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Chapter Text

The bookstore at the corner of 14th and Fen is known for many things. It’s known, firstly, for the books, which makes a certain amount of sense for a bookstore, if you think about it. The place is positively crammed with books, from the floor to the ceiling, filling shelves and sitting in neat piles in all the nooks and crannies. Books, books, books: books so old they’re practically falling apart, with dog-eared pages and notes scribbled in the margins, and books that are brand new, the covers shiny, the paper white, and the spines barely creased. There are so many books filling the shelves of the Corner Bookstore that the entire place smells of paper and ink, of stories , the way a bookstore should. A bibliophile could get lost in that store for hours , believe me, acquainting themselves with Bronte and Twain, Backman and Washburn, Dickens and Christie. 

So, the bookstore is known for the books, but most are. It’s rare for a bookstore to not have books, in my experience, but I’m sure there are some out there. In any case, besides the books, this particular bookstore also happens to have a dog. Many bookstores have a cat, but this one has a dog: a long-legged, friendly creature with sweet brown eyes and a lolling pink tongue. The tag on the collar declares her name as Pess, and she captures the heart of anyone who walks through the door with a single wag of her tail. 

Pess, and the bookstore itself, are both owned by the third thing that makes the Corner Bookstore so well known in its little town: perhaps the most crotchety 27-year-old man most people have ever met, and his name is Miles Edgeworth. 

The store hasn’t always been his (and he really isn’t that crotchety, if you get to know him, but people do like to judge). Originally, the store had been his father’s, who’d been a kind-eyed man with a soft, baritone voice that he passed on to his son, and a penchant for trench-coats that made him look like the cover of a cheesy detective novel. But his father died when Miles was nine, taken by illness, and the store (and Miles, in a way) passed on to someone else: a man with cold eyes and an even colder heart, who had an unclear relation to Miles and his father, but insisted there was one, all the same.

When Miles was 24, that man got caught embezzling funds, and put away.

We don’t have to discuss that man anymore. He’s rather unpleasant, you see, and I doubt you’d enjoy his side of things very much. 

So, for now, we’ll focus on Miles. This story is about him, after all, and the first thing you should know about him (other than his supposed crotchety nature) is that he is not a morning person. Which is rather unfortunate, considering that Pess is very much a morning dog. If you consider her usual method of waking Miles up, it makes a bit of sense that he dislikes mornings. It’s a wet and sticky affair. 

At least he doesn’t have to set an alarm. 

“Pess ,” Miles grumbles on one such morning, wiping his cheek with his sleeve. “I know you’re smart enough to realize I don’t want dog saliva on my face every time I wake up.”

Pess pulls back from her assault on her owner’s face, her tongue lolling out of her mouth. 

Miles stares at the ceiling, blinking the sleep from his eyes. The early morning light streams through that stubborn crack in the blinds that he can never fix, casting a single ray across the bed. His gaze wanders along the faint lines on the ceiling as he tries to remember his dream, but it slips away too quickly. It had been something about flowers, hadn’t it?

Miles sighs, and sits up. Exhaustion clings to him like cobwebs as he swings his feet over the edge of the bed. Pess nudges his leg, wagging her tail. 

He looks at her, running a hand through his bangs, unkempt from sleep. “I suppose you want to go outside.”

Pess wags her tail even harder, nearly knocking the nightstand over with the force of it. 

Miles smiles despite himself, scratching Pess behind her soft, velvet ears. He should really brush her today, he thinks. She always manages to get mats behind her ears. “Give me a moment then, you ridiculous dog.”

He slips to his feet and pads to the bathroom, Pess following. He fights back a jaw-popping yawn as he washes his face, grimly acknowledging his tired reflection in the mirror. Pess sits in the doorway the entire time, watching him impatiently, and as he leaves the bathroom and heads to his closet, she stands by the bedroom door and whines.

Miles gives her a look. “I have to get changed, Pess.”

Pess stares back at him, like they don’t do this every single morning.

“I’m not going to go outside in my pajamas,” Miles says pointedly. 

Pess blinks. She looks at the door, and then back at Miles, and he rolls his eyes. Her argument is convincing, but not convincing enough. 

“You’ll live the extra three minutes,” he tells her drily, pulling a button-down off a hanger. He’s sure Kay will make fun of him for wearing long sleeves and slacks in July, but, unlike her, he has a reputation to uphold. He can’t go to work wearing crop tops , like her.

Not that he would. 

By the time Miles is dressed, he finds Pess in the living room, sitting by the front door. He grabs his keys from the bowl on the kitchen counter and her leash from its hook, slides on his loafers and opens the door for her. She immediately races downstairs, prancing in place at the bottom with her tongue hanging out of her mouth. 

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Miles says, flicking the lights on as he follows her, bathing the bookstore in light. He supposes living right above the bookstore has its perks; the commute, for example, is confined to a single set of stairs. 

Pess’s nails click-click-click lightly on the floor as she heads for the door. Miles trails behind a bit more slowly, still bogged down by sleep, listening to the familiar creak of the floorboards beneath his feet. He used to hate the bookstore, after his father died. He used to hate all those painfully familiar sounds. He loved it while growing up, stealing murder mysteries when his father wasn’t looking, curling up in that armchair in the cranny, old and weathered, even back then. He loved it then, when his father brought it to life, filling the walls with his rolling laughter and gentle smile, but then he died, and Miles started to hate it.

He hated the bookstore in the way you grow to hate something you once loved, something filled with memories that you know you’ll never experience again, so you choose to hate it because it’s easier, because it covers the pain.

Miles is better now. After a few years of owning the store himself, he finds he doesn’t hate it anymore (though he never really did, if he’s being honest with himself). That old wound on his heart has healed as much as it can. 

Pess paws gently at the front door, leaning impatiently against Miles’s legs as he finds the appropriate key. He unlocks the door and clips the leash to her collar; she’d never run, she’s far too well-behaved for that, but he likes to be careful in any case.

It’s a cool morning, for summer. As the sun rises the day will turn languid with lazy heat, and the light will filter through the big bay windows and warm the entire store. But for now, it’s cool, the morning sky hazy with pink and purple and gold. Miles can smell fresh bread and coffee from the café next door; the man who owns it never seems to sleep, as far as he can tell. 

Miles watches Pess as she snuffles through the flower beds outside the bookstore, sticking her nose into the cosmos and sniffing out all the secret, hiding insects. She perks her ears at a stray chipmunk that dashes out of her reach. 

Within ten minutes, a voice calls from across the street. “Morning, Miles!”

Miles stifles a sigh. “Good morning, Ms. Fey.”

Mia Fey quirks a brow, leaning on her broom. Every morning she sweeps the sidewalk outside her flower shop, and usually Pess’s morning alarm coincides, though he was hoping he’d miss her this time. “You can call me Mia , you know,” she says, an amused smile tugging at her lips. “We’ve known each other for years.”

Miles nods awkwardly in response, turning back to Pess to avoid more conversation, and luckily Mia seems to catch on. She has known him for years, after all, and she’s perfectly aware of how poor of a conversationalist Miles happens to be with anyone but his dog.

“Do you want breakfast?” Miles asks Pess, who’s currently nosing at a little patch of dandelions growing through the cracks in the pavement. She perks her ears at the word breakfast , wagging her tail. He smiles as she leans heavily against his legs, taking a step back at her weight. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Miles gradually works through his morning routine, waking up with the sun, little by little: feed Pess, make the bed, make tea, forget to eat breakfast, brush teeth, make more tea, head back downstairs to prepare for the day. He sets his mug, already half-empty, on old ghosts of his father, an overlapping pattern of faded coffee rings on the front counter, permanently stained in the wood. Pess takes up her station on her dog bed at the front of the store, setting her head on her paws and watching Miles as he works. 

The hardwood floor gently creaks as Miles crosses the store, taking note of any gaps in the shelves he could fill with books. It’s Saturday, so he sets out a copy of the latest edition of the Steel Samurai comic book by the armchair in the cranny for the young boy who comes in each week to ask for it. Then, he filters through online orders, and stocks any requested books on what Franziska calls ‘the coward cart’.

Upon asking her once what she meant by that, Franziska said, “People who don’t want to come in and browse the store are cowards . They’re fools, afraid of getting interested in the other books they might find here, so they order online.”

“They’re still customers,” Miles reminded her, and she merely scoffed at him. 

After stocking the online orders cart and writing a note to send out the appropriate emails, Miles wipes down the counter and the register, and drains the rest of his tea. He then shuts himself in the back room to sort and organize inventory. Though he isn’t a morning person, and prefers to get most of his work done at night when he feels less groggy, he does appreciate the quiet of the store in the early morning. There’s a specific brand of peace to it, to the soft, liquid gold of the morning sun streaming across the ancient, rickety table (Miles really needs to get that replaced), to the dust that surges like steam off old classics that haven’t been opened for years. He has about an hour of that peace before Kay arrives for her shift, so Miles buckles down to get some work done. They’ve recently gotten a shipment of used books that needs sorting, after all.

Miles likes inventory work. There’s a calmness to it, a routine, flipping through used books to note the damage, organizing them by wear, by author, by genre. He finds water damage on a copy of Catch-22 , a few bent pages in The Alchemist and several underlined stanzas in a collection of poems by Mary Oliver. He examines an old, well-read copy of Homer’s The Odyssey , the spine cracked and the paper of the cover nearly worn through. Miles gives it a cursory flip-through; the pages are dog-eared and highlighted and underlined, with notes written by two different hands littering the margins.

Some people are fond of heavily used books, the kind with bent covers and worn pages, little messages in the margins from strangers they’ll surely never meet. There’s a kind of intimacy to it, of knowing what someone else thought without ever hearing it from their mouth. Miles’s father had been like that. He had always delighted in stumbling upon a stranger’s often nonsensical ramblings crammed between lines of text. 

Miles sets The Odyssey in his heavily-used pile and moves on. 

At 8:30, he hears the bell above the front door jingle, and Kay’s loud voice greeting Pess. 

“Hi, Mr. Edgeworth!” Kay says brightly as he emerges from the back room. She tosses her bag over the front counter, grinning at him. “I see you won’t be gracing the world with your forearms quite yet, huh?”

“Good morning, Kay.”

Kay hops onto the counter, swinging her feet. She’s wearing bright pink sandals today that match the color of her cropped t-shirt, and earrings made from orange slices that stand out against her dark waterfall of hair. “It’s gonna be hot as balls today.”

Miles sighs, exasperated. “Kay.”

“What? Balls isn’t a swear word.”

“The counter.”

“Yeah, yeah. No butts where the books are,” Kay giggles, sliding off to the other side of the counter. “But for real, it’s gonna be so hot today, so if hypothetically I were to eat ice cream at work, would you be upset?”

“I think it’s a bit too early for ice cream.”

“This would be later, obviously. Hypothetically.”

“This is a bookstore, Kay, not a restaurant,” Miles says, raising a brow at her. “I’m not going to let you eat ice cream at the counter, hypothetically or otherwise.”

“But what if I die ?” Kay challenges. She rearranges her face into her best impression of Pess’s puppy dog eyes, but unfortunately for her, Pess’s are much more effective. 

“I hardly think you’ll die from a lack of ice cream,” Miles replies cooly.  

“You let me drink coffee at the counter, so why not ice cream?”

“If you’d like, I can take your coffee privileges away from you to make it fair.”

Kay frowns. “Heatstroke is real , Mr. Edgeworth. Ice cream may be my only savior.”

“If you’re that concerned about the heat, I’d advise you to drink some water. Or perhaps a juice box would be more suitable for you.”

“I know you’re trying to imply that I act like a child, but if you have a juice box on you I’m not gonna say no.”

Miles rolls his eyes. “Perhaps if you work well today I’ll buy you something.”

“Oh my god, really? You’re the best boss, boss.”

“Of course I am,” Miles replies lightly, fetching the broom from the back room. Despite the fact he sweeps after close, and there’s really no point to sweeping the whole store again in the morning as Kay so helpfully likes to point out, Miles prides himself on a clean store. And a small part of him likes the routine. 

Kay props her chin in her hand. “I bet people would stop thinking you’re an asshole if they found out you offered to buy me ice cream.”

Miles rolls his eyes, setting to work sweeping the nonfiction section.

“It’s almost nine,” Kay says, watching as he works his way through historical fiction to nature. “Do you want me to flip the sign?”

“Yes. As long as you don’t-“

“Too late!” Kay giggles, and vaults over the front counter. Miles pinches the bridge of his nose as she bounds to the front door, flipping the sign from closed to open . 

“I swear I’ll dock your pay if you keep this up,” Miles says with a sigh, sweeping through the cranny. 

Kay snorts. “Yeah, sure . You’ve threatened to dock my pay a thousand times and yet you’ve never actually done it. You’re too nice.”

“I’m certainly not.”

“You are. Speaking of which, will you help me with my math later?”

Miles pauses his sweep of the front display. “Are you still struggling?”

“I just don’t think I’m cut out for math,” Kay says, practically throwing herself across the front counter. “You should probably just fire me now so I don’t fuck up the accounts.”

“We’ve been over this before, Kay,” Miles replies, sweeping the minimal dust into the dustpan and picking it up. “Franziska’s very adept at managing our accounts. I’m afraid you couldn’t ruin them if you tried.”

“What if I accidentally charge someone a hundred dollars for a book instead of ten?”

Miles raises a brow at her. “Then we’ll be up ninety dollars.”

“Mr. Edge worth ,” Kay groans, “you aren’t helping .”

“If we have time after close, I’ll help you with your math.”

“When we’re getting ice cream, right?”

“Perhaps.” Miles tucks the broom back into the closet. “If you’re good.”

Kay grumbles something in response, and Miles allows himself a small, amused smile as he heads for the back door with the dustpan. He turns the handle with his elbow in a practiced motion, nudging open the door with his foot. As it swings open, Miles locks eyes with something skinny and mangy and decidedly alive , something he at first thinks is some kind of small coyote. 

This is Miles’s first stranger of the day. It won’t be his last.

Miles freezes, and the animal does, too, both of them staring at each other. Upon closer inspection, the creature appears to be an old, raggedy cat, the kind whose years on the street are well-told in the notices in its one remaining ear, the missing half of its tail, and its scraggly coat, so caked in dirt and grime that Miles truly can’t tell what the original color might be. His best guess is a faded sort of gray. 

“Erm. Hello,” Miles says slowly, carefully. The cat’s ear twitches, its pupils thin black slits as the fur on its back prickles, or attempts to, through all the dirt. It doesn’t look like it has rabies, though Miles doesn’t have any real idea of what a cat with rabies would look like. Its mouth would be foaming, wouldn’t it?

Miles frowns at the cat. “You don’t have rabies, do you?”

The cat stares back at him. It’s entirely expressionless; Miles is used to Pess, whose emotions are easier to read than a book. He’s never really been around a cat before, so he doesn’t know what to think of this strange, wild creature. Then, the cat promptly turns tail and bolts down the alley, slipping out of sight behind the trash cans of the café next door. 

Miles stands there for a moment, staring at the spot where the raggedy old thing disappeared. “Okay,” he mutters, and dumps the contents of the dustpan into the trash. “Okay.”

Kay’s humming a song under her breath as Miles walks back into the bookstore. He tucks the dustpan into the backroom and retrieves the box of used books he’d spent the morning cataloging. 

“Kay,” he says, setting the box on the counter, “were you aware that there’s a stray cat living behind the bookstore?”

“You’re fucking kidding.”

Miles sighs. “I take it you weren’t, then.”

“Is it still there?” Kay looks like she’s about to leap over the counter. Again. “I want to see it!”

“I doubt it’s there now. It ran off once it saw me. I think it might be some kind of street cat. It didn’t look cared for.”

“Then we should take care of it!” Kay exclaims, slamming her hands excitedly on the counter. “We could have a bookstore cat! Like Dewey!”

“We do not need a bookstore cat,” Miles replies drily, gesturing to Pess. “We have a bookstore dog.”

“Well, maybe Pess is lonely.”

“She isn’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I’m fairly certain that Pess doesn’t need an old, feral cat as a friend,” Miles says, sliding the box towards Kay. “Would you rather work the register or restock today?“

Kay grins. “Register, duh . I’m feeling people-y.”

When aren’t you, Miles thinks, but takes the box all the same and heads to the nonfiction section. Any day that he doesn’t have to work the register is a good day, in his mind. 

The hours tick by slowly, but pleasantly. It’s not a heavily trafficked store by any means, since it isn’t a very large town, but the Corner Bookstore does have a few regulars, like the boy that stops in each Saturday for his weekly Steel Samurai fix (which Miles secretly lets him buy for less than its actually worth). A boorishly loud woman with a mass of curling red hair swings in every now and then to browse the horror and sci-fi section, and she stops by today, eventually leaving with a heavily used copy of Pet Semetery. And, much to Miles’s chagrin (and Kay’s amusement), one of their most frequent visitors appears: an older woman who likes to lurk around the shop to try and catch Miles in private corners. 

Miles doesn’t know if she’s ever actually bought anything, since every time he spots her approaching he flees to the back room and locks the door. 

Some people (Franziska, for example) might say Miles is a coward, but those people haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Wendy. 

The morning fades into afternoon, and Kay complains about the heat and lack of ice cream. Pess relocates from the front of the store to the back, where the sun doesn’t heat up the floorboards quite as much. It’s then, in the heat of the afternoon, when Miles meets his second stranger of the day. 

He’s been dutifully stocking used books and writing recommendation cards for the majority of the day (Franziska’s latest recommendation being The Devil in the White City , and Kay’s A Darker Shade of Magic ) and he finds himself now in the children’s section, trying to find a spot for a well-loved copy of Matilda among the small collection of Dahl’s works that they currently have displayed. He figures he could take out one of the copies of Witches , since they have two, or perhaps The Vicar of Nibbleswicke , which may be the better choice considering he’s never seen anyone pick it. He supposes children don’t know what a vicar is, which might draw them off.

He’s in the middle of this conundrum when he feels a soft tug at his sleeve, and he looks down. 

Standing before him is a little girl, hardly older than eight. Her hair is brown, curling softly around her ears, and she’s wearing, of all things, a cape. 

(Much, much later, Miles will think back on that moment and wonder how he didn’t realize right then and there that this strange little girl with her cape and scraped-up knees would change his life in such a monumental fashion. Right now, however, he is mostly confused.)

“Hello,” Miles says awkwardly. He wonders how Kay didn’t catch the girl earlier; she’s usually on top of any customers. Unless she specifically sent the girl over to him, but he doesn’t think she’s foolish enough to do that . “…may I help you?” 

The girl rocks back and forth on the heels of her sparkly blue flip-flops. She glances around with big brown eyes, toying with the hem of her cape before looking back up at Miles. “Do you work here?” she asks, her voice soft and childish. 

Miles nods. “It’s my store.”

“Oh. Do you…” she hesitates, glancing down at her cape. “Do you have any books about magic?”

Miles raises a brow. He highly doubts this girl has the money to buy a book; her frilly blue sundress doesn’t look like it has pockets, and her cape certainly doesn’t. Isn’t it a bit too hot outside for a cape? “Well, yes. We have plenty of children’s books about magic. Is there…something specific you’re looking for?”

“Real magic,” the girl says firmly. 

“Real magic,” Miles repeats, and the girl nods, a serious look on her face.

Real magic, he thinks, scanning the books in front of him. I have no idea what that means. He wishes Kay were here to deal with the girl, but he supposes one of the downfalls of owning a store is that he has to, occasionally, talk to customers. He can feel the girl watching him; her gaze is surprisingly intent, and he doesn’t like it. 

Miles glances at the book in his hand. It has magic in it, so it should be fine, right? He holds it out to her. “Have you read this one?”

The girl barely looks at the book. “Yes. That’s not real magic.”

“…Right.”

Aren’t children supposed to be easy to please? Miles supposes he could just give her a random book and hope she likes it, or, in a much better scenario, just let Kay deal with it. He scrutinizes the shelves, and decides to just pick a book, and if the girl doesn’t like it, then fine. He’ll turn her over to Kay. 

“Here,” he says, pulling a random book off the shelf. He hands it to her, and she takes it with careful hands, examining the shiny golden dragon on the cover. She looks suspicious, to say the least.

“Is it about magic?”

“It’s about a girl who wants to be a dressmaker, and she makes friends with dragons,” Miles explains.

“Dragons are fake magic,” the girl says. “Not real magic.”

“It’s a fantasy book,” Miles says flatly. “It’s not meant to be real. Perhaps you’ll enjoy a wider variety of books if you keep that in mind.”

The girl squints at him. “That wasn’t very nice.”

“I’ve been told I’m not a very nice person.”

The girl gives Miles a look that he can’t quite read before turning the book over in her hands, scanning the summary on the back. She gnaws on her lower lip. 

Miles sighs. Children are exhausting. “If you don’t like it, you can just return it. I’ll give you a refund.”

The girl tilts her head. She almost looks like she’s turning the offer over in her mind, considering. “…Okay,” she says finally, and Miles half expects her to stick out her hand for a shake to seal the deal, but she just hugs the book to her chest. “I’ll try it.”

Great, Miles thinks. He’s halfway through escorting the girl to Kay at the register when, in a kind of sudden, frantic manner that felt a bit like an explosion in the quiet of the store, a man bursts in, the bell above the door ringing wildly. Kay is so surprised she knocks the pen holder off the counter. 

“Trucy?” the man shouts, and he’s horribly out of breath. 

“Hi, Daddy,” the girl says calmly. 

The man puts a hand to his heart and exhales deeply. “Jesus, Truce,” he sighs, frowning at the little girl with his crooked eyebrows furrowed. “We talked about this. You can’t just run off like that.”

The girl smiles. “Sorry, Daddy. I’ll tell you next time, okay?”

Recognition itches as the back of Miles’s mind, and he struggles to place the man while he gently berates his daughter. He has dark hair, night-sky dark, with an impossible amount of freckles dotting his nose and cheeks and arms like haphazard constellations. He’s wearing an old Foreigner shirt that looks like it’s seen better days, spattered with paint. 

