jurisprudence | Open RP | Voicetesting & Etc.

Entry tags:

!open rp

Open RP | Voicetesting & Etc.

𝑫𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝒂𝒕 𝒎𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕. 𝑶𝒇 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆 𝑰 𝒌𝒆𝒑𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒅𝒐𝒈.

"That's because you're a fool," he says weakly, even as his sensibilities recoil at the sight of her nails gouging into her — and by extension, Maya's — cheek. But they're superficial wounds at best, and the byproduct of little more than a tantrum; this is a hospital clinic, after all, and the face will heal. It's only if she escalates that things will get dangerous.

"You balanced your revenge on a dozen moving pieces, none of which you had under your exclusive control," he goes on, his voice taking on a dark severity the longer he goes on. "Instead of spending so much time concerned with my father, perhaps you should've taken lessons from his killer. At least Manfred von Karma knew how to plan a perfect crime."

But then, with that last flash of malice past, it's a softer and more unguarded look that drifts to Phoenix's face. "Not that it would've helped," he concludes softly. "Phoenix beat him, too."

Phoenix also has to suppress a wince as Dahlia scratches her own face, but it's fine. Nothing some Neosporin and time can't fix. He glances at Edgeworth, and he can't help but smile. It feels like they're in court, and they've got the worst villain of all on the ropes together.

"No. No, no, no!" Dahlia slams Phoenix's hand against the metal rail on the edge of the bed. Phoenix winces, but he holds a straight face. What's one more bruise to add to today's mangled hand? "This isn't a court of law. There are no gallows to send me to anymore," she's practically snarling now. If Phoenix were a dog, she's a wild coyote, trapped and furious and ready to tear a small animal apart. "You don't have the power here. The Fey family isn't the only family of mediums out there, and the Kurain Channeling Technique isn't the only way for the dead to walk the earth. I can come back. I can always come back."

She shoves her hand in her pocket, pulling out a tiny clear bottle still black with dirt, and she pulls the cork out with her teeth. "And every time I do, I'm pulling someone down with me."

"NO!" Phoenix lunges for the bottle, but Dahlia anticipates it. She jumps from her seat, away from Phoenix even as their hands stay linked, and the force of his lunge tears the IV from his arm.

"That's just more proof you're a fool," Edgeworth snaps in a hurry, just as frantic as Phoenix is at the prospect of threat of harm to Maya, but less willing to show it for fear that it will put Dahlia back in control where she wants to be. It's a dangerous gamble, a terrible risk he's taking, but — no, he has to try. The only way they win is like this, if he creates an opportunity and Phoenix is able to somehow, somehow force a turnabout to seize the upper hand.

That's how it always goes in the courtroom. And Dahlia is wrong about that much, at least: there may be no judge and no bailiff, but the atmosphere is no different than when he and Phoenix are together, at either end, battling it out until the truth finally becomes known.

"You can always come back? With the two of us here waiting for you?" he continues, forcing himself to keep his hands relaxed, so as not to visibly grip the palms in his hidden agitation. "You can't possibly be serious."

He has to turn her attention away from Maya. Away from thinking she's the best target at this moment. Why take a bishop when you can take the queen. Show her a prize to pursue, a piece that's better — and make her think it's her idea.

Dahlia is a manipulator. She kills with love. She won't forget that he just stole Wright's love away. She won't overlook that Wright just offered his confession.

Don't take Maya. Not this turn. There's someone better. There's someone who will hurt Phoenix Wright more.

God help him, it's crazy, it's suicide, but if this is the only thing he can do to protect Maya Fey, then he'll do it in an instant.

"It's just as I said. You never look at the whole board. And that's why you always lose."

Edgeworth might be able to stay cool and collected, but Phoenix can't. He barely even notices that his IV isn't attached anymore, trying to hold onto Dahlia, but then she lets him go. She pries her hand from his, both of their hands red with Phoenix's blood.

She's giving up on that hostage. She has a much better one now. But now Edgeworth has her attention, because if nothing else, she can't stand his unflappable demeanor. She's not used to dealing with a man whose strings she can't pull. It's infuriating. And all because he's 'in love' with Phoenix--gag.

