edgeworth asked, tone flat.
"Uh, it's... Sunday?" Gumshoe said, a little uneasy - he recognised that tone, and it didn't bode well. He got off the bed, backing away a little.
"WHY THE HELL ARE YOU WAKING ME UP AT SEVEN AM ON A SUNDAY?!" Edgeworth roared. "Out! Out of my room, Detective - and come back at a more reasonable hour!"
"Sorry, boss!" Gumshoe's voice faded down the corridor as he exited at top speed. The door swung shut behind him.
"Oh, the injustice," Edgeworth whimpered to himself, wriggling back down in the bed. He wasn't one to waste a day lieing in, but when one had late nights, as he did, to be woken up before 8am on two consecutive leave days was just unfair.
However, despite having evicted Gumshoe from his room, sleep failed to reclaim him. Again, it was the Detective's fault, he decided, for the sight of him sitting on the edge of the bed in his boxer shorts did absolutely nothing to make his early morning erection subside.
So he grudgingly left his bed, opening the curtains. Gumshoe had been correct - though the light was pale due to the early hour, it was going to be a sunny day. He could see the half-finished gazebo across the garden, and from this high vantage point he realised that it would probably only take the morning for the Detective to complete it. But then there was still the ceiling in the spare bedroom to repaint. He was sure he could come up with some other things that needed doing, once he felt a little more awake. He absently reached down to touch his erection through the silk of his pajamas, leaning on the windowsill and cupping his chin in one hand, eyes half-closing as he stroked himself. He was just making it worse, he knew, but he was sleepy and it felt nice. It was probably inevitable anyway.
Oh, what lows I have stooped to, he sighed to himself, thinking back to the night before.
Now he wasn't sure things could go back to normal when they were back in the office next week. With enough resolve he could probably suppress these thoughts he was having, but his willpower had completely failed him last night, and here he was now, touching himself while thinking about Detective Gumshoe.
I shouldn't be doing this... And yet he was sliding his hand into the waistband of his pajamas. He paused. I have to give it up. Give it up, or tell him.
His penis ached to be touched. His middle finger brushed against it, pressed against the hardness, and then he grabbed hold of it, breathing in slowly.
"Okay," he said softly. He'd made his decision.
+++
Shortly afterwards, having cleaned up and dressed, he shuffled down the stairs in his slippers and dressing gown. Gumshoe was sprawled out across the sofa on his front, and to Edgeworth's surprise he was reading a book. It was Catch-22, by Joseph Heller - one of the few fiction books he owned. Pess lay on the rug by the sofa, and Gumshoe was flipping the book's pages with one thumb, rubbing Pess' head with his free hand. Pess' eyes were closed, and his tail swept from side to side contentedly.
"Sorry about earlier, Mr. Edgeworth," Gumshoe said, looking up from the page he was reading, eyes contrite. "I dunno why I thought you'd be awake already. I guess it's 'cause you're always at the office so early during the week."
"That's why the weekend is for clearing the sleep debt I've accumulated. Usually," Edgeworth added, but there was no real bite to the comment - his initial early morning grumpiness had been replaced by post-mastubatory amiability. "Now, I promised bacon for breakfast, didn't I?" he went into the kitchen and retrieved the frying pan from the hook.
At the sound of the kitchen clatter Pess got up, sitting expectantly at the entrance.
"Yes, it's coming," Edgeworth said to him.
At the same time as getting the bacon out of the freezer, he also gave Pess some kibbles for breakfast and refilled his water dish. Gumshoe closed the book, putting it on the coffee table.
"Carry on reading if you want," Edgeworth said to him on his way back into the kitchen. "It's an excellent novel, and it'll be a little while before breakfast is ready."
Catch-22 had been recommended to him some years ago, by Lana Skye, when they had shared a moment of mutual despair over a particularly pointless piece of Governmental legislation regarding evidence storage. He normally had little interest in wartime novels, but the style and satire of it had engaged him from start to finish - and he could see so many present-day parallels in the bureaucratic idiocies that populated the book.
"Aw, well, I think it's a bit wasted on me, pal," Gumshoe said, looking at it. "Some tabloid I read said it was one of those books you've gotta read before you die, but I just can't get my head around it."
"The timeline does jump around a lot - but persevere with it, things start to fall into place after a while." Edgeworth cracked some eggs into the pan, careful to do it far enough away from the bacon so that the white didn't run into the sizzling rashers.
"But when they talk, it makes no sense. I mean, I know I talk a lot of crap sometimes, but what they talk really is crap!"
"Of course, because they're all a little mad. Even Yossarian. The whole novel examines the sanity of wartime - or lack thereof. And by your logic, you should be able to understand what they say perfectly."
"I do, pal, that's how I know it's crap."
"The literary novel really is wasted on you, isn't it?" Edgeworth sighed, popping some toast in the toaster. "I never had you down as much of a reader anyway."
"Sure, I read! The library's free, so it's all good. Though it sure does take me a long time to finish a book - they kinda gave up on fining me in the end."
"Let me guess, your preferred fare is the formulaic crime novel?"
"Heck yeah! There's nothing like a good murder," Gumshoe declared. "Give me a Dick Francis and I'm a happy guy."
"Don't you get enough of that in your daily work?"
"Well, in the book, they solve it better, y'know?"
"If only you used them as inspiration."
"I do! After I read Harry Potter I wanted to be a wizard when I grew up. Then I realised they didn't exist. I was gutted, pal, let me tell you. Though I suppose I could've gone and been a magician instead - like those Gramarye guys on telly. That'd be pretty cool, actually."
"Don't. They're over-rated. Immensely." Edgeworth fished some plates out of the cupboard and shared the contents of the frying pan out between them. "Breakfast is served, come and get it."
"Oh wow, mushrooms!" Gumshoe said happily as he picked up his plate. "Now that's what I call a damn good breakfast. Heh, my doc would have a fit!" He sat down at the table and tucked in.
Edgeworth made himself a cup of English Breakfast. By the time he'd brewed it and sat down with his own plate, Gumshoe had finished his.
"Hey, while you're chowing down on that, boss, I'll go get started on the gazebo, huh?"
"I think my neighbours would object to you banging and crashing about at this hour," Edgeworth said between bites of fried egg. "The door on the left hand side of the hall goes to the garage - you'll find paint and dust sheets in there. You can get started on fixing the damage you did to the ceiling in the spare bedroom - that's a slightly quieter occupation."
"Right you are! Uh..." Gumshoe looked down. "I'll need my overalls back."
"They're in the tumbledryer," Edgeworth pointed. He'd put them in there last night, and despite going through the heavy soiling wash programme at 90 degrees, the stains still hadn't come out.
The Detective got them out of the tumbledryer and was in the middle of putting them on when there was a loud ripping sound.
"Bugger!"
Edgeworth looked up from his breakfast, though he knew what the sound probably was.
"I knew I shoulda fixed that hole," Gumshoe sighed. He'd put one foot right through it. "Man, I hate sewing."
"Wait there a moment," Edgeworth speared the last few mushrooms on his plate and popped them into his mouth, then got up and went to the dresser in the corner of the lounge. He came back with a needle and a reel of cotton. "Sort yourself out," he said, still chewing. "I'll fix the tear."
"You can sew, boss?"
"It's a useful skill."
Gumshoe carefully extracted his leg, and redirected it down the leg of the overalls, hooking the straps over his shoulders. Edgeworth knelt down, at eye level with the Detective's crotch. There were large flaps of fabric hanging down now, exposing Gumshoe's whole leg. There was a small birthmark on the inside of his thigh, shaped a little like Italy. He wanted to touch it, to put his whole face in the tear and lick it, and he knew he was supposed to admit it aloud, like he'd promised himself that he would. But now it came to the crunch, and he was getting cold feet. The whole thing was so left field - the Detective wouldn't know how to react. He would probably stammer and dither, and the whole thing would be a disaster. His heartbeat quickened, his mouth drying out. He couldn't say it. His hands shook a little as he picked up a trailing flap of cotton and joined the two ends together with one hand. He cast on and began sewing the edges together with a neat herringbone stitch, hiding the temptation from view. Within minutes, he was done.
"There, that won't be coming apart again in a hurry," he said, breaking the thread.
"Wow, that was quick!" Gumshoe turned the leg around a little, admiring the handiwork. "Cheers, boss - I'll go get started then. Your ceiling'll be done in no time!"
He disappeared into the hall, and Edgeworth watched him go, groaning inwardly. He couldn't go on like this. Something had to be done.
He switched on the radio and tidied away the breakfast things, accompanied by Dvorak. Now the Detective was out of the room it was oddly quiet, and Classical Gold, normally soothing, filled the silence in a lacklustre fashion. If anything, it was irksome, interfering with his thoughts. He switched it off again, realising he'd put it on out of habit more than anything else. As he did so, he heard a few thuds from the hall. He walked into the lounge, craning his head to see into the hallway, then rushed forward hurriedly.