Miles doesn’t leave his store much, and he certainly doesn’t talk to many people around town, but it doesn’t take him long to figure it out. It’s the voice that he recognizes, in the end, bright and painfully cheerful. A voice loud enough to hear from across the street. The man works at Fey’s Flowers, and he and Miles, unsurprisingly, have never spoken. 

“Thanks for keeping an eye on her,” the man says, smiling at Miles, and it’s a smile that comes naturally, easily, like breathing. His eyes are different colors, Miles notes, something he’s never been close enough to see before. One blue, like the sky, the other a soft, warm brown. “I swear I’m gonna have to put a leash on her or something to keep her from wandering off.”

I didn’t really intend to keep an eye on her , Miles thinks, but says nothing. He just nods.

The man rubs at the back of his neck. “I don’t think we’ve ever actually met before. I’ve seen you a couple times but I’m always busy at the flower shop and with this little rascal,” he says, mussing the girl’s hair, which draws out a bright, happy giggle. “I guess I’ve never really been able to come over and say hi. So…hi. I’m Phoenix. Phoenix Wright.”

He sticks out his hand. His fingernails are painted yellow, and he has a smear of blue streaking across his knuckles. 

Miles hesitantly takes it. “Edgeworth.”

Phoenix quirks a brow. “Do you have a first name, too? Or is it just Edgeworth?”

Kay snorts, covering it up with a cough, and Miles glares at her before answering. “…It’s Miles.”

“Miles Edgeworth,” Phoenix says, testing the name on his tongue. Then, he grins, crooked and genuine. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“…Right.” 

Phoenix smiles even wider. “That’s my name,” he says, laughter bubbling up in his throat like nothing. “Don’t wear it out!”

The girl - Trucy, Miles supposes - smacks her father on the leg. “Daddy, that was a stupid joke.”

“Trucy!” Phoenix frowns. “Don’t be mean to your father. You know I buy your food, right?”

Trucy sticks out her tongue. She reminds Miles of Kay, in a way, when she does that. 

“This is Trucy, my daughter,” Phoenix says, putting his hands on the girl’s shoulders. “Say hi, Truce. Though I’m guessing you already met.”

Trucy carefully holds out her hand, mimicking Phoenix’s movement from earlier. “Hi.”

“Yes. Um, hello.” Miles takes her hand and gives it a shake, feeling uncomfortable. He can feel Kay’s amused stare drilling into the side of his head. 

Phoenix tilts his head, peering at the book in Trucy’s hands. “Whatcha got there, kiddo?”

She holds the book up to him. “It’s about dragons.”

“ Dragons ?” Phoenix raises his eyebrows. “You got her interested in something other than real magic, huh?”

Miles shrugs awkwardly. “I’m not exactly sure what she meant by real magic, so I chose something I thought a child her age might be interested in.”

Phoenix chuckles. “Well, I can explain the real magic part. Trucy here,” he says, ruffling Trucy’s hair again, “is the world’s youngest practicing magician!” Trucy giggles, slapping Phoenix’s hand away, and he smiles down at her. “She’s really good, really dedicated. But, that means she’s really particular about what she reads.”

Phoenix leans forward almost conspiratorially; Miles instinctively leans back. “She won’t read anything about wizards ,” he says, dropping his voice to a hush, like it’s a bad word he doesn’t want Trucy to overhear. “Only the real stuff.” 

Miles blinks. Magicians? The real stuff? Is this entire family insane?

“Lovely,” Miles manages, after a too-long pause, and Kay stifles another snort with her hand. “Well. If you’re done here, Kay can help you check out. I’m sure the flower shop needs you.”

Phoenix blinks, cocking his head, much the way Pess does when she hears a strange sound. His mismatched eyes dart over Miles’s face, and a little smirk tugs at his mouth before he looks back at his daughter. 

“Alright, come on, Truce,” he says, taking her hand. “He’s right, we need to get back to the shop. Say goodbye to Mr. Edgeworth.”

Trucy turns back to Miles and smiles up at him, shy. “Thank you, Mr. Edgeworth.” She stumbles a bit over the syllables in that way children do. “I hope I like the book. Even if it’s fake magic.”

Miles blinks. “…Yes, well. Good luck.”

Phoenix smiles at him one last time before they turn to Kay at the register. Miles immediately strides away, acting as if he has something to do in the sci-fi section, furthest away from the counter, but he can still hear them talking to Kay, her bright, cheery voice followed by Phoenix’s easy tenor and Trucy’s childish giggles. He hears Trucy politely ask if she can pet Pess. Then, he hears the bell over the door jingle, and the man with the mismatched eyes and his magician daughter leave the store as suddenly as they arrived. 

Miles, realizing he’s still holding the copy of Matilda in his hand, stops by the children’s section to tuck it away before returning to the front counter with the almost-empty box of books. 

“Oh my god , boss, did you see that little girl? She was so adorable, ” Kay gushes, propping her chin in her hands. “Her little cape was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“She was certainly unusual,” Miles says.

Kay snorts. “ Certainly unusual ,” she mimics, rolling her eyes. “You can admit that she was cute. All little kids are cute.”

“Children, in my experience, are dirty and noisy. I can tolerate them at best.”

“You’re such an old man. No wonder everyone calls you crotchety.”

“I’m perfectly polite.”

“Uh-huh.” Kay grins at him. “Whatever you say, boss.”

Later that day, as the sun slowly sets and the moon slowly rises, after Miles sweeps the shop and dutifully gives Kay ten dollars for ice cream (since she refused to leave until he did), he finds that old, raggedy cat once more as empties the dustpan in the trash cans behind the bookstore.

“Hello,” Miles says again. The cat, once again, stares up at him. It flicks what’s left of its tail, shifting carefully on its paws, but doesn’t run. 

Miles eyes the cat. It’s skinny, and dirty. Clearly a street cat, but it's managed this long, hasn’t it? It’s not like it’s cold at night, and he’s sure there are mice living among the trash cans. And it might have rabies, or mange, or any number of stray, feral animal diseases that could potentially kill him. Or worse, kill Pess.

Miles empties the dustpan. He goes back inside. He walks upstairs, opens his fridge, and takes out a container of leftover chicken. He stares at it, for a moment. He doesn’t know what cats eat, but he supposes this cat hasn’t eaten much of anything lately, so this might as well do. He cuts up a piece into manageable bits, probably smaller than strictly necessary, and scrapes them into a small glass bowl. 

When he returns to the back stoop, feeling foolish, the cat is gone. He sets the bowl on the ground by the trash cans. 

“I’m going to attract raccoons,” he mutters to himself. “And rats.”

He stands there for a moment, looking out over the back alley. The lamp by the door hums and buzzes, a small gray moth beating weakly against the glass, trying to reach its own personal sun. The old cat doesn’t make an appearance, but Miles doesn’t really know what he’s expecting, or why he’s expecting it at all.

“I guess we’ll see in the morning,” Miles tells himself, glancing at the bowl before heading back inside. He hesitates before locking the door, wanting to open it, to see if that old, ugly cat had emerged, but he doesn’t. He locks the door, flicks off the lights, and goes upstairs to his little apartment. Pess is dozing on his bed as Miles pads into the bedroom, and he sits beside her, running his hand through her soft fur. 

A cat, and the world’s youngest practicing magician.

“What a strange day,” Miles mutters. 

Then, he gets up, and makes himself a cup of tea. 

Chapter Text

Miles stubbornly refuses to check for the cat the next day. 

Since it’s Sunday, he doesn’t have to open the bookstore, but as Miles stands at his kitchen counter and waits for the teakettle to boil he finds himself making all sorts of excuses in his head for a reason to go downstairs anyway. Perhaps he should get some restocking done, he thinks, as he measures out a cup’s worth of loose leaf, or sweep the floor, or wash the windows or make sure that Kay hasn’t stolen any money from the register for her enamel pin obsession. And, if he’s already downstairs, he might as well check the alley for the cat, right?

The teakettle whistles, and Miles exhales. He won’t, of course, do any of those things. He’ll simply shove all his excuses deep down, sit in the armchair in his living room (which is a very comfortable chair, perfect for hours spent with a book) and force himself to read. It’s the best perk of living above a bookstore, in his opinion: he has unlimited access to books. Franziska and Kay might think him a recluse or hermit for reading rather than talking to people and making friends, but what kind of bookseller would Miles be if he hasn’t personally read a book he might recommend? Books are far easier to read than people, so Miles is content with his perfect little excuse to sit in the quiet of his apartment in a morning streaked with gold, a cup of tea (earl gray, usually, or pu-erh if he’s feeling especially adventurous) in one hand and a book in the other. 

It’s the only appointment in his planner for today: read, read, read. And, as noon rolls around, Miles is halfway through not only his second cup of tea but his latest acquisition from the bookstore as well, taken from the new arrivals display just yesterday. He’s always liked books that make him think, and he’s fairly confident he’s got the end of Anxious People all figured out (upon finishing the book, he’ll realize he was completely wrong, and be rather annoyed by it. But, in his defense, he hadn’t been expecting a rabbit in the bathroom, or overly sympathetic police officers). Anxious People is an excellent read, and Miles expected nothing less from the author, which is exactly why he finds himself so irritated that he can’t keep his mind off that damned stray cat. 

Miles’s want to check for the stray bothers him; he sternly reminds himself that he is a dog person ; cats, no matter how bedraggled and pitiful they may look, are not, and never have been, his preferred choice of companion. The cat outside his bookstore is not his responsibility, no matter if it’s trespassing on his property or not. It’ll likely give Miles fleas or rabies or whatever diseases an old, dirty cat might carry around anyway, or, worse, it’ll bite Pess.

It’s best if he just leaves it alone. 

He turns back to the book, where Jim is running out of patience with a policeman who happens to be a bit of a magician in his spare time.

Magicians, Miles thinks sardonically, and turns the page. 

And yet, despite all the logic laid before him clear as day, Miles still finds his gaze wandering off the page to the window in his kitchen, which overlooks the back alley. He taps his finger on the edge of the book, takes a sip from his tea. It’s gone a bit lukewarm. 

Miles is embarrassed to admit that, only a few minutes later when Pess paws at the door to go outside, he nearly pulls a muscle with how fast he gets up from the chair. He’s lucky he has such a sweet and non-judgmental dog; Pess merely thumps her tail on the floor at the prospect of getting outside that much quicker. 

After taking Pess out for a romp through the bookstore’s flowerbeds and skillfully avoiding any eye contact with Mia Fey across the street, Miles decides he’ll do some restocking after all. If he’s too distracted to read, he might as well do something useful with his time. New book shipments come in on Tuesday, so it wouldn’t hurt to be a day ahead. He returns Pess upstairs before fetching yesterday’s unfinished box of books from the backroom. 

As he unpacks the box on the counter, Miles briefly glances at the back door, but quickly turns away. 

“It’s a cat ,” he scolds himself. “It can manage on its own.”

The stray still lurks stubbornly in the back of Miles’s mind, however, as he works through the rest of the inventory. He catches himself imagining how skinny the poor creature had looked when he’s supposed to be checking a copy of Radio Girls for wear, and when his mind gets caught up in wondering how long the cat’s been living in back alleys, he accidentally shelves Good Omens in the nonfiction section. 

Miles sighs, irritated with himself. “Stop being foolish,” he mutters under his breath, pulling the book off the shelf. 

“Hell will freeze over before you quit being foolish,” a voice says behind him, and Miles nearly, nearly, lets out a very undignified sound in his surprise.

But he doesn’t, because he is a calm, well-dressed and put together individual who does not scream whenever his sister sneaks up on him. He forces an exhale between his teeth and turns to glare at her, unsurprised at the smug expression he finds.

“Franziska,” Miles says, his false pleasantry falling flat. “When did you get here?”

Franziska smirks, tucking her keys away in her faux leather purse. She’s clearly pleased with herself. “Just a minute ago. Perhaps if you weren’t so distracted talking to yourself, you might’ve heard the bell.” 

“Excellent advice,” Miles says drily. “I’ll certainly keep it in mind.”

He slips past Franziska, tucking Good Omens under his arm as he heads to fiction. Her shiny black stilettos click click after him, sharp, and he wonders just how distracted he must’ve been to not hear her footsteps creeping up behind him. Or the door. 

Miles shelves the book where it belongs, ignoring Franziska’s storm-cloud stare at the back of his head. She’s always been irritatingly good at knowing when something’s on his mind, and irritatingly persistent at wrenching it out. 

“What are you doing here, Franziska?” Miles asks, without looking at her. He pretends to study the bookshelves instead. “It’s Sunday.”

“Yes, I know what day it is, idiot. I’m here to make sure that foolish employee of yours isn’t ruining my perfect accounts.”

Miles turns, quirking a brow at her. “I assume you mean Kay.”

“Who else would I be referring to? Pess ?” Franziska scoffs, waving an impatient hand. “Quit wasting my time and get the computer. I want to check my accounts.” 

Yes, your accounts, Miles thinks, biting down a sarcastic reply. Franziska watches him with those sharp, ice-blue eyes of hers as he steps behind the counter to unlock the lower cabinet; the computer with all the Corner Bookstore’s information remains locked away beneath the counter at all times. Only Miles has the key, despite Franziska’s many attempts to try and get a key for herself. He’s lucky Kay is so loyal to him, otherwise he’s sure Franziska would’ve enlisted her to steal it off him by now. 

Miles retrieves the laptop and Franziska immediately snatches it. She perches herself on the stool behind the counter with one slim leg crossed over the other; she’s wearing a pair of classy, pinstripe pants today, the loose kind with a tie around the waist, and somehow she hasn’t managed to form a single wrinkle. They’re perfectly neat. 

Typical , Miles thinks. 

Franziska drums her acrylics on the counter as she logs in, pulling up her massive folder of spreadsheets. Miles isn’t exactly sure why a single bookstore would need so many spreadsheets, but they haven’t gone bankrupt yet, so she must be doing something right. She stops by every other week to check the accounts and make sure everything is going well financially; it’s her main job at the bookstore since neither Miles or Kay has quite the same head for numbers that she does, though she helps restock and works inventory occasionally when she’s not busy with college. 

As Franziska taps away at the laptop, Miles, who has frankly given up on trying to convince himself he isn’t concerned, wonders whether she’ll notice if he sneaks down a bowl of chicken for the cat. Well, she would notice, she notices everything, so the question is would she care enough to mention it. He doesn’t want to admit to his sister that he’s invested in a stray cat that he’s only seen twice . Though he knows Franziska’s rather fond of cats herself, he’s perfectly aware of how long she would hold such an embarrassing matter against him. 

Forever. She would hold it against him forever. 

He can already hear her teasing voice in his head: I wasn’t aware you had room in your foolish heart for anything other than Pess and books, brother. 

With that thought, Miles decides it’s better to be safe than sorry and wait until after Pess’s walk to feed the cat again. Checking the accounts never takes Franziska too long, so he’s sure that by the time he returns, she’ll be gone. Perhaps he’ll have lost the ridiculous urge to look for the stray by then as well. 

(He knows he won’t.)

Leaving Franziska behind to peruse her spreadsheets, Miles heads upstairs to Pess, the old stairs creaking pleasantly under his weight. He opens the door and finds her waiting behind it, tail thumping on the mat and leash dangling from her mouth. Her walk to the park begins promptly at 1:30 on Sundays, and she’s learned to expect it. 

“Hello, clever girl,” Miles says, trying to keep the fondness out of his voice as she leans against his legs, making the process of clipping on her leash much more difficult. “Be patient.”

Pess doesn’t waste any time once the leash is on; she practically yanks Miles down the stairs before he can even shut the apartment door, vibrating with excitement. Franziska hasn’t even moved, her eyes glued to the laptop screen. 

“I’m taking Pess on her walk,” Miles informs her, as Pess tugs him by the counter.

“Yes, I could tell by the leash.”

“I’ll be back in about an hour.”

Franziska waits until Miles has nearly turned the handle to stop him in his tracks. “Miles Edgeworth.”

Miles sighs. “Yes, Fran?”

“What is this? ”

Miles turns to look at her, Pess whining with impatience. Franziska’s holding something gingerly between her thumb and forefinger like it’ll burn her, something that turns out to be a small bracelet, clumsily woven with embroidery thread in a fraying pattern of green and red diamonds. 

“Oh. That.” Miles pinches the bridge of his nose. He’d found it while sweeping yesterday after close, half-hidden under a shelf in the children’s section. “We had a…peculiar little girl come in yesterday. I’m assuming she dropped it.”

Unless it’s Wendy’s , but Miles can’t imagine her lurking in the children’s section, despite how young she claims to be. Though, she would drop something in hopes of Miles returning it to her. 

Apparently satisfied with his answer, Franziska sets the bracelet back on the counter. “I was wondering whether it was yours.”

“I highly doubt I could fit that on my wrist.”

Franziska shrugs, tossing her hair. “You have dainty wrists, little brother. I’m certain you could pull it off.”

Miles gives her a look, but Franziska merely smirks, invincible to even the worst of his glares. 

“I suppose the girl will be coming back to get it, then,” she says, watching Miles. 

Miles blinks. He hadn’t thought about that. If the girl noticed the bracelet’s absence, she’d likely come back tomorrow. 

After a brief moment of thought, he crosses the store to snatch the bracelet off the counter. He’ll just return it himself; Fey’s Flowers is open on Sundays, and that’ll prevent the girl from wandering into his bookstore with her loud, cheerful father lumbering after her to try and break down the door. Miles tucks the bracelet into the pocket of his slacks, ignoring Franziska’s amused smile. He’ll just drop the bracelet off on his way back from the park, and if he’s lucky, it’ll take five minutes at most. 

“Goodbye, little brother,” Franziska says, her voice dripping with amusement. “Enjoy your walk.”

“Enjoy your spreadsheets,” Miles replies drily, and lets Pess tug him outside into the sun. 

It’s not nearly as hot as yesterday, blessedly; there’s a cool breeze blowing at the back of Miles’s neck. His shoes tap, tap sharply on the sidewalk, and the sun warms his skin through his sleeves. He passes the café, the smell of fresh-ground coffee and tea and baked pastries quickly reminding Miles that he forgot to eat breakfast yet again, but the sound of chattering people floating through the open windows keeps him from going inside. He tells himself he’ll pick something up on his way back (he won’t) and continues on. 

The park is only a five minute’s walk away, ten minutes if Pess is particularly distracted by butterflies or passing people. It’s a nice park, usually a bit busy for Miles’s tastes, but it’s conveniently close and Pess prefers it over the dog park the next town over. He supposes that may have something to do with the fact that her best friend usually visits this specific park, usually on Sundays, and usually with his loud and friendly owner. 

Upon spotting said loud and friendly owner, standing under a tree, Miles sighs. Pess looks up at him with her big brown eyes, wagging her tail. “I’m doing this for you, you know. So you can see your friend,” he tells her, and Pess’s tongue lolls out of her mouth. She always looks like she’s grinning when she does that. 

They cross the street to the park, and Gumshoe notices them immediately, a lopsided smile lighting up his big, scruffy face. “Hi, Mr. Edgeworth!” he shouts, loud enough to startle a nearby bird, and vigorously waves a hand.

“Hello, Gumshoe,” Miles says calmly. 

Richard Gumshoe (Dick, to his friends, though Miles refuses to address him by his first name since that would be admitting that they’re friends, and he prefers to stay in denial) is a large man with an even larger personality, and a clumsy one at that. He works for the local police department, as does his dog, who’s currently nowhere to be seen. Today, in the summer heat, Gumshoe’s wearing his white button-down rolled up to his elbows and a pair of suspenders so old that Miles wonders how they manage to hold up his slacks at all. He’s not exactly the type of person Miles would like to spend time with; he’s loud, wears his cheer like a tattered old coat and is, frankly, exhausting to be around at times, but Miles supposes his heart is in the right place. 

And Pess likes his dog.

“Where’s Missile?” Miles asks, as Gumshoe lavishes Pess with a vigorous petting. He scans the park; it’s fairly small, all grass and pleasant little benches and maple trees and wildflowers. It’s a lovely sight in fall, and Pess loves to run through piles of fallen leaves and try to catch them out of the air. In summer, though, it’s green and sun-warmed, the kind of place families like to go to picnic and birdwatchers lurk with their huge binoculars to spot bluejays and cedar waxwings in the trees. There’s even a quiet brook cutting through the park, with a little wooden bridge built over it. 

Gumshoe straightens, giving his face a reprieve from Pess’s kisses. “Oh, you know how he is, Mr. Edgeworth, runs off like mad the second he gets here. I can’t believe I haven’t lost him yet. I guess it’s a good thing he’s police-trained!”

He grins at Miles, and Miles merely hums in response, busy bracing himself for the inevitable. 

Gumshoe brushes his hand on his pants before sticking his thumb and forefinger in his mouth and whistling, sharp and eardrum-shatteringly loud. Within seconds , a blur of brown and white bursts from a bush a few yards away, racing across the park and barreling full-speed into Gumshoe’s shins, barking wildly. 

“Good boy, Missile,” Gumshoe says proudly, patting the dog on the head. Missile wags his curl of a tail and barks. He’s wearing a polka-dotted bandana around his neck today; from what Miles can tell, the dog has a rather extensive wardrobe. He’s never seen the same bandana twice, though Gumshoe says Missile’s favorite is the one with astronauts on it. 

Missile breaks away from Gumshoe to greet Miles and Pess, bouncing on his paws. He’s the kind of dog that always looks like he’s smiling; he’s a sweetheart, really, too sweet for his position as a drug detection hound in Miles’s opinion. He certainly doesn’t fit in with the stereotypical shepherds and hunting dogs, but Gumshoe insists he’s the best detection dog he’s seen on the force. In this small town, though, his particular brand of doggy services aren’t often required, so he’s more of Gumshoe’s pet than a police dog. And, as far as Miles can tell, Gumshoe takes good care of him.

He’s taken care of in the bandana department, at least.

“Hello, Missile.” Miles scratches Missile behind an ear, and the shiba furiously wags his tail. 

Once Miles has given Missile an appropriate amount of attention, Pess and Missile quickly delve into their cursory greeting, a rather extensive ordeal involving a lot of sniffing, wagging tails and licking faces, and, on Missile’s part, a lot of barking. 