But her thought process does trickle down the road Edgeworth anticipates. Edgeworth stole her best weapon from her because Phoenix loves him more than he loves Iris acting like her. And that's also infuriating in a way--not just because it takes control from her, but for some reason, a man she thought reasonably respectable sees value in a man she detests. And the idea of anyone halfway intelligent seeing value in the simpering man she picked to hold evidence for her is so beyond her understanding that it makes her spit with rage.

But she doesn't quite take the bait. Not yet. She narrows her eyes, gauging him. He'd just been coughing roses... but he's still a grown man, mostly healthy, and she's still a small woman. If she engages with him physically, it's very likely she'll lose. Maybe she could still turn it around, stubbornly hold onto Maya's body and fight back hard enough that he has to hurt her, stay in it even as they drag her to Kurain for a severing ceremony so she can leap at the first opportunity to kill herself--but she'd rather not go through the trouble if she can avoid it. She's a member of the Fey family and apparently it endows her with greater power as a spirit than the other ghosts Maya has channeled, but at some point she'll have to worry about Maya gathering enough power to force her out by herself.

Dahlia pants, flicking her hair behind her ear as the poison hovers treacherously close to her mouth.

"I don't need a whole board," she whispers. "Because I'm not playing chess. I don't need a perfect win. I just want to hurt the people who hurt me. And there are so many ways to do that."

She already has. She made Maya watch the murder of her mother. Iris is either dead herself or slated for prison herself. And Iris and Mia both know that it's because they hurt Dahlia that these misfortunes befell them. But it's not enough. Her appetite for pain, previously incidental to self-service, now has grown to replace where her heart might be, thudding in her chest like a bonfire. It burns through the blood she no longer has, making her feel alive, making her focus solely on the objects of her hate.

Perhaps this is the closest approximation to love that she'll ever feel.

"I have so much time now. Time to come back again and again, to hurt you a little more every time, and even if you exorcise me--I still win, because you don't have to die to suffer. And I'll still come back to win again."

She doesn't care if she has to twist herself into a ghoul that can never move on. She doesn't care if her hate burns so hot that it burns away everything else that had ever been Dahlia. She'll do it to herself just to make it easier to pass through the veil and hurt them again.

Her eyes dart between Phoenix and Edgeworth. She's almost rabid now, her rage unraveling her cool demeanor, but she's pulling the scraps of her mind together to think.

"I came back to this world to murder Maya Fey," she hisses. "That was my goal. I want Mia Fey to look her sister in the eyes in death and know that she did this by sending me to the gallows."

The bottle stays close to Dahlia's lips.

"Tell me, Mr. Edgeworth," she whispers. "Can you offer me anything that would be more satisfying than that?"

It's funny how, in that moment, it's his prosecutor's training that saves him. Not the passion and belief of the defense, but the ability to throw away mercy and deliver cold, ruthless fact, devoid of emotion. The one and only thing Manfred von Karma ever did for him, for better or for worse: he made him the best. That's what he has to be right now.

"That's exactly why you kill her last," he says quietly, and prays that Phoenix will be able to tell what he's doing. The poison is so close to Maya's lips, and words are only words. Words can be forgotten later, the way that poison can't.

"You aren't even clever enough to see that much?" he continues, derisive now — let her hate him, the prosecutor, the arrogant man thinking he's superior to her. Let her want to kill him just to shut him up, as much as to hurt Phoenix. "She goes last. After you've taken everything from her. After you've made sure she knows it was you who took everything."

He scoffs. "The moment Maya Fey dies, you become irrelevant. Forgotten. Because she's the only one left who's afraid of you. I'm not. Phoenix isn't. She won't even know it was you, Hawthorne."

And there it is. The trump card. The ace up his sleeve. She won't even know it was you.

Dahlia Hawthorne wants to see the suffering she inflicts. That's the only satisfaction she'll ever find in death; now she just has to connect the dots on her own.