"What are you- oh."
Gumshoe had been attempting to get the aluminium stepladder into the house from the garage, and had somehow managed to wedge it sideways between two doorjambs. Now, it was stuck, blocking the corridor.
"Sorry, boss - I might need a hand here," Gumshoe scratched his head, not sure how he'd managed to achieve this. "Stupid ladders, always difficult to hump around."
"It's a stepladder."
"Aw, not you as well!" Gumshoe groaned. "I get that from Mr. Wright all the time."
"Do you now? So we've both been had."
Gumshoe laughed uproariously at that.
"Alright then, pal, so this stepladder, is stuck. If you get that end," he gestured at the feet of the ladder, nearest to Edgeworth, "and I take this one, we can get it out without making me more painting to do. It won't take me long to fix your ceiling too, an' all - two hours, tops. I sure love working with Dulux paint, one coat's all you need!"
"Really? That's... good," Edgeworth said slowly. He'd already missed one opportunity to admit his true feelings to the Detective, and it looked like he wasn't going to get a second chance at it - at this rate he'd run out of jobs for Gumshoe to do by lunchtime.
I'll have to just come out with it, he fretted, taking up his station at the foot of the step ladder. But he was already beginning to realise that this perhaps wasn't the best way of doing it after all, because if it went disastrously wrong, he wouldn't be able to cover it up. Why does he have to be so damned dense that I need to say it to his face like this?
With this lament, he was struck by a sudden thought.
"Ready, Mr. Edgeworth? If we both push the ladder in at the same time it should bend enough for us to turn it around without knocking the plaster off the wall."
"Ready."
It was a possible solution to the problem. The idea was completely appalling, but it wouldn't go away - it leaped out at him with all certainty, like the threads of the truth when he stood at the bench in court.
"Push!"
Edgeworth pulled. There was a horrible screech of metal as the ladder slipped off the doorjamb, and because Gumshoe was pushing, the foot of the ladder caught against the wall and scraped a smeary, black score across it before Edgeworth whisked it away, his sharp reflexes apparently averting further damage.
"Aw, hell," Gumshoe dropped his end of the ladder and looked at the mark on the cream-coloured wall in dismay. "What happened there?"
"You tell me, Detective," Edgeworth feigned innocence. "You were directing the operation."
Gumshoe appeared to have been busy with maneouvreing his end of the ladder, for he looked blank.
"I guess it wasn't as stuck as I thought it was," he said slowly, squatting down to look at the mark on the wall again. He rubbed at it with his thumb. The mark wouldn't come off. He frowned slightly.
"There's a tin of cream paint in the garage," Edgeworth added, offhand.
"Uh-huh." Gumshoe straightened up. "Don't you worry, boss, I'll make it good as new!"
"I wasn't worried." Edgeworth picked up the end of the ladder again. "Now, let's get this up the stairs before you destroy any more of my house."
"Sorry, Mr. Edgeworth - that won't happen again, I promise."
Gumshoe picked up the other end of the ladder, but he looked over his shoulder at the scrape mark on the wall again. When he turned back, Edgeworth could almost see the cogs turning in his head. Getting the ladder up the stairs was an affair almost on par with their flatpack efforts the night before, but Edgeworth had a feeling he wouldn't be able to get away with damaging any more walls. He'd have to play this carefully if he wanted Gumshoe to come to the conclusion under his own steam.
He'll cotton on eventually. And then he'll ask, and then I can tell him.
The Detective seemed to be having one of his sharper days, so hopefully he wouldn't need to take it too far, but if push came to shove... well, he was now curious as to whether there was anything Gumshoe couldn't fix.
***
"Do you require further assistance?" Edgeworth asked after they'd put down the groundsheets.
"Nah, just gotta prime it, mix the paint right and slap the stuff on, job done!" Gumshoe prised open the paint tin with a screwdriver. "I'll make it look real arty too, you won't be able to tell the difference."
"Arty?" Edgeworth raised one eyebrow.
"That Laurice Deuxnim bloke ain't got nothing on me, pal!"
"Hmph. That's not exactly difficult - he had nothing to begin with," Edgeworth smirked. "Very well, I shall take Pess out for a run. I'll be back soon, we're just going to the park today."
"Right you are, Mr. Edgeworth!" Gumshoe opened some unidentified packet Edgeworth didn't even know he had in the garage, and began tipping it into the bucket of paint he'd prepared. He seemed pretty absorbed in what he was doing, and Edgeworth felt rather ignored.
"What is that?" he asked, nodding at the packet.
The Detective didn't reply for a moment, then realised Edgeworth was still standing there, and had asked a question.
"This?" he held up the packet. "Oh, it's, uh..." he turned the packet around to look at it, but it failed to give him any clues other than the mixing instructions, "it's stuff. You know, that... stuff."
"You've forgotten the name of it, haven't you? Why does that not surprise me?" Edgeworth sighed.
"But I know what it does!" Gumshoe added eagerly. "You mix it in with the paint and it makes it stiffer so you can do that with it," he pointed up at the swirls either side of the damaged patch of ceiling. "You gotta get the mix right, though, otherwise it sets too quick and you've got a bucket for a doorstop." He was stirring the contents of the bucket all the time as he said this.
"Ah. Of course." Edgeworth gave up and left at that point, realising further questioning would only expose his ignorance. Besides, Gumshoe had left his tool box downstairs, and while the Detective was otherwise occupied this was a prime opportunity to... not steal, he corrected himself, but to procure some items.
The toolbox proved to contain some very peculiar implements, but he recognised the basic spanner and screwdriver, so he took those. Gumshoe had his own, on his tool belt, so he wouldn't miss the ones in the box. He looked at the other odd tools, wondering if he needed any of them. But though DIY was far more complicated than he'd anticipated, surely Undo-It-Yourself would be simple enough?
Pess had a good run around the park, and when they got back, rather than parking in the garage, Edgeworth parked on the street and walked up to the house, letting Pess into the garden before sneaking indoors and getting to work.
***
Later, he peered around the door to the spare bedroom, doing a double-take at the sight of the Detective, who appeared to have aged overnight - but it was actually flecks of paint in his hair. He was balanced on the stepladder, tongue between his teeth and eyes tracking the path of his paintbrush as he painstakingly swirled it around on the ceiling.
"Coffee?" Edgeworth asked.
Gumshoe jumped, wobbling violently on the stepladder.
"Whoa!" he grabbed the top step of ladder to steady himself, and Edgeworth grabbed the sides to stablilise it. "Sheesh, boss, you're lighter-footed than a catthief, I didn't even hear you come in!"
"Hm, didn't want to interrupt," Edgeworth muttered, not meeting his gaze - he had been indulging in a bit of catthievery earlier.
"Cheers for the offer, pal, I'd kill for a coffee - all I can taste is paint right now," Gumshoe made a face.
That was all Edgeworth could smell, too - the Detective had opened the windows but the strong whiff of Dulux Brilliant White still hung in the air. He glanced up at the ceiling. The paint coating was still wet, and the swirls were a little larger than the others, but Gumshoe had otherwise blended them in well.
"So whaddaya think, huh?" Gumshoe pointed upwards.
"It's passable, I suppose," Edgeworth conceded. "It's not as if one walks around continually paying attention to one's ceilings, so it would pass a cursory inspection. In actual fact, no one really sleeps in this room - Franziska prefers the one on the opposite side of the corridor. I think you're the first person to actually use this one."
"Well, pal, if I ever come here again, I'll have probably forgotten all about doing this, so I'll look up at it and go 'Wow, who did this? They're pretty damn good!'" Gumshoe winked.
"And who did the 'pretty damn good' damage in the first place, hm?"
"Uh..." Gumshoe paused, "maybe I just won't look up at the ceiling, huh?"
"Per-"
CRASH.
The two men turned at the sound.
"What the heck was that? Sounded like something in the house, pal!"
Pess began barking downstairs - it was an agitated kind of yelp, and Edgeworth was immediately out the door and down the stairs.
"Pess! Here, boy!"
Pess was absolutely fine, it turned out - the sudden noise had just upset him, and he followed closely at his master's heel as Edgeworth cautiously opened the door to the study, Gumshoe not far behind.
The study was in chaos - papers were scattered all over the floor and the heavy mahogany writing desk had partly collapsed, toppled forward onto one broken leg, the drawers half open and their contents spilled everywhere. The telephone that had been on the desktop was now dangling over one arm of the chair by its cord, the handset still swinging slightly with the pendular momentum of its descent, accompanied by the insistent beep of its dialtone. Pens and other items of stationery lay on top of the fallen papers, a trail of paperclips tracking from a dispenser that had fallen from a drawer.
"Damn it!" Edgeworth exclaimed, kneeling down to try and reorganise the papers. "It took me all week to collate these. Look at this mess! What the hell's happened to my desk?"