It doesn’t take long for Missile to catch the scent of something else interesting; he stops, twitching his ears, before bolting into the bushes at the speed of sound and leaving Pess behind to strain at her leash. Once Miles frees her, she tears after Missile into the bushes, and Miles just knows he’ll be picking leaves out of her long fur all night. 

“Off like rockets, they are,” Gumshoe chuckles, watching them disappear into the bushes.

“Yes, I suppose that’s why you named him Missile.”

“Well, I didn’t name him that. The police chief did. Personally, I think he looks more like a…like a Peanut. Or maybe a Buddy.”

“Perhaps you should stick with Missile,” Miles says lightly, and Gumshoe laughs, a loud sound that resonates from his stomach. He’s been around a lot of loud people recently, Miles thinks. 

“It’s nice that they get to hang out every Sunday, Mr. Edgeworth,” Gumshoe says, propping his big hands on his hips. “Missile would get real lonely if he didn’t have Pess to run around with.”

Miles hums. He toys with the leash in his hands. “I’m sure Pess appreciates the companionship.”

This is the awkward part of their Sunday trips to the park: once the dogs have gone, it’s just Gumshoe and Miles. While the conversation between them comes easier than with most other people, since he’s known Gumshoe for quite some time, there’s still a touch of discomfort there, lurking at the edges of Miles’s words, in the corners of his mind. He supposes it’s likely just him; Gumshoe doesn’t seem like the type of man to feel awkward. 

Miles wonders, absently, what Gumshoe might do with a stray cat. 

“I finally finished that book you gave me, Mr. Edgeworth!” Gumshoe says, then, drawing Miles’s attention. 

“Did you? It took you a while.”

“I’m a slow reader,” Gumshoe says defensively. 

“So it seems,” Miles replies, staring off over the park. He catches a flash of Pess’s chocolate brown fur by the brook, chasing Missile as he races across the bridge, nearly knocking over a couple on a date. 

Gumshoe stuffs his hands in his pockets, a childishly hurt expression on his face. “Aren’t you gonna ask me if I liked it?”

Miles stares at him for a moment, before sighing. “Did you like the book, Gumshoe?”

“I did !” Gumshoe exclaims, like he’d never been upset at all. “It was so good , Mr. Edgeworth! I didn’t think I’d like a murder mystery so much but the ending was real surprising. I didn’t think everyone would be in on it, that’s just crazy.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it.” Miles meant it, he did, but somehow he never manages to get that across with the tone of his voice. “I have another book written by the same author that you may like.”

“Is that one about murder, too?”

“Yes. Murder mysteries are Christie’s forte. if you liked the last one, I suspect you’ll like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd as well. It has quite the twist at the end.”

Gumshoe’s eyes widen, and he grins so widely that his face nearly splits in half. “You know, Mr. Edgeworth, I was thinking I should start a book club or somethin’ with the rest of the force so they can read all these cool books you give me, too. They’d like them a whole lot.”

“I certainly don’t give them to you,” Miles says, lifting a brow. “I expect you to pay for them.”

“What?” Gumshoe’s face falls a bit. “I thought they were gifts.”

“I own a bookstore, Gumshoe, not a library.”

Gumshoe blinks, the gears turning in his head, before his wide smile returns and he bursts into hearty laughter. “Oh, I get it! You’re makin’ a joke ! You almost got me there, Mr. Edgeworth.”

“I wasn’t-“

“You know, no one ever believes me when I tell them you’re really funny. You should start tellin’ jokes like that to everyone. Maybe you should turn your bookstore into a theater. For comedy, you know? Like stand-up?”

Miles wonders how he manages, some days. He really does. 

They spend about an hour at the park. Gumshoe takes over the burden of conversation, which Miles doesn’t entirely mind. His bumbling nature can be entertaining at times, when Miles is mentally prepared to tolerate it, and he supposes listening to Gumshoe’s stories from the force helps the time pass. Today he doesn’t mind listening, and he interjects occasionally with an acknowledging nod or hum when necessary. 

Eventually Pess and Missile, tired from chasing each other and hunting down squirrels and whatever other doggy things they spend their time doing, return to their owners with wagging tails. Gumshoe, as usual, gives them both a treat, which is exactly why he’s one of Pess’s favorite people.

Once Miles says goodbye to Gumshoe (and Pess says goodbye to Missile) they head back to the bookstore. Miles supposes all he has to do now is return the little magician girl’s bracelet, and then he can go back to his store and spend the rest of his day in peace.

And check on the cat, the voice at the back of his mind whispers, but Miles quickly dismisses it. 

The walk back feels painfully short. One moment he’s at the park, warning Gumshoe not to eat while reading or else he’ll stop lending him books, and the next he’s dropping Pess off at the bookstore and facing the storefront of Fey’s Flowers.

It’s not like he’s afraid to talk to Phoenix Wright or his daughter. They’re fine, as far as people go, if a bit eccentric. He’s just never been that good with people, especially new people. They’re unpredictable. 

Miles swallows his thoughts and opens the door. 

It’s a cheery shop. That much he expected. He’s never been inside it before, but it looks as if it would be cheery from the outside, where flowers sit bright and blooming in their colorful pots on colorful stools. The door has a bell above it, much like the one in his own store, but even the bell sounds cheerier in here. The whole store, in general, is warm and inviting; the windows catch more light than the bookstore, and it smells pleasantly of lemon and herbs and earth. The walls are lined with wooden shelves, bearing plants upon plants upon plants in brightly painted pots, each entirely unique. Plants hang from the ceiling in woven baskets that look handmade, spindly ivies and spider plants streaked with white next to plants with lovely heart-shaped leaves that cascade all the way to the floor. A huge fern sits next to the door in a pot painted with vivid swirls of yellow and green and blue, the leaves damp, recently misted. 

All of this, Miles expected. He expected a plant store to sell plants, and own plants, and be generally plant-centric. What he did not expect (and in his defense, most people would not expect this) was an slightly off-key rendition of Rhinestone Cowboy by one Phoenix Wright, teetering on a ladder in a way that makes Miles’s heart clench. He’s holding a paintbrush in one hand, carefully outlining a fist-sized peony on the wall, part of a half-finished mural with parts still sketched out and others awash in color. 

Clearly he didn’t hear the bell over the sound of his own voice, and, clearly, the amused dark-haired girl at the register isn’t about to inform him, either. 

“ Riding out on a horse in a star-spangled rodeo!” Phoenix trills, leaning a little too far forward on the ladder in Miles’s opinion to reach a spot just a touch out of his reach. There’s a smudge of green paint on his cheek, smears of yellow on his wrists and hands. At least Miles knows where all the paint comes from, now.  “ I’m a rhinestone cowboy!”

“What’s up?” The girl asks Miles, brushing aside her waterfall of hair. “Can I help you with something?”

“I…er. I need to talk to him,” Miles says awkwardly, gesturing to Phoenix. He could just leave the bracelet here, though, couldn’t he? He moves to fish it out of his pocket. “Actually-“

The girl snorts, cutting Miles off before he can continue. “Hey, Nick!” she shouts, and Miles swears Phoenix nearly falls off the ladder in surprise. 

“What?” Phoenix calls back, without turning around. He sticks his paintbrush in his teeth to fiddle with a palette sitting on the top rung of the ladder.

“Your friend is here.”

Miles winces. “We’re not-“

Phoenix twists around, and his face lights up. “Miles!” He exclaims (through the paintbrush). “What are you doing here?” 

Miles exhales, uncomfortable. He holds out the bracelet. “Your daughter left this in my store yesterday.”

Phoenix squints at it before tucking the paintbrush behind his ear and sliding down the ladder, and suddenly, suddenly, he’s so much closer , invading Miles’s personal space. He smells like paint and earth and something else that Miles can’t place, not that he’s thinking about it. “Oh! That’s Trucy’s lucky bracelet. I made it for her.”

“Well. She can have it back,” Miles says, and thrusts the bracelet at Phoenix. 

Phoenix grins a crooked, boyish grin and tilts his head. “ Well , you can give it to her yourself! She’s in the back helping Mia, let me go grab her.”

“ No ,” Miles says, a little too firmly, and Phoenix blinks at him in surprise, his grin dropping. Miles exhales through his nose and repeats it, a little softer. “No. That’s fine. I can just give it to you.”

Phoenix’s grin inches back. “It’s her bracelet, not mine,” he says, like that makes any sense at all. “I bet she’ll be really happy to know you care enough to bring it back. And then she can tell you how much she likes the book!”

Miles blinks. This conversation is escaping him much quicker than anticipated. When did caring come into it? “The book?” He asks, a bit weakly. 

“Yeah, you know, the book you picked out for her yesterday?”

“Oh. Yes.” The book he only gave her to get her to leave him alone. “That book.” 

“Gimme one sec!” Phoenix says brightly, and just like that, he’s vanished to the back. 

Miles glances at the girl at the counter. She has her chin propped in her hands, an amused glitter in her eyes. She shrugs and smiles. “Sorry. Nick’s like that.”

In a flash Phoenix’s returned, tugging Trucy behind him. “Here she is!” 

Trucy looks up at Miles; she’s not wearing her cape today. In fact, she’s wearing shorts and a green Fey’s Flowers t-shirt, her hair held back with a sparkly headband. “Hello, Mr. Edgeworth,” she says politely.

“…Hello.” Miles holds out the bracelet, again . “You left this at my shop."

Trucy smiles, a grin reminiscent of her father’s, and takes the bracelet with her small hand. “Thank you! It’s my lucky bracelet. I can’t perform unless I’m wearing it.”

Miles raises a brow. “You should take better care of it, if it’s that important.”

Trucy doesn’t respond, merely smiles, and Miles frowns. 

“Tell him about the book, Truce,” Phoenix urges lightly. 

“Oh! Yes!” Trucy smiles up at Miles, and it’s a sweet smile, even he can admit. “I’ve liked the book so far. I like Creel. And there isn’t a lot of magic in it, just dragons. I was expecting a lot of magic.”

“Aren’t dragons magic?” Phoenix asks. 

“They’re reptiles,” Trucy says, giving him a look. 

Phoenix grins; it crinkles the skin around his eyes. “They can’t be reptiles and magic at the same time?”

“Geckos aren’t magic.”

“What about salamanders?”

“Salamanders aren’t reptiles,” Miles says, before he can stop himself. 

Trucy smiles widely, Phoenix looks betrayed, the girl at the counter snorts and Miles truly can’t believe he’s still here. 

“Well,” Miles says awkwardly. “If that’s all, I should get back-“

“No!” Phoenix interrupts, and he reaches out, grabs Miles’s hand to keep him from turning away. Miles stiffens, and Phoenix, noticing, pulls his hands away and rubs at the back of his neck. “Sorry. I just…wait there, okay?”

Miles blinks. “Er. Okay.”

Why do these things happen to him?

Phoenix gives him a quick, small smile before darting to the back of the shop, and when he reemerges, he’s holding something. “Here. This is for you.” Phoenix says, pressing a pot into Miles’s hand. “As a thank you for returning her bracelet. And for picking out the book.”

Miles looks down at the pot, bewildered. In it is a small bamboo plant, with two stalks twining around each other. He blinks. 

“It’s a lucky bamboo plant,” Phoenix explains. “There weren’t a lot of plants in your bookstore and I thought you might like one, and bamboo is kind of hard to kill so I thought it would be a good starter plant. Not that you would be bad at taking care of plants but I didn’t want to assume you were like, really good at it and then give you a fiddle leaf fig or something ‘cause those are really fussy and a lot of work but lucky bamboo is super easy. And it’s lucky.” 

Trucy takes Phoenix’s hand, and he cuts off. “Daddy, you’re rambling,” she says politely.  

The girl at the register snickers.

“Sorry,” Phoenix says, his mismatched eyes flitting away to glare at the girl. “Sometimes once I start I can’t stop.”

Miles nods jerkily. He looks at the plant in his hands again. “Yes. Well. Thank you, Wright. For the plant.”

Phoenix raises his crooked eyebrows. “You can just call me Phoenix, you know.”

“…Alright.” Miles glances back at the plant, then at Phoenix. “I’ll be going now.”

“Alright,” Phoenix parrots. He waves a hand. “Have a nice Sunday.”

“You…too.” 

Miles exhales, and leaves the store. He can hear the girl at the register laughing as the door swings shut. 

Franziska isn’t at the bookstore, and Miles thanks any gods that might be listening for that. He sets the bamboo plant on the register, frowning at it. 

What a confusing day , he thinks. 

Then, Miles goes and checks for the cat, because after that experience he decides he might as well cut himself a break from pretending he doesn’t want to. 

He can’t help but feel a tiny pang of disappointment when the cat isn’t there. The bowl he set out last night, however, is empty. Whether the cat ate the food or some rabid raccoon did, Miles doesn’t know. He picks up the bowl, turning it over in his hands, and catches himself glancing at all the little dark corners and crannies in the alley, searching for a hint of dirty gray fur. 

But then, after he cuts up the rest of his leftover chicken and brings the bowl back outside, the cat has suddenly appeared as if summoned by the smell of food. It’s the same cat, with the same dirty gray fur and missing ear and stumpy half-tail, sitting a few feet away by the garbage cans. 

“…Hello,” Miles says cautiously. 

The cat flicks its ear, eyeing Miles with narrowed eyes. 

Miles crouches to set the bowl down, pushing it as far from himself as possible, as slowly as possible. The cat waits for a moment, looking at the bowl then back at Miles, judging whether Miles will make any sudden moves. Seemingly satisfied, the cat stands, slinking towards the bowl. It watches Miles as it eats, and Miles doesn’t move until it’s done, barely even breathing. 

It looks a bit like Ernest Hemingway, Miles thinks, with its salt and pepper fur. 

Then, just as suddenly as it appeared, the cat turns and vanishes down the alley, just like that. 

Miles picks up the bowl and goes upstairs. 

Only once Miles has settled back into his armchair with his copy of Anxious People does he see it. There, at the curve of his wrist, the spot Phoenix had grabbed earlier, there’s a soft smudge of yellow paint, bright and cheerful and sunny. 

Chapter Text

July fades into August, warm days slipping into a kind of liquid heat that sticks shirts to backs and urges windows to stay closed for fear of letting the AC escape. The thousand-armed sun turns the sidewalk into a stovetop, the flowers outside the Corner Bookstore begging desperately for water. At night, the heat turns lazy, summoning fireflies that dance a slow, measured waltz; little glowing beacons sending morse-code messages to each other in the dark. Time slides by the way it often does in hot summers like this, measured and languid and slow, full of iced tea and Kay’s colorful earrings, summery reads like Where the Crawdads Sing and Franziska wearing her hair up to keep it off her neck. Gumshoe stops by to pick up his next Agatha Christie (which Miles tells himself he just happened to forget to charge him for it) and the cat, now officially christened Hemingway despite Miles’s best efforts to keep the stray unnamed, sleeps in the alley behind the bookstore, in the shade.

During one afternoon in the heart of August, Miles sits at the front counter, sweating slightly through his shirt even though the AC is on full blast as he tries to focus on his book (this week, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society). He can hear Kay doing something among the shelves; she’s supposed to be restocking but Miles’s doesn’t think putting books a shelf should result in that much noise (as it turns out, Kay is trying to see how many books she can balance on her head, a pastime she wisely doesn’t inform her boss about). 

Miles sighs, deep and slow, toying with the corner of a page. It’s a good book, one written entirely in letters sent between the main characters and he finds he rather likes it, but the heat is making him drowsy and it’s difficult to focus. He runs a hand through his hair, his eyes darting at the lucky bamboo plant on the counter.

Miles has kept the stupid thing alive for three weeks despite his best efforts to neglect it. He supposes that man did tell him that it’s hard to kill, and now it just sits there, next to the register, a stark reminder of the latest annoyance in his life. 

Said annoyance hadn’t even been able to wait two days before stopping by the bookstore after giving Miles the plant, his eyes sparkling and streaks of green on his tanned, freckled forearms.

“Have you named it?” Phoenix had asked, an expectant note to his voice. 

“Have I named what , Wright?” Miles had replied sharply. He hadn’t slept well the night before, leaving him irritable and tired, and definitely not in the mood for conversation. 

Phoenix, however, hadn’t seemed to mind. He’d lowered his voice, leaned on the counter and tilted his head to catch Miles’s downturned gaze. “It’s good luck to name your plants,” he’d said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. 

“I was under the impression that the plant was already lucky.”

Phoenix shrugged. “You can never have too much good luck.”

Good luck. What a joke . Clearly, the plant wasn’t working as advertised. In Miles’s opinion, luck would bring pleasant, quiet summer days full of reading and perfectly civilized customers that didn’t talk too much or laugh freely or push the boundaries of his personal space, but the bamboo plant has only succeeded in bringing the exact opposite. 

Miles isn’t exactly sure how it happened. He’s not even sure why . He’s certain he hasn’t done anything on his end to warrant it; it’s not like he goes around conversing with people for the fun of it, but in hardly no time at all Phoenix Wright has gone from an eccentric stranger across the street to a staple in Miles’s life. After that visit where he asked after the bamboo plant’s name, he only kept coming back, like a yellow-tufted dandelion stubbornly growing through sidewalk pavement, his skin stained with freckles and paint and that crooked smile that never seemed to go away.

God, but he’s an irritating staple. Miles frowns down at his book just thinking of it. 

“He just wants to be your friend,” Kay had told him, at the beginning of the whole ordeal.

Miles had scoffed. “Well, unfortunately for him, I don’t want him to be my friend.”

Unfortunately for Miles, though, Phoenix seems perfectly ignorant of that fact. He waves to Miles whenever he sees him out walking with Pess, like they’ve known each other for years. Sometimes he shouts a greeting and tries to have a conversation; Miles remembers one such occurrence two weeks ago when Phoenix, who’d been sweeping the front stoop of Fey’s Flowers, had attempted to strike up a friendly chat. He’d been talking some nonsense about plants, probably (Miles doesn’t bother to recall) when he’d leaned a little too far forward on his broom and wholly toppled over, the broom handle knocking him on the head on the way down. I’m okay! he’d shouted, and Miles had rolled his eyes and kept walking. Idiot , he’d thought. 

His life seems now full of little occurrences like that. Early last week Phoenix had stopped by the bookstore with coffee from the café next door, explaining that he was making a coffee run for the flower shop and thought Miles and Kay would like something; he’d brought two coffees, one for each, and a chocolate croissant for Kay. Upon Miles firmly telling him that he did not like coffee, Phoenix returned a few days later with a to-go cup of tea, earl gray with lavender and frothed milk, a smiley-face drawn on the side in yellow highlighter. He’d brought another croissant for Kay, which only further cemented her belief that Phoenix wasn’t actually as bad as Miles was making him out to be. 

“He’d bring you a croissant if you asked,” Kay told Miles, after Phoenix left. 

“I don’t want a croissant,” Miles replied. 

The tea had been annoyingly good. 

Then, there was that time last week when Phoenix turned up at the park with Trucy at the same time as Miles, and Miles had to stand there and watch as they played catch with Pess (who’d loved every second of it, the traitor ). He had to remind himself that Pess also tried to eat garbage, once, so her judgment on people isn’t necessarily sound. 

Only this Monday did Phoenix stop by to ask Miles about the mural he’s painting in the flower shop, of all things. He’d asked if Miles thought he should add ladybugs. Why does he need Miles’s opinion on ladybugs ?

Miles could manage it, really, if it were just simple, random happenings. He was a well-adjusted individual with a surprising amount of patience, though no one seems to believe that, certainly not Kay and Franziska, but it’s not just simple, random happenings. The worst part of all of it is that Phoenix stops by the bookstore regularly , multiple times a week. 

He at least has the decency to buy a book each time he’s here, Miles reminds himself. It’s a small comfort, but a comfort all the same. It feels a bit like Miles is being paid to put up with him, which does make it marginally more tolerable, though Phoenix always asks for recommendations and insists on small talk because it seems he simply cannot manage being quiet. 

Miles had said something similar to Franziska, who’d rolled her eyes and told him to stop being a dramatic fool. 

Despite how often Phoenix comes by to the Corner Bookstore these days, Miles still can’t tell whether he has a diverse taste in genres or if he’s just picking books with particularly artistic covers. The first book he’d bought, after much deliberation among the shelves, had been a used copy of Annihilation . When he returned, he seemed to think that Miles wanted a personal review and informed him that he thought it’d be nice to get mutated into a dolphin, if he had to get mutated. Then, he chose the 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle , which he had little to say about except that it took a turn he wasn’t expecting, and, thirdly, The Art of Racing in the Rain, a book that he said he couldn’t get through because it made him cry too much.

Annoyingly, Miles agreed with that. It’s always the books about dogs. 

Phoenix bounced between genres like this for the three weeks he’s been invading Miles’s life, picking horror one day ( The Butterfly Garden) and then old classics the next ( Pride and Prejudice. Miles had been surprised), followed by nonfiction ( Life is So Good. He’d liked that one a lot). His latest visit, about four days ago, saw him standing at the new arrivals display in a faded Queen shirt, scrutinizing a copy of Poison for Breakfast . 

“Isn’t this the guy who wrote A Series of Unfortunate Events ?” Phoenix had asked.

Miles, who’d been reorganizing the display at the time, gave him a flat look. “Yes. Unless you know of another Lemony Snicket.”

Phoenix hummed. He flipped idly through the pages. “Oh, there’s pictures!”

“If you’re looking for books with pictures, the children’s section is a few shelves down,” Miles had said drily, straightening out a stack of The Saints of Swallow Hill. He jumped when Phoenix started laughing, though at this point, it’s a familiar sound. After three weeks of this , of smiles and a sudden lack of personal space and loud, loud laughter, how could he not be at least a little familiar with it? But familiar had positive connotations, like he wanted to know Phoenix’s laugh and wanted to be the cause of it, which he doesn’t. 

“You know, you can be really funny sometimes,” Phoenix had said, grinning at Miles. 

Miles rolled his eyes. “You must be mistaken. I’m merely stating facts that people assume are jokes.” 

“Sure,” Phoenix replied, drawing out the word. “Whatever you say, Miles.”

That’s another point of contention. Miles cannot stand the way Phoenix says his name.

