#and over the course of it they grow closer and edgeworth deals with his issues with parenting

[modpoppy]

i dont fucking remember the alvin and the chipmunks movie

[turnaboutimagines]

Ahh hallo! I’m sure you’re very busy with requests and thank you for posting so often!! This is just an idea but maybe a scenario where reader gets upset over an especially emotional case Edgeworth is prosecuting? Like they have an outburst in court and get held in contempt or something and Edgeworth comes to to pay their bail and comfort them after or something!

Oho hallo there!  I stuck to the general premise, but instead of it being a case he prosecutes… it’s Turnabout Goodbyes!  I really just wanted to write for it, pal.   ^^Dialogue from Miles in the court portion is directly from the game!

“The murderer… The criminal in the DL-6 Incident… It was me! Your Honor! I confess my guilt! I am guilty for DL-6, the statute of limitations of which ends today!“

Your blood runs cold as you watch him confess based on memories from a self-admitted recurring nightmare.  He presses on with determination, yet even from where you’re seated in the gallery you can see how painful this is for him—how heavy of a burden this has been for him to carry all these years.  You feel like you’re trapped in one right then.  There’s just no way… no way he could’ve killed his own father.

The people around you are muttering around you, already accepting his guilt at face value.  Everyone in the gallery is turning against him once again, despite of the ‘Not Guilty’ verdict that had just been handed down.  The court is quickly spiraling into chaos.

“The culprit… is me!”

You refuse to believe it.  You look to Phoenix, expecting an objection from him at this point.  Expecting anything.  However, he just stands there, taking this development in the trial as best as he can, you don’t miss the look of determination in his eyes.

It’s not enough for you, though.

“O-OBJECTION!”  You see red as you slam your hands down on the wooden bannister (you’d always wanted to do that).  The gallery erupts as everyone’s eyes are on you, but you don’t register any of it in your seething as you go on autopilot. “Miles has to be innocent!  There’s no way he’s remembering this correctly, he was just a child when this happened!  That shouldn’t be admissible in court…!”

The judge slams down his gavel as he makes direct eye contact with you.  “Order!  Order!  Outbursts will not be tol—”

“This should not be tolerated!  I don’t care if it happened yesterday, this is just—just… it’s objectionable!”

“That’s quite enough!  If you have any further outbursts I will have to hold you—”

“Do it!  Hold me in contempt of court!  The fact that you’re actually hearing a confession based on nightmares tells me all I need to know about the quality of this court and your ability as a judge!  Because no self-respecting judge would allow this to continue.”

“Why, I never!  Guard!  Please escort the observer out of the courtroom!  They are to be held in contempt of court and must leave.”

You don’t wait for the guard to approach you, you walk down of your own volition and allow them to escort you out without further issue.  You’ve said your piece.

“With that outburst over…  I must say, this is certainly unexpected—”

You hear nothing else as the bailiff opens the doors and nods his head for you to follow.  You catch one last glimpse of Miles, gripping his arm tightly in pain as he keeps his gaze focused ahead—away from you.

The doors shut and so does your knowledge of what goes on behind them.

You’re stuck in one of the far back holding cells, which means that you don’t have a good view of who comes and goes further up the hall and in all the other holding cells that aren’t immediately adjacent to yours.  You’d tried to find a good angle, hoping to perhaps see your friend as he’s brought back in

Where you’d remained lost in your thoughts for the remainder of the night, unable to sleep a wink.

As much as you didn’t regret defending Miles, you have to admit that you do regret not knowing the outcome of what happened yet.  Nobody came to visit you yesterday, so you can only assume that the trial continued until after visiting hours were over…  

Phoenix had yet to lose a case and you truly believe that Miles is innocent, but still you can’t help but worry yourself into being sick.  Miles is very… important to you.  Even if you haven’t always seen eye to eye, you’d managed to lodge yourself like a thorn in his side as a friend for the past year (even if he may not use that term, you know he views you as such).  And you’d developed some additional feelings for him, too, but you kept that to yourself.

You can’t stop thinking about how guilty he looked throughout his confession and you hoped that he was free of that now...

The sound of a guard approaching your cell snaps you from your stupor and you’re quick to hop up, expecting them to be bringing you your bland breakfast.  Instead, the man who stops in front of your cell isn’t holding anything, save for his keys.  He seems to read the confusion on your face as he gives you a reassuring smile.

“Your bail’s been posted,” he tells you as he unlocks the door.