"Looks like it's broken, boss," was Gumshoe's verdict.
"Oh, your observation skills are absolutely top-notch, Detective, I am truly in awe of your uncanny ability to state the blindingly obvious," Edgeworth said acidly, stacking one pile of papers together and starting on the next, shaking the paperclips off them as he went. "Now will you dispense with the pointless commentary and diagnose what has afflicted my, up until now, perfectly serviceable piece of furniture?"
Gumshoe was on the case - he was on his hands and knees by the fallen desk, looking at the broken leg.
"Mahogany's pretty solid, Mr. Edgeworth - it shouldn't just fall down like that, unless... ah-ha!"
"Which means, what?"
"It broke here," Gumshoe pointed at where the leg joined the table, "'cause you've got a screw loose."
"There's nothing wrong with my sanity, Detective!" Edgeworth said indignantly.
Well, perhaps a little...
"Uh, no, I didn't mean that, pal!" Gumshoe said quickly. "I mean the anchoring screw in here, see?" He pulled at the leg, which was wedged beneath the weight of the fallen desk, and the whole thing came away, the metal of the bared screw poking through the top of the leg. "There's, like, a little holder this screw's meant to go into, in here," he patted the body of the desk, "and that keeps it all steady, see? But that's fallen out," he looked around on the carpet. "Should be on the floor somewhere."
It wasn't. Edgeworth had it in his pocket.
"Can you fix that leg, Detective?" Edgeworth asked. He put the telephone handset back on the receiver, silencing the annoying dialtone.
Gumshoe heaved the desk up, putting his head right down on the carpet so he could look underneath it. His body shook a little with the muscle effort required to hold it up, and his rear end jiggled invitingly. Edgeworth was right above it, and he dropped his hands down in a near-involuntary action, pre-cupped to receive a cheek each, and only just managed to stop himself, turning the action into a swift kneel to sweep the paperclips back into the dispenser as the Detective looked back at him.
"The screw's gouged a chunk out of the bottom of the desk, but I can patch that up okay," was his assessment. "Though if we don't find that other bit that's fallen out, we'll be going nowhere fast, pal."
"You need that to put the leg back on?"
Gumshoe nodded.
"Let's see if we can find it then."
Between them they cleared the floor, and when Gumshoe's back was turned Edgeworth rolled the coin-shaped gizmo under the desk. The desk had confounded him initially, as it was lacking in visible screwheads to attack, but after some tinkering he had discovered that the flat discs actually turned, which unlocked the embedded screws holding the legs of the table together. He was rather proud of his destructive handiwork, though he hadn't been expecting it to collapse so soon.
"Found it!" he said triumphantly, appearing to reach under the desk and produce the missing disc.
"That's the one!" Gumshoe held his hand out, and Edgeworth deposited it into his palm. "Right, now we're cooking! I'll go get some reinforcing brackets outta the toolbox, and you'll be back at your desk in lickety-split."
"I promised coffee, didn't I?" Edgeworth remembered.
"As long as it's not Dulux-flavoured, I don't mind, boss," Gumshoe chuckled.
"It might as well be, the strength you like it at," was the prosecutor's dry response as he left the study.
He was careful to fill the kettle with water from the bottles in the fridge, instead of using the kitchen tap. It was a timebomb, now that he'd been at the pipes.
By the time he'd brewed the coffee and brought it through, Gumshoe had removed the drawers from the desk and upended it with a heave. Now he was screwing in some metal strips to the bottom of the desk, to bind together the damaged screwhole. He downed his coffee in one gulp.
"Yeeha!" he smacked his lips. "You sure do a good brew, Mr. Edgeworth,"
"Yes, and again, it's wasted on you," the prosecutor retorted, taking his empty mug.
"Not true, pal - I can feel it working the old magic already," Gumshoe cracked his knuckles together. "DIY's a breeze when you're tanked up on caffeine!" he picked up the screwdriver again, and with a click-clack he had the leg back on. "Tada! Five minute job - no biggie."
It took me fifteen minutes to work out how to break that. Why does he pick moments like these to actually be efficient? Edgeworth grumbled to himself.
"Good work, Detective," he said reluctantly.
"Upsy-daisy," Gumshoe grunted, pulling the desk towards him and bracing himself against the weight of it, carefully setting it upright. He slowly let go of it, and the legs settled into the carpet, bearing the weight. "And Bob's your Grandpa!"
"So I can put these back on?" Edgeworth heaved the stack of papers, slapping them down on the desk, but it didn't budge an inch.
"You could stick the Titanic on it now," Gumshoe said confidently. "Y'know, it's kinda weird that it broke in the first place - those screwholders need a fair bashing to become loose. I guess somebody didn't screw it tight enough when they were making it?" he shrugged.
"Possibly," Edgeworth said noncommittally.
"Hey, you reckon I can finish off your gazebo now, boss?" Gumshoe asked, already keen to start something else.
Edgeworth checked the time.
"I suppose it is a more sociable hour now - go ahead," he gestured grandly towards the study door.
"Oh yeah, pal, I meant to ask," Gumshoe said on his way out, "do you have any creosote?"
"Creo...sote," Edgeworth rolled the word around on his tongue. The syllables were alien and had no meaning.
"You know, brown stuff, put it on wood, it really stinks..."
The prosecutor ruminated upon this concept. Was he talking about varnish, perhaps? But varnish was varnish, he wasn't aware of any other name for it.
Curious. Curious creosote. Hmm, a good alliteration.
"Uh, guess that's a no, then?"
"Given the other things you've conjured up from out of my garage, if anyone would be able to nose out some... creosote, it'd be you, Detective," Edgeworth pointed out.
"I'll get a-hunting then, boss - if there isn't any, we'll need to go get some from the hardware store."
"I suppose I could pick some up when I go to get lunch."
"It's lunchtime?!"
"No, it's not!"
"Aw, you got my hopes up there," Gumshoe said sadly.
"If you're hungry, Detective, just say so."
"But... I'm always hungry, boss."
"Oh, fine then - when you're too hungry to work, say so." Edgeworth was beginning to get the hang of Gumshoe's feeding patterns now.
"Gotcha!" Gumshoe saluted, then wandered off to search the garage.
Edgeworth finished reorganising his journal articles, bundling those under one arm and his laptop beneath the other, then he headed for the garden. By the time he had set up shop at the garden table, Gumshoe was coming down the path with the stepladder.
"I couldn't find any creosote," he said as he set up the stepladder by the side of the gazebo.
"I'll buy some, then, if you need it that badly."
"Well, if you creosote something like this, Mr. Edgeworth, it'll last you for ages. If you don't, well, look what happened to the original wood," Gumshoe nodded over at the pile of rotted struts, set aside to go to the tip.
"Very well. You'll have it by lunchtime," Edgeworth picked up one of his articles, flipping to the first page.
Gumshoe tested the ladder. The ground was a little uneven. He looked over at Edgeworth, who was apparently engrossed. Looking back to the ladder, he wobbled it again, then put one foot on the first rung, applying some weight. The feet of the ladder sunk a little into the ground. Carefully, he climbed onto the rung. The ladder sank some more, but bore his weight. Encouraged, he climbed higher, but when he was at eyelevel with the roof struts the ladder began to list to one side. Desperately he grabbed hold of the upper roof strut as he lost his footing and the ladder fell away from beneath his feet.
"Whoa!"
Edgeworth looked up to find the Detective dangling from the strut, his legs scissoring the air while the stepladder remained tilted at a crazy angle.
"Heavens!" he exclaimed, scrambling out of his chair. "Hold on, I've got you!" He seized the ladder, pushing it upright so it was under the Detective's feet.
"That's no good, boss, the ground's all boggy - it'll just sink!" Gumshoe's voice sounded strained, he was hanging on for dear life.
Edgeworth realised the ground he was standing on was muddy, water welling around his loafers. He looked down in horror. It hadn't been like this yesterday. This was his fault.
Pairing: Edgeworth/Gumshoe
Rating: Final chapter is NSFW, penultimate chapter contains some sexual references.
Word Count: 37,918
Synopsis: It's summertime, and Edgeworth needs his swimming pool cleaned. Looking to make a quick buck, Gumshoe volunteers to be his handyman for the whole weekend, little realising that Edgeworth will come to look at him in a whole new light...
Chapter Links: Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3 | Ch. 4
As he reentered the lounge he could hear Pess growling, and looking for the collie Edgeworth found him in a deadlock with the Detective, playing tug o' war over one of Pess' toys; a piece of thick, knotted rope. Pess was crouched low, legs braced apart and paws imprinting the carpet as he pulled, shaking his head vigorously and making his collar jingle as he tried to jerk the rope out of Gumshoe's hand. But the Detective held on doggedly, the cords in his arm standing out with the effort - Pess had a lot of strength when he dug his heels in like that. Gumshoe would let Pess tug his arm forward occasionally, and the dog would shuffle back on the carpet, delighted to have gained some ground and renewing his efforts to shake his prize out of the Detective's grip. But then Gumshoe would haul his arm back, pulling the dog back across the carpet, paws skidding through the pile.