Phoenix makes a choking noise when Edgeworth says 'kill her last', like he's just been punched in the gut. But he keeps his mouth shut. He knows that if he opens his mouth, all he'll do is beg and plead for Maya's life and that will just give Dahlia power. He trusts Edgeworth to do what he can't right now. It's up to him to keep an eye out for what he can do to build off of Edgeworth's strategy right now. It's just like DeKiller. The only way they can do this is together.

And Edgeworth's strategy has its intended effect. Dahlia's lip draws up in a snarl, like she'll attack him right there, but there's thought in her eyes. Damn, he's right.

Dahlia is smart enough to know what he's doing. He's convincing her not to kill Maya, because it'd be the easiest thing for her to do right now, and he's hoping she'll give him the opportunity to subdue her. She knows that. And yet, does she really lose if he succeeds?

A whole lifetime in front of these three. Phoenix. Edgeworth. Maya. A lifetime that she can fill with paranoia and torment. A lifetime that Mia Fey will have to watch. A lifetime that Dahlia can take in compensation for her own untimely death.

"You're right," she murmurs softly, eyes narrowing. "Manfred would be proud."

She uses his name familiarly. She's had the chance to speak with him.

But she's not Manfred Von Karma. Her mind isn't fixed on perfection. She is fixed on pain, and there's one last thing she can do to Edgeworth to hurt him.

"Phoenix," she says coldly. "You were right."

"What?" Phoenix furrows his brow, his eyes still fixed on that bottle of poison just in case it gets closer to Maya's mouth. He braces himself for her to say something awful, and he hopes Edgeworth is doing the same. "What about?"

"The day of the trial. As they led me away, you said to Mia Fey that I had to be a fake." Her eyes dart to Phoenix's. "You were right."

Phoenix sputters, his tense posture cut for a moment by pure confusion. "What?"

"I couldn't stand you. Your dogged, stupid optimism and faith in people disgust me. I wanted to kill you the day after I poisoned the detective." Dahlia glares at Phoenix, but she also keeps Edgeworth in the corner of her eye. She wants to see how he reacts to what she says. "Iris was the one who talked me out of it. She said that it would just make me more suspicious for you to turn up dead, and she volunteered to pretend to be me to get the necklace back. I knew that she'd betray me when I found out she was hiding carnations six months later." A trash can full of tissues and red and striped carnations. Even if that traitorous nun could school her face, she couldn't hide those flowers. "So I decided to kill you myself. I knew if I tipped her off, she'd kill me to save you. Her loyalty was always shaky, especially after I killed Valerie."

Dahlia shrugs, like what she's speaking about is no big deal. "So you were right. I wasn't your girlfriend. I never was. Iris loved you too much to reveal the truth because she thought it'd hurt you to let you in on the secret. And that's why I had to beat her to take her place yesterday. She still loves you too much to hurt you."

Phoenix can't breathe, head spinning. She doesn't even know if he believes it, but it explains so much... but then that throws so much more confusion in the mix, he can't write Dahlia off because she wasn't Dahlia, she was Iris, and she's not a serial killer, and he was tricked but not in the way he thought, and--

He shakes his head again, trying to file all that confusion away for later. He has to keep his head in the present. Maya depends on it. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because it's the truth." Dahlia shrugs again with a smirk, turning her eyes to Edgeworth. "Do with that information what you will."

His heart will never really be yours, she says with that smirk. If Iris is alive, he very well might leave you.

"He would never lower himself to being proud of me," Edgeworth answers quietly, already able to feel the terrible choking fear beginning to collect in his lungs. This is what she does, he reminds himself. This is what Dahlia Hawthorne does, every time, it's always just variations on the same theme. Twist love and watch men die, that's all it is, she's no more or less creative now than she's ever been.

The only problem is, playing out this ruse involves embracing what could very well be his real, actual death. But it doesn't matter. He's faced death before. He's lived with guilt and shame. And he's never forgotten Maya Fey, kicking and screaming and getting herself held in contempt just to buy him a chance that ultimately saved his life — how could he do any less for her, now?

But maybe, maybe, this will prove to be the chance they needed. Not that he knows anything about the Kurain Channeling Technique, but now, at least, this revelation about Iris — this revelation that will surely choke him —

Sooner or later, it will do what Dahlia hopes it will: seed in his heart and his lungs and grow and grow in his self-loathing until it consumes him with doubt.