“…I-It has?”

Given the extent of your outburst, your bail wasn’t exactly cheap.  You don’t even want to think about the fine you’re going to be slapped with come your hearing.  So, the fact that someone paid it... there’s only one person who comes to mind as he slides it open.

“Yup!  You’re free to go, the poster’s waiting up front to take you home, too.”

Your heart picks up a bit at that and you leave the cell with no further hesitation, hoping that your gut instinct is right.  Even if you’re a bit nervous to face him after creating such a scene.  And sure enough, after passing through the security checkpoint and entering the lobby... Miles Edgeworth is standing there, arms crossed and looking utterly lost in his thoughts.

However, when he sees you his expression relaxes and... he smiles?  It’s incredibly subtle, but it’s genuine and it’s undeniably there.  The sight of it is enough to make any words you wanted to say die in your throat.  It takes you a few moments to find them again.

“Th-Thank you, Miles.  I’ll be sure to repay you when I can.”  You place a hand on his shoulder and offer him a nervous smile of your own, hoping that he wouldn’t be too harsh on you.  “But how are you doing?  I...I’m just glad to see you walking free, I was really worried after... you know.”

He spares a mildly confused glance at your hand before looking back to you, brow furrowing with confusion.

“Yes, I am... fine, I simply have a great deal to think over, having just been released, myself.”  His expression falters for a moment into something stormy and troubled, there and gone in the blink of an eye.  “But there’s no need for repayment.  And I fully intend to pay all of your fines as well.”

Didn’t he already do the same for Maya?  That feels like a lot of money to spend purely on helping with contempt of court charges.

“...But why would you...?”

He grimaces at your question and you’re confused for a few moments until he clears his throat and places one hand on your shoulder, emulating your gesture and body language.

“Whooooooooooooop!  Th-Thank you!”

There’s some snickering from the officers who were not so subtly observing your reunion and Miles is quick to hang his head in embarrassment as his hand falls back to his sides, all while blushing the color of his signature suit.  All you can do is stare at him, feeling like that came entirely out of left field.

“That... that still makes me feel incredibly foolish.  Perhaps I just need to practice it more...?” he mutters more to himself than to you.

You have to bite down on your bottom lip to prevent yourself from laughing along with them, but only because he's too cute.  This isn’t a side you’d seen of him before... and you have a feeling that whatever happened in that courtroom is responsible for it.  You’re going to have to get all the details from Phoenix later...  

“What was that all about?”

“Ngh...  I’m... practicing saying ‘thank you’ properly.  I... appreciate that you believed in me to such an extent, even when I did not believe in myself.  I owe a great deal to you and the others... it’s really the least I can do.”

It’s so... genuine.  Any of your lingering anxieties shatter in that moment and a broad grin of your own breaks across your face as you take a step closer, grabbing his hand and gently tugging on it to lead him out the door.  “What about driving me home?”

Somehow, his cheeks seem to grow even more red at the contact, but you’re rewarded with another small smile as he gladly follows your lead.  “Right, yes, that too, of course.”

Really, he just wants to get out of the detention center as soon as possible after his little display of gratitude and you can’t exactly blame him.  You don’t let go of his hand until you’ve reached his red sports car, his fingers linger for a moment—brushing against yours as you pull away.  He doesn’t look at you or comment on it, but you get the distinct impression that... he enjoyed the contact?

The thought is enough to make you blush as you wordlessly get into the passenger seat and buckle your seatbelt... only to be thrown for yet another loop when he puts on some upbeat Korean trot music on.  The silence between you is surprisingly comfortable as you listen to the music on the drive back to your place.

You’re realizing that he’s full of surprises... and you can’t help but love him more and more with each one.

[rivalsforlife]

I DIDNT KNOW YOU WERE DOING COMMENTARY hope it's not too late to ask for The Scene at the end of chapter 5 of the catch up game?? if no one else has asked?

It is never too late to ask!! Genuinely you could probably ask me six months from now and I’ll ramble on about all this, I’m generally down to talk about my writing all the time. (And I’m actually a little surprised nobody asked about The Scene yet... oh well haha)

First though: have you seen this art yet? If you haven’t you should. It was going around twitter again lately and I love it a lot so I wanted to advertise it while I had the chance.

Anyways, keeping under a “keep reading” here:

So. The Scene. First I’ll present my notes from the outline when I was trying to figure out this fic:

Miles lets his feelings slip, Phoenix doesn’t take it too well, they part on a kind of awkward note.