He smiles when he says it, and he says it a lot so Miles has had plenty of time to really analyze the way his name falls out of Phoenix Wright’s mouth. The corner of his mouth pulls up into that ridiculous crooked smile that causes the skin at the corners of his blue-brown eyes to crinkle, and his voice turns soft and slow, like he’s in no rush to get through it. It’s not charming, of course it’s not, it’s infuriating , and Miles hates it.

Hi, Miles! I got you another tea from the café.

I think your bookstore could use more plants, Miles. It would brighten up the place, don’t you think?

Hey, Miles. I like your shirt today. The color suits you, and I’m an artist, so you can trust me.

You know, I always call you Miles, so why don’t you call me Phoenix?

Miles glares down at his book. He’s holding it so tightly that he’s going to wrinkle the pages, so he loosens his grip and exhales. The heat is making him irritable, is all. And he’s on edge, because he never knows when Phoenix is going to pop up, but he knows he’ll pop up sometime . Anyone would be on edge, wouldn’t they, if they were waiting on someone to show up and distract him with talk about flowers and murals and the duck he saw while at the park with Trucy.

Oh, yes. And then there’s Trucy. 

Miles supposes she’s alright, as far as children go. He doesn’t have a lot of experience with children outside of Cody, the boy who picks up his comic books on Saturdays but they only talk about Steel Samurai and little else, and Franziska, he supposes, when her father owned the store.

Somehow, though, Miles doesn’t think that Franziska counts as a traditional child.

Miles hums, smoothing out the book page. He doesn’t really think that Trucy’s a traditional child, either. 

She wears capes, first of all. He’s never heard of a child wearing capes , but Phoenix insists that she’s a practicing magician, which explains it, in a way. Miles has seen at least two different capes of hers thus far whenever she tags along with Phoenix to the store; one pink cape, tattered, like she’s had it for years, and then the one he saw when she first appeared at his store, the blue cape, with the glittery trim. She wears butterfly clips in her hair and mismatched socks, and her nails are a different color every week (Miles learned last Thursday that Phoenix paints her nails himself, and Trucy paints his). 

She’s much like her father, Trucy. She shows up and tries to initiate small talk, giving him her polite little reviews about Dragon Slippers, the book he picked out for her. When she finished it she was so excited to hear there was a sequel that she hugged Miles tightly around the legs and smiled up at him like he hung the moon. He’d very carefully pushed her away so he could fetch the book for her, feeling a strange burning in his face that he supposed must be embarrassment, or irritation, or something. 

She and her father do love to intrude on Miles’s personal space.

But, unlike her father who insists on saying his first name whenever he can, Trucy cannot say his last name. 

She stumbles over the syllables, though there’s only two, and she’s called him Mr. Eggworth on more than one occasion (which amuses Franziska to no end). She’s messed up Miles’s last name so often that he’s almost given up on her ever getting it right. It doesn’t matter how many times he corrects her; she always finds some new way to mispronounce it, and more irritating than that is the fact that Miles just can’t find himself to be annoyed by it. 

“Mr. Edgefirth?” Trucy had asked once, when tagging along with Phoenix on a visit. She liked to sit and watch as Miles restocked the shelves and Phoenix looked for a new book. She even ‘helped’, sometimes, by handing Miles books. It made restocking a much longer process, since she didn’t know which books he needed and she just picked them at random, but he didn’t have the heart to tell her that. 

“It’s Edgeworth ,” Miles had replied, for the hundredth time. 

Trucy stuck out her bottom lip, and twisted the hem of her cape in her hands. “Why can’t I just call you Miles? Your last name is so hard to say.”

“It isn’t,” Miles said, eyeing her. “And no, you may not.”

“Daddy calls you Miles.”

“Yes, I’m perfectly aware of that.”

“So why can’t I?”

Miles sighed, slipping Howl’s Moving Castle into its spot on the shelf.“Because you’re a child.”

“Then why don’t you call Daddy by his first name?” Trucy said loftily, with the air of someone who’s set a successful trap. “You’re not a child.”

Miles just exhaled deeply through his nose and didn’t grace her with a response. 

He never thought he’d have to deal with children so much when he inherited the bookstore. But, then again, he also never thought he’d have to deal with flower shop artists with friendly smiles and an utter determination to secure his friendship. It’s baffling, really; it’s not like Miles is particularly kind to him or good at holding conversations. He’s short and irritable, usually, and doesn’t know much about plants or paintings or any of the hundred and one things that Phoenix has to talk about. 

Miles knows books, and tea. That’s really it.

Miles blinks down at his book. He thumbs at the page, frowning. He’s never realized how boring he is before. 

“All done restocking, boss!” Kay says, thumping an empty box on the counter and startling Miles from his thoughts. “Can I put this box out for Hemingway?”

Miles glances at the box. “I suppose so.”

Hemingway has become a regular customer of his own around the bookstore, but Miles supposes getting regular meals will do that. Kay and Franziska have become quite enamored with the old stray, though Hemingway is rather indifferent to their existence. All the same, they insist on trying to take care of him as well as they can, giving him the old boxes the book shipments come in and forcing Miles to buy the fancy tuna from the market, the kind that isn’t canned. Franziska even bought him his own little bowl, made of gray porcelain with a black fish on it. 

He’s the most pampered stray in town, Miles thinks, watching Key fetch a thick Sharpie from the cup by the register. She scribbles HEMINGWAY’S BOX on the side in thick, blocky letters.

“There,” she says proudly. “Now rats will know not to go in there.”

Miles raises a brow. “I don’t believe rats can read, Kay.”

“You don’t know that. Have you ever asked a rat?”

Miles doesn’t reply. He just looks at her, his eyebrows raised. Kay stares right back, her hands propped on her fists. After a moment, she quirks a brow, narrowing her eyes like they’re about to have a gunfight at high noon. 

Miles sighs. “No, Kay. I have never asked a rat whether it’s literate or not.”

“Well, maybe you should before you get all judgmental, then,” Kay says loftily, a victorious smile brightening her face, “but I’ll make a sign just in case.” She draws a quick picture of a rat on the box (at least, Miles thinks it’s a rat) before crossing it out with an X . “That’ll keep ‘em out.”

“Oh, surely.”

“Don’t be sassy, Mr. Edgeworth.”

“My apologies.”

Miles turns his amused smile to his book, though it’s just as unlikely he’ll be getting any reading done now as it was five minutes ago, when he was lost in thought. His theory proves correct, as Kay once again tugs him out of his thoughts by hiding a snort of laughter behind her hand. She’s gazing out the window with a horribly amused smile on her face. 

“Kay,” Miles says warningly. 

She glances at him, grinning. “I think your friend is coming over.”

Miles straightens. Well, to say he straightens implies he merely sat up a little straighter, drawing to attention. This, he doesn’t do. What he actually does is sit up ram-rod straight so aggressively that he nearly tears a page right out of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and rams his knee on the underside of the counter so hard it brings tears to his eyes.

He has a bruise on his knee for three days after. 

In retrospect, he probably didn’t need to react quite so dramatically. 

“Oh, shit, are you okay?” Kay asks, though her worry is dampened by her laughter. “That sounded like it hurt.”

“He’s not my friend,” Miles grits out, sliding to his feet. “And it did hurt, thank you.” 

He looks out the window, and spots Phoenix talking to Mia outside Fey’s Flowers. He’s standing in the street, and he points to the bookstore. Mia tilts her head and smiles. 

“Um, I dunno about that, boss,” Kay says slowly, raising her brows. “He comes over like, a lot. It kind of seems like he’s just coming to say hi to you half the time. You know, like a friend would do?”

“He buys books,” Miles mutters. 

“Well, yeah, probably because you wouldn’t let him talk to you if he didn’t.”

Miles opens his mouth to protest otherwise, but he and Kay both know that she’s entirely right, so he just huffs and crosses his arms. “I’ll take the box out back. You can deal with Wright.”

“Are you sure? It kind of sounded like you snapped your knee in half.”

Miles gives her a look and snatches Hemingway’s box off the counter. “You’re more trouble than you’re worth, Kay.”

“You love me,” she replies, batting her eyelashes at him.

He rolls his eyes and darts out the back before an approaching Phoenix can spot him fleeing. 

“You’re being dramatic” Kay calls after him. “It won’t kill you to make a friend!”

He shuts the back door right as the front door jingles, and hears Kay, in an unnecessarily loud voice, inform Phoenix that Miles isn’t there right now. 

Miles exhales, slumping against the back door. If he listens hard enough he can hear Phoenix through the wood, and though he can’t understand exactly what he’s saying he can still catch the rise and fall of his muffled voice. He hears him laugh and something Kay said, and he can picture the exact face he’s making as he does it. It’s the worst part of all of this, Miles reasons: he’s begun to get used to Phoenix, come to expect his presence at the store the same way he expects Gumshoe at the park on Sundays with Missile.

He’s slotted into Miles’s routine, Phoenix Wright, and his magician daughter. 

Miles groans, and puts his face into his hands. Inconvenient, that’s what it is. Life was much less complicated when he only had one friend. Well, two friends, he supposes; does Kay count as a friend if she’s also his employee? Three friends? Can your sister be your friend? He’s not sure if he wants Franziska to be his friend. 

Miles exhales through his nose. He sets down Hemingway’s box, right next to his bowl. It doesn’t take long to find the stray; he only does a quick scan before spotting him curled up in the shadows by the garbage cans, watching Miles and looking entirely unimpressed.

“Hello, Hemingway,” Miles says.

Hemingway blinks at him.

Miles nudged the box with the toe of his oxfords. “I’ve got a box for you, Hem. Kay wrote your name on it, though I suppose you don’t realize that we’ve named you. Not that it matters. I doubt you can read.”

Hemingway flicks his stump of a tail, and Miles frowns. He almost asks, he doesn’t.

He’s still dirty, despite Franziska’s best efforts to wrangle him into a bath. His gray fur remains matted and muddied, and he has a nasty burr stuck at his haunch that he refuses to let anyone try and take out. There’s a streak of grime running along the long fur at his stomach like he recently waded through a particularly nasty puddle. 

“You’re a filthy cat, do you know that?” Miles mutters, crossing his arms. 

Hemingway doesn’t seem to care. 

Over the three weeks, the inhabitants of the Corner Bookstore have found out quite clearly that Hemingway the stray cat does whatever he pleases. He won’t let Franziska touch him (proven by the dozens of scratches on her arms, but they’re both stubborn creatures: she stubbornly insists on taking care of him, and he stubbornly insists on avoiding her). He’s fine with Kay, as long as she’s quiet and moves slowly. The one time he saw Pess, he seemed unimpressed, to say the least; Pess, on the other hand, turned tail and ran back into the bookstore. He sticks around the longest with Miles, much to everyone’s surprise. 

It’s a bit of a sore spot in the bookstore at the moment. 

Miles watches Hemingway lick at his dirty fur. He can’t imagine it’s doing much, and he’s certain it doesn’t taste good. Perhaps someday he’ll let Miles rub him down with a towel or something, though it’s a far way off. It’s been a slow, careful process just to get to where they are now, being able to stand in the alley at the same time without Hemingway sprinting off. He’s only scratched Miles a handful of times, only hissed and bared his teeth once, and he won’t let him touch or stand too close, but he’s still here, at least.

“I bet Wright would like you,” Miles sighs, watching Hemingway lick his paws. “He seems like the type to care about those who are down on their luck.”

Hemingway yawns in response, stretching out once more. He flicks his sole ear and regards the box, before getting to his feet to inspect it a little closer. As he does so, padding past Miles, he brushes against his leg ever so slightly. 

Miles freezes. The contact lasts only a moment before it’s gone. Hemingway seems indifferent, sniffing around his new box, but Miles stays stock-still for at least a minute after. He hadn’t even brushed by close enough for Miles to actually feel it against his leg, he only touched his slacks, but still. It’s something, and Miles swallows whatever strange feeling tied itself up in his throat, his thoughts darting about like minnows in a stream.

My pants are going to have fleas on them, was the first thought, and his second, Franziska is going to be furious before his line of thinking shifts into something like an unexpected thrill, a warm feeling like a loose knot in his chest. 

“I’m not attached to you,” Miles informs Hemingway, but it comes out a little weak. “Just because I gave you a box and feed you and care about you a little doesn’t mean I’m emotionally invested.”

Hemingway ignores him. He’s got a new box to investigate. 

Chapter Text

It’s a lazy afternoon in summer that brings the thunderstorm, the kind with thick, velvet clouds stealing across the sky, and that warm hum in the air that just sings of a downpour. The rain sweeps in, cloaking the bookstore in an atmosphere of closed-in peace, and Miles sips his tea (chamomile with honey and cinnamon, perfect for a rainy day) and ponders over the daily crossword at the front counter. Pess snuffles in her sleep by his feet, preferring to stick close by. She’s never been a fan of thunder.

Miles isn’t expecting any customers today, not with a thunderstorm on the horizon in the middle of the week, which is why he sent Kay home early before the worst of the rain hit. He doesn’t want her biking in a storm. With her gone, the only sounds in the entire store are the clock behind the counter, tick ticking at rhythm with the melodic pattering of rain. Miles flicks on the desk lamp to see his crossword better; the clouds have lit the bookstore with the kind of pleasant gray light that comes from a stormy day. 

Miles wonders how Hemingway is doing in the rain. He has his box, and Kay had set a towel over it to help protect it from getting wet that morning. He’s sure he’ll be fine; he’s managed this long in the elements, after all, but Miles can’t help a tiny part of him getting worried. He taps his pencil on the desk absentmindedly. His father would like Hemingway, he thinks. He always had a soft spot for strays. 

The wind knocks at the front door, whistling its merry tune. The rain paints abstract patterns on the windows. Miles hums, sips at the dregs of his tea that’s more milk and cinnamon than anything else. He should make another cup. Perhaps he’ll just close early and settle upstairs by the living room windows and read; rainy days are good for old, cozy classics, in Miles’s opinion, and he’s never actually finished Jane Eyre .

It’s then, as he’s contemplating going upstairs, that movement from outside draws his eye. He sets his cup down, glancing up, and catches a flash of green and yellow in the street and he can faintly hear laughter over the rain. He leans over the counter a bit further to get a better look out the bay windows and there, in the middle of the street, in the pouring rain, are Phoenix and Trucy Wright.

Miles watches as Trucy laughs, the hood of her green raincoat, designed to look like a smiling frog, slipping over her eyes. She grabs onto Phoenix’s arm with her small hands, bouncing on the heels of her yellow rain boots and he smiles, swinging her upwards so she can splash in the nearest puddle. Phoenix isn’t wearing a coat or a hat or anything: his jeans are drenched , his night-sky hair plastered to his forehead and he’s laughing so hard he looks out of breath. Trucy tugs at his arm again and he hefts her up, swinging her around in the rain until her froggy hood flies off and water traces rivers down her smiling face. 

“What on earth are they doing?” Miles mutters. If they keep messing about in the rain like that, they’re going to catch colds - not that he particularly cares . Whatever ridiculous antics those two get up to is certainly none of his business, Miles reminds himself, and he turns back to his crossword. He fills out two more rows (the answers being Rosa Parks and Papua New Guinea) before his attention is drawn once more by the sound of Phoenix and Trucy’s laughter cutting through the quiet rain. He looks up again; Trucy is swinging off a lamppost as if she’s in Singing in the Rain, though she’s missing the umbrella.

Before Miles knows it, he’s on his feet. Pess gives him a curious look but is evidently too comfortable to follow as he strides to the door. He’s not sure what causes him to get up, but he has hardly any time to regret it and turn back before Phoenix spots him opening the door and he’s waving heartily, a wave that isn’t returned. 

“What are you two doing?” Miles calls; he has to raise his voice slightly to be heard over the rain, which makes him wonder just how loud they must’ve been laughing for him to hear them inside the store. He’s certainly never laughed that loud before. 

“Splashing in puddles!” Trucy shouts back, jumping off the lamppost. 

Miles frowns. “Yes, well. I can see that. Why are you splashing in puddles? You’re soaking wet.”

Phoenix comes a bit closer so they don’t have to shout over the rain, squinting against the water dripping off his lashes. “We were about to walk home from the store but we wanted to play in the rain first.”

Miles glances at the sky. The clouds are darker, now, looming ever closer. “You’re going to walk home,” he repeats. 

Phoenix shrugs. “I don’t have a car.”

“Or a license!” Trucy adds, and Phoenix gives her a look.

Miles sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose while he tries to sort this out in his head. “Why on earth would you stop to play in the rain when it’s about to storm?”

“Well, we didn’t really know it was going to storm ,” Phoenix says slowly, looking at the sky.

“There’s such a thing as weather forecasts, Wright.”

There’s a tug at Miles’s pant leg, and he looks down to see Trucy staring up at him with wide eyes. “We just wanted to play in the rain,” she explains.

Miles shifts away, away from her wet, grabby hands. “Yes, I see that. I can’t imagine why.”

“Didn’t you ever play in the rain when you were a kid?” Phoenix asks, tilting his head. 

“No,” Miles replies sharply. “I wasn’t foolish enough to run around trying to catch a cold.”

Suddenly Phoenix is all too close again; he seems to have a tendency to do just that, to get all up in Miles’s personal space. Miles instinctively shifts back a little further into the doorway; he can feel the bookstore’s warmth at his back, the slight chill of the rain before him, and Phoenix , with his ridiculous mismatched eyes and freckles. 

“It sounds like you lived a boring childhood if you never played in the rain,” Phoenix says, his voice light, a drop of water slipping down his nose. 

“My childhood was perfectly fine,” Miles says tersely. “It sounds like you’ve never heard of an umbrella before.”

Trucy giggles. “It’s fun, Mr. Edgeworth! You should try it sometime!”

“I’d much prefer staying dry, thank you.”

Phoenix leans in a little closer, then, like he’s spotted a smudge of something on Miles’s face and he’s trying to figure out what it is, and he’s close enough to where Miles could count the paint-splatter freckles on his cheeks if he wanted to, which he doesn’t. His hands brush Miles’s wrists before Miles realizes he’s even reaching out, his skin damp from the rain but warm, too. Miles glances down at their hands, the sudden contact all too surprising because only Franziska touches him, really, and it’s more often to do something violent like slap at his arm than anything else and he’s so lost in his bewildered thoughts that he almost misses the horribly mischievous glint in Phoenix’s eye, and he realizes all too late what he’s about to do.

“Wright, don’t you dare -“

Before Miles even has the time to fight back or finish his sentence, Phoenix pulls him into the rain. When the rain  hits it isn’t cold, it’s warm and heavy and he’s thoroughly soaked in seconds . Miles gasps from the sheer shock of it, a sound he barely hears over Phoenix’s delighted laughter. He jerks back, but Phoenix’s hands are still at his wrists to prevent an escape. Water traces down Miles’s back, soaking through his shirt and he shudders, his shoulders hunching up by his ears.

“Doesn’t it feel nice?” Phoenix laughs, tugging Miles further into the street and swinging his arms like they’re stepping out onto a dance floor.

“ Phoenix ,” Miles sputters, trying to dig his heels into the street but he only succeeds in slipping around a bit instead. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Phoenix’s eyes widen, and he stops. A smile slowly blossoms on his face like a flower opening to the sun.

Miles glares daggers at him. “What?” he snaps, feeling defensive. 

“You called me Phoenix.”

“ What ?” 

“You called me Phoenix,” Phoenix repeats, and now his smile is huge and lopsided and bright, not so much a flower anymore but a kind of sun itself. His hands tighten a bit at Miles’s wrists, his thumbs pressing at his pulse points. “You’ve never called me that.”

Miles stares at him for a second. “That’s…” The gears turn slowly in his head and he can faintly hear Trucy splashing in puddles in the background, too focused on the rain to care about Miles’s internal storm. A raindrop catches on his eyelash, and he blinks it away. “That’s not the point, Wright! You can’t just…you can’t just drag people into the rain whenever you feel like it! It’s…it’s…” 

“Nice?” Phoenix supplies, tilting his head. “It’s just rain. It won’t kill you.”

Miles shivers, and only then does Phoenix let go of his wrists. Miles immediately turns on his heel and stalks back to the bookstore to get out of the rain, running a hand through his wet hair. He’s soaked , his shirt sticking to his skin and he has half a mind to storm right into the bookstore and shut and lock the door behind him, but as he’s on the threshold he stops. He sucks in a deep breath, staring into the warm bookstore before him. The rain patters down behind him and he can feel Phoenix’s eyes on his back.

Miles wipes the rain from his face, a futile effort, really, and turns back to glare at Phoenix. “You are the most irritating and frustrating person I’ve ever met in my entire life, Wright.”

Phoenix blinks, his crooked eyebrows raised. There’s a moment of silence between them, punctuated by rain and the sound of Trucy’s yellow boots splashing in puddles, before Phoenix bursts into laughter. It bubbles up from his chest into a sound loud and light and happy; he laughs so hard he doubles over and Trucy, without even knowing what he’s laughing about, starts giggling, too. 

Miles stands there on the stoop, staring out at this insufferable thorn in his side with his head full of his laughter and the rain. That knot is in his chest again, and he knows he should feel more irritated than he actually does. More annoyingly, he knows that Phoenix knows he’s not as irritated as he sounds. 

The sky overhead grows darker still, the clouds gathering in thick, dark clumps like close-grown flowers. Miles catches the tail end of a flash of lightning arcing through the clouds, and the thunder, when it comes, rumbles sudden and low. Trucy starts at the sound, nearly slipping on the wet road but catching her balance on Phoenix’s leg. 

“We should get going,” Phoenix says, then, pushing his wet hair off his forehead. He shifts down, reaching for Trucy’s hand. “Come on, Truce. We probably should’ve left already, we don’t want to get caught up in that.”

Miles frowns, ignores his first thought of then why did you stick around to splash in puddles for something slightly more polite. “You can’t walk home in a storm. ”

“Oh, we don’t mind,” Phoenix says quickly. “What’s a little rain, you know?”

Trucy looks at the sky and toys with the hem of her froggy raincoat. Miles frowns even deeper. He knows what he has to do, and he absolutely does not want to, but he can’t in his good conscience let this idiot walk his daughter home in a thunderstorm.