But she's missed something, too. Something that might just be their turnabout, once and for all.

She's resolved the mystery that had Phoenix coughing up black dahlias, definitively. She's given him the answer. It wasn't her; it was never her. And now there is no more doubt — Phoenix Wright knows exactly how each of them feels.

Iris loves him.
Dahlia loathes him.
He's confessed to him.

No more doubt. No more black dahlias. No more pink camellias. No more wondering.

He coughs, thick and wet, and spits a clump of petals from a flower he can't identify — more than he's had in a long time, a dangerous degree. Do with it what you will, indeed; it may just be the seeds of Dahlia's own destruction, setting Phoenix Wright free.

He can only hope.

It clicks in Phoenix's head as soon as he sees Edgeworth coughing. Exactly what Dahlia's plan was. "MILES!"

But Dahlia sees her opportunity, and she seizes it. She lunges for Edgeworth, grabbing him by the hair to yank his head back and pour the contents of her vial on his face--except she doesn't. As soon as she tips the vial, the hand that had previously been twisted in his hair flies upwards, slamming against the mouth of the bottle as if it has a will of its own. Instead of in Edgeworth's eyes, the poison pours onto her palm. Her skin bubbles with a chemical burn as she screams and drops the bottle to the floor, moving to strike Edgeworth with her contaminated hand--

But then Phoenix is there. Out of his bed, eyes clear. He catches her by the wrist, spinning her away from Edgeworth and towards him. She barely has time to react before he has her in a tight hug, her hands on his chest. Her contaminated hand burns a hole over his heart, their skin bubbling and burning, but Phoenix just grimaces as he holds her in a bastardization of a lovers' embrace, his grip crushing her against his body.

"It's over, Dahlia," Phoenix says. "You're finished. It's time to go."

Dahlia breathes heavily, sneering at Phoenix, even as she goes slack in his grip. His eyes burn so brightly, even when she's eating through his skin, even after the emotional bomb she dropped. The only man who's ever survived loving her.

"I misjudged you," she whispers.

And then her head drops back with a rattling gasp, eyes rolling as a gray form rises from her body, the room suddenly blistering hot and smelling of brimstone as the lights snuff out. The gray form grows, resplendent, the silhouette of a furious woman with glowing white eyes and hair of fire that falls around her, the only source of light in the room.

U N T I L N E X T T I M E the air thunders, the heat scorching Phoenix's cheeks before suddenly it's all gone. The room is normal again, and he's holding Maya in his arms, slack and dazed.

Phoenix sucks in the cool hospital air, a cold sweat having broken out on his skin. "I have literally never seen that happen," he manages weakly. Leave it to Dahlia to be so especially evil that she has her own demonic form.

Dahlia has two things going for her in the moment she grabs him — the element of surprise and the fact that the mention of Iris and her love is doing its terrible work, right on schedule. It's not that he disbelieves Wright's own words, or doubts his confession; quite the contrary. It's the fact that he believes it so thoroughly that's killing him now, because now it's not just wishful fantasies about something that will never occur, easily dismissed and discarded.

Now it's something he has, concretely, and he's going to lose it to Sister Iris because of course he is. Because beneath his conscious thought, beneath tidying up his emotions and maintaining control of his dignity, Dahlia has rooted her awful seeds in fertile ground: his firm and encompassing belief that nothing he does will ever be good enough, that he is flawed, that there are better choices and better people and in the end he will always be alone.

So. He's going to die, soon.

Not now. Not for a while. He gets to watch Phoenix banish Dahlia back from whence she came. He gets to know for certain that his gambit worked and Maya Fey is safe. That's fine. He can be content with that.

"Well done," he croaks out, just before he starts sliding down the wall. He can feel the thorns without even needing to cough. How poetic; he's going to love Phoenix Wright until he dies from it.

"I thought." He chokes, a wet and ugly sound. He doesn't care; Maya and Phoenix are safe, and that's all that matters now. "Thought that would work. If I could just...get her claws out of you. That you could do it."

And he did. He did, it's all right, it's going to be fine. Going to be fine for everyone except him.