Somehow “kind of an awkward note” ended up being uhhh that!

Anyways before we get into this I want to say that I really did not think it would have that much of an emotional impact? I got a much bigger reaction than I thought and that’s around when people really started talking about it on the narumitsu discord and stuff, so I ended up for the rest of the week soooo stressed out that I’d accidentally gone in a completely different direction than I’d planned and set people’s expectations too high and they would be COMPLETELY DISAPPOINTED IN THE REST OF THE FIC but uh luckily that didn’t happen! I think. At least if anyone was super disappointed they didn’t tell me about it!

And it was probably partially that I am not very uhh good with emotions and also probably that I got pretty desensitized to my work but I genuinely did not think it was that bad until I saw Ro’s art and then went “ohhh suddenly I am consumed with so much guilt...” (and also doubted how in character this scene was. how can ANYONE say no to that face --)

Most critically though, this scene distracted everyone from whatever the hell was going on with the casefic earlier in the chapter, so overall I think it’s a success.

Sorry it’s taking a while to get to the actual scene, but I wrote a few drafts of this thing beforehand and modified it a lot trying to get it right. I needed it to be sufficiently dramatic but I didn’t want it to seem like... I was just adding it in there for extra conflict? Like you know sometimes you read stuff and you’re like “where the hell did this sudden argument come from” yeah. I wanted to avoid that if I could, so partially this was supported by the weight of chapter 4 to explain Phoenix’s reasons for the rejection and then chapter 6 is supposed to elaborate more, but I still needed this to stand fairly well on its own.

The overall theme of this chapter was “Opposites”, and again, here’s what I had in my fic notes:

I want to contrast how Phoenix sees Miles and how Miles sees Phoenix. Because they both kind of see each other as an amazing person while seeing themselves as failures. Maybe at the end Phoenix is kind of putting himself down and Miles argues about it and then they have a slight argument. Miles lets his feelings slip, Phoenix doesn’t take it too well, they part on a kind of awkward note.

I couldn’t really find a way to integrate this conversation in naturally, so I could only get Phoenix’s perspective in there a little bit. Originally Miles’ confession wasn’t supposed to be planned, just a spur of the moment in the middle of an argument where Phoenix kind of goes “I don’t understand why you keep hanging out with me, why are you spending so much time with me, I’m not struggling, I don’t need you worrying about me” and Miles interrupts with a “Because I love you, you idiot!” ... But I couldn’t get that to work because the buildup into the argument felt too abrupt. 

Last little bit of something just before the argument (some of the dialogue here went into the chapter 4 dinner conversation instead):

Miles: (quietly) I’ve spent most of my life trying to climb higher in my career, in order to fight corruption as best I could. And I have, and every day my mission is growing closer to completion, or at least as much as it can. But after that… (staring at some kids’ toy) what’s left for me? I’ve taken a rather unconventional path through life. I’m starting to wonder about opportunities I’ve missed.

Phoenix: (jokingly) Is that some long-winded way of telling me you’re planning on settling down?

Miles: I’d never settle. But in some sense, I suppose so.

Phoenix: (stopping in his tracks) You’re kidding. L-Like, what, in a year or so I’m gonna walk in to your office one day and find you with a wife and kids?

Miles: (rolling his eyes) You do know that I’m gay, don’t you? And why would I keep them in my office? There’s no need to be so melodramatic, Wright.

Again couldn’t fit it in I just found it funny. ANYWAYS FINALLY MOVING AWAY FROM THE DRAFTS AND TO THE ACTUAL THING, I’ll skip ahead a bit to just before the confession:

“How long has it been since I came here?” 

“I dunno… since before I got my badge back, probably.”

“That sounds about right.” Edgeworth sighed and leaned against Phoenix’s desk. “I’ve barely gotten the chance to see you, since you got your badge back and I took my new position. I’ve missed going up against you in court.”

“I don’t,” Phoenix teased, slipping his case notes into his desk drawer. “You’re a nightmare.”

“You’re one to talk.” The corners of Edgeworth’s eyes crinkled as he looked over at him. “You can be so infuriating, but I do like working with you. I had fun today.”

Phoenix raised an eyebrow. “Fun? You?”

“I suppose age has softened me up.”

“I didn’t think anything could soften you up.”