“You’re not walking home,” Miles says firmly, and Phoenix cocks his head. 

“We can’t stay at the flower shop,” he says, clearly confused. “Mia already locked the door and I don’t have a key.”

Miles huffs, pinching at the bridge of his nose. He hates himself sometimes. “Just get in the store.”

Trucy’s eyes widen. “Are we sleeping over in the bookstore ?” she gasps, grabbing at Miles’s pant leg.

Miles steps to the left, away from her hands. “Please stop grabbing me,” he says, as politely as he can muster. “And no. You’ll dry off and wait for the worst of it to pass, and then you’ll go home.”

“Oh.” Trucy droops. “Okay.”

Phoenix glances upward, toward the clouds. He looks a little relieved.. “I don’t…are you sure? We’ll be fine walking home, it’s really not that long of a-“

“No.” Miles taps his finger at the crook of his elbow, an anxious habit. He avoids Phoenix’s eyes, looking at the sky instead. “You’re already soaking wet and you’ll both likely catch a cold if you keep it up.” 

Phoenix watches him for a second, and when the lightning flashes a second time, startling Trucy into grabbing at Miles’s leg again , Miles imagines he could see the lightning flicker in Phoenix’s thoughtful blue-brown gaze if he were looking. After the thunder rolls through, the gods bowling, as Miles’s father used to say, Phoenix’s lips quirk into a smile and he nods. 

“Okay.”

Miles makes Phoenix and Trucy stand on the stoop while he fetches towels to dry them off. He will not have them dripping rainwater all over his floors, and who knows what kind of mud they might track in with their dirty shoes. As he heads upstairs, he catches himself glancing at the back door. Perhaps he should grab a dry one for Hemingway. 

I’m not attached, Miles thinks firmly. I don’t get attached. 

Miles changes into something dry and does his best to towel off his hair, trying to comb it into some semblance of proper. He heads back downstairs with towels and carefully sneaks out the back to replace the one on Hemingway’s box (he finds Hemingway inside, sleeping the rain away), and when he returns he finds the two Wrights giggling, surely over something ridiculous. Pess is bouncing on her paws at their feet, trying to lean on Phoenix’s legs but he keeps pushing her off so she doesn’t get wet.

Miles hands them both a towel, and Phoenix races Trucy to see who can dry off faster, leaving them both with damp, rumpled clothes and hair sticking out at wild angles. Trucy leaves her yellow rain boots by the door next to Phoenix’s tattered sneakers, and politely asks what she should do with her raincoat. 

“Er. I suppose we can bring it upstairs,” Miles says carefully, wishing he had a coat rack in the bookstore.

“ Upstairs? ” Trucy repeats, her eyes growing wide as saucers. “There’s more bookstore?”

“ No , no. I live upstairs.”

“You live above a bookstore ?”

Miles’s eyebrow twitches. “Yes. I just said that.”

Phoenix smiles, gently bumping Trucy’s cheek with the back of his hand. “Calm down, Truce,” he says softly, and Miles abruptly turns away before he can focus too hard on the look in Phoenix’s eye. He walks to the back of the store without saying anything else. After a moment, he hears their footsteps, Trucy’s rushed and light and Phoenix’s louder, shuffling, in a way. Pess, as she always does, immediately races up the stairs and stands expectantly at the door. 

He hesitates before opening the door to his apartment. Like ripping off a bandaid, he thinks, and quickly turns the handle to let the Wrights in. 

The first thing Phoenix does when he crosses the threshold to Miles’s apartment is cock his head, glancing around the living room, and smile. “It smells like tea in here,” he remarks.  “That makes sense, for you.”

Miles blinks. He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he turns his gaze to Trucy, who’s sat herself down on the living room rug with her arms thrown around Pess’s neck. Pess wags her tail, licking at Trucy’s ear and eliciting a stream of happy giggles. 

Phoenix smiles. “She’s a good dog.”

Miles just nods, and hangs Trucy’s froggy raincoat on the rack by the door. 

It’s strange to see other people in his apartment. It’s strange to see a child in his apartment. It feels wrong, like a perverse invasion of his privacy and that knot in his chest tightens a bit. 

Phoenix touches his arm, then, and Miles jumps.

“Oh, sorry,” Phoenix says quickly, stepping back. “I didn’t mean to…I just wanted to say thanks. For letting us stay here.” He rubs at the back of his neck. He’s speaking softly, like he doesn’t want Trucy to overhear. “I know we’re probably…not who you’d usually have over.”

You’re not wrong, Miles thinks, but doesn’t say it. “Don’t mention it. Hopefully neither of you catch a cold.”

“Hopefully not.” Phoenix’s eye flick across Miles’s face, and Miles feels uncomfortable. “Are you sure you’re okay with us waiting out the rain here? I don’t want to cause any trouble, or…annoy you, or anything.”

There’s something in his voice, something discordant, but Miles can’t place it.

“I’m not going to kick you out now that you’re already here,” Miles replies carefully. “It’s fine. As long as you don’t break anything.”

“You’re not worried about Trucy breaking something?”

Miles raises a brow. “No.”

“I’ll be extra careful then,” Phoenix says, a chuckle rounding out the words. 

“Good. Great.” Miles glances at the kitchen. “Well. I’m going to go make tea, then. In the kitchen.”

Phoenix smiles, crooked. “Okay.”

Miles flees to the kitchen, feeling that sharp, tight knot in his chest. He regrets this. He regrets this a lot . He doesn’t want other people wandering around his apartment, and certainly not Phoenix and Trucy Wright. He can hear them giggling in the living room. They've barged into his life so much already, they hardly need to barge into his apartment. 

“They’re not barging,” Miles mutters to himself. “You let them in yourself.”

He sighs, staring at his hands where they sit white knuckled on the counter, and moves to pick up the kettle.

“What are you making?”

Miles almost drops the kettle onto Trucy’s head. God, she’s quiet. “Tea,” he replies tersely, and sets the kettle on the stove.

“What kind?”

“…Peppermint.”

Trucy’s eyes widen. “Like candy canes?”

“No.”

Trucy frowns, but doesn’t say anything else. She watches Miles intently as he measures out the tea. Her gaze is so intense it makes Miles slightly anxious, and he almost spills the leaves. He can feel her eyes on him as he waits for the kettle to boil, as he pours hot water over the tea leaves in his favorite mug, and even as he adds a drop of honey. 

It only takes about five minutes, but five minutes is a long time to stand there with someone silently staring at you, and by the time his tea is done Miles needs it for his nerves more than he did at the beginning. 

Miles picks up his mug, letting it warm his hands, turned cold by the rain. He turns to look at Trucy, or, rather, a spot above Trucy’s head, and clears his throat. “Do you…need something?” 

Trucy tilts her head. She’s stolen a blanket from the living room, and she’s wearing it around her shoulders like a cape.  “Do you know how to make golden milk tea?” she asks. 

“…No. I’m afraid I’ve never heard of it.”

“Oh.” She sounds crestfallen, and Miles panics a bit, worried she’ll burst into tears or do something equally awful and loud that he won’t know how to deal with. But she doesn’t cry; she merely shakes her head and looks back at Miles. “Will you let Daddy make it, then?”

“What, here ?” Miles says, without thinking. 

Trucy blinks. “Where else would he make it?”

“Yes. Well. I suppose you’re right.” Miles picks at the cuff of his shirt sleeve. “I’m not entirely sure if I have the right kind of tea, though.”

“That’s okay! There isn’t any tea in it,” Trucy says brightly, and she darts off to the living room, leaving a bemused Miles behind. 

He looks down at his tea, watching the steam twist and writhe like snakes in the air. “What kind of tea doesn’t have tea in it?” he mutters, and takes a too-hot sip. 

In a moment, Trucy’s returned, hauling a confused Phoenix behind her. She deposits him in the kitchen before hopping on the stool behind the counter, patting the granite surface. “Uncle Miles said you can make golden milk tea.”

Miles chokes on his tea. 

“Trucy,” Phoenix says, and it comes out a bit garbled and wheezy. 

Trucy blinks at both of them, the picture of innocence. “His last name is hard to say.”

“It isn’t,” Miles mutters, a bit weakly, as he’s saying it more to his tea than to Trucy. “It’s two syllables.”

Trucy looks down at her hands, then. She blinks her big brown eyes. “Okay. I guess it isn’t that hard to say,” she says, her voice quiet, “but I’ve never had an uncle before and I thought Mr. Edgeworth would be a good one. He brought my bracelet back, and now he’s making sure we don’t catch colds by letting us stay in his bookstore house, and I think he’s nice even if he’s grumpy and he has a dog and you like him too, Daddy, and he’s going to let you make golden milk tea.”

Miles notices she doesn’t stumble over his name that time. 

Phoenix exhales. There’s a red flush to his cheeks that Miles barely catches in the dim kitchen light. “Sorry,” he says softly. “She’s…got a mind of her own, sometimes.”

“It’s…” Miles swallows. He looks at his tea; it’s nearly gone. He drank it quicker than usual. He can see Trucy shuffling in her seat out of the corner of his eye, and that strange feeling tightens even further in his chest but it isn’t unpleasant, it’s warm and heavy, like the rain. “It’s fine.”

“You don’t mind?” Phoenix asks softly. He’s all too close, and he smells like rain. Miles exhales sharply through his nose and leans away. 

“Mind what? The tea or your daughter?”

Phoenix smiles, crinkles forming at the corners of his mismatched eyes. “Either.”

Miles glances at Trucy. She’s still looking at her hands. “She can…call me whatever she wants,” he mutters, and he looks back at his tea before he can catch the look on Trucy’s face. “And don’t demolish my kitchen.”

He’s not looking at Phoenix, either (he’s doing that on purpose) but he can hear the smile in his voice, the low, amused exhale of breath. “I’ll try not to.” 

Phoenix slips past him into the kitchen, his arm brushing against Miles’s sleeve, and starts opening random doors. Miles doesn’t have a clue what he’s looking for, but just stands there and lets him rummage through his kitchen because he’s too confused and bewildered to say anything otherwise. 

“Do you have fresh turmeric root?”

Miles blinks, jerking back to reality. “Um. No. I only have it ground.”

“Okay, that’ll work too,” Phoenix says, smiling. “What about fresh ginger?”

“It’s in the fridge.”

Miles watches as Phoenix assembles ingredients: ginger, turmeric, black pepper, cinnamon. He chops and peels the ginger, snaps a cinnamon stick in half. He pours milk in a pan and sprinkles in the spices, not measuring at all, humming an indistinct song under his breath all the while. The kitchen begins to smell heady and warm, like fall rather than summer, and Trucy bounces expectantly on her toes as Phoenix whisks the pot. The rain patters on the apartment windows, thunder rumbles and the candle on the kitchen counter flickers. Pess sits by Trucy, leaning against her legs. 

“What exactly is golden milk tea?” Miles asks, finally. “Trucy said there’s no tea in it.”

“It’s like spiced milk,” Phoenix explains, as he adds a spoonful of honey to the pot. “Do you want to try it? It’s good for getting warm.”

Miles taps his foot. He is curious, and it smells good, a bit like chai, but a bit different, too. “Okay.”

Phoenix strains the golden milk tea into three cups and tops them all with a dash of cinnamon. Miles notices that Phoenix purposefully put less in his own cup so Trucy could have more. He sets a mug in front of Miles, glancing up to catch his eye before looking away. 

“There,” he says, a smile tugging at his lips. “I hope you like it.”

Miles takes the cup. It’s warm in his palm, but not burning. It’s a soft, golden yellow, and smells rich: ginger and turmeric and cinnamon spice. Trucy’s already drunk half of her cup, swinging her legs and giggling at something Phoenix just said. Phoenix slides an expectant look Miles’s direction and quirks a brow.

Miles raises the cup, and takes a sip. 

It tastes nice. 

Chapter Text

“Okay, how about this one, then?”

Franziska hardly spares the book a glance. “No.”

“What’s wrong with The Shining?”

“I am not putting that book on the display.”

Kay frowns, but sets the book down anyway and digs through the box beside her to find another. She’s sitting on the counter (again), the heels of her pink combat boots thumping lightly on the counter’s front as she swings her legs. “Okay, what about…this one?” 

She holds up a used copy of It, but Franziska doesn’t even look up before she waves a dismissive hand. She tucks a strand of pale hair behind her ear, stepping back to scrutinize her work. It’s only the first week of September but she’s already started on the fall window display; the fall display has always been hers, even when she was young, and unsurprisingly, she takes it very seriously. She already has half the books picked out. 

“Gerald’s Game," Kay offers.

“No.”

“Desperation?”

“Kay,” Franziska says, using that exasperated tone she typically reserves just for Kay (though she certainly isn’t fooling Miles; he knows Franziska is fond of Kay and her antics). “I am not putting Stephen King on my display.”

Kay glances at the book in her hand. “Desperation was written by Richard Bachman,” she says, pointing at the author’s name.

“Richard Bachman isn’t real. It’s King’s nom de plume.”

“His nom de what?”

Franziska sighs. “Pen name, Kay. Richard Bachman is Stephen King’s pen name. He still wrote Desperation, and therefore is not allowed to be on the display.”

“Oh.” Kay frowns down at the book before resignedly setting it on top of her rejected books pile. She swings her feet a little harder and her heels thump thump against the wood; Miles, sitting behind the counter, gives her a pointed look that goes wholly unnoticed. “Why won’t you put Stephen King on the display? He’s like, the horror guy. And the display is for horror books. I feel like you should probably put him on there!” 

Franziska considers Kay over the top of the display rack with her icy blue gaze. She nods once, before setting down the book in her hand and stepping around the display to look Kay more fully in the eye, crossing her arms firmly over her chest.

“Here we go,” Miles mutters. Kay gives him an alarmed look, and he merely shrugs in response. If she didn’t want to set off a Franziska rant, she shouldn’t have asked her about Stephen King.

“Stephen King,” Franziska says tersely, pointing at Kay’s stack of rejected books, “is completely and utterly overrated. He may have brought interesting ideas to the horror genre, but there are far more interesting authors out there.” She starts to tick such authors off her fingers. “Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Ruth Ware. Shirley Jackson. Edgar Allen Poe. Honestly, have you read It ? It’s one of the driest books I’ve ever slogged through. Is the idea interesting? Yes. Was the execution good?”

Here, Franziska pauses, staring expectantly at Kay.

Kay blinks. “Um. I’m going to guess probably not?”

“Well, it certainly could’ve been better ,” Franziska scoffs. “He may have had a few engaging books but he’s too hit or miss for me, and sometimes his ideas are positively foolish. An orgy? Between children?” She throws her hands in the air. “What the fuck is that?”

“Wait, hold on, there’s a child orgy?” Kay looks at Miles, eyes wide. “Where’s the child orgy?”

“Misery was good,” Miles offers, ignoring Kay, but Franziska merely glares at him with a look that could kill him if he wasn’t so used to it. 

“Listen, Franziska, I hear ya,” Kay says. “Any guy who writes a child orgy ain’t a friend of mine, you know what I’m sayin’? But - and hear me out here - he’s got a huge rep in the horror world. If you put a book of his on the display it could make people want to check out what else gets to, like, be on the same shelf as a King book, y’know? You could put one of his good books on there, like a more overlooked one that someone might not know about. As long as it isn’t the child orgy one.”

“It is the child orgy one,” Miles informs her, but she gives him a blank look. Clearly the joke didn’t land.

Franziska crosses her arms. “Stephen King has had his time in the spotlight. There are better, lesser-known authors out there, and I’d be doing a disservice to have people ignore them to choose a more popular author.” 

“But-“

“You aren’t going to win this one, Kay,” Miles interrupts lightly. “If Franziska doesn’t want King on the display, he’s not going on the display.”

Franziska frowns. “You are not invited to this conversation, Miles Edgeworth.”

Miles resists the amused smile that pulls at his mouth and keeps his expression blank. “I don’t believe you have the authority to tell me what to do, Fran. Last time I checked, I’m your boss.”

“You’re a bigger fool than I thought if you believe your ownership of the store means that your opinions have value.”

“Aw.” Kay sets a consoling hand on Miles’s shoulder. “I’m sorry your opinions don’t matter, Mr. Edgeworth.”

“Believe me, it is not a new revelation.”

“Your opinions matter to me,” she adds. 

“Wonderful. If you don’t get off the counter right now I will fire you.”

Kay giggles, and remains planted firmly on the counter. “You could never fire me. We have a deep emotional bond.”

“We do not.

“We do! Right, Franziska?”

“I only have an emotional bond with one person and it’s certainly not Miles Edgeworth,” Franziska replies cooly, and turns back to her display. 

“We’re all aware of how much more you care for your elusive girlfriend than myself,” Miles says, rolling his eyes. Franziska smirks at him. 

“Well, you still have an emotional bond with me.” Kay pats Miles on the head. “And -“

Miles glares at her. “Don’t you dare say what I think you’re going to say.”

Kay holds her hands up as if she’s being robbed, then grins at Miles and furiously waggles her eyebrows. 

Miles stares at her for a moment, and she only continues to waggle her eyebrows. He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. It’s been approximately four days since the thunderstorm, and for every one of those four days Miles has deeply regretted telling Kay that the Wrights waited it out at his apartment. He should’ve known better, really. You think he would’ve learned after the time (the one time) Miles wore his sweater inside out and Kay teased him for it for an entire month.

Miles looks back up at Kay. “You’re a menace.” 

“Aw, but you love me anyway.”

“Who do we love?” Gumshoe asks, as he emerges from the door to the backroom with two heavy boxes in his arms. 

“Well,” Kay begins, but snaps her mouth shut when she finds herself on the receiving end of one of Miles’s nastier glares. 

Gumshoe raises a confused brow but doesn’t comment. He hefts the boxes onto the counter with a grunt, stretching out his back. “Oof, those are heavy. Where do you want ‘em?”

“Put them there.” Franziska points at a spot near the display, and Gumshoe (who’s, frankly, terrified of Franziska) quickly deposits the boxes where she wants them. “Do we have House of Leaves?”

“That’s an unconventional title,” Miles remarks. 

“We just talked about the worth of your opinions, little brother. Do we have the book or not?”

“We might have a copy or two. Do you want me to add more to the orders list?”

Franziska nods, scrutinizing her display. “Add The Haunting of Hill House, too.”

“You know,” Kay says thoughtfully, tapping at her jaw, “we always do horror and stuff for the fall display. Don’t you think we should do murder sometime?” She pauses, and Miles gives her an amused look. “Wait. That kinda makes it sound like I want to kill people.”

“Only a bit.”

“Just so the cop in the room knows, I don’t. I have no murderous intentions whatsoever, in fact, I’m super against murder! Cross my heart,” Kay proclaims, moving to actually cross her heart. She hesitates halfway through, a thoughtful look crossing her face. “Wait, actually…does a goose count? ‘Cause a goose stole my asiago bagel once and if I see that fucker again it’s game over.”

“A goose,” Miles repeats.

“Have you met a goose? They’ve got no honor. Hey, Gummy, can you arrest me for killing a goose?”

“Uh…” Gumshoe rubs at the back of his neck, furrowing his thick brows together. “I don’t… think so?”

Kay nods, that thoughtful look still on her face. “That’s very helpful information. You’ve done me a great service today.”

Gumshoe frowns. “Please don’t run around killin’ geese, Kay.”

“It would only be one goose.”

“How would you know which goose was the one that stole your bagel?”

“I’d just know,” Kay replies seriously. She taps at her chest. “I have an urge for honorable revenge that won’t be quenched and it’ll instantly recognize the goose that did me dirty.”

Gumshoe blinks. He gets that special confused look on his face that only Kay seems to draw out of him, though it isn’t particularly difficult to confuse Gumshoe in general. Miles shifts in his chair as Kay and Gumshoe delve into the ethics of goose-based crime, and he catches Franziska rolling her eyes. He’d asked Gumshoe to stop by after their weekly Sunday walk in the park specifically to help Franziska move boxes of books around for her display work, and he’s sure she didn’t expect the morality of avian thievery to be a topic of discussion (though Miles can’t say he’s surprised. Stranger conversations have been had involving Kay). 

It’d been a nice walk, today. The maple trees in the park are starting to shift from green to gold, and it’s finally begun to cool off outside. Miles likes fall; not too hot, not too cold, and he can wear long sleeves without Kay nagging at him for being a prude. Once the leaves begin to fall he’ll take Pess to the park so she can run through the leaf piles at the base of the trees, and she’ll get leaves tangled up in her long fur that he’ll have to pick out later and he’ll wonder whether it was worth it for an hour of enjoyment on Pess’s part. Ultimately he’ll decide that, despite the tedious process of trying to de-leaf her fur, Pess absolutely adores running through leaf piles so he’ll simply have to manage. 

He wonders, absentmindedly, whether Pess and Missile are destroying his living room upstairs. 

“Hey, Mr. Edgeworth,” Kay says, drawing Miles from his thoughts. “You-“

“Counter.” 

Kay rolls her eyes but jumps off the counter anyway. “Okay, can I actually speak now?”

Miles raises a brow at her. “What is it?”

(This is one of the many moments in Miles’s time knowing Kay Faraday that she decides to ruin his life. He should’ve known better, really.)

“You should tell Gummy about your date!”

Miles nearly snaps his pencil in half. 

“Your what ?” Gumshoe exclaims (extremely loudly), whipping around to face Miles head on. His expression is a mixture of excitement and total devastation. “You went on a date and you didn’t tell me ? Mr. Edgeworth! I thought we were friends.”

Miles pinches the bridge of his nose. “For god’s sake, stop shouting. It wasn’t-“

“Oh, so you’re saying you invited flower boy and his daughter into your home out of what ,” Franziska drawls, her voice oozing with amusement, “the goodness of your heart?”

“ Yes, I mean, no, I-“

“You went on a date with Phoenix Wright?” Gumshoe squawks. 

Miles wishes, not for the first time, that he could simply wink out of existence. Unfortunately, he can’t do that, so maybe he should just move as far away as physically possible. Siberia sounds nice. Maybe the Galápagos. Living among giant tortoises sounds much more pleasant than listening to Gumshoe accuse him of dating Phoenix Wright behind his back. 