Franziska is going to kill him for this foolishness, he thinks distantly, and almost laughs.

It’s not the words so much as the way he says them, like he has to struggle for air, and then he’s coughing. No. No, no, no.

“No, no, you don’t get to do this, don’t you dare.”

Phoenix braces Maya’s head as he carefully sets her down on the ground, leaning on the wall. He has to peel her hand from his chest, grimacing as he does as it tears up the skin that melted and burnt together, leaving a bleeding handprint on his chest, but it’s fine. That’s what doctors are for. They’re in a hospital, they’ll be fine.

Phoenix staggers to Edgeworth, leaning against the wall. Even without hanahaki, he still has pneumonia and weakness from lying in bed for four days, and it’s hard to stand straight right now. So he slides with Edgeworth, slides until they’re sitting.

“Don’t you dare, Miles. You don’t—you don’t get to tell me you love me and then just leave again.” Phoenix is angry, but there are tears in his eyes as he takes Edgeworth’s hand in his own, the one unsoiled by Dahlia’s claws. He holds on tight, like force of will alone is enough to tether Edgeworth by his side. “You fought tooth and nail to keep her from taking me, so don’t you dare let her take you. I’m not allowing it.”

"You shouldn't be out of bed," Miles insists softly, but not without a touch of appreciation for the wry humor of the remark. He's sitting on the cold floor of a hospital room waiting for red roses to tear his lungs apart, but yes, he's got the right to lecture Phoenix about his own life choices.

"She was right, I'm afraid," he continues, still ragged but determined to press on. "That may well have been the most 'von Karma' I've ever been."

He closes his eyes, thinking about the press of Phoenix's hand in his, the frantic terror in the way he speaks. It would be better if he didn't panic. He can't listen to the EKG anymore for clues, but this level of worry still can't be healthy for him in his current condition.

"And she was right about Iris," he adds, at long last. "She told me herself, in the detention center. When it was her, and not Dahlia. She said she had been keeping secrets from you. I made her promise to confess them, when this was all over."

And he tips his head, gazing tiredly at Phoenix. "She does love you. I'm certain of that. It's important that you know that, too."

“So what?” Phoenix blows right past the comment about not being out of bed because he’s not even going to deign to respond to that one. “So what how anyone else feels about me?”

Phoenix leans in, resting his temple against Edgeworth’s, his grip only getting tighter. “I love you, Miles. I’ve loved you since we were nine. I love that you can be calm when I’m not, and I love that you’re always there when I need you most, and I even love how flustered you get when witnesses never give their names and professions until you’ve asked three times. And yes, a part of me loves her too, but that ship sailed a long time ago.”

They’ll never be able to look at each other without thinking of Dahlia. They both deserve to be free of that ghost, and Phoenix will tell Iris so if he has the opportunity. And he genuinely hopes that one day she’ll find another man that cherishes her as much as he once did.

“And who cares where you learned how to do that? You saved Maya, Miles. You saved me. And you did it in a way I couldn’t. That’s what you do. That’s what you’ve always done.” Phoenix has fire and oddball off the wall thinking, and Edgeworth has ice and calculated logic. And Dahlia needs to be handled with a cold and distanced hand. Phoenix doesn’t know if he would have been able to beat her all alone. “So you can’t leave me, okay? You can’t. I still need you.”

"You're yelling," he points out warmly, with a touch of faint humor that's a little surprising coming from a guy who's so pale and wasting at the moment. "I realize it only proves your point, but it really is absurd that I'm the one staying calm in this particular circumstance."

It's nice to feel Phoenix so close. He's warm, and solid, and his hair tickles. He shouldn't be up out of bed, it's probably has for him in a hundred ways, but that's a problem for the nurses, he supposes. Likely they'll have heard the commotion and be here soon.

"I think..." He coughs, letting their fingers twisted tightly together, like a lifeline. "There may still be a way out. Of this, for me. Without resorting to the surgery."

He goes quiet, with a soft wheeze of breath. "You won't like it. But I won't be able to do it without you. I can't...I can't do it without you, Phoenix. I can't."