“You’d be surprised. I often have fun when I’m with you. I always…” He trailed off, averting his eyes and gripping his elbow. “I’ve been… thinking, a bit. On our earlier conversation.”

So basically... Miles got preeetty close to confessing during their dinner in chapter 4, but kinda backed out at the last moment, and he’s been agonizing over this ever since. Because the way he interpreted their conversation was sort of “We both want to move forward into a relationship but don’t know how to take the steps to do so”, whereas Phoenix interpreted more as a consensus that “We could probably start a relationship and there are feelings there but it wouldn’t really work out so we just won’t ever talk about it”.

And Miles throughout this fic assumed that Phoenix has been in love with him for a while and only holding back for Miles’ own sake, and waiting for Miles to signal that he’s actually ready to move into a romantic relationship. ... Which is very much not the case. What makes today different though is that Miles got to watch Phoenix solve mysteries, and I’m of the opinion that Miles considers Phoenix at his most attractive when he is uncovering the truth!! so Miles pretty much just saw him solve this case and go “I must kiss this man on the lips Right Now” but thought he should clear some things up before he did that.

which is good because if he just walked up to Phoenix and kissed him without preamble I’m pretty sure Phoenix would have died, so.

Something imperceptibly changed in the atmosphere. It made Phoenix’s heart race faster in anticipation. “Oh? Which one?”

“The one we had during the last dinner we shared.”

“O-Oh.” That had been weeks ago. Surely Phoenix had forgotten something.

“Everything has changed so much, over the course of my career, between us.” Edgeworth’s eyes flickered up to him briefly before settling back down on the desk. “I’ve never been afraid of moving forward, but this, I want…” He exhaled, shakily. “Give me a minute. This is… difficult.”

Phoenix kind of... knows, subconsciously, where this is going, but he’s trying to deny it until the last minute because he’s very unprepared and has no idea how to deal with this... which will become very clear by the end of the scene.

Miles is tricky to write in a confession scene because he can be kind of weird with emotions? Sometimes he’ll give these Grand Speeches about how much That Man means to him but at the same time he struggled a lot with talking about his feelings during the trilogy and I think he’d still struggle with it now. Especially something as raw and vulnerable as a love confession.

And Miles is also someone who is, at least by the Investigations duology, determined to pursue what is Right and what is the Truth without any sort of hesitation. However pursuing Wright is different. (insert horrible forced laugh track)

“W-Well, don’t strain yourself,” Phoenix insisted. “We can talk another day. I-It’s getting late, after all, we should —”

“We should stop dancing around the issue.” Edgeworth’s eyes snapped up and locked with Phoenix’s, pinning him in place. “Don’t go easy on me now, of all times.”

oh man I have to admit I got really into Persona 5 Royal for like a few weeks around the time I was writing this and that “don’t go easy on me now of all times” is looosely inspired by a similar line in there that’s like “do you think I’d be happy with being shown mercy now, of all times?” because although it’s a different dynamic than narumitsu I was uh. intrigued.

... sorry it’s so vague I wanted to avoid spoilers anyways, moving on,

Phoenix’s mouth ran dry. Edgeworth couldn’t possibly be planning to —

“Everything has changed between us,” continued Edgeworth. “I want things to — to continue to change, I-I want to be closer, is—” He sucked a breath in through his teeth “— is it not obvious?”

Hadn’t they agreed, in that way they could agree without saying a word, that they were never going to talk about this?

Phoenix broke his gaze. “No. It’s not. I— I don’t want to argue with you. It’s late.”

Pretty much same as previous notes: Phoenix in extreme denial that this is actually happening whereas Miles is just trying to force it all out.

Phoenix is kind of trying to talk Miles down from confessing; Miles is sort of interpreting it as “Wright isn’t going to let me get away with not actually saying this so I need to be more direct.” 

I’m sure that later when Miles is curled up on his bed wondering where he went wrong he’ll think of that :)

“Phoenix.”

The use of his first name forced Phoenix to look up again.

Edgeworth stared at him for a long time. There was something impossible swimming just under the surface of his grey eyes.

“Phoenix Wright,” he said. “I am in love with you.”

HE DID IT!! He’s so brave I’m sure that nothing can go wrong!!

Gossip was one thing. Lingering touches and stolen glances, Phoenix could deal with those. The knowledge that Edgeworth was interested in him in a not-so-platonic way… that was more than enough.

