Au Revoir
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Au Revoir
Words: 1,844
Genre: Angst/Romance
Pairing(s): Light kid!Miles/kid!Phoenix
Notes: I wrote this with another idea in mind, and this sort of spun off-tangent. However, the basic idea is 'Letters From Home' and this piece is about how Miles as a child tried to cope with his new life in Germany, trying to clutch onto whatever he had from the past to help him pull through. This is a stand alone, but can be read as the prequel to Pen Strokes.
Summary: Germany was so far away from home, but thank goodness 'home' could fit into an envelope.
Warning: Spoilers for PW1.
Rated: G
Germany was cold and far from the place he had once called home.
As the aeroplane taxied off the runway and soared into the darkening sky, the only thing Miles could think of was about how small Los Angeles was from beyond the lazy swirl of clouds, how those bright city lights that illuminated his childhood were as distant as fireflies in the night. He was awake throughout the 12-hour flight, staring dully out the window from his First Class seat as the earth rotated from night to dawn, a hollow feeling in his stomach even though he knew that he should be at least a little excited at the prospect of flying.
It was the first time he had ever ridden on a plane, the first time he had ever left America or Los Angeles. He had thought that the trip would erase a bit of the sadness, lift his downtrodden spirits by a little… but he found that flying merely made him even more uneasy. He didn't like the view he saw as he flew away from his country, but he couldn't stop looking out. It was as if he was saying goodbye to a dear friend, and looking away as he left his home would have been worse than the lurching feeling that gutted him each time the plane hit some turbulence.
Miles remained awake for the next 34 hours, unable to rest even though jet lag was torturing his frail body. He wandered around the compound of the huge von Karma estate, eyes glassy and lips parted with a flurry of soft sighs as his young fingers explored the spotless nooks and crannies of the house. He walked about the immaculate gardens, sat down beneath the trees and closed his eyes and found himself unable to stop thinking about his friends and his school and his home and his father. The scent of grass and dirt were harrowingly nostalgic and so, so many times he had been moved to tears, pressing his knees against his chest and weeping quietly in the shadows of his new life.
Manfred was affectionate in a very cold and distant way. He acted like a father somehow, a very strict and no-nonsense one, and Miles sometimes felt like he was more like a sergeant than a father, but still Manfred provided for him. He was someone Miles was able to look up to and respect, and he supposed that it was enough for him to regain proper footing and to try, to try to find some kind of normalcy once again.
Even so, Miles drifted in and out of the months that followed. School, studies, homework, reading - his mind was never grounded into reality. He was quiet, inattentive, but forced himself to excel because he hated failing someone else, hated having to face Manfred if he were to ever become anything less than the ideal of perfection that the von Karma household held repute for. He hated his new life, but all the same he felt grateful for it. Felt that he had to be grateful for it.
Miles lost his direction, felt as though he was losing whatever little purpose a nine-year-old possessed because he had only ever wanted to please his father and play with his friends. Now, he had no father and no friends. He had forfeited the dream of defence attorney because the mere thought of protecting a murderer sickened him to the stomach. The sight of those shaking hands closed around the neck of his well-dressed father never left him when he even considered the thought. He couldn't even live on, couldn't let his father live on through him. No family, no dreams… He moved on aimlessly, with cold, mechanic routine, and started to feel bored with his existence. Sometimes, he forgot that he was even breathing, forgot that he was standing or sitting or just being there somewhere. Forgot that he was alive.
And then he received a letter.
'Highlight of my life,' was what he remembered thinking as the postman passed it to him, speaking affectionately, English broken with a distinctly guttural accent. Miles could only manage a feeble smile before retreating into the house and gently plying away the sealed mouth of the envelope.
The stationary was cheap and generic, but had a happy-looking sticker of a red car stuck on the corner above the date. His eyes lingered on that sticker hesitantly before he scanned the contents. As he read the letter, his mouth went dry. It took a few minutes before he recognized the owner of the practiced scrawl, and then his hands began to tremble. Heart racing, breath coming out in short pants, eyes becoming watery - he was astounded, overcome. And the last sentence, the last sentence- 'Your friend, Ph-
It was plucked quite fluidly from his shaking hands.
Miles spun around, only to find himself confronted with a terse Manfred, his brows furrowing and eyes narrowing in displeasure as he read the less-than-literary epistle written in a 4 th grader's scribble. Miles was scared stiff, afraid that he had done something wrong, afraid that he wasn't supposed to feel happy for receiving a letter from home, afraid that he had even entertained the idea of writing back.