"I told you," Phoenix says, a little broken even as he has to appreciate Mile's humor. "I can barely stay calm to save my life. So I need you here to do it for me."

Phoenix holds their hands together tight. A wild superstitious thought says that if he lets go, then Edgeworth will die, and all the light will go out from the world. So he holds on with every ounce of strength he has, damn his own health and recovery.

It's not as though the nurses won't already be furious, given the state of him. Still bleeding from where he ripped out his IV, a mauled hand, and a bleeding hand print on his chest. But it's fine. He'd be ready to suffer walking on hot coals for Miles.

"Anything. Anything at all." Phoenix turns his head to press their foreheads together. He doesn't even know if Miles would be willing to go through with the surgery, and it'd break both their hearts to do it, but anything at all is worth Edgeworth's life. "I'll do it. Anything you need, I'll do it."

"She had been talking to Manfred von Karma. She shouldn't have known..." he mumbles, more to himself than to Phoenix. It's nice to be so close because it gives him an excuse to close his eyes; if they were further apart, he'd be adamant about keeping them open to keep himself aware, to prevent himself from drifting off into sleep or a stupor or unconsciousness by mistake.

But like this, he can focus. With Phoenix so close, he can focus. And there were things that Dahlia Hawthorne knew about him, about his weaknesses, that she couldn't have guessed without some form of outside help.

And who would know his vulnerabilities better than Manfred von Karma? The man gave him most of them, after all.

"You have to stop. Loving me, for...you have to stop —"

He coughs, at the worst possible time, and curses himself for it. Now it's going to come out wrong, now Phoenix is going to protest and miss the point. Damn that Dahlia Hawthorne.

"You have to stop loving the boy who stood up for you when you were nine years old. The Miles Edgeworth you chased through university. The man you put on such a pedestal."

It never fails to astonish him, Wright's capacity to always see that man. Even when he's sitting broken on a cold hospital floor.

"I have to know that you see all of me, for all that I make it hard on you. That's...the insidious part of what she's done. If I'm the only one who sees the flaws in me...then a part of me will always think your feelings are founded in a lie," he murmurs, his throat thick and ragged. "I told you that you'd hate it. But I think that's the key. The flowers grow in unrequited feelings — and mine are unrequited, if part of me is always convinced that the Miles Edgeworth you love is a lie."

The thought of Dahlia talking to von Karma is ice in Phoenix's gut. It's easy to tell himself that Dahlia is a special case, that she's a part of the Fey family and it gives her some kind of power in death, but if all the other people they've sent to the gallows together can come back in some form? No, he can't think of it.

Edgeworth accurately predicts Phoenix's reaction to that untimely pause. He sputters, holding his hand tighter. "Wh-what?" Stop loving Edgeworth? He doesn't think he can. Doesn't think he has the ability to unspool all the love in his heart for the man without undoing himself in the process. "I can't, I don't know how, I--"

But then Edgeworth keeps talking. And it does break his heart a little bit, listening to him speak.

"Miles, do you really think I only love the boy you were? The man I thought you would become?" Phoenix has to fight back the tears. A lawyer doesn't cry until it's all over. And it's not over yet, won't be over until he knows Edgeworth will be okay. "I know you're flawed. I know you've done bad things. You're stubborn and cold and ruthless and it's a trial and a half to get you to admit to feeling anything vaguely mushy. For heaven's sake, you prosecuted me for a murder I didn't commit. I was there, you jerk. Do you think I just forgot that in a haze of childhood memories?"

Phoenix brings their joined hands up to his lips, pressing a kiss to Edgeworth's knuckles. "But I still love you. I love you because even though you did all those things, you decided to be better. That's who you are. A flawed man who lost his way and made the choice to work on finding it again. And maybe one day you'll lose it again, but I have faith that once you realize you have, you'll choose to put in the work to find it once more. That's more beautiful to me than a person who has never had to struggle to know what's right."

"Of course that's what I think," Miles insists, a little stubbornly but without any real fight in it, because all chiding aside, it's getting easier to breathe with every word Phoenix speaks and he almost doesn't dare to hope that he's actually, really gotten this right. "You should hear yourself talk. It's like you've made me into a religion."