This, hearing Edgeworth say the words out loud, was another thing entirely. Even if Phoenix already knew. Nothing could have prepared him for — for whatever this was, for Edgeworth, looking at him all open and vulnerable, and — and saying —

“Wh… What…?”

Edgeworth tilted his head slightly to the side, causing his bangs to fall into his face. “Surely you’ve figured it out already?”

“I-I don’t understand…”

At first there was a line right after “Even if Phoenix already knew” that was “Even if he felt the same”, but then I decided to make it so Phoenix can’t even admit his feelings to himself, so I cut that one out.

Anyways this is shocking to Phoenix partially because of Denial but also because he didn’t expect Miles to actually come out and say something like this. He’s used to Miles being closed off with his emotions and doesn’t think him the type to ever directly acknowledge them, so it’s got him totally off guard, too. It’s unpredictable for someone who is supposed to know Miles so well so it’s very unnerving for him.

“I… I think you are incredible,” said Edgeworth. “Your single-minded dedication to truth and justice. Your compassion. Your mercy. The way you… brought light, brought life, back into my world. You can be so frustrating, and stubborn, but that’s part of why I have always admired you so much.” The corners of his eyes softened. “You saved me a thousand times over, and I want to spend the rest of my life by your side… however you want me.”

Miles generally people go on at least one date before proposing marriage but okay.

One thing I find interesting about Miles as a character is that he’s very much an all-or-nothing kind of person... he doesn’t ever really half-ass things and he doesn’t know how to do things gradually haha. He won’t allow the truth to be covered in darkness for even a moment even if it makes things easier for him in the long run. Saying “I think you’re great, maybe we should go on a few dates and see how things end up?” is probably the SENSIBLE thing to say, but Miles puts 100% of himself into everything that he does post-character development; and he’s secure enough in his relationship with Phoenix that he doesn’t really feel the need to test the waters. Plus Miles is allergic to uncertainty, so by the time he confesses he’d need to be absolutely certain that he loved Phoenix Wright and was prepared to pretty much go all in with him.

after all Phoenix feels the same way right!!

Phoenix stared. His heartbeat was reverberating in his ears. “I don’t know what to say. … Me.”

“Who else?”

“Who — a-anyone else. God, Edgeworth, what even is that shit, about me being i-intelligent, and dedicated, and compassionate, and — and — incredible, geez, I’m a wreck! I—” His voice wavered into a fit of near hysteria. “The only reason I’ve gotten this far is ‘cause I’ve always had amazing people by my side, and — and once they’re gone I’m back to whatever I usually am, I-I only have this one suit, I still haven’t got my freaking driver’s license, I don’t think I’ve eaten anything but instant meals in a month—”

(And he looked to Edgeworth, desperately, but Edgeworth was still gazing at him, expression gentle, gentle yet unyielding, not taking back his words or expressing an ounce of regret — why wasn’t he changing his mind —)

“You’re describing yourself more than me,” said Phoenix weakly. “Really, I’m not — I’m not like that, okay, I’m not…” He forced himself to take a deep breath. “Why are you telling me this?”

This is the one part that stayed consistent throughout all drafts of this scene haha. Some of it is echoes from what Godot told him back in Bridge to the Turnabout about him always needing someone to swoop in at the last minute to the rescue; others are sort of a loose refence to his behaviour during the beginning of RFTA and Reunion and Turnabout where he couldn’t really function without Maya there to look after.

This part sort of ties more into that objective I had with this chapter of contrasting how they see themselves; they both see each other as incredible people, because they don’t really get to see inside each other and see how much of a wreck they feel.

Also the very first sort of script of this confession had Phoenix saying “I thought you knew me better than this!” but that just seemed way too cruel for this haha.

“I know that I… that I have difficulty with these things,” said Edgeworth, fingers gripping the edge of the desk. “I’ve never been the most open of people and we’ve — we’ve always been so distant, for so long. I wasn’t there for you when I should have been, and I want that to change. Because, ever since we met… you’ve been such a major part of my life. I never thought I would live to be older than my father. I never thought I would be happy with myself. But you, you came into my life, and you changed all that.”

(That wasn’t you,) a voice in Phoenix’s heart whispered. (You only started it. The rest was all him.)

“But I don’t want to be satisfied with what I have right now. I still want more. There’s still a part of life I want to explore, and… I want to do it with you.”

(He’s always been fine without you. One day he’s going to realize it too, and then…)

“I’m tired of hiding my emotions and being too afraid to upset the status quo when it comes to relationships. I refuse to be scared of that anymore.”