Edgeworth couldn't help but smile as he could tell Pess was loving it, though he did squat down and pull the coffee table out of harm's way, for Gumshoe's arm was being flung all over the place as Pess tried to tug the rope away. Edgeworth would've let him have it by now - that rope started burning one's hand after a while.
"I think he's met his match at last," he commented to Gumshoe, who grinned.
"He just brought this over and dropped it in my lap, pal - he's pretty good at saying what he wants, huh?"
Edgeworth nodded, sitting down and taking a sip of his tea.
"This is his playtime anyway. When I'm working late at the office I'll usually come home to find a pile of toys on my chair - making sure I haven't forgotten."
"Must be kinda hard getting up the energy to play with a dog when you're tired, boss."
"Well, one shouldn't keep animals if one cannot make the time for them," Edgeworth said loftily. "I have employed dogsitters occasionally during very busy cases, but entertaining Pess is actually quite cathartic. Let me demonstrate. Pess!"
Pess immediately let go of the rope, ears cocked and tongue lolling slightly from his exertions. His eyes were bright, playful, and he awaited command.
"Go and find Wright," Edgeworth instructed.
Pess immediately shot out of the room, paws thudding on the stairs a moment later. Gumshoe blinked in confusion.
"Mr. Wright?"
"Wait and see."
Pess announced his return with a loud squeak. He held a blue, spike-studded rubber ball in his jaws.
"Ah! I getcha," Gumshoe exclaimed. "Hey, wow, that's pretty cool - you can tell him to get you anything you want!"
"Oh, only if it's a toy of his. I've tried to train him to find other things with no success - he's very single-minded," Edgeworth took the Wright-ball from Pess, then squashed it under his foot. It emitted a drawn-out squeaking noise and Pess immediately tried to get it out from beneath his foot, but Edgeworth had a hold on it.
"Though let me tell you, Detective," he continued, "if you ever had need of a tennis ball, he's the dog for the job. He has this unerring ability to produce them from thin air. Even on walks we've never done before, he still manages to find one. And they're often disgusting. Aren't they?" he said to Pess. "Dis-gus-ting," he punctuated this with squeaks of the Wright-ball, and Pess began to bark. "Shhh now," he tapped Pess on the nose with one finger. "No need to get overexcited - it's late."
The collie quietened down, and made another attempt to get the Wright-ball out from under his master's foot, but Edgeworth whipped it up out of reach. Pess sat, watching its every move.
"He loves squeaky toys to the point of hysteria, hence he's only allowed a few."
"Uh," a thought had occurred to Gumshoe. "Is there a Detective Gumshoe toy as well, then?"
"Oh yes," Edgeworth said airily, "he's been through a few of those. Well-chewed."
Gumshoe swallowed.
"Uh... guess it's a favourite, then?" he said weakly.
"Absolutely," Edgeworth smirked, throwing the ball to Pess, who caught it in his jaws. The collie lay down on the rug, chewing contently and producing the occasional soft squeak.
"You know, I used to think it'd be great to be a popular Detective - you know, like Columbo, or something. Now I'm not so sure it’s great to be the favourite..."
"You've got the coat for Columbo, but sadly I think there is a distinct lack of penetrating intelligence beneath your absent-mindedness."
"So if I thought about stuff more, I'd get chewed out less?"
"No, Detective, it's the thinking that sends you astray. That brain of yours isn't designed for such abuse."
"Guess that's why I leave all the thinking up to you, huh, boss?" Gumshoe chuckled, draining the last of his coffee.
"That's the way it's supposed to work, yes."
Though it frequently didn't, thanks to the Detective's innate ability to secondguess what Edgeworth wanted, and yet still manage to screw it up. But he no longer thought of this with irritation - more resignation. And besides, he was wasting swimming time.
"Now," he said, getting up, "the pool's ready to use, so I'm going for a dip. And as you've sweated and toiled over making it fit to swim in, it would be only fair to let you try it out as well, would it not?"
"Aw, that's real generous of you, boss - but I don't have any swimming trunks, and I can't really swim in these," Gumshoe looked down at his boxers, "or I'd have nothing to wear for tomorrow!"
I can't believe that's a primary consideration - never mind the fact that chlorine would ruin them, or that they'd be highly likely to fall off...
Not that he would object, Edgeworth realised.
"No need for any of that," he said hastily, "I have a spare pair of trunks you can use. Come, it's a nice evening; perfect for a swim."
Gumshoe was looking Edgeworth up and down, shaking his head.
"Boss, I wouldn't be fooling anybody if I said I could get my big butt into a pair of your swimmers."
"It's not bi-" Edgeworth cut himself off just in time. "Er, that is to say, it's not a problem. These ones are a little on the baggy side. I think they'll fit you."
"Guess I can try 'em on and see!"
Edgeworth dug them out and left them in the spare bedroom for him to try. It didn't take him long to get into his own swimming togs: a pair of magenta Speedos. He could have opted for something more modest with the Detective around - he did have boardshorts - but part of him wanted to deliberately flaunt his masculinity after his cack-handed wielding of the drill. Needless face-saving, he knew; it wasn't as if the Detective would ever tell anyone. But damn it, he had pride. Though he could feel it slipping little by little whenever he looked at Gumshoe's scantily clad body - now he had been reduced to a near-constant state of awareness, with errant, dirty thoughts intruding on the fringes. The Speedos were as much to ensure he maintained his self-control as anything else - and if that failed, there was the monotony of laps.
The pool water was just at the right temperature as he slipped in, and it was wonderful to be swimming again - he had missed it over the winter, for the public pool was a total no-go area as far as he was concerned. Miles Edgeworth didn't share his lap space with anyone. Today, however, was going to be the exception - although he suspected that Gumshoe would probably be the type to splash away happily down one end of the pool, in which case he could just swim a shorter lap.
He turned onto his back, about to start a lap of backstroke, but for a moment there, that feeling of weightlessness and the soft lapping sound of water circulating through his ears gave him a feeling of contentment. Instead of moving off he floated, closing his eyes. He couldn't hear much over the water in his ears, but he could imagine the birds singing, and half opening his eyes the night sky was clear above him without a cloud to be seen, much as it had been during his morning walk with Pess. But now all the stars were out.
Eyes still half-closed, he looked sideways towards the house - to see Gumshoe standing there at the pool gate. He hadn't opened it - he was just standing there in his borrowed magenta boardshorts, one hand paused on the latch, eyes on him and an unusual expression on his face. One of contemplation, almost.
Edgeworth didn't move, made no sign of acknowledgement, allowing his eyes to fall shut naturally. If Gumshoe had opened the gate, he definitely would have heard it. But there was no sound. He was still being watched, and the idea of that made his stomach twist a little with excitement.
It's just idle curiosity, he tried to tell himself, to quell that feeling and stop it chasing further down.
But surely such observation would have been accompanied by a Gumshoe-style exclamation, of the "Wow, you sure look different in swimming trunks, boss!" variety? The silence was incriminating to an analytical mind currently residing, he was ashamed to realise, in the gutter.
He kicked his legs and sent himself into a backwards roll, feeling an even more incriminating change taking place underneath the fabric of his Speedos, and as his head broke through the surface of the water he heard the pool gate clang. The spell had been broken.
"They're not a bad fit, boss!" Gumshoe called out, pointing at his boardshorts.
"Glad to hear it," Edgeworth replied, treading water and making waves around him. The refractive properties of water could hide a multitude of sins, for which he was truly thankful. "Are you coming in, then?"
"Here comes the Superdive! Yeeeeeeha!"
Edgeworth saw it coming and propelled himself out of the way, ducking under the water to avoid the worst of the huge splash as the Detective cannonballed into the water.
"There was no need for that!" he scolded when he resurfaced, but Gumshoe's dive had taken him so deep that he didn't come back up again for another few seconds, so the prosecutor's rebuke was wasted.
"Heck yeah, that was good!" Gumshoe shook his head violently, spraying water droplets everywhere. "Hey, fancy a game of waterpolo? I used to play that at school, it was pretty fun in the pool!"
"I don't have a ball," Edgeworth replied, pushing his wet hair out of his eyes.
"Easily sorted!" Gumshoe paddled over to the side and hopped out, dripping across the decking towards the house.
"Don't you DARE cross that carpet while you're dripping wet!" Edgeworth bellowed, and Gumshoe froze at the French doors, then turned and saluted.
"Alrighty, let's go for Plan B, then. Pess!" Gumshoe whistled. "Go get Mr. Wright - g'wan, pal!"
A moment later Pess appeared at the doors, and Gumshoe took the ball from his jaws.