By the time the letter had been lowered, glare trained on his pathetic figure, tears had already leaked from the corner of Miles' eyes and he was trembling, unsure if it were because of the letter or how terrifying Manfred was at that moment.
The questions were harsh, stern, irritated. No, Miles didn't know how Phoenix had managed to find their address. No, Miles no longer kept contact with his old acquaintances from Los Angeles. No, Miles was not crying because he missed his old life. No, Miles was not shaking because he was sad.
Friends made him weak. He was told it over and over again. He was told that something as trivial as a letter had reduced him into nothing more than a blubbering, snivelling mess. He was told that his father would be turning in his grave, ashamed for such a fool of a weakling son. He was told that he would never read another letter again, would never write another letter that would fall outside the borders of Germany, never, never, never again. He would not be weak. He would not be foolish.
Miles wiped the tears away with the back of his hand, trying his best to ignore the sting he felt in his cheeks where Manfred's hand had descended. He sniffed once. Twice.
And obeyed.
He watched submissively as Manfred ripped the letter into neat halves, quarters, eighths and dropped the pieces into a passing tea tray, dismissing the manservant who carried it.
When night fell, Miles crept into the pantry to retrieve the letter. He was lucky because the manservant had knowingly set the scraps aside on the counter for him. As neatly as he could, he put it back together with scotch tape, read it over and over again until he memorized it word for word. The letter brought out so many things he was sure that Germany had already erased or buried. He was so dizzy with the memories and nostalgia that it kept him awake throughout the night and made him throw up with nausea the next morning. He was careful to hide that letter in between Lehrbuch Der Psychiatrie and an English translation of Einkommensteuergesetz, two untouched hard covers in the bottom shelf of his room's bookcase.
It gave him something, that letter. It gave him something that made him feel better about himself, made him feel alive. It wasn't the penmanship - even though Phoenix had always been good at writing essays and stories - and it certainly wasn't the photograph that Miles had managed to sneak away from Manfred in the envelope.
'Your friend, Phoenix Wright'.
The fact that there was actually a letter for him to receive.
Miles had always been terrible at putting down how he felt in words, but he knew to try. It took him a few days, but eventually, he managed a half decent letter; double-spaced, two pages long. He'd made sure to avoid anything too negative about his current conditions, spoke more about how much he missed Los Angeles and the company of his friends. He wrote about how he had to learn German and how it was hard because he didn't have anyone to practice with since he was not allowed to speak to the servants. He wrote about how cold Germany was. Wrote about how happy he was that Phoenix wrote to him.
He checked it and double-checked it and rewrote whole paragraphs because he felt as though a letter that would leave this house could only be perfect. He had given it to Hans, the manservant who had salvaged Phoenix's letter before, to help post it because he was not allowed to leave the compound.
He was afraid, scared to the bone. This was outright defiance of Manfred von Karma and his authority. The punishment he would get… Miles didn't even want to think about it. As the hours crawled by, he thought more and more about what a stupid idea it was. He felt like he wanted to crawl into a hole, would have given anything to turn back time, to not write the letter.
But when Hans gave him a nod and wink from across the room one morning, Miles felt as though the tight grip that had been twisting and clenching him on the inside had been released. He felt as though he had just been allowed to take a deep breath, as if all his worrying had been for naught.
He smiled a small, crooked little smile at Hans.
In the days that followed, Miles was visibly happier. There was a skip in his walk, a bounce in his step. It even seemed as though he had started to look forward to school, to his lessons. He'd embraced his German classes, memorized the grammatical structure and the assigned vocabulary and all in all, he began to adjust a bit better to his life. Just a bit. It wasn't much, but it was there.
Manfred certainly recognized it.
Miles knew that he did. But he didn't care.
Life was a rainbow of colours for the two weeks that followed. He woke up and lived a little and learnt to smile again, giggle, laugh and play and life was good. He sincerely believed that things could only get better. In fact, he had, for the first time, invited Michael and Kurt to the von Karma estate. Boys. Friends. Those his own age. The housekeepers were buzzing with carefully concealed delight because they'd always fretted over the children in their own silent ways.
And then Manfred threw down a crumpled piece of paper onto the homework the boys had been working on.
It was an envelope. And 'To: Phoenix Wright' was printed in neat handwriting on it.
Just like that, the dream shattered.