(Why isn’t he scared, too?)

ugh this was the hardest part to write I think...? Trying to figure out a way to get Phoenix’s internal feelings across where it doesn’t come out of nowhere. I settled with a lot of internal thoughts that are just like... self-loathing, pretty much.

Meanwhile Miles has prepared this whole emotional monologue that Phoenix is only half listening to, basically about what a huge impact Phoenix has had in his life and how he’s sort of... now that he’s presumably made large steps to fixing the justice system he’s turning to more personal goals in life, and one of those goals is spending his life with Phoenix, if he can be brave enough to do it.

Phoenix isn’t paying attention though because he’s too busy panicking...

“Most of all, I… I couldn’t hide anything from you for long. I’d trust you with the world. You’re my equal, and my opposite.” Something resembling a shaky smile crossed Edgeworth’s face. “And I love you.”

me shoving the “theme of the day” in there awkwardly

But he smiles!! This is one of the rare occasions where Miles kind of does smile... there’s a lot of “almost-smile”s or brief smiles and Miles is scared out of his wits here but he’s happy. he finally got that off his chest. he was brave and he told Phoenix how he felt and they’ll be so, so happy together, nothing can possibly go wrong,

The words knocked out any breath Phoenix had managed to regain. His skin suddenly felt cold and clammy, and he was faced with vertigo more intense than standing on rooftops. What was happening to him?

There was something he was supposed to say to this. He should react to this normally. His mouth was drier than a desert. His tongue felt unsightly and awkward in his mouth.

“I shouldn’t have to tell you that if I have somehow misinterpreted, I won’t mention this again.” Unease and uncertainty flickered behind Edgeworth’s eyes. “And I would never be upset, as long as you tell me the truth. I want to take the next steps of my life with you. … Do you feel the same way?”

oh yeah this part was a little tricky too. Pretty much Phoenix is on the verge of a full-blown panic attack and cannot think of a response, even a nice polite rejection... and finally Miles starts realizing that something’s off, because before he was just running on adrenaline to try and get his feelings out that he didn’t stop to examine Phoenix’s reactions, otherwise he would’ve started overthinking and psyched himself out. But now that he got it out and seeing Phoenix pretty much in shock he’s starting to worry he’d made a mistake.

Also “unease and uncertainty” is definitely an “unnecessary feelings” reference because I’m shameless.

Yes, Phoenix wanted to say, yes, I do, and say what he felt, what he wanted. But the words wouldn’t come.

Why couldn’t he say it? It should be easy. If he truly wanted this, it should be as easy as breathing.

His vision swam with pink butterflies, he ran his tongue over the scars in his mouth, his breath caught jagged on the edges of chains —

Aaaand if either one of them had the magatama right now there would be the psyche-locks! I was gonna elaborate on this a lot but this is so far waaay longer than I intended so I’ll spare you and give a brief summary.

Essentially there are three locks. I wrote them as sort of representing each issue that Phoenix needs to acknowledge for them to break -- not necessarily fix, because that would be a super tricky thing, but acknowledging they’re there is a start. They’re pretty much “Trust”, “Abandonment”, and “Vulnerability”. Later I realized those issues are pretty much tied up in each other so instead I just made it so that each one is set by a traumatic event, and then acknowledging those events is what breaks them.

The first is an obvious “Dahlia and Iris really screwed up Phoenix’s ability to trust a partner romantically”. I love Iris but she really did mess him up as well. Phoenix kind of convinced himself he’s over this issue now since Iris was a good person! but really he’s still messed up about it. (And that’s where the butterflies + scars in his mouth sort of come from). Talking to Iris and acknowledging that he’s still hurting over it is what breaks this one.

The second is more directly related to all the times Miles himself has abandoned him particularly throughout the series. Some of the hurt when Miles prosecuted him in Turnabout Sisters, and definitely a lot regarding “Prosecutor Miles Edgeworth Chooses Death”, it’s pretty much him being scared to get /too/ attached to Miles because he fears Miles might abandon him again. This one breaks in chapter 7 when he has the whole realization that Miles might die and leave him regardless, and acknowledges how afraid he is of Miles leaving again.