But this is the part where Phoenix excels, he knows. Vanquishing Dahlia Hawthorne was something that took the icy ruthlessness that only he could have brought, but this is different. Saving Miles Edgeworth from himself — that's something that only Phoenix Wright has ever managed to pull off, again and again and again.

"I just have to know that you know," he continues, but even as he's saying it, he's angling his body and leaning into Phoenix, sinking down to rest his head on his shoulder, to tuck his face against the crook of his neck. "I'm sorry. I don't want to be like this. I know I don't make it easy. But I can't accept it if it's blind adoration — and you have to admit, darling, that you are the reigning king of blind adoration."

Darling, he manages, with a touch of humor that speaks of thorns receding and sunlight returning. Maybe it really is going to be all right. Maybe.

Maybe.

Darling. That word sounds like hope.

"Well, what about me ever made you think I like 'easy'?" Miles rests his head against Phoenix's neck, and it's like he can breathe again. Miles has never come this close to him, and Phoenix can't help but close his eyes, running his fingers against the small hairs on the back of Miles' neck. Without seeing the blood on Edgeworth's lips, hearing those horrible coughs, he can almost laugh at the situation right now. "Was it... me taking on a national-level blackmailer for my second trial? Was it... taking on multiple prosecutors with perfect conviction records? Or was it... somehow talking you into being a defense attorney for a week?"

He turns his head a little to press a kiss to Mile's hair. "You call it blind adoration, and I call it love, honey. That, and I can't hold a grudge to save my life." God, he'd be okay just sitting there forever. He missed Edgeworth so much when he was away in Europe. He even missed the things that drive him crazy, like Edgeworth's patented Glare(tm) and how impossibly reserved he is. "What can I say? Dahlia was right. I have a lot of love to give."

Perhaps that's the real horror of Dahlia Hawthorne. She doesn't really lie often. She usually just tells the truth strategically. And her assessment of Phoenix in that regard was entirely accurate; he's a man with so much love, and he needs someone around who's willing to accept it from him.

But that's okay, he thinks. He'd rather have too much love than to have none at all like she does.

"I am a terrible defense attorney," he pronounces from somewhere in the vicinity of just below Phoenix's ear, where he is comfortable and not moving for anything. It's sort of selfish of him, he really should be insisting that Phoenix get back to bed and then go find some sort of medical attention for him and Maya, but he's tired and worn out and his lungs still feel a little tight, so maybe it can wait a little longer.

"But you," he adds eventually, almost like an afterthought, "are a magnificent one. Which is why I needed you to defend this to me. I can always count on you to beat me when your heart is in it."

Maybe Iris is better than he is. Maybe she would treat Phoenix better than he can. Maybe she could make him happier. Maybe if this sort of thing were gauged solely on objective data points like that, they both would've already embraced that she's the only reasonable, logical choice.

But love isn't reasonable or logical. Phoenix isn't defending a hollow ideal. And if the only thing in the world stronger than Miles's own guilt and self-loathing is Phoenix's strength of conviction, then he'll put his faith in Phoenix's convictions every time.

His chest lightens. "It's all right now, I think. Mustn't worry. The worst of it...should be past."

Phoenix can't help but smile, his whole chest warming as Edgeworth compliments him. He knows well enough that when Edgeworth says something good, he means it. "My heart's in this one. And I'll defend it to you for the rest of our lives if you need me to."

Edgeworth may be stubborn, but Phoenix likes to think he's even more stubborn when he wants to be.

Phoenix scrapes his nails gently along the back of Edgeworth's neck, sighing in relief as he says the worst is past. "It better be. Because I swear to God, if you die, I'm making Maya channel your spirit just so I can yell at you." And Edgeworth would be forced to spend time with Dahlia in the afterlife, and what kind of afterlife is that?

Phoenix really doesn't want to withdraw from this embrace, but... well, they all need a doctor right about now. Phoenix pets Edgeworth's hair as he pulls away, smiling at his face. "I need to go get a doctor, okay? We'll talk more once we're not bleeding everywhere."