"Tell him to get the Judge instead," Edgeworth called from the pool, realising what he was doing. "It's bigger."
So Gumshoe returned to the pool with a grey ball - it was round and shiny, rather like the Judge's pate. He threw it up, then closed his hand around his other fist and bumped it towards Edgeworth, who caught it one-handed with ease.
Another Superdive later and Gumshoe was back in the pool.
"Again, that was completely unnecessary," Edgeworth said sourly, lobbing the ball back to him.
"So here are the rules!" Gumshoe declared. "That compost bin's my goal," he pointed at it, "and that bench is your goal. If you let it past, it's a point to me! And if you can bump it back past mine, it's a point to you. Let's see if we can get a rally going, pal!"
"That's not proper water polo - you've just made those rules up!"
"Well, that's what we did at school," the Detective said stoutly.
"What, jump up and down in the pool like loons?"
"You'll see, boss - it's a real buzz once the ball's going! And you'll have a hard time beating me - I was the champ in fifth grade," Gumshoe said proudly, spinning the ball on one finger.
Well, he couldn't refuse that kind of baiting.
"Hmph," Edgeworth sculled backwards a little so he was in line with his goal. "I'll show you how proper water polo is played. May the best man win!"
Gumshoe hadn't been bragging with his claim - high shots, low shots, even a few crafty ones rebounded off the side of the pool, he fielded them all and returned them. They'd managed a rally of twenty-five shots so far, and Edgeworth was having a tough job of trying to break through his defence, though he was managing to hold his own and had yet to concede a goal. Gumshoe lobbed him a high return, and he threw his arms down to propel himself up out of the water, reaching up to slap his wet hand against the slick ball, but there was a spin on it and it flipped over his fingertips. Desperately he pumped one leg down to get an inch of extra height and managed to bat it with his other hand - it was a clumsy return but Gumshoe had been wholly expecting a goal from that trick shot of his, so his reaction was delayed.
"YES!" Edgeworth roared his triumph as he landed back in the water, seeing the ball go right past Gumshoe's shoulder. "A hit - a palpable hit!"
Gumshoe trod water for a moment, grinning at him.
"Wow, nice to see you're enjoying yourself, boss!"
Edgeworth abruptly came to himself, realising he had just acted like an overexcited child in front of the Detective. How embarrassing - he'd gotten carried away.
"Hm, well," he said gruffly, looking away, "anyone would be satisfied, successfully returning a sneaky shot like that."
"That's a point to you," Gumshoe conceded with a wink, noticing the victorious smirk briefly crossing the prosecutor's face before Edgeworth managed to summon a look of indifference. "Guess I'll have to stop holding myself back, huh?"
"Do your worst, Detective - I doubt it will exceed my best," Edgeworth replied confidently, flicking back one of his wet bangs.
There was a glint in Gumshoe's eye - Edgeworth could see it from across the pool, and he responded to it, his body tensing and eyes fixed on the ball. They faced off, man to man, Gumshoe bringing his arm back with the ball in hand.
The next shot came at Edgeworth with enough power to make his hand sting as he returned it, making it clear that the gloves were off and it was no holds barred. The smack of palm against ball reverberated around the pool enclosure, the volleys fast and furious and water droplets flying in all directions. They leapt up like dolphins and crashed back into the water like whales, arms extended in semaphore signal to intercept and return the relentless rallies. Edgeworth had no time to think about how ridiculous they looked to the outside observer - all his energy was focused on keeping that ball out of his goal, on maintaining his advantage. He felt invigorated, alive, able to leap higher and reach further in his desire to win - and in the end the rediscovery of his youthful endurance was what won out over Gumshoe's power serves and trick shots. Gumshoe just blocked his final rally rather than returning it, and the ball landed between them.
"Phew, I'm pooped, pal!" Gumshoe panted, sinking back into the water. "You win - I guess I'm getting too old for this kinda stuff. But that was a blast!"
Edgeworth ducked underwater, throwing himself forward into a private little victory somersault. He felt full of energy, all of a sudden - he'd almost call it hyperactivity, though that was rather silly and most unbecoming of him. He popped his head back up, trying to keep the foolish smile off his face.
"Your proclaimed prowess is certainly not unfounded," he replied. "I had a hard time returning your shots." His palm and fingertips were actually starting to tingle a little now from the power with which he'd been slapping the ball back, the sensation reminding him of his earlier desire to grab and squeeze the Detective's rear end.
"That used to be my supertechnique," Gumshoe said cheerily. "The Gumshoe Spin Slam! But I'm pretty outta practice, I haven't played since school."
"Hm, well, as ex-captain of the Corpus College waterpolo team, I've certainly met a worthy rival." Edgeworth extended his hand. "Well-played, Detective."
"Thanks, boss!" Gumshoe shook his hand.
The Detective's calloused skin was softened by the pool water, and the tingle in Edgeworth's hand eased at the warm contact. But as he let go, it returned, blossoming into an ache, a longing. They stood opposite each other, water running in rivulets down their chests and damp hair darkened down to almost matching colours under the pool lights. A breeze was beginning to blow, and now they were stood still Gumshoe gave a convulsive shiver.
"Hm, I suppose that's the weather's way of telling us we're not quite out of the winter yet," Edgeworth remarked, swimming over to the side. "Hot shower called for, I think. Agreed?"
Gumshoe followed him, hauling himself out of the pool.
"Sounds pretty good right about now," he said, taking the towel the prosecutor handed him.
"I'll go first - then you can have all the hot water to yourself."
Normally he would've let a guest go first - but he rather suspected that Gumshoe would use up all the hot water. Though admittedly he did have an additional, altogether more shameful ulterior motive.
After he'd finished, he called downstairs to the Detective,
"All yours. I'll be retiring now. Good night."
"G'night, boss!"
In the privacy of his own bedroom, with the door shut, he let the towel drop to the floor, listening as Gumshoe entered the bathroom next door. The Detective was heavy-footed, and Edgeworth heard him getting into the shower unit. He let his imagination do the rest of the work, and his body responded accordingly. The ache in his palms was now an ache all over, and he headed for the bed, his erection waving from side to side as he walked. It rubbed against the sheets as he got into the bed and he let out a sigh at the sensuality of it. But he didn't just want to wank himself off tonight, to the sound of Gumshoe showering next door, whistling away. He felt the need for something deeper, more thorough.
He reached in the drawer of the bedside table, thinking back to what had happened at the pool before. In his aroused state it was easy to entertain the possibility that a confession might prove fruitful after all. The idea made him go hot all over. But he couldn't be sure... he couldn't be sure. And yet, it couldn't hurt to be prepared. Well, it would, but it was a pain he wanted more than anything else right now. He poured lubricant over the vibrator, rubbing it up and down the length of it. He rarely used it, which was why it would be sore, and mechanical stimulation was a poor imitator of the real thing that he craved. But it was better than nothing, with a good enough fantasy to accompany it.
The next morning Edgeworth awoke to a knock on his bedroom door.
"Boss?"
The best he could manage was a groggy sound halfway between a groan and "Yes?"
"I made you some tea - that Early Grey stuff you like. Can I bring it in?"
It took him a moment to process the question, and as his higher cognitive functions began to reawaken he was aware firstly of a dim ache in his rear, which was nothing new, and then of a tight sensation in his pants, which eventually translated into the realisation that he was suffering from an acute case of morning wood. But the puffy eiderdown comforter hid it from the observer, all evidence of his dirty activity the night before had been cleaned away, and he'd remembered to put his pajamas back on before flopping into bed - so the coast was clear.
"Mmm," he replied, and the door opened tentatively, Gumshoe popping his head around it to make sure it really was okay to come in.
Edgeworth had sat himself up in the bed, rubbing one eye. He felt rather tired - he would have happily slept some more. Gumshoe put the teacup on the bedside table and the prosecutor groped for it, co-ordination still a little clumsy. Then he realised something wasn't quite right.
"Where's the saucer?" he asked.
There was a pause.
"Oh yeah!" Gumshoe exclaimed. "I forgot about that bit."
"Typical, Detective - good intentions, half-baked execution," Edgeworth sniffed the tea. There was a hint of lemon. "You found where I put the lemon juice?"
Gumshoe looked proud of himself.
"Well, boss, you organise your kitchen in the same kinda way you do the office. Everything matches up, so I looked in the cupboard above the kettle and whaddaya know, there it was!"
"Hmph, anyone would think I was predictable." Edgeworth sipped the tea. There was a little too much lemon, but he could put up with that - it was hot, freshly made, and it chased away the residual fog of sleep. "Did you sleep well?"
"Uh, well," Gumshoe yawned, stretching. "You'll laugh at this, pal - I just couldn't seem to get off to sleep. And I was rolling around, and rolling around, and then I fell right outta the bed onto the floor, and bing! Out like a light. I reckon I'm used to a hard mattress, y'know?"