And the last is more of acknowledging his need to be needed by people and help people but they move on without him and not don’t really him in their lives. This built up more gradually... with littler things like Apollo leaving the Agency and Maya not being around as much and Trucy moving out. Neither of these are Big Bad Traumatic Events like the other two but it’s still an issue Phoenix has that he needs to acknowledge. Trucy’s letter breaks this one by telling him he’s never going to be alone and they all love him and are there for him. And that’s why right after reading the letter he can tell Miles that he loves him.

So that’s that. Moving back to the actual story now...

“Phoenix?”

Edgeworth still stood so close, too close, and when Phoenix breathed his senses were assaulted by the scent of his cologne and — and he was too close, and his words were too much, Edgeworth couldn’t be in love with him. Attracted, sure, but love — how could he so easily say love?

This wasn’t like Edgeworth. This wasn’t how things were before, this wasn’t how things had always been, every time things changed too fast something would go wrong, every time things changed too fast Edgeworth would leave again —

(— and right now Edgeworth’s body was coiled tight with tension, like a spring, ready to take off at any sudden movement —)

— and Phoenix couldn’t say a word.

Fairly self-explanatory I think: basically acknowledging that fear that Miles is going to leave again.

Phoenix was standing on the edge of a turnabout. Somewhere he’d have to take the plunge for victory, for the truth. He’d never shied from them before. He’d always accepted the risks. And they’d (almost always) paid off.

But something had Phoenix in a vice. Dark chains that wrapped around his chest and constricted his lungs. Something that would drown him if he took the plunge. Something that whispered that he could not risk this, his heart and his life in one. There was too much to lose. It was all too much.

That little (almost always) there is referencing that one time he presented the critical case-changing evidence and got disbarred for it; his disbarment messed him up pretty bad too, I guess it’d fit in the category of the third psyche-lock.

And of course the second paragraph references the psyche-locks more directly before they actually show up.

The words came. They weren’t the ones he wanted.

“No,” said Phoenix. “No, I don’t.”

The rattling in Phoenix’s head cut out. Silence fell over the room.

Pretty much once Phoenix stops pressing the issue the psyche-locks stop shaking. I imagine they’re a pretty terrible thing to break directly; he can’t do it on his own like this.

“... I see,” said Edgeworth, and something snapped shut, drew tight, rigid, back to a statue. “I thought… nevermind.”

Miles kind of draws back into himself all tightly-controlled, less open than before, because that really hurt him a lot. He’d probably prefer it than Phoenix being all evasive and sort of reassuring because he prefers people just cut straight to the facts, but that was direct even for him.

And of course he thought that Phoenix did feel that way about him. He was certain of it. So hearing Phoenix didn’t and he was completely wrong is... not good.

He’d gone so still. At the sight of it, whatever spell was holding Phoenix in its grasp broke, and he came back to reality — this wasn’t right, this wasn’t good, he had to fix this, somehow, bring things back to the way they were, “Edgeworth—”

And the sight of Miles completely freezing up and closing himself off is enough to break Phoenix free of the initial panic, because he does care a lot about Miles, and seeing him withdraw worries him.

“It’s getting late,” said Edgeworth, and only someone as experienced as Phoenix could detect the waver in his voice. “Thank you for being honest with me, Wright. I’ll talk to you later.”

The remark stung worse than a knife would, he couldn’t let it end like this. “I—”

The office door shut, none too gently. Phoenix was alone.

“... I’m sorry.”

That “thank you for being honest with me” wasn’t SUPPOSED to be a jab, of course, because Miles would prefer that Phoenix was honest than lie to him. But Phoenix did lie and that’s what bothers Phoenix the most throughout the next couple of chapters; they both value the truth so highly that lying to each other is inconceivable.

And Miles probably should have stuck around for a bit and heard Phoenix out and maybe Phoenix could have managed a half-decent explanation of “okay I don’t know what that was but this was very sudden and I’m panicking, can you give me time to process?” but if Miles stayed for much longer he probably would have started breaking down and that’s the last thing he wants to do right now, especially in front of Phoenix, so he left as soon as possible.

I think he managed to repress enough that he could get home safely, but the moment he crossed the threshold into privacy he probably had himself a good cry... curled up on the couch and watched some Steel Samurai with a tub of ice cream... but he was pretty emotionally devastated by this. It took a lot of effort for him to open up and be honest about his feelings so just being shut down like that... hurt a lot. He’d never admit it though.

anyways I also have this short bit of writing I posted a while back about Miles actually getting a hug after all this, because he really needs one.

And that’s the scene!! I think I said more than enough so I’ll end it here haha.