He turns his head, but pauses when he sees Maya, who's supposed to be passed out, watching them with a smile on her face. With her hair slack, her face scratched, her hand burned, and her face exhausted, she looks like she's hungover after a party that got way out of hand.

"Maya?" he asks.

"Don't mind me." Maya flaps her hand weakly in their direction. Phoenix has never been so happy to hear her voice in his life. "I'm just happy you two figured it out. All it took was three years and a murder attempt from beyond the grave."

She even manages a little huff of amusement. "None of the poison got in your eyes, right, Edgeworth?"

"It did not. Miss Fey, if you would be so kind as to find and press Wright's call button? It should be in that apparatus somewhere," Miles murmurs, grumbling audibly as Phoenix does his best to move and he proceeds to definitely not let him. They're all in bad shape, to be sure, but that's all the more reason why they shouldn't move, in his opinion. So much the better to just summon the doctors to the room and stay still.

Also, then he doesn't have surrender his opportunity to put his head back down on Phoenix's shoulder.

"You are not getting up," he reminds Phoenix with his usual no-nonsense authority. "You have pneumonia. Honestly, you shouldn't even be out of bed, but that's the furthest I intend to indulge you."

"That's good," Maya says with a tired smile as Phoenix mutters, "I'm the one being indulged??" Maya stands up on unsteady legs, wandering towards the hospital bed to fiddle with the buttons. "I was worried I might have been too late. I could only get the one arm back for a second."

She discovers the call button, pressing it hard before flopping in Phoenix's bed. Don't mind her while she takes the bed over. Phoenix, despite his grumbling, wraps his arms tighter around Edgeworth and buries his face in his hair. There's been just... so much in the past hour to take in. Stuff he doesn't think he'll be able to process for a few days at least. But this is one thing he intends to hold on tightly to.

"Do you want to get dinner together to celebrate after we're out of here?" he mumbles in Miles' hair, smiling as he does. There's still a lot to figure out--he doesn't even know if Edgeworth will stay in the country, or if he's in any position to move back from Europe--but it'll probably be easier to figure out together over a bottle of pinot when they're both whole than on the cold hospital floor.

"I'm appreciative, truly. Though if being blinded had been the price to ensure your safety...well. If justice can conduct itself while blind, then I would learn how to as well."

But no, this is better. This is how it should be, Maya resting where it's safe and Phoenix Wright close at hand, and the threat of danger gone and the petals disintegrating in his lungs and for a moment, just one moment, everything holding steady and at peace.

"I would like that. Dinner," he replies quietly, and after a minute follows it with a shaky, thin laugh. "What are we celebrating? The one and only acquittal of my illustrious career as a defense attorney, I presume."

Maya gives a limp wave of the hand from the bed, which roughly translates to Don't be ridiculous, of course you shouldn't go blind on my account, think of what a pain it'd be to deal with Phoenix in court when he's waving around weird bits of evidence and you can't even see them. But Maya isn't feeling very talkative right now. In fact, she feels very sleepy instead. So she's just going to doze while they wait for a doctor to arrive.

"Sure, that's a good idea," Phoenix says, smiling as he runs his hand through Miles' hair. "You're debut, victory, and exit from your short but illustrious defense career."

He breathes a happy sigh, just savoring the moment. He'd never actually thought he'd get to have Miles in his arms. He never thought he'd see his dead ex again either, but Miles seems like a much bigger deal.

"I don't know about you, but I'm celebrating no more flowers, too. Maya was getting insufferable. She kept putting pink camellia arrangements in the office."

Maya mumbles from the bed, which roughly translates to You deserved it for making me put up with your lovesick fretting over Edgeworth, I was half ready to confess to him for you.

"I remembered what they mean, the camellias. It took a while, but then I realized," Miles mumbles, actually more alert than he's letting on, but only to the degree that he needs to keep an eye on Phoenix and Maya's respective conditions until the doctors arrive. He'll move if either of them seems to be taking a turn for the worse, but if not — then just this once, he'll be selfish. Just this once, he's going to stay right where he is instead of finding a reason to leave.

"Fortunately for me, you never had any occasion to observe any of mine. It's for the best, really."

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Open RP | Voicetesting & Etc.

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