"Are you sure you didn't knock yourself out when you fell out of the bed?" Edgeworth hadn't heard anything go thud - but over the past year since his nightmares had stopped, he had turned into a deep sleeper.
"Heh, I did that once! But not this time," Gumshoe sat on the edge of his bed, bouncing up and down on it experimentally a few times. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was the mattress - if you did this on the one at my place, you'd bruise your butt."
"What the hell do you sleep on - bricks?!"
"You could say that, boss! One of the bed legs is busted, so I had to prop it up with a few. Anyway, yeah, so I had trouble getting off to sleep, and then I woke up really early for some reason. I guess it's being somewhere different that does it, huh?"
"Hm, perhaps. So what's the-" Edgeworth looked over at the clock radio on his bedside table. Blinked. Looked again. His face darkened, and he turned back to the Detective.
"It's seven am."
"Sure is! Shaping up to be a nice morning, too, pal."
"And what day is it?" Edgeworth asked, tone flat.
"Uh, it's... Sunday?" Gumshoe said, a little uneasy - he recognised that tone, and it didn't bode well. He got off the bed, backing away a little.
"WHY THE HELL ARE YOU WAKING ME UP AT SEVEN AM ON A SUNDAY?!" Edgeworth roared. "Out! Out of my room, Detective - and come back at a more reasonable hour!"
"Sorry, boss!" Gumshoe's voice faded down the corridor as he exited at top speed. The door swung shut behind him.
"Oh, the injustice," Edgeworth whimpered to himself, wriggling back down in the bed. He wasn't one to waste a day lieing in, but when one had late nights, as he did, to be woken up before 8am on two consecutive leave days was just unfair.
However, despite having evicted Gumshoe from his room, sleep failed to reclaim him. Again, it was the Detective's fault, he decided, for the sight of him sitting on the edge of the bed in his boxer shorts did absolutely nothing to make his early morning erection subside.
So he grudgingly left his bed, opening the curtains. Gumshoe had been correct - though the light was pale due to the early hour, it was going to be a sunny day. He could see the half-finished gazebo across the garden, and from this high vantage point he realised that it would probably only take the morning for the Detective to complete it. But then there was still the ceiling in the spare bedroom to repaint. He was sure he could come up with some other things that needed doing, once he felt a little more awake. He absently reached down to touch his erection through the silk of his pajamas, leaning on the windowsill and cupping his chin in one hand, eyes half-closing as he stroked himself. He was just making it worse, he knew, but he was sleepy and it felt nice. It was probably inevitable anyway.
Oh, what lows I have stooped to, he sighed to himself, thinking back to the night before.
Now he wasn't sure things could go back to normal when they were back in the office next week. With enough resolve he could probably suppress these thoughts he was having, but his willpower had completely failed him last night, and here he was now, touching himself while thinking about Detective Gumshoe.
I shouldn't be doing this... And yet he was sliding his hand into the waistband of his pajamas. He paused. I have to give it up. Give it up, or tell him.
His penis ached to be touched. His middle finger brushed against it, pressed against the hardness, and then he grabbed hold of it, breathing in slowly.
"Okay," he said softly. He'd made his decision.
+++
Shortly afterwards, having cleaned up and dressed, he shuffled down the stairs in his slippers and dressing gown. Gumshoe was sprawled out across the sofa on his front, and to Edgeworth's surprise he was reading a book. It was Catch-22, by Joseph Heller - one of the few fiction books he owned. Pess lay on the rug by the sofa, and Gumshoe was flipping the book's pages with one thumb, rubbing Pess' head with his free hand. Pess' eyes were closed, and his tail swept from side to side contentedly.
"Sorry about earlier, Mr. Edgeworth," Gumshoe said, looking up from the page he was reading, eyes contrite. "I dunno why I thought you'd be awake already. I guess it's 'cause you're always at the office so early during the week."
"That's why the weekend is for clearing the sleep debt I've accumulated. Usually," Edgeworth added, but there was no real bite to the comment - his initial early morning grumpiness had been replaced by post-mastubatory amiability. "Now, I promised bacon for breakfast, didn't I?" he went into the kitchen and retrieved the frying pan from the hook.
At the sound of the kitchen clatter Pess got up, sitting expectantly at the entrance.
"Yes, it's coming," Edgeworth said to him.
At the same time as getting the bacon out of the freezer, he also gave Pess some kibbles for breakfast and refilled his water dish. Gumshoe closed the book, putting it on the coffee table.
"Carry on reading if you want," Edgeworth said to him on his way back into the kitchen. "It's an excellent novel, and it'll be a little while before breakfast is ready."
Catch-22 had been recommended to him some years ago, by Lana Skye, when they had shared a moment of mutual despair over a particularly pointless piece of Governmental legislation regarding evidence storage. He normally had little interest in wartime novels, but the style and satire of it had engaged him from start to finish - and he could see so many present-day parallels in the bureaucratic idiocies that populated the book.
"Aw, well, I think it's a bit wasted on me, pal," Gumshoe said, looking at it. "Some tabloid I read said it was one of those books you've gotta read before you die, but I just can't get my head around it."
"The timeline does jump around a lot - but persevere with it, things start to fall into place after a while." Edgeworth cracked some eggs into the pan, careful to do it far enough away from the bacon so that the white didn't run into the sizzling rashers.
"But when they talk, it makes no sense. I mean, I know I talk a lot of crap sometimes, but what they talk really is crap!"
"Of course, because they're all a little mad. Even Yossarian. The whole novel examines the sanity of wartime - or lack thereof. And by your logic, you should be able to understand what they say perfectly."
"I do, pal, that's how I know it's crap."
"The literary novel really is wasted on you, isn't it?" Edgeworth sighed, popping some toast in the toaster. "I never had you down as much of a reader anyway."
"Sure, I read! The library's free, so it's all good. Though it sure does take me a long time to finish a book - they kinda gave up on fining me in the end."
"Let me guess, your preferred fare is the formulaic crime novel?"
"Heck yeah! There's nothing like a good murder," Gumshoe declared. "Give me a Dick Francis and I'm a happy guy."
"Don't you get enough of that in your daily work?"
"Well, in the book, they solve it better, y'know?"
"If only you used them as inspiration."
"I do! After I read Harry Potter I wanted to be a wizard when I grew up. Then I realised they didn't exist. I was gutted, pal, let me tell you. Though I suppose I could've gone and been a magician instead - like those Gramarye guys on telly. That'd be pretty cool, actually."
"Don't. They're over-rated. Immensely." Edgeworth fished some plates out of the cupboard and shared the contents of the frying pan out between them. "Breakfast is served, come and get it."
"Oh wow, mushrooms!" Gumshoe said happily as he picked up his plate. "Now that's what I call a damn good breakfast. Heh, my doc would have a fit!" He sat down at the table and tucked in.
Edgeworth made himself a cup of English Breakfast. By the time he'd brewed it and sat down with his own plate, Gumshoe had finished his.
"Hey, while you're chowing down on that, boss, I'll go get started on the gazebo, huh?"
"I think my neighbours would object to you banging and crashing about at this hour," Edgeworth said between bites of fried egg. "The door on the left hand side of the hall goes to the garage - you'll find paint and dust sheets in there. You can get started on fixing the damage you did to the ceiling in the spare bedroom - that's a slightly quieter occupation."
"Right you are! Uh..." Gumshoe looked down. "I'll need my overalls back."
"They're in the tumbledryer," Edgeworth pointed. He'd put them in there last night, and despite going through the heavy soiling wash programme at 90 degrees, the stains still hadn't come out.
The Detective got them out of the tumbledryer and was in the middle of putting them on when there was a loud ripping sound.
"Bugger!"
Edgeworth looked up from his breakfast, though he knew what the sound probably was.
"I knew I shoulda fixed that hole," Gumshoe sighed. He'd put one foot right through it. "Man, I hate sewing."
"Wait there a moment," Edgeworth speared the last few mushrooms on his plate and popped them into his mouth, then got up and went to the dresser in the corner of the lounge. He came back with a needle and a reel of cotton. "Sort yourself out," he said, still chewing. "I'll fix the tear."
"You can sew, boss?"
"It's a useful skill."
Gumshoe carefully extracted his leg, and redirected it down the leg of the overalls, hooking the straps over his shoulders. Edgeworth knelt down, at eye level with the Detective's crotch. There were large flaps of fabric hanging down now, exposing Gumshoe's whole leg. There was a small birthmark on the inside of his thigh, shaped a little like Italy. He wanted to touch it, to put his whole face in the tear and lick it, and he knew he was supposed to admit it aloud, like he'd promised himself that he would. But now it came to the crunch, and he was getting cold feet. The whole thing was so left field - the Detective wouldn't know how to react. He would probably stammer and dither, and the whole thing would be a disaster. His heartbeat quickened, his mouth drying out. He couldn't say it. His hands shook a little as he picked up a trailing flap of cotton and joined the two ends together with one hand. He cast on and began sewing the edges together with a neat herringbone stitch, hiding the temptation from view. Within minutes, he was done.