Which he’s still doing.

“I can’t believe you went on a date with Mr. Wright and you didn’t tell me,” Gumshoe says, and he sounds positively offended. “ You’re one of my best friends, Mr. Edgeworth, and best friends should tell each other when they’ve got boyfriends. If I had a boyfriend I would tell you.” 

Miles’s face flushes. “I don’t,” he sputters. 

“Wait,” Kay interrupts, “do you know Phoenix, Gummy?” 

“Oh, sure I do! We’ve known each other for a while,” Gumshoe says brightly. “He’s a real nice guy, and his daughter’s a sweetheart, too. You know, I wish you told me but I’m happy for you, Mr. Edge-“

In one abrupt movement Miles stands and slams his hands on the counter so hard that both Kay and Gumshoe jump.  “It wasn’t a date,” he says crossly. His face feels uncomfortably hot, and he desperately wants to escape upstairs and lock the door behind him. “That idiot was going to walk his daughter home in a thunderstorm and I let them wait it out in my apartment. That’s all that happened! Nothing else happened! ” 

“For someone who insists nothing happened, you’re acting rather defensive,” Franziska remarks from her display. “Wouldn’t you say, little brother?”

She meets Miles’s glare with a cool gaze, and he takes a deep breath; Franziska always manages to twist him all out of sorts, but she won’t this time. He straightens out his posture and steels his expression into something less emotional. 

“I’m sure I have no idea what you mean, Franziska.” The words come out a bit tense for his liking, and he winces internally. She’ll pick up on that. “We did nothing special.”

Franziska lifts a perfect, slender brow. Miles can see the beginnings of a smirk playing around the corners of her mouth. “Certainly you wouldn’t mind telling us what not-special things you did on your not-date then, hm?”

Miles feels his eyebrow twitch. She’s trying to rile him up with her pointed, suggestive words and that devilish look in her eye, but it won’t work. 

“We made tea,” he says carefully, “and we read.”

“Can you guys stop having a glare-off?” Kay pleads. “You’re freaking me and Gumshoe out.”

Her plea goes unheard. Franziska hums, tilting her head, never breaking eye contact. Miles is convinced she hasn’t blinked yet. 

“Is that all?” she asks, and Miles is certain that smug note in her voice has no business being there. 

“Yes. Nothing else happened.”

He’s not technically lying. 

He’d felt overwhelmed after the incident in the kitchen, where Trucy declared he’d make an excellent uncle (and for some ridiculous reason he’d been fine with it) and then Phoenix made tea that wasn’t actually tea and the turmeric stained the tips of his fingers yellow like the paint that streaked across his skin as frequently as his freckles. It tasted like honey and turmeric and cinnamon, and seeing Trucy use one of Miles’s favorite mugs made that strange knot in his chest twist a little tighter. It was for the sake of his sanity, really, that he offered the choice to quietly read in the living room instead of talk. 

At the time, he’d thought it was a good idea. They could pick a book from the bookstore and then sit and read while the storm battered at the apartment windows, something Miles was already planning to do, and hopefully Phoenix and Trucy would just fade to the corners of his consciousness and he could forget they were there entirely, lost in his book.

(This did not happen.)

Trucy had politely asked to borrow a copy of Dragon Spear, the second book in the Dragon Slippers series that Miles had chosen for her that first time they met. Phoenix had declined to pick a book from the store; instead, he closed his eyes and ran his hand back and forth along the bookshelf in Miles’s living room.

“Tell me when to stop, Truce,” he’d said, brushing his finger across the spines. 

The book Trucy directed he stopped at had turned out to be an old, weathered copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Miles had tensed as Phoenix pulled it off the shelf, running his turmeric-stained sunflower yellow fingers over the cover. That book had been his father’s; it has his handwriting scribbled in the margins, all his notes and thoughts that Miles has read over a thousand times to try and imagine them in his father’s soft baritone voice. Seeing Phoenix hold that book had felt like an invasion of privacy even though Phoenix had no way of understanding that without Miles telling him, and that was something Miles could not do. 

“Sherlock Holmes,” Phoenix had said, smiling down at the cover, worn from all the times it had been opened by Miles and his father both. He’d looked up at Miles, given him his crooked smile. “That makes sense for you.”

Miles hadn’t replied. He merely sat down with his own random book from the shelves downstairs, one he’d pulled while finding Trucy’s book: This Is How It Always Is, a book about a little boy who wants to be a girl when he grows up. He sat down, opened the book, and did his best to dutifully ignore Phoenix and Trucy Wright. He’d only gotten halfway through chapter two when he’d given up. 

They weren't particularly distracting. They were just reading, which was the problem. 

Miles has learned several things in his time owning the Corner Bookstore. He’s learned not to put books with sexual content on shelves low enough for small hands to reach. He’s learned that, despite the questionable actions of the author, certain people will be extremely upset if he takes Harry Potter off the shelves. He’s learned that there’s no point in stocking dictionaries because no one wants to buy one. 

Most importantly, he’s learned that you can find out quite a lot about a person by the way they read. 

Kay, for example, reads with reckless abandon. She’ll begin a book and drop it halfway through for another one, and sometimes she reads the last chapter just to see if the book is worth reading at all. When she reads she sprawls out in the unlikeliest places, lying on the floor like a cat in a sunbeam or on her back with a book held high above her head, only for her to drop it on her face when her arms get tired. Miles has found her curled up in the armchair in the nook, her limbs twisted into a position that hardly looks comfortable with a book tucked away in her lap. She’s the type to dog-ear her pages rather than bookmark them and use a stack of books as a table. Once she read a book upside down just to see if she could (the book being the fourth in the How to Train Your Dragon series. She had not read the first three).

Franziska, on the other hand, reads a book with the intent to finish it; if she’s begun one, she has to finish, even if she hates it. Her bookshelves are perfectly neat and organized, not only by genre but also alphabetically by author within each genre. Each book looks brand-new, like she hasn’t opened it at all, even the ones she’s read several times. Miles will never understand exactly how Franziska doesn’t crease the spine or bend the cover of a book when she reads; he’s convinced he could give her a heavily used book with a torn cover and it’ll come back looking as if it was only recently bound. 

Gumshoe’s a disaster, if Miles has to be nice about it. The man has clearly never heard of a bookmark, and sticks any convenient object in there to keep his place. He eats when he reads and has a tendency to fold the front cover around the spine when reading, leaving the pages almost permanently bent. 

Miles makes a point to give him heavily-used books when he can. It’s less heart-breaking that way.

He’s seen a lot of people reading. He’s picked up on the tiny habits they do when they’re focused on a book, like how Kay sticks out the tip of her tongue sometimes or how Franziska loses her composure, just a bit, when something shocking happens in the story. It feels like a glance into who they are, and during that thunderstorm four days ago, when Miles had the chance to see how two of the most bewildering people he’s ever met acted when they read, he took it. 

To understand why they were so irritating, of course.

Trucy, he learned, is the quiet sort of reader, reminding Miles a bit of Franziska. She’s careful with the pages, like she’s afraid of bending or tearing the paper, holding the book gently in her lap. Her eyes widen when she reaches what must be a surprising or dramatic part, and sometimes whatever’s happening on the page makes her smile. Occasionally, she pipes up to ask Phoenix the meaning of a word she doesn’t know, but she does it softly, as if she doesn’t want to disturb the quiet.

Phoenix is a different story. He mumbles when he reads, barely more than a whisper. He mutters random snatches of sentences or half-words under his breath, spilling from his tongue like his mind doesn’t have enough space for all the words to fit with all the other thoughts in there. It isn’t annoying or irritating or anything other than slightly charming, a realization that caused Miles’s cheeks to flare red and he forced himself to get through another chapter of his book before paying Phoenix any more attention. Luckily Phoenix hadn’t noticed; he was entirely focused on The Hound of the Baskervilles, and Miles could see him tilting his head or turning the book this way and that as he read all the little notes Miles’s father had left behind, that crooked smile playing on his lips. When something amusing happened he exhaled a soft little laugh, and when he was confused he wrinkled his brow, as expressive in reading as he is in conversation.

You’re supposed to be annoyed, Miles had reminded himself, then.These people are invading your private space.

About half an hour had passed of trying to convince himself to pay attention to his book and not the people wedging their way into his life before Trucy stood up, gently setting her book on the coffee table, and sat down cross-legged in front of Phoenix with her arms folded on his leg. She rested her chin on her arms, and he set down the book to look at her.

“Daddy,” she’d said, “will you read to me?”

Phoenix had frowned, glancing down at The Hound of the Baskervilles. “I don’t know, Truce, this is kind of an intense one.”

“I’m brave!”

Phoenix hesitated. He looked up at Miles, then, a question in his mismatched eyes. “I don’t want to bother Miles by reading out loud.”

“Uncle Miles won’t mind,” Trucy had said, twisting to look at Miles. “Right?”

Miles had felt his cheeks grow hot. He quickly looked down at his book, still only on page twenty-four. “It’s…it’s fine. I can tune it out.”

“Are you sure?”

Miles nodded sharply, refusing to look up to meet Phoenix’s gaze. 

He heard Phoenix clear his throat. “You want me to start over or just keep going where I am?”

“You can keep going,” Trucy said, “but you have to tell me what happened already so I’m not confused. And read to me the exciting parts.”

Phoenix began to recap in his honey-tenor voice, explaining the visit of a Dr. James Mortimer to Sherlock Holmes to inform him of a problem. He started to read to Trucy the paper the doctor had brought the master detective. Miles could tell Phoenix was skipping over the drier parts of the story, cutting straight to only the most essential and exciting bits, like the escape of the maiden stolen away by Hugo Baskerville and the subsequent release of Hugo’s hounds to find her. Miles caught himself leaning in a bit to listen; there just was something about Phoenix’s voice, dropped low to a hushed whisper as rain battered down on the windows and the thunder rumbled in the distance. 

“Hugo’s guests went after him,” Phoenix said, “and soon they passed a shepherd in the hills and they asked him if they’d seen Hugo or the maiden. And the man, as the story goes, was so crazed with fear that he could scarcely speak, but at last he said that he had indeed seen the maiden with the hounds chasing after her.”

And here Trucy had gasped, leaning into Phoenix’s leg further as her eyes grew wide. “Does he catch the maiden?” she’d asked, her voice just as hushed as Phoenix’s. He’d merely given her a wink and kept reading. 

“But I have seen more than that, said the shepherd,” he continued, now reading word-for-word from the book, “for Hugo Baskerville passed me upon his black mare, and there ran mute behind him such a hound of hell that God forbid should ever be at my heels.”

At this, Trucy abruptly stood. She came right up to Miles, grabbed him by the hand, and pulled. 

“What are you doing?” Miles had asked, resisting the urge to snatch his hand back.

Trucy stuck out her bottom lip. “Come sit with us.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because I want you to,” Trucy had said, in that tone of voice that children get when they’re convinced they’ve won despite the fact her argument was hardly logical. 

Phoenix exhaled a soft laugh. “Don’t make him, Truce. Miles, you don’t have to.” 

Trucy had just pouted even further, looking up at Miles with her eyes big and brown like Pess’s puppy-dog eyes when she wants to go on a walk. Her hand was small and warm in his. “Please?”

(This would be one of countless times in Miles’s life where he found it impossible to say no to Trucy Wright.)

Miles had sighed, and stood up, trying not to acknowledge the excited expression on Trucy’s face. He dutifully sat at the other end of the couch, as far away from Phoenix as he could, and Trucy tucked herself between the two, not quite touching but still close enough where Miles felt slightly awkward at the proximity. 

“Okay, Daddy, you can keep going,” Trucy said contentedly. 

Phoenix chuckled, reaching over to muss up Trucy’s hair and when she slapped his hand away he smiled even wider before settling back into the book and continuing the tale.

Once or twice as Phoenix read, he’d looked up over the top of the book and met Miles’s eye, and at this proximity Miles saw the way his eyes had crinkled at the corners as a smile pulled at his lips before he looked back at the page, and Miles could feel heat building at the back of his neck and a prickle run up his arms. 

“The moon was shining brightly upon the clearing,” Phoenix continued, leaning in close to Trucy as if he didn’t want anyone else to overhear, “and there in the center lay the unhappy maid where she had fallen, dead of fear and fatigue. But it was not the sight of her body, nor yet was it that of the body of Hugo Baskerville lying near her, which raised the hair upon the heads of these three daredevil roisterers-“

“What does roisterers mean?” Trucy interrupted.

Phoenix glanced up at Miles, an eyebrow raised. 

Miles sighed. “It means a noisy person who likes to drink and party.”

“Thank you,” Trucy said politely, patting him on the knee, then turned back to Phoenix. “Okay, keep going.”

“Um…where was I…yes, the three daredevil roisterers. It wasn’t the body of the maiden, nor the body of Hugo Baskerville beside her that raised the hair upon their heads, but it was that, standing over Hugo and plucking at his throat,” Phoenix read, dropping his voice even further and leaning ever closer, “there stood a foul thing, a great, black beast shaped like a hound, yet larger than any hound that mortal eye has rested upon.”

Trucy gasped softly, and she reached for Miles’s hand. He stiffened. 

“And even as they looked the thing tore the throat out of Hugo Baskerville, on which, as it turned its blazing eyes and dripping jaws upon them, the three shrieked with fear and rode for dear life, still screaming, across the moor…”

That damn knot in Miles’s chest had twisted ever tighter that day of the thunderstorm, watching Phoenix Wright read to his daughter his father’s favorite book. He could feel it when Phoenix put on a silly city accent that sounded a bit like Gumshoe’s when reading Dr. Watson’s lines, and he could feel it when Trucy turned to smile at him as if she were making sure he was having a good time, too. He could feel it there, resting heavy in his chest, when Phoenix neared the end of the chapter and had Trucy so enraptured in the story that she didn’t want him to stop, despite the fact the storm had passed and the rain had turned to a drizzle against the windows. 

“Mr. Holmes,” Phoenix said dramatically, reaching the final line of the chapter, “they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!”

Trucy gasped and shrieked delightedly as Phoenix lunged for her then with a cartoonish, dog-like growl, wrapping his arms around her waist to pick her up and spin her around, Pess leaping to her feet to dance excitedly around his heels. They laughed, right there in his living room in their socks and their hair dried haphazardly from the rain, and Miles had looked down at his father’s book where Phoenix had set it on the coffee table, and felt his heart thump, thump, thump away in his chest. 

“Yes,” Franziska says, pulling Miles from his thoughts back to the present. “That foolish look on your face definitely convinces me that nothing happened at all.”

“You’ve haven’t met Hemingway yet, have you, Gummy?” Kay asks. 

It’s later in the day, and with Franziska’s fall horror display nearly finished (with not a single Stephen King title to be seen). Miles is sweeping but Franziska refuses to move, planting her black pumps into the floor and giving him a look whenever he comes near her with the broom. Miles contemplates knocking over the entire thing as he navigates around her, but ultimately decides against it. The consequences would not be worth the momentary satisfaction.

“Hemingway?” Gumshoe repeats. He frowns, knitting his thick brows together. “Like the dead author?”

“What? Hemingway’s not an author,” Kay says, confused, “he’s our bookstore cat.”

Miles just sighs and picks up the dustpan. 

“You guys have a bookstore cat?”

“He’s a stray that lives behind the store,” Miles explains, moving past Gumshoe to the back door. “We’ve been taking care of him.”

“You have to come meet him,” Kay says excitedly, tugging at Gumshoe’s sleeve. “Come on!”

Kay tugs Gumshoe to the back door. Miles lifts the dustpan so she can dart under his arm, and he holds the door open for Gumshoe so he can step into the back alley. 

“Okay, so this is his box,” Kay says, like she’s giving a house tour as Miles empties the dustpan. “It’s an old book box that I wrote his name on, and we put a blanket in there for him to sleep on and a towel over it in case it rains. And we have his bowl - Franziska bought that - and we get him fancy wet cat food now because Mr. Edgeworth made a fuss over whether he was getting enough nutrients or something from deli meat.”

Miles sputters indignantly but Kay keeps going.

“He used to be super grumpy and he wouldn’t go near anyone but he likes Mr. Edgeworth and he kind of likes me but he’s not really a fan of Franziska. Don’t say that to her face, though, she’ll get mad. Oh, there he is!”

Drawn by the noise of people, Hemingway peeks his head around a garbage can and eyes them all suspiciously. He has a new smudge of dirt on his nose. 

“Hi, Hemingway!” Kay says brightly. “We have a friend for you to meet!” 

“Is he gonna bite me?” Gumshoe asks nervously. 

“It’s unlikely,” Miles replies, crossing his arms. “He’s only tried to bite Franziska.”

Gumshoe crouches down, holding out his hand, and Hemingway sniffs at the air. “Hey, buddy. You’re a scruffy-lookin’ fella, huh?”

Hemingway flicks his stumpy tail and approaches Gumshoe, giving Kay a cautious glance. He brushes up against Miles’s leg (they’re at the stage where Hemingway is allowed to touch Miles, but not the other way around) and sniffs at Gumshoe’s hand, but he doesn’t bite, surprisingly, or dart away. 

“Aw, he likes you!” Kay says, leaning on Gumshoe’s shoulder. 

“Animals like me,” Gumshoe says, giving a lopsided shrug so as to not dislodge Kay. “I dunno why.”

It’s probably because you have treats on you all the time, Miles thinks, but says nothing. 

“I’m going to go get him dinner,” Kay says, grabbing Hemingway’s bowl and dashing back inside. 

Miles watches Hemingway sniff at Gumshoe’s hand one more time before padding back into the alley, twitching his ears at the sounds of the late afternoon birds. 

Gumshoe straightens. “Hey, Mr. Edgeworth?”

“Yes, Gumshoe?”

Gumshoe hesitates, for a moment. He watches Hemingway meander around the alley before standing, facing Miles and stuffing his hands into the pockets of his coat. 

“He’s a real nice guy, you know.”

Miles stiffens. “I’m…sure he is.”

“He is,” Gumshoe insists. “I worked Trucy’s case for a bit. Her biological dad…he wasn’t a good person, Mr. Edgeworth. I won’t go into it ‘cause it isn’t really my story to tell, but after her dad went to jail Mr. Wright adopted Trucy right away ‘cause he didn’t want her to feel like no one cared about her. He didn’t know what to do because he’s not married or anything like that so I helped him fill out the paperwork.”

Miles blinks. He hadn’t known Trucy was adopted. They look like such a natural family, Phoenix and Trucy, that it hadn’t even crossed his mind that she wasn’t his biological daughter. 

He’s not married, Gumshoe had said. It makes sense that he reacted so positively when he thought Miles and Phoenix were…

Miles cuts off that train of thought immediately. But that knot in his chest is back. He frowns, and squats down to hold his hand out for Hemingway. “Hi, Hem,” he says softly, as the old cat sniffs his hand. Maybe Hemingway will let Miles pet him, soon. 

“You should give him a chance,” Gumshoe says, a careful note in his voice that isn't usually there.

Miles feels his eyebrow twitch. “And what might that mean?”

“I know what you’re like, Mr. Edgeworth. You should let him be your friend.”

Miles watches as Hemingway pads away, inspecting his box, and his mind begins to wander. 

It had been raining, still, when Phoenix and Trucy had left, but the worst of the storm had passed. Phoenix had been the one to determine it was time to leave, and when Miles glanced at the clock he realized just how quickly time had slipped past without him noticing at all. Miles had loaned them an umbrella so they wouldn’t get any more wet than they already were. When Phoenix took the umbrella, his fingers had brushed against Miles’s knuckles as he promised he’d bring it back the next day. 

Miles hasn’t gotten that umbrella back yet. 

Soon, Kay reappears with Hemingway’s bowl of food. The cat immediately materializes at their feet, staring up at Kay with expectant eyes. “Hey, boss?” Kay says, as she sets down the bowl. “You’ve got a visitor.”

“Thank you, Kay,” Miles says, too distracted with his thoughts to catch the excited note in Kay’s voice. He returns the dustpan and broom to the backroom on his way to the front door, and misses Franziska’s amused glance as he walks past her at the front display.

He’s still lost in thought until he opens the door and sees there, on the doorstep, holding tight to an umbrella like Miles merely thinking about it manifested his arrival, is Phoenix Wright.

Miles closes the door behind him. The peanut gallery in the store does not need to hear this. 

“Hey,” Phoenix says, that crooked smile flitting across his face. 

“Hello.”

“I, um, meant to bring this back to you on Thursday but I kinda forgot,” Phoenix says sheepishly, holding up the umbrella. “Trucy got a bit of a cold so I’ve been taking care of her.”

Miles quirks a brow. “Trucy caught a cold? Heavens, I wonder why.” 

Phoenix smiles wider and ducks his head, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I know, I know.” He glances at Miles, before quickly looking away and holding the umbrella out. “Here.”

Miles reaches out and takes it, careful to avoid touching Phoenix’s hands. The turmeric stains are gone, he notices, but they’ve been replaced by flecks of blue. “You’ve got blue paint on your hands,” he remarks. 

“What?” Phoenix blinks, then looks down to examine his hand. “Oh, yeah. I, uh, get a lot of paint on me doing that mural. And the pots. I paint the plant pots at the flower shop. I don’t get as much paint on me with those, though, I guess ‘cause they’re smaller? With the mural I have to stand on a ladder and it’s easier to get paint on me if I’m painting something above my head and-“ He stops, suddenly.  “I’m rambling, aren’t I.”

“You are.”

Phoenix exhales, and runs a hand through his hair. His mismatched eyes flick up to Miles, and stay there, this time. “You know,” he says, almost absentmindedly, “you should smile more. You have a nice smile.”

Miles’s eyes widen, and his hands go white-knuckled on the handle of the umbrella. 

Phoenix stares at him for a moment before he seems to realize what he’d just said, and his face flushes. 

“Um! I mean, I didn’t - I was just… Okay! Bye!” He sputters out, before turning on his heel to cross the street, nearly getting hit by a car in the process. Miles stares as he mouths a frantic apology to the driver and dashes to the flower shop, before disappearing inside. 

