title: warmed over
fandom: ace attorney
rating: g
pairing: miles edgeworth/phoenix wright
summary: phoenix is, inexorably and inexplicably, helpful. takes place during 1-4.


An unusual number of recesses in this case. Edgeworth paced the floor of the antechamber, hands tangled into fists, wondering if it was at all out of pity for him. Barely breathing, eyes sunken like ghost ships. Wright twitching his incompetence, Von Karma the wolf at his door.

Wright’s lanky child of an assistant watched from across the room, just choking on sympathy. Until he saw her, he hadn’t known it was possible for his headache to get worse.

Where was Wright, anyway? If he’d insisted on being there, he may as well not bolt when he got fifteen minutes’ chance. Had to find a restroom, he’d said, ten minutes ago.

May as well just march back up to that witness stand. Finish it himself.

He was just warming up to the idea when Wright came barrelling back in, face a mask of sweat, tie flung over his shoulder. Some styrofoam cup in his hand, sloshing over the sides.

Edgeworth pinched the bridge of his nose. Of course. Of course some last-minute nonsense like this. Wright, who thought there was time for everything.

“Edgeworth!”

Spare him.

“Edgeworth,” he parrotted, stepping with obnoxious ease into his space. “I, uh. I know this can’t be easy.”

“Wright... Platitudes aren’t going to help now.”

“Then how about this?” He held out the cup-- half-full of some beige nonsense, a tea tag floating in it.

Edgeworth said nothing.

“You... seem like a tea person.” He studied Edgeworth’s face, looked for any semblance of appreciation, of recognition whatsoever. Signs of life. “It’s, uh, the best that I could do,” he confessed. Smiled, then. That same obnoxious apology, eyes too sad, showing too many teeth. It reminded Edgeworth, for some fractional slip of composure, of the fourth grade. Of games of four-square, granola bars swapped for fruit snacks.

Wright nodded to the teacup. Halting, hands shaking, Edgeworth took it.
It was tepid at the very best, the water no doubt coming from the little red spigot on some ancient water cooler. Its dingy opacity pointed to some thimbleful of shelf-stable cream, and the tea tag, when it bobbed above the surface, bore the Lipton logo.

It tasted stale, left a film on his teeth. Still he wrapped both hands around it, let its marginal warmth diffuse into pale fingertips.

Wright stared, wearing expectation like a sandwich board. The tersest of nods set him to rights, and he smiled that smile once more, went off to pester his assistant.

Edgeworth took another sip, for something to do with his hands. Then another. He wrestled his mind into his living room, with its antique sofa, its tight-knit cashmere blankets. The tea service that sat on the coffee table, an altar to Twinings. Peace in solitude with a locked door, the only sound the Steel Samurai dispensing justice at low volume.

For the first time in days, the breath he drew could reach his lungs.

“Uh, Edgeworth?”

“Oh. Yes?”

“The recess is over.”

“Right.”

And so it went. The furrow in Edgeworth’s brow returned, if it had ever really left. The grinding of his teeth drowned out the judge once more.

He honestly should have expected it--Wright opened his cheap blazer, reached into a pocket he’d only just become aware of, and produced a rough-cut crystal of the truth. It was, as Edgeworth had lately come to suspect, quite admirable.

Years later, when they had a home and a high-end kettle and, miraculously, time, Edgeworth bullied him into the kitchen and showed him how to make a cup the right way.