"There, that won't be coming apart again in a hurry," he said, breaking the thread.
"Wow, that was quick!" Gumshoe turned the leg around a little, admiring the handiwork. "Cheers, boss - I'll go get started then. Your ceiling'll be done in no time!"
He disappeared into the hall, and Edgeworth watched him go, groaning inwardly. He couldn't go on like this. Something had to be done.
He switched on the radio and tidied away the breakfast things, accompanied by Dvorak. Now the Detective was out of the room it was oddly quiet, and Classical Gold, normally soothing, filled the silence in a lacklustre fashion. If anything, it was irksome, interfering with his thoughts. He switched it off again, realising he'd put it on out of habit more than anything else. As he did so, he heard a few thuds from the hall. He walked into the lounge, craning his head to see into the hallway, then rushed forward hurriedly.
"What are you- oh."
Gumshoe had been attempting to get the aluminium stepladder into the house from the garage, and had somehow managed to wedge it sideways between two doorjambs. Now, it was stuck, blocking the corridor.
"Sorry, boss - I might need a hand here," Gumshoe scratched his head, not sure how he'd managed to achieve this. "Stupid ladders, always difficult to hump around."
"It's a stepladder."
"Aw, not you as well!" Gumshoe groaned. "I get that from Mr. Wright all the time."
"Do you now? So we've both been had."
Gumshoe laughed uproariously at that.
"Alright then, pal, so this stepladder, is stuck. If you get that end," he gestured at the feet of the ladder, nearest to Edgeworth, "and I take this one, we can get it out without making me more painting to do. It won't take me long to fix your ceiling too, an' all - two hours, tops. I sure love working with Dulux paint, one coat's all you need!"
"Really? That's... good," Edgeworth said slowly. He'd already missed one opportunity to admit his true feelings to the Detective, and it looked like he wasn't going to get a second chance at it - at this rate he'd run out of jobs for Gumshoe to do by lunchtime.
I'll have to just come out with it, he fretted, taking up his station at the foot of the step ladder. But he was already beginning to realise that this perhaps wasn't the best way of doing it after all, because if it went disastrously wrong, he wouldn't be able to cover it up. Why does he have to be so damned dense that I need to say it to his face like this?
With this lament, he was struck by a sudden thought.
"Ready, Mr. Edgeworth? If we both push the ladder in at the same time it should bend enough for us to turn it around without knocking the plaster off the wall."
"Ready."
It was a possible solution to the problem. The idea was completely appalling, but it wouldn't go away - it leaped out at him with all certainty, like the threads of the truth when he stood at the bench in court.
"Push!"
Edgeworth pulled. There was a horrible screech of metal as the ladder slipped off the doorjamb, and because Gumshoe was pushing, the foot of the ladder caught against the wall and scraped a smeary, black score across it before Edgeworth whisked it away, his sharp reflexes apparently averting further damage.
"Aw, hell," Gumshoe dropped his end of the ladder and looked at the mark on the cream-coloured wall in dismay. "What happened there?"
"You tell me, Detective," Edgeworth feigned innocence. "You were directing the operation."
Gumshoe appeared to have been busy with maneouvreing his end of the ladder, for he looked blank.
"I guess it wasn't as stuck as I thought it was," he said slowly, squatting down to look at the mark on the wall again. He rubbed at it with his thumb. The mark wouldn't come off. He frowned slightly.
"There's a tin of cream paint in the garage," Edgeworth added, offhand.
"Uh-huh." Gumshoe straightened up. "Don't you worry, boss, I'll make it good as new!"
"I wasn't worried." Edgeworth picked up the end of the ladder again. "Now, let's get this up the stairs before you destroy any more of my house."
"Sorry, Mr. Edgeworth - that won't happen again, I promise."
Gumshoe picked up the other end of the ladder, but he looked over his shoulder at the scrape mark on the wall again. When he turned back, Edgeworth could almost see the cogs turning in his head. Getting the ladder up the stairs was an affair almost on par with their flatpack efforts the night before, but Edgeworth had a feeling he wouldn't be able to get away with damaging any more walls. He'd have to play this carefully if he wanted Gumshoe to come to the conclusion under his own steam.
He'll cotton on eventually. And then he'll ask, and then I can tell him.
The Detective seemed to be having one of his sharper days, so hopefully he wouldn't need to take it too far, but if push came to shove... well, he was now curious as to whether there was anything Gumshoe couldn't fix.
***
"Do you require further assistance?" Edgeworth asked after they'd put down the groundsheets.
"Nah, just gotta prime it, mix the paint right and slap the stuff on, job done!" Gumshoe prised open the paint tin with a screwdriver. "I'll make it look real arty too, you won't be able to tell the difference."
"Arty?" Edgeworth raised one eyebrow.
"That Laurice Deuxnim bloke ain't got nothing on me, pal!"
"Hmph. That's not exactly difficult - he had nothing to begin with," Edgeworth smirked. "Very well, I shall take Pess out for a run. I'll be back soon, we're just going to the park today."
"Right you are, Mr. Edgeworth!" Gumshoe opened some unidentified packet Edgeworth didn't even know he had in the garage, and began tipping it into the bucket of paint he'd prepared. He seemed pretty absorbed in what he was doing, and Edgeworth felt rather ignored.
"What is that?" he asked, nodding at the packet.
The Detective didn't reply for a moment, then realised Edgeworth was still standing there, and had asked a question.
"This?" he held up the packet. "Oh, it's, uh..." he turned the packet around to look at it, but it failed to give him any clues other than the mixing instructions, "it's stuff. You know, that... stuff."
"You've forgotten the name of it, haven't you? Why does that not surprise me?" Edgeworth sighed.
"But I know what it does!" Gumshoe added eagerly. "You mix it in with the paint and it makes it stiffer so you can do that with it," he pointed up at the swirls either side of the damaged patch of ceiling. "You gotta get the mix right, though, otherwise it sets too quick and you've got a bucket for a doorstop." He was stirring the contents of the bucket all the time as he said this.
"Ah. Of course." Edgeworth gave up and left at that point, realising further questioning would only expose his ignorance. Besides, Gumshoe had left his tool box downstairs, and while the Detective was otherwise occupied this was a prime opportunity to... not steal, he corrected himself, but to procure some items.
The toolbox proved to contain some very peculiar implements, but he recognised the basic spanner and screwdriver, so he took those. Gumshoe had his own, on his tool belt, so he wouldn't miss the ones in the box. He looked at the other odd tools, wondering if he needed any of them. But though DIY was far more complicated than he'd anticipated, surely Undo-It-Yourself would be simple enough?
Pess had a good run around the park, and when they got back, rather than parking in the garage, Edgeworth parked on the street and walked up to the house, letting Pess into the garden before sneaking indoors and getting to work.
***
Later, he peered around the door to the spare bedroom, doing a double-take at the sight of the Detective, who appeared to have aged overnight - but it was actually flecks of paint in his hair. He was balanced on the stepladder, tongue between his teeth and eyes tracking the path of his paintbrush as he painstakingly swirled it around on the ceiling.
"Coffee?" Edgeworth asked.
Gumshoe jumped, wobbling violently on the stepladder.
"Whoa!" he grabbed the top step of ladder to steady himself, and Edgeworth grabbed the sides to stablilise it. "Sheesh, boss, you're lighter-footed than a catthief, I didn't even hear you come in!"
"Hm, didn't want to interrupt," Edgeworth muttered, not meeting his gaze - he had been indulging in a bit of catthievery earlier.
"Cheers for the offer, pal, I'd kill for a coffee - all I can taste is paint right now," Gumshoe made a face.
That was all Edgeworth could smell, too - the Detective had opened the windows but the strong whiff of Dulux Brilliant White still hung in the air. He glanced up at the ceiling. The paint coating was still wet, and the swirls were a little larger than the others, but Gumshoe had otherwise blended them in well.
"So whaddaya think, huh?" Gumshoe pointed upwards.
"It's passable, I suppose," Edgeworth conceded. "It's not as if one walks around continually paying attention to one's ceilings, so it would pass a cursory inspection. In actual fact, no one really sleeps in this room - Franziska prefers the one on the opposite side of the corridor. I think you're the first person to actually use this one."
"Well, pal, if I ever come here again, I'll have probably forgotten all about doing this, so I'll look up at it and go 'Wow, who did this? They're pretty damn good!'" Gumshoe winked.
"And who did the 'pretty damn good' damage in the first place, hm?"
"Uh..." Gumshoe paused, "maybe I just won't look up at the ceiling, huh?"
"Per-"
CRASH.
The two men turned at the sound.
"What the heck was that? Sounded like something in the house, pal!"