Miles blinks, standing there with the umbrella in his hands, before slowly, slowly, turning around to go back inside the bookstore. The bell jingles as he opens and shuts the door, and he presses his back against the wood, staring at the umbrella. He hadn’t even realized he’d been smiling. His face feels hot, and he knows Kay and Gumshoe staring at him but he doesn’t know what to say. 

“That man has a crush on you,” Franziska says calmly. 

Miles swallows. “Yes,” he says weakly, “I believe he does.”

Chapter Text

Miles Edgeworth considers himself good at quite a number of things, if he decides to be modest about it. Crossword puzzles, for example, and making a perfect cup of tea. He has an excellent memory, especially in regard to books and their contents, and he can recite the alphabet backwards without hesitating. He’s mastered the art of business casual fashion and has a talent for keeping his shoes clean. A skill he’s especially proud of is knowing exactly which candles go best with the smell of old books (he’s found he prefers candles with a rich, earthy scent that remind you of pine forests, or ones that smell like cinnamon apple spice). 

He’s also exceptionally good at avoiding his problems. 

One might say he’s doing a particularly exceptional job of avoiding his problems right now. In fact, he’s so focused on wearing a groove into the back alley stoop with his relentless pacing that he’s not even thinking about said problems whatsoever. No, his mind is perfectly clear. Not a problem in sight. 

Miles hears Phoenix’s voice drift through the crack in the slightly open back door, and he flinches. 

“I’m not thinking about it,” he mutters, running a hand through his hair. “I’m not thinking about it.” The sharp sound of his heels on concrete echoes down the alley. “I’m not thinking about it.” He focuses on that, the click click click , to drown out Phoenix as he talks with Kay in the bookstore. “ I’m not thinking about it.”

He’d bolted the second he’d seen the door to Fey’s Flowers open, before he even saw whether or not it was Phoenix walking out. He didn’t want to risk it.

It’s been several days since the Umbrella Incident (five days, to be specific). Miles refuses to think of that day as anything other than the Umbrella Incident, and he thinks that’s perfectly reasonable, really, considering the word incident describes the ordeal rather well, and an umbrella had definitely been involved. In those five days he’s refused to speak about the Incident and ignored any pointed looks sent his way by the employees of the Corner Bookstore. He even went so far as to hide the umbrella in a closet (an action he isn’t entirely proud of) just to avoid looking at it. Because he isn’t thinking about it. 

Phoenix laughs at something Kay says, and Miles’s heart twists uncomfortably in his chest. “I’m not thinking about it!” He exclaims, promptly shoving the back door shut to cut off Phoenix’s laughter. 

But it’s too late. He’s already wormed his way into Miles’s head in that irritating way of his, of course he has, really, what was Miles expecting? He’s just glad Kay isn’t there to hear the words coming out of his mouth, not that she hasn’t said them before. 

“I’m overreacting, is all,” Miles tells himself, turning on his heel to continue his pacing, click click click, back and forth, back and forth. “It’s not like he’s…I mean, it isn’t like he’s said anything. We’ve only known each other for what, two months? A month and a half? That’s hardly enough time for…for anything to develop. I’m just overreacting. He likely treats all his friends in such a way.” Miles pauses. “Not that we’re…ugh. He treats everyone like this!”

Does he, though? That irritatingly logical voice at the back of his head whispers, and Miles runs his hand through his hair again. He’s done that so many times today that his bangs are thoroughly out of sorts. He told himself he wouldn’t think about it, but god, it’s so hard not to once he gets going, because Wright really doesn’t treat everyone the same way he treats Miles, does he? He treats Mia Fey at the other girl at the flower shop (the one that Miles truly doesn’t know the name of) the way a brother would a sister; he jokes and teases with them but it’s different, it’s horribly different, and he’s friendly with Kay and polite with Franziska (likely scared of Franziska) but he doesn’t look at them for a few seconds too long or drift into their personal space or drag them out into thunderstorms or read Sherlock Holmes and do ridiculous voices and smile at them over the top of the book while doing it, no, he only does that with Miles. 

Miles feels like pulling out his hair, feels a bit like he’s suffocating. Wright really doesn’t do anything the same as he does with him. He doesn’t draw smiley-faces on the sides of their takeout cups when he picks up an order from a coffee shop and decides to get something for the bookstore, too. He’ll compliment Franziska on her always perfect eyeliner and Kay on those dangling earrings she has that look like silver knives, but he’ll compliment Miles on anything from the way his hair looks that day to how well the color of his shirt goes with his skin, or - god forbid he recall it - how nice his smile is , and he always has that look in his mismatched eyes when he does it and that - that ridiculous crooked smile and - 

Miles groans, slumping down to sit on the stoop and burying his face in his hands. He thinks about the lucky bamboo plant, about the sudden weekly visits to the bookstore to buy a seemingly random selection of books and ask for recommendations despite the fact Miles has never seen him in the store before they met for that first time, when Phoenix chased after his strange magician daughter. He thinks about the way his name sounds in Phoenix’s mouth, then immediately stops thinking about Phoenix’s mouth and thinks instead about the look on his face when Trucy had called him Uncle Miles . He thinks about the way he had felt when Trucy called him Uncle Miles, and he thinks of golden milk tea and The Hound of the Baskervilles and when Phoenix’s hands brushed against his own when taking that accursed umbrella ( we’re not thinking about that.)

Unfortunately, Miles Edgeworth is good at yet another thing: being terribly, inconveniently logical. 

His heartbeat feels all too loud. He’d agreed with Franziska before, but he hadn’t really believed it. He hadn’t sorted through all the evidence yet, he hadn’t thought about it; he’d forced himself not to because he knew, he just knew the moment he thought logically about it for more than a second it would all click together like puzzle pieces and it would be so obvious and so horribly, massively real that this clumsy man with freckles and streaks and spots and splatters of paint that seem as apart of him as his lopsided smile and crooked eyebrows might just - 

Miles sucks in a breath. It catches in his throat and he chokes on it, just a bit. “That’s it,” he mutters. “I’m going to fake my death and flee to Europe.”

Hemingway gives Miles his now-patented unimpressed look. He’s been watching Miles have a breakdown this entire time, calmly licking at his front paw all the while. 

Miles stares at Hemingway for a second before sighing, leaning back so his head thumps against the back door. Unfortunately, with his head against the door he can faintly hear Phoenix and Kay talking inside.

“Can you give this to Miles for me?” He hears Phoenix say, his voice muffled. “It’s from Trucy.”

“You don’t want to give it to him yourself?” replies Kay, and Miles internally panics. He’d told her (before bolting out the door) not to tell Wright, under any circumstance, that he was at the store at all. She’d promised - she wouldn’t break that, would she?

“No, that’s okay,” Phoenix says. Miles exhales a sigh of relief. “I, um…I wouldn’t want to bother him. Well, not anymore than we already have.” His voice is carefully light but Miles feels a guilty stab to his heart anyway. He crosses his arms tight over his chest, like that might help the tangled ball of emotions writhing around in there stay put and not break through all his carefully crafted walls and force him to realize something he is not ready for. 

“I don’t know what to do,” Miles says softly, staring at his knees. 

Hemingway flicks his sole ear at him. He’s a good listener, but horrible at giving advice, and whenever he looks at Miles like that it feels so horribly judgmental. Miles knows, somewhere deep down, that he’s just projecting. Hemingway doesn’t actually think Miles is a coward for his actions, and he knows this because Hemingway is a cat . But, again, these are deep down thoughts that are nowhere near the front of his mind at this current moment. Right now, he just feels extremely vulnerable and defensive. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” he grumbles at Hemingway. “I can’t very well go in there and talk to him - I don’t want to…to encourage him! If I just… avoid him, this will all…sort itself out. It’s for the best.”

Hemingway blinks, and Miles frowns. He hadn’t sounded very convincing to himself, either. He reaches his hand out, and the stray pauses in his cleaning to snuffle at the tips of his fingers. Miles wouldn’t use the word friendly to describe Hemingway, but he’s certainly easier to approach than he had been all those weeks ago. He wonders if someday he’ll actually be able to pet him, or brush him. It might be better just to shave him entirely, Miles thinks aimlessly. His coat is likely littered with fleas.

“The problem is, I don’t know if I want…” Miles trails off, watching Hemingway shift to sniff the palm of his hand. “I don’t know what I want, Hem.”

Hemingway yawns, the scruffy fur at his neck brushing against Miles’s fingers with the movement. His fur is rough and straggly, but Miles shifts his hand anyway, carefully running his index finger against the line of Hemingway’s neck, daring to do it. He barely touches him before Hemingway shoots backward, swatting at Miles’s hand, but his claws aren’t out and when he hisses it’s quiet, nothing like the ones he gives Franziska. He doesn’t back too far away; he stands a little under a foot away from Miles but too far to touch again, the fur on his back as ruffled as it can be under all that dirt and grime, and he stares at Miles with eyes like sharp-cut emeralds. 

“Sorry,” Miles says quietly, and withdraws his hand. 

Hemingway flicks his ear, swishing his tail, before sitting back down. He doesn’t look upset. He just lifts his paw and continues cleaning, like this all had just been a warning not to get too close just yet, to not overstep his boundaries before he’s ready. 

Miles sighs, resting his chin in his hands, and looks up at the sky. 

It’s late afternoon, and the autumn sun is steadily sinking lower and lower beyond the horizon, the sky like someone tipped over their watercolors and they bled together to form a myriad of fading blues and fluffy, pink-streaked clouds. Like a painting. 

“I’ll tell him you stopped by,” Miles hears Kay say from inside the shop. 

“Thank you,” comes Phoenix’s reply, and a few heartbeats later the bell above the door jingles.

Miles waits a few minutes, watching as Hemingway finishes his cleaning regimen before going back inside. Kay looks up as he approaches the counter. 

“He looked like a kicked puppy, you know,” she says pointedly. It’s clear from the tone of her voice that she thinks this whole avoidance business is ridiculous. 

“What did he want?” 

Kay just taps a piece of paper on the counter.

Miles picks up the paper. It’s a card, clearly handmade, with a large black dog on the front complete with huge teeth and angry red eyes. A big arrow points to the dog, where Trucy had elaborated in her loopy, childish handwriting: NOT Pess!!!! This is the hound of the baskerviles. 

He opens the card, where Trucy had written Thank you for letting us stay over Uncle Miles! She’d drawn a heart over the i of his name, and signed the card Love, Trucy!!! Beneath her name, in a much messier script, were the words Thank you for putting up with us , and a very familiar smiley-face. And then, P.S: thank you for letting her call you uncle. She really likes you. 

Miles feels that knot in his chest tighten, that bundle of strings tangled up around his heart, and he wishes, for once, that he wasn’t so damn logical. 

When he looks up, Kay is watching him, her chin in her hand and an amused look on her face. 

“What?” he asks, feeling defensive.

“Nothing,” Kay says, drawing out the word. “I just think you’re like, super, totally screwed.”

Miles glances down at the card, feeling his heart thunder away in his chest, and he sighs. “We’re closing early today.”

Kay’s eyes widen. “Are we about to stress bake?”

“Just flip the sign, Kay.”

“He likes you.”

“Yes, we’ve established that,” Miles says tersely, retrieving the loaf pan from the corner cabinet. Baking is another thing he’s good at, if you’re keeping track, and he’s surprisingly competent. At the moment, his plan is to ignore every single one of his thoughts and use up his ripe bananas by baking copious amounts of banana bread, since his revelation of the day didn’t exactly put him in the mood for customer service. Thus, the early closing of the store, and the immediate retreat to his apartment. 

 Kay sits at the kitchen island, in the same spot Trucy sat the night of the thunderstorm. She’s scrutinizing the card Trucy made for Miles, her green eyes sparkling with her specific brand of mischief, while eating chocolate chips one by one from the jar Miles keeps them in. She props her chin in her hand, tapping at the smiley face Phoenix had drawn on the card. 

“ So ,” she says, in a tone of voice that indicates she doesn’t plan to let Miles simply bake banana bread and avoid his problems, “do you like him ?”

Miles sets down the loaf pan with a little more force than intended; it bangs so loudly against the counter that Pess jumps where she lays on the kitchen tile. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Says the guy who literally hid in an alley to avoid talking to someone fifteen minutes ago.”

Miles glares at her before turning away. He starts to pull ingredients from the pantry: flour, butter, eggs, cocoa powder, cinnamon, setting them on the counter. Two bowls, a wooden spoon, measuring cups, oven preheated to 350 degrees. He likes baking, he really does; it makes sense. If you follow the recipe, it’ll turn out, simple as that: it’s uncomplicated , and he wishes certain other aspects in his life might be uncomplicated, too.

 At this point Miles doesn’t even need the recipe card; it’s his father’s recipe, and he’s baked it so many times that he knows it by heart. This specific recipe is a favorite with his uncle (who isn’t actually his uncle, but insists on the title anyway) and Miles wonders if he should mail him some when he’s done. 

“So we’re gonna ignore the question then?” Kay says, thumping her feet against the kitchen island. She’s wearing thick, fuzzy socks today, one pink with white swirls and the other a kind of navy blue that matches her cable-knit sweater. 

“Be helpful and crack the eggs,” Miles replies, turning away to retrieve the black-speckled bananas from the counter beside the oven. He starts to peel them, chopping them up into slices to be mashed with a fork, a job he’ll likely give to Kay, as she does love to be destructive. 

“Okay. We’re ignoring the question. That’s fine, we can circle back to it.” Kay picks up an egg. “I’ll make sure to get like, a hundred tiny shell pieces in here though as punishment for you being difficult.”

“I am not - just…crack the eggs, Kay.”

Kay snorts, but very carefully cracks all four eggs into the bowl without a single shell fragment. 

Miles measures the ingredients in silence, for a bit; three cups of flour, leveled off with a knife. Two cups of sugar. His father’s secret ingredient (something that I, the author, am not at liberty to tell you about). 

“It’s like my own personal Great British Bake-Off,” Kay says, chucking an eggshell into the sink across the kitchen as if she were shooting a basketball. She makes the shot, impressively enough. 

Miles quirks a brow at her. “Please don’t throw eggshells around my kitchen. And I’m not British.”

“Yeah, but you have a kind-of accent.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

Kay shrugs. “I don’t know. If you told someone you were British they would probably believe you. Well, maybe if you told them you were European. You have Europe energy.”

“Thank…you?”

“I bet that’s one of the reasons why Mr. Wright likes you so much,” Kay says. “Cause you talk all fancy.”

Miles forces back the heat that threatens to burn across his cheeks and measures out the cinnamon. The recipe doesn’t call for it, but he thinks it adds a nice touch. Maybe he’ll try a touch of cloves in this one, too. 

The smell of cinnamon wafts through the kitchen, and Miles ponders over whether to make himself a cup of tea to help calm his nerves. Though he’s certainly much calmer than he was in the alley, his nerves are still frayed, and he fears that if he thinks too hard about the Situation he might need to lay down or something. He knows for a fact that Kay wants to keep asking questions, wants to keep asking that one specific question and she’ll likely keep asking it until he gives her a proper answer, and if she does that he very well might need a cup of tea lest he lose his mind entirely. 

He likes you.

Miles purses his lips. Maybe he’ll mash the bananas himself. He might need the catharsis, he decides, and picks up the fork. 

Thump, thump, goes Kay’s feet, as she swings them against the side of the kitchen island. She watches him mash the bananas, watches him sift flour, cocoa powder and baking soda together. She’s waiting, he knows that.

Do you like him ?

He adds two teaspoons of honey. It’s supposed to be vanilla extract, but vanilla is terribly expensive and you can hardly tell the difference when he swaps it for honey. He’s running a bit low on honey; he should really get more sometime soon. He can’t very well have tea without honey. He should really make himself a cup after all. He picks up the spoon to start mixing ingredients. 

Do you like him?

“ Hey, Mr. Edgeworth?”

“Yes, Kay?”

“You’re gonna snap the spoon in half if you keep holding it so tight.”

“What?” Miles glances at his hand. “Oh.” He hadn’t realized he was practically white-knuckling it, and he forces himself to loosen his grip. Stop thinking about it , he tells himself, and goes back to mixing the batter. Only until the flour is incorporated; he doesn’t want the bread to turn out tough. Mix the batter. Don’t think about the complicated tangle of emotions sitting in your chest. Just mix the batter, Miles. 

“I think you should stop avoiding Mr. Wright,” Kay says, and Miles starts with surprise.

“What?”

Kay shrugs, swinging her feet again. She takes a handful of chocolate chips from the jar and starts arranging them in little patterns on the counter. “If you avoid them, you’re only going to hurt their feelings. It’s been like, a week, boss. Mr. Wright can tell you’re avoiding them. And judging by the way he was acting earlier today he probably thinks it’s all his fault. You’re making him feel shitty, Mr. Edgeworth,” she says seriously, and Miles looks down at his hands. “And what about Trucy? She probably has no idea what’s going on.”

“I’m sure Wright will come up with something to tell her,” Miles says carefully, but his heart isn’t in it.

“Seriously, boss. Avoiding them isn’t going to fix anything. Is it really so crazy that someone likes you?” 

Miles exhales sharply through his nose. Mix the batter, Miles . “Yes.”

“What?” Kay frowns, abandoning her tiny chocolate chip castle. “Hold on. Franziska and I like you.”

“You and Franziska don’t count. You’re my employee and Franziska’s my sister.”

“ O-kay… then what about Gummy? He’s your friend.”

Miles scoffs. “Gumshoe doesn’t have the best track record for making sound decisions. His judgment can hardly be trusted.”

He likes you , Kay’s voice echoes in his mind, again, again, again. Do you like him ? His grip tightens on the spoon, and there’s his heart again, thundering away. 

Kay squints at Miles, her green eyes flickering over his face. “Are you freaking out right now?”

“No.”

“I think you are.”

“I’m not freaking out, Kay.”

He likes you. 

“You’ve got that look on your face.”

“I certainly do not.”

Do you like him ?

“You definitely do. It’s the one where you get all the wrinkles between your eyebrows and it looks like you’re having an aneurysm.”

“ I’m not freaking out ,” Miles snaps, a little harsher than he intended to. Mix the batter, don’t think about it-

“Boss.” Kay grabs the wooden spoon, forcing Miles to stop brutalizing the banana bread batter. “You gotta chill.”

“I’m-“

“Nope, it’s time for Kay to talk,” Kay interrupts, waving the wooden spoon at him. As she does so, she flings a blob of banana bread batter on the floor, which Pess cleans up quicker than lightning. “An attractive single dad clearly likes you and so does his cute magic daughter and I know for a fact you’re freaking out under that grumpy face of yours over it because I know you. You’re super bad at dealing with your emotions ‘cause you just bottle them up in there and refuse to talk about them and avoid all your problems but you’re dealing with another human being here! You are not allowed to avoid him anymore because you’re going to seriously hurt his feelings. And, if you keep avoiding him, it’s only going to hurt you.”

Miles frowns. “May I-“

“No. People have liked you before-“

“That old woman doesn’t count-“

“Other people besides the old woman have liked you, Mr. Edgeworth! I know you think that everyone hates you but I think most people are probably indifferent to you-“

“Thank you, that’s wonderful to hear-“

“Let me finish!” Kay exclaims, smacking him on the forehead with the wooden spoon. Miles sputters something incomprehensible; now he’s got batter in his hair. “What I was gonna say before you went and interrupted me is that you’re not a bad person, Mr. Edgeworth. You’re nice, even though you think you’re a jerk but I know you’re nice. You only charge that kid Cody like, two dollars for the Steel Samurai comics and I know for a fact that you don’t forget to make Gummy pay for his books. Those are nice person things to do. If you were an asshole all the time people would have a lot more opinions about you, but I think most people just think you’re kind of stuck up, probably.”

“Is this going somewhere?” Miles says drily, ducking when Kay waves the spoon again. 

“Yes! I’m trying to say that you’re a nice person, jeez ! So it’s not all that crazy that Mr. Wright and Trucy would like you,” Kay says. “It’s okay to let people like you. You don’t need to…you don’t need to overthink it or worry about it. He just likes you, boss. I don’t understand why this is making you freak out so much.”

Miles takes a deep breath, trying to calm his racing thoughts. He doesn’t wholly understand it himself, if only because he’s hesitant to walk down the path of that thought to reach its conclusion. He knew avoiding them wasn’t the answer but the other side of the coin is worse , in a way, but is that what’s really, to use Kay’s phrasing, freaking him out?

He sighs. “May I speak now?”

“Yes.”

“May I have the spoon back?”

“Not until you talk about it.”

He sighs, leaning a little more on the counter. “You’re impossible.”

Kay sticks out her tongue. “I will not hesitate to hit you with the spoon again.”

“It’s just…” Miles hesitates. “It’s complicated, Kay.”

“How complicated can it be?” Kay exclaims. She points at Trucy’s card. “A guy likes you, do you like him? That’s literally it.”

“There’s more to it than that-“

“What more is there? He likes you. I don’t get why you think that’s so crazy!”

Miles groans. He wants her to stop saying that. He can’t believe he’s even talking about this. God, he desperately needs a cup of tea. “I just…I don’t…”

“ You don’t what , Mr. Edgeworth?”

“I don’t understand what there is to like!” Miles exclaims finally. 

Kay frowns, sits back in her seat. A sad kind of look comes into her eyes that Miles does not like. “What?” she says softly. “We just…I just told you. You’re nice, Mr. Edgeworth. I like you, you’re one of my best friends. You really think that there’s nothing..?”

Miles sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s not…Listen. I know Wright is a nice person. I know that. And I know you think that…that I’m nice. And perhaps I do a nice thing or two once in a while but there’s… Ugh, just think about it, Kay. I’m irritable. I’m exhausted practically all the time. I’m horrendous at holding conversations with strangers, something he’s experienced first-hand. I was rude to his daughter when I first met her, for heaven’s sake. That’s hardly nice of me.” Miles runs a hand through his hair, hardly noticing that he’s smearing flour across his forehead. “I have gray hair at twenty-seven.”

Kay lifts a brow. “ Isn’t that your natural hair color?”

“He doesn’t know that.”

“I don’t really think he cares about what color your hair is, boss.”