Pess began barking downstairs - it was an agitated kind of yelp, and Edgeworth was immediately out the door and down the stairs.
"Pess! Here, boy!"
Pess was absolutely fine, it turned out - the sudden noise had just upset him, and he followed closely at his master's heel as Edgeworth cautiously opened the door to the study, Gumshoe not far behind.
The study was in chaos - papers were scattered all over the floor and the heavy mahogany writing desk had partly collapsed, toppled forward onto one broken leg, the drawers half open and their contents spilled everywhere. The telephone that had been on the desktop was now dangling over one arm of the chair by its cord, the handset still swinging slightly with the pendular momentum of its descent, accompanied by the insistent beep of its dialtone. Pens and other items of stationery lay on top of the fallen papers, a trail of paperclips tracking from a dispenser that had fallen from a drawer.
"Damn it!" Edgeworth exclaimed, kneeling down to try and reorganise the papers. "It took me all week to collate these. Look at this mess! What the hell's happened to my desk?"
"Looks like it's broken, boss," was Gumshoe's verdict.
"Oh, your observation skills are absolutely top-notch, Detective, I am truly in awe of your uncanny ability to state the blindingly obvious," Edgeworth said acidly, stacking one pile of papers together and starting on the next, shaking the paperclips off them as he went. "Now will you dispense with the pointless commentary and diagnose what has afflicted my, up until now, perfectly serviceable piece of furniture?"
Gumshoe was on the case - he was on his hands and knees by the fallen desk, looking at the broken leg.
"Mahogany's pretty solid, Mr. Edgeworth - it shouldn't just fall down like that, unless... ah-ha!"
"Which means, what?"
"It broke here," Gumshoe pointed at where the leg joined the table, "'cause you've got a screw loose."
"There's nothing wrong with my sanity, Detective!" Edgeworth said indignantly.
Well, perhaps a little...
"Uh, no, I didn't mean that, pal!" Gumshoe said quickly. "I mean the anchoring screw in here, see?" He pulled at the leg, which was wedged beneath the weight of the fallen desk, and the whole thing came away, the metal of the bared screw poking through the top of the leg. "There's, like, a little holder this screw's meant to go into, in here," he patted the body of the desk, "and that keeps it all steady, see? But that's fallen out," he looked around on the carpet. "Should be on the floor somewhere."
It wasn't. Edgeworth had it in his pocket.
"Can you fix that leg, Detective?" Edgeworth asked. He put the telephone handset back on the receiver, silencing the annoying dialtone.
Gumshoe heaved the desk up, putting his head right down on the carpet so he could look underneath it. His body shook a little with the muscle effort required to hold it up, and his rear end jiggled invitingly. Edgeworth was right above it, and he dropped his hands down in a near-involuntary action, pre-cupped to receive a cheek each, and only just managed to stop himself, turning the action into a swift kneel to sweep the paperclips back into the dispenser as the Detective looked back at him.
"The screw's gouged a chunk out of the bottom of the desk, but I can patch that up okay," was his assessment. "Though if we don't find that other bit that's fallen out, we'll be going nowhere fast, pal."
"You need that to put the leg back on?"
Gumshoe nodded.
"Let's see if we can find it then."
Between them they cleared the floor, and when Gumshoe's back was turned Edgeworth rolled the coin-shaped gizmo under the desk. The desk had confounded him initially, as it was lacking in visible screwheads to attack, but after some tinkering he had discovered that the flat discs actually turned, which unlocked the embedded screws holding the legs of the table together. He was rather proud of his destructive handiwork, though he hadn't been expecting it to collapse so soon.
"Found it!" he said triumphantly, appearing to reach under the desk and produce the missing disc.
"That's the one!" Gumshoe held his hand out, and Edgeworth deposited it into his palm. "Right, now we're cooking! I'll go get some reinforcing brackets outta the toolbox, and you'll be back at your desk in lickety-split."
"I promised coffee, didn't I?" Edgeworth remembered.
"As long as it's not Dulux-flavoured, I don't mind, boss," Gumshoe chuckled.
"It might as well be, the strength you like it at," was the prosecutor's dry response as he left the study.
He was careful to fill the kettle with water from the bottles in the fridge, instead of using the kitchen tap. It was a timebomb, now that he'd been at the pipes.
By the time he'd brewed the coffee and brought it through, Gumshoe had removed the drawers from the desk and upended it with a heave. Now he was screwing in some metal strips to the bottom of the desk, to bind together the damaged screwhole. He downed his coffee in one gulp.
"Yeeha!" he smacked his lips. "You sure do a good brew, Mr. Edgeworth,"
"Yes, and again, it's wasted on you," the prosecutor retorted, taking his empty mug.
"Not true, pal - I can feel it working the old magic already," Gumshoe cracked his knuckles together. "DIY's a breeze when you're tanked up on caffeine!" he picked up the screwdriver again, and with a click-clack he had the leg back on. "Tada! Five minute job - no biggie."
It took me fifteen minutes to work out how to break that. Why does he pick moments like these to actually be efficient? Edgeworth grumbled to himself.
"Good work, Detective," he said reluctantly.
"Upsy-daisy," Gumshoe grunted, pulling the desk towards him and bracing himself against the weight of it, carefully setting it upright. He slowly let go of it, and the legs settled into the carpet, bearing the weight. "And Bob's your Grandpa!"
"So I can put these back on?" Edgeworth heaved the stack of papers, slapping them down on the desk, but it didn't budge an inch.
"You could stick the Titanic on it now," Gumshoe said confidently. "Y'know, it's kinda weird that it broke in the first place - those screwholders need a fair bashing to become loose. I guess somebody didn't screw it tight enough when they were making it?" he shrugged.
"Possibly," Edgeworth said noncommittally.
"Hey, you reckon I can finish off your gazebo now, boss?" Gumshoe asked, already keen to start something else.
Edgeworth checked the time.
"I suppose it is a more sociable hour now - go ahead," he gestured grandly towards the study door.
"Oh yeah, pal, I meant to ask," Gumshoe said on his way out, "do you have any creosote?"
"Creo...sote," Edgeworth rolled the word around on his tongue. The syllables were alien and had no meaning.
"You know, brown stuff, put it on wood, it really stinks..."
The prosecutor ruminated upon this concept. Was he talking about varnish, perhaps? But varnish was varnish, he wasn't aware of any other name for it.
Curious. Curious creosote. Hmm, a good alliteration.
"Uh, guess that's a no, then?"
"Given the other things you've conjured up from out of my garage, if anyone would be able to nose out some... creosote, it'd be you, Detective," Edgeworth pointed out.
"I'll get a-hunting then, boss - if there isn't any, we'll need to go get some from the hardware store."
"I suppose I could pick some up when I go to get lunch."
"It's lunchtime?!"
"No, it's not!"
"Aw, you got my hopes up there," Gumshoe said sadly.
"If you're hungry, Detective, just say so."
"But... I'm always hungry, boss."
"Oh, fine then - when you're too hungry to work, say so." Edgeworth was beginning to get the hang of Gumshoe's feeding patterns now.
"Gotcha!" Gumshoe saluted, then wandered off to search the garage.
Edgeworth finished reorganising his journal articles, bundling those under one arm and his laptop beneath the other, then he headed for the garden. By the time he had set up shop at the garden table, Gumshoe was coming down the path with the stepladder.
"I couldn't find any creosote," he said as he set up the stepladder by the side of the gazebo.
"I'll buy some, then, if you need it that badly."
"Well, if you creosote something like this, Mr. Edgeworth, it'll last you for ages. If you don't, well, look what happened to the original wood," Gumshoe nodded over at the pile of rotted struts, set aside to go to the tip.
"Very well. You'll have it by lunchtime," Edgeworth picked up one of his articles, flipping to the first page.
Gumshoe tested the ladder. The ground was a little uneven. He looked over at Edgeworth, who was apparently engrossed. Looking back to the ladder, he wobbled it again, then put one foot on the first rung, applying some weight. The feet of the ladder sunk a little into the ground. Carefully, he climbed onto the rung. The ladder sank some more, but bore his weight. Encouraged, he climbed higher, but when he was at eyelevel with the roof struts the ladder began to list to one side. Desperately he grabbed hold of the upper roof strut as he lost his footing and the ladder fell away from beneath his feet.
"Whoa!"
Edgeworth looked up to find the Detective dangling from the strut, his legs scissoring the air while the stepladder remained tilted at a crazy angle.
"Heavens!" he exclaimed, scrambling out of his chair. "Hold on, I've got you!" He seized the ladder, pushing it upright so it was under the Detective's feet.
"That's no good, boss, the ground's all boggy - it'll just sink!" Gumshoe's voice sounded strained, he was hanging on for dear life.
Edgeworth realised the ground he was standing on was muddy, water welling around his loafers. He looked down in horror. It hadn't been like this yesterday. This was his fault.