“And - another thing - I don’t like coffee ,” Miles sputters, and he’s really gone off the deep end now, hasn’t he, and he can feel his heartbeat thudding away like a thousand stampeding bulls in his chest, or perhaps it’s just Wright, he’s the bull, rampaging through Miles’s china shop heart and all Miles can think about is coffee and tea and what the hell is wrong with him? “He seems like the kind of man who prefers coffee over tea. What if he wants to go out for coffee? I’m not going to say yes if I don’t like coffee and then he’ll be offended because I said no and you already said I’ve hurt his feelings and all I’m going to do his hurt his feelings because that’s all I-”

Kay puts down the spoon. She reaches out, grabbing Miles’s hands so he can stop trying to pull out his hair and cutting him off from saying anything else. She sets his hands on the counter, next to the bowl of banana bread batter that smells like chocolate and cinnamon, and she stares right up into his face with a determined but sympathetic gaze and says,

“Do you like him, Mr. Edgeworth?”

Miles swallows down the automatic no that springs to his tongue. “I don’t…I don’t know,” he says honestly, and god, isn’t that a horrifying thought? 

The trouble comes a few days later, on a Saturday cool enough for Miles to wear his favorite sweater, a maroon one with cream colored cuffs that Franziska had knitted him a few Christmases ago. He typically wears it tucked into his slacks so the slightly lopsided hem won’t show, and there’s a hole under his left armpit where Franziska had accidentally dropped a stitch, but it’s cozy and doesn’t scratch at his skin and Franziska pretends so hard to not look pleased whenever he wears it that he can’t help but wear it all the time. 

Miles is in a particularly cheerful mood that Saturday morning, humming the Steel Samurai theme song under his breath as he sorts through a new shipment of books (he can hardly be blamed for the theme song getting stuck in his head; he only just gave the latest comic to the boy who comes in every Saturday for it, and he’d been singing it, and it’s really awfully catchy). Any… thoughts are safely tucked away at the back of his mind. He’s giving himself a break from thinking today. 

He sets Redwall in the mildly used pile and pulls the next book from the box. It’s an old book, or perhaps simply well-loved, with a worn faux leather cover and dozens of dog-eared pages. Miles imagines he can feel the furrows where past owners had held the book within their fingers, turning the pages over and over again. He turns it over to catch the title; it’s a copy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein . 

Miles flips through the book - it’s one full of writing and highlights and notes. He tilts his head, stopping on a page where a past owner had highlighted something, the vibrant yellow now faded with time: 

There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand. 

The door above the bell jingles. 

Miles sets down the book (heavily used) and gets to his feet, making sure his hair is tidy before stepping into the shop. Poring over old books always seems to get his hair out of sorts and his clothes slightly dusty. 

“I’ll be with you in a moment,” Miles says, brushing a bit of dust off his slacks as he crosses the store to the front counter. 

“No hurry,” replies Phoenix Wright, and Miles’s heart nearly falls right out of his chest and he trips a bit over his oxfords. He forces himself to stay calm; it’s not like he could send Pess out to ask what he wants - what they want, because Trucy is there too and she looks so, so excited to see him. 

“Hello, Wright,” Miles says haltingly, and steps behind the counter, if only to get something solid between them. 

Phoenix, always determined to ruin Miles’s plans, leans on the counter anyway. “Hey.” He has a slightly oversized sweater on, deep green and well-worn, the kind you might find at a thrift shop. He has it half tucked into the front of paint-splattered jeans cuffed at the ankles, the sweater sleeves rolled up to his elbows to expose his freckled forearms. “It’s…been a bit.”

A week, Miles thinks vaguely, but says nothing. He’s horribly aware of his heartbeat, thundering loudly in his chest and he tells himself it’s just the surprise of seeing them after a week of not (and there’s a part of him that wondered why he tried to avoid him and Trucy at all because it feels surprisingly nice ). 

That conversation with Kay sits in the back of his mind, her question, his answer. Looking at Phoenix now he feels even less sure than he did with Kay, and then Trucy pops her head over the counter and when she grins Miles sees she’s recently lost a tooth, and there’s a huge gap in her smile and his heart tightens even more, and god, he’s so confused and unsure and he doesn’t know what to do. 

So much for not thinking today. 

“Hi, Uncle Miles!” Trucy says brightly. She stands on the tips of her toes to reach for his hand. “I’ve missed you!”

“Hello, Trucy.” (Did he miss her? Did he miss both of them?)

Trucy sets her bag on the counter, a canvas one with an array of cartoon animals painted on it, and Miles wonders if Phoenix painted those for her. She has her hair in braids today, two short ones that bounce right above her shoulders, with a late-blooming daisy tucked behind one ear. She’s wearing a sweater, too, hers sunflower yellow and tucked into a little black skirt that sways around her scraped up knees. 

“You look dressed up today,” Miles says. “Are you going somewhere?”

“We’re going to the farmer’s market!” Trucy replies, her big brown eyes sparkling with pure childish excitement, “and we came to ask if you want to come!”

Perhaps he should’ve sent Pess out after all. 

Chapter Text

At least Miles can take solace in the fact that it isn’t a particularly busy farmer’s market. 

He was going to say no. He really was, but Trucy had been so earnest and Phoenix so, well, Phoenix, and Kay’s voice rang in his head the entire time saying Mr. Wright can tell you’ve been avoiding them, he probably thinks it’s all his fault, you’re making him feel shitty over and over again and in the end, Miles’s guilt simply outweighed his urge to shove the Wrights out the door and hide in his apartment. So, he swallowed his pride and his fear and his overwhelming confusion and, heart racing, agreed to go to the damn farmer’s market. 

It’s a few blocks away from the Corner Bookstore, set up in a parking lot so old that no one really knows what it was for before the farmer’s market, since it’s not used for much else besides that. It only takes ten minutes to walk there from the bookstore, or perhaps six if you’re brisk and don’t have any regard for stoplights.

Miles is extremely thankful for Trucy’s presence, because he fears the walk would be horribly awkward without her there, what with all of the confused thoughts bouncing about in his head like a hundred ping pong balls and the fact that he’s so terribly hyper-aware of Phoenix walking beside him the entire time . He has no idea what to do or say or feel , really, and they’re only about a third of the way there and god, he feels like he’s going to combust. 

It doesn’t help that Phoenix seems decidedly more restless than usual, and therefore even more noticeable than before. He’s constantly picking at the cuffs of his sweater or rubbing at the back of his neck or trying to whistle to the birds singing in the trees despite the fact he’s always off-key and can’t whistle very well at all, and worst of all he keeps looking at Miles, just little glances out of the corner of his eye but they burn like brands on the side of Miles’s head. 

He’s existing a bit too obviously for Miles’s liking, really. 

Kay’s voice in his head, again: he likes you. 

Miles wishes he could shut that off, he really does. He does not need the constant reminder. 

He exhales, looking at his feet. The sidewalk is dotted with leaves, all red and orange and gold, and they crunch pleasantly under his shoes in time with the beat of his heart. Halfway there , he thinks, trying not to focus on all the unknowns that may happen once they actually arrive at the farmer’s market. Trucy skips ahead of him and Phoenix, kicking up leaves into swirling tornadoes and dancing her way through, arms outstretched. Occasionally she stops to pick up a leaf that she thinks is particularly pretty, and she skips back to Phoenix to tuck the leaf safely away in her canvas bag (which she decided he should hold about a minute into their walk). 

Miles feels Phoenix’s eyes on him again.

“What is it, Wright?” he says, trying his hardest not to sound too short.

Phoenix starts, like he wasn’t expecting Miles to notice he kept looking at him. “Oh! Um…nothing. It’s nothing, I was just…going to thank you, again. For coming with us. You really didn’t have to.” He drops his voice for that last part, like he doesn’t want Trucy to overhear. “I mean, if you don’t want to come or if you’re busy with…um, book stuff, it’s okay if you go back. I don’t want us to…to bother you, or impose, or anything like that.”

The guilt settles a little heavier in Miles’s chest, and god, his inner Kay is extremely persistent today with her incessant little reminders, isn’t she? (You made him feel shitty, Mr. Edgeworth.) He resists the urge to run a hand through his hair; he doesn’t want to mess it up. He crosses his arms instead, fidgeting with the fabric at his elbow. He knows that, despite how confused and uncomfortable and awkward he feels, horribly, awfully awkward, this is a problem he can’t run from. He hurt this man’s feelings by avoiding him for a week, and he has to deal with the consequences of that. 

If he wants Kay to speak to him ever again, that is. 

“It’s fine,” Miles says carefully, staring straight ahead. “If I didn’t want to come, I wouldn’t have.”

Phoenix frowns. “Are you sure?” he asks, and there’s an anxious quality to his voice that Miles wasn’t expecting.

“I’m quite certain, Wright.”

(He finds he means that, which is a bit alarming.)

Phoenix looks as if he’s going to say something else for a moment before a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth and he turns away, clearly trying to fight off the snicker bubbling up in his throat. 

Miles feels the back of his neck heat up - he didn’t say something foolish, did he? Does he have something in his teeth? Does his hair look okay? He regrets this; he should take Phoenix’s offer and just go home to end his suffering. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Phoenix says, biting down on his lower lip to stave off his grin. “It’s just…you sounded so - I mean, I’m quite certain, Wright, ” he mimics, dropping his voice down to a baritone much deeper than Miles’s own as he tries to rearrange his expression into some kind of serious, but he loses the battle against his smile in the process and there it is, bright and crooked on his face. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it, you just sounded so formal.”

Miles feels the heat spread to his face, and he quickly looks away. He’d forgotten just how ridiculous this man can be. “Perhaps I do mind,” he says indignantly. “Perhaps I’ll head back after all.”

“No, wait, Miles, I swear I wasn’t making fun of you,” Phoenix says, and he’s laughing as he says it. He ducks in front of Miles, his eyes sparkling, that awkward tension he’d held earlier in the bookstore and that anxious note to his voice gone. “Please don’t go, Trucy will be really upset.”

“You should’ve thought of that before, then.”

“Miles! You promised .”

“I did no such thing. And didn’t you just say I could go if I wanted to?”

“ I did no such thing ,” Phoenix parrots, in his too-deep imitation of Miles. “Okay, that was the last one, I swear.”

Miles huffs, glaring at Phoenix but he’s all too aware that there’s no ice in it. Phoenix just laughs, running a hand through his hair and only then does Miles notice how close they are and he’s not exactly sure when that happened, and now Phoenix’s grin is slipping off his face into a kind of half-smile and Miles feels his heart stutter in his chest. A breeze blows by, rustling red-gold leaves and Phoenix’s dark hair. They’re the same height, he and Phoenix, which means there’s nowhere else to look but directly into those mismatched eyes. He’s never seen eyes like that before. 

Miles is not well versed in the art of having friends. He’s not sure whether it’s supposed to feel like this. 

“Can I ask you something kind of serious?” Phoenix says, quietly. 

“Er,” Miles says, eloquently. 

He doesn’t have time to properly answer as Trucy, like magic, suddenly pops between them. She tugs at Miles’s sleeve, her smile huge on her face. “Uncle Miles, look!” she says excitedly, and holds up a maple leaf.

It’s medium sized, torn down near the stem, and its middle is a warm orange like the sun fading out to gold at the tips. Trucy’s holding it with pride, like it’s a diamond she found all by  herself. 

“It’s…er, very pretty, Trucy,” Miles says, slightly confused. 

Trucy holds it out to him. “It’s for you!” 

“Oh…Well, thank you, but I don’t have anywhere to put it.”

“Don’t worry about that!” Trucy grins, and she steps away to spin dramatically on her heel, stirring up leaves. She stops with a wink and a flourish: in one hand, she’s holding Miles’s wallet, the leaf in the other. 

Miles blinks. He pats his back pocket, where his wallet is most certainly missing. He blinks again. “How did you…?”

“I’m a magician, duh!” Trucy says, waving the wallet in the air. “And a magician never reveals her secrets.” She snaps open Miles’s wallet, tucking the leaf carefully inside before returning it to him. “Now come on! You guys are taking forever and I want to see if the apple cider lady is there.”

Then, she dashes off down the sidewalk, a cyclone of leaves kicking up after her.

Miles stares at the wallet in his hand, at the stem of the maple leaf sticking out between the fold, and looks up at Phoenix, who’s watching him with an amused smile on his face. “How did she do that?” 

Phoenix shrugs. “She said it herself. She’s a magician.” He leans in a bit, his voice turning conspiratorial. “It’s better if you don’t think about it too hard. Trying to figure out her tricks will give you a headache.”

“…Right.” Miles looks down at his wallet again, before tucking it in his back pocket, and following the Wrights to the farmer’s market.

He smells it before he sees it. The very air is thick with spices, with the smell of pecan pie and freshly baked bread and herbs, and as he rounds the corner after Phoenix and Trucy the market unfolds before him, all orange pumpkins and baskets of autumn flowers, marigolds and chrysanthemums and daisies. There are stalls stocked with produce like squash and bok choy, jars of maple syrup and golden honey from a local apiary, a woman selling fresh eggs from her farm and displays of handmade jewelry and art. A white dog with brown splotches runs loose through the market, weaving through peoples’ legs as his frantic owner chases after him, desperately calling his name. 

Miles toys with the cuff of his sweater, glancing around. He hasn’t been to the farmer’s market in a long, long time. He used to go with his father before he passed, and he hasn’t really found the time to go since, something he didn’t have the heart to use as an excuse when Trucy asked him to come with. But the air is pleasantly cool and the sun is out and shining, and it doesn’t hurt as much to be here as he thought it might. 

It helps that his mind is currently on other things. 

“Trucy, you can’t go in there covered in leaves,” Phoenix (other thing number one) is saying, crouching down before Trucy (other thing number two) to pick a leaf out of her hair. 

Trucy sticks her tongue out. “Says you, Daddy. I’m just following the fall theme.”

“You’re already following the fall theme,” Phoenix chuckles, tugging lightly on one of her braids. “You’re wearing fall colors, aren’t you? You don’t need the leaves.”

“Can I have at least one?”

Phoenix smiles, soft and fond and Miles can’t look away. “Sure, Truce. Let me find a good one, okay?” He starts picking leaves out of her hair, off her sweater and her skirt, scrutinizing each one to see which one is best to keep. Eventually he chooses one, a maple similar to the one she gave to Miles. “How about this one?”

Trucy grins, tucking it behind her ear. “It’s perfect!” she declares, before turning to Miles, her big brown eyes wide and expectant. “What do you think, Uncle Miles?”

“It, er…it looks lovely, Trucy.”

“ Lovely ,” Trucy repeats. “Daddy, Uncle Miles says I look lovely!”

Phoenix snorts. “Well, he said the leaf looks lovely.”

“Uncle Miles, do I look lovely too or is it just the leaf?”

“You also look lovely.”

“There!” Trucy says triumphantly. “He said I look lovely too.”

“Yes, Truce, I heard him,” Phoenix laughs. “And he’s right, you do look lovely.”

Trucy grins. “ Duh .” Then, she straightens out her little black skirt, brushing off any fragments of broken leaves that Phoenix missed. “Okay. I’m gonna go look for the apple cider lady now. Wait here so I don’t lose you.”

“I don’t think you’d lose us, Truce. It’s not a very big market.”

“Aunt Mia always tells me that it’s better to be safe than sorry,” Trucy says, putting her hands on her hips, “and I’m not worried about losing Uncle Miles, I’m worried about losing you .”

Phoenix frowns, adopting an expression that’s rather akin to a pouting child. “What? Why me?”

“‘Cause you’re kind of stupid sometimes, Daddy.”

(Miles nearly snorts from the pure surprise of it, but he covers it up by clearing his throat.)

“I’m pretty sure I taught you better manners than that, kid,” Phoenix says, unimpressed.

Trucy solemnly pats his hand. “Sure, Daddy. Now stay here!”

“Don’t go too far!”

Phoenix straightens, brushing dirt off his jeans. He watches Trucy bounce away, shaking his head, before turning back to Miles. A smile flickers across his face, and Miles wonders how he always smiles so easily, like he hardly realizes he’s doing it. 

“Trucy’s really happy you’re here, you know,” Phoenix says, plucking a leaf off his sweater. 

“Just Trucy?”

It slips out before Miles can catch it. He did not mean to say that, he hadn’t even thought it so why the hell did he say that and as Phoenix freezes, his mismatched eyes widening and that red flush streaking across his cheeks Miles really considers turning on his heel and walking right back to the bookstore, locking the door and hiding in his apartment with Pess for the rest of his life. He could have Kay fetch his groceries and Gumshoe take Pess on walks. It would work out perfectly, he thinks, as he stands there and stares right back at Phoenix in complete and utter horror, his words drying up on his tongue. What the hell , Miles. 

“O- oh ,” Phoenix sputters, after a long, long moment. “Um, I mean, I…I wanted you to, uh…I wanted you here, too, it wasn’t just Trucy. I’m not... not happy, about it, but, like, it’s not like…” He trails off, eyes wide, and he averts his gaze. A nervous smile tugs at his mouth, and he runs a hand through his hair. “I’m…yes. Me too. Not just Trucy.”

Miles’s mouth feels dry. His heart thumps hard in his chest, and it hurts . He opens his mouth to say something and he’s not exactly sure what, because what is he supposed to say to something like that? But all that falls out is: “You have a leaf in your hair.”

Phoenix blinks. “W-what?” He reaches up, patting his right temple but the leaf is on his left. “I do? Where?”

Miles sighs, and before he really thinks it through he reaches out. He plucks the leaf from Phoenix’s hair, and in the half a second it takes he notes not only how surprisingly soft Phoenix’s hair is but also how quickly a red flush can build up in Phoenix’s cheeks. 

Do you like him ? Kay had asked.

I don’t know , Miles had responded. 

And then, earlier, Can I ask you something kind of serious?

Oh, god.

“We should…we should go in,” Phoenix stammers, and Miles flinches free of his thoughts.

“Yes,” he says jerkily. “Let’s do that.”

They head in, standing a perfectly respectable distance apart from one another and meet Trucy at the front entrance, where she’s waiting for them with a slightly impatient look on her face. 

“I found the apple cider lady, but I kind of forgot that I don’t have any money,” she says, “but it looked like you guys were busy so I didn’t want to come and interrupt.” 

Miles flushes, and Phoenix makes a slightly strangled noise. 

Trucy just stares at them. “So…can we get apple cider?”

“We…we should check in with Mia first,” Phoenix says, regaining his composure, “and then we can get apple cider, okay?”

“Ms. Fey is here?” Miles asks, looking around. 

“Oh, We have a stall here,” Phoenix explains, gesturing off to the right. Miles spots the Fey’s Flowers sign immediately; it looks just like the sign above the shop, pale green with the letters written in peach-colored cursive, but this sign has sunflowers painted around the edges. 

“Did you paint the sign?” Miles asks. 

Phoenix nods, holding up his hand. There’s some yellow paint fading on his fingers. “How’d you guess?”

“I helped!” Trucy butts in. She points to the bottom left corner of the sign, where one sunflower looks a bit shakier than the rest and the shading isn’t as well defined, but it’s still decent. “I painted that one!”

“It looks very good, Trucy,” Miles says politely, and Trucy grins. 

Miles takes in the sheer number of plants on the table as they walk up to the stall. There’s a dangling ivy and a few bushy ferns, several small, pastel green succulents and one plant with large leaves, the veins streaked through with red and yellow, sitting in a beautiful white terracotta pot with delicate blue vines painted across its surface. A huge spider plant hangs from a hook behind the sign next to an odd, mid-size plant that looks like a strange, segmented succulent, its leaves hanging over the edges of the pot. There’s a few lucky bamboo plants on the table, too, which Miles pointedly does not look at. 

There’s a girl sitting behind the table tapping away at a DS, a girl with long, dark hair tied back in a thick braid and earrings shaped like purple crescent moons. Miles recognizes her from the last time (the only time) he stopped by the flower shop to return Trucy’s lost bracelet.

“Where’s Mia?” Phoenix asks the girl.

“Oh, hey Nick!” The girl says, hardly glancing up from her game. She jabs a thumb behind her, where a curtain hangs between the stall and the open parking lot. “She’s probably getting the rest of the plants from the truck.”

“You’re not helping?”

The girl raises a brow at Phoenix. “Dude, I gotta watch the stall. What if someone comes and steals all the plants? Mia would kill me.”

“Yeah, I can see you’re being really vigilant,” Phoenix says, looking pointedly at the DS in her hands. 

The girl sticks out her tongue (Miles imagines this is where Trucy gets it from). “My virtual dogs need me, Nick.”

Phoenix snorts. “Sure, whatever you say.”

Satisfied, the girl peers up at Miles over the rim of her DS. “Hey there,” she says, grinning. It seems she recognizes Miles, too. 

“Ah…hello.” He’s all too aware of the fact he does not know this girl’s name.

“How’s Franziska?” 

“She’s…fine,” Miles replies. He wasn’t aware this girl knew Franziska.

The girl smiles a bit wider; she’s clearly amused. “And how’s that lucky bamboo plant doing? You know, the one Nick gave you?”

“It’s, er, also fine.”

“Maya, please stop terrorizing Miles,” Phoenix says, frowning.

“Terrorize? Me ? I am shocked that you would even make such an accusation, and about your best friend, of all people,” the girl - Maya - says, pressing a hand to her forehead as if she were a delicate southern belle about to faint dead away, but the mischievous smile on her face rather ruins the effect. “I would never terrorize someone that you-“

“Maya!”

Miles feels the back of his neck turn hot. He can guess where Maya was going with that sentence. 

“What, you don’t want me to tell him-“

Phoenix cuts her off, his cheeks bright red under his freckles. “I’m going to go tell Mia that you’re playing games when you’re supposed to be working,” he says, a warning in his voice. 

Maya gasps. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would.”

They stare at each other for a moment, neither blinking. Phoenix’s eyes flicker down to Maya’s DS, and Maya tilts her head towards Miles. Then, Phoenix lunges, snatching the DS from her hand in one swift movement before bolting through the curtain into the parking lot. 

“Nick! Get back here, you old man!” Maya sputters, leaping to her feet and nearly knocking the chair over in her haste to chase after him. “My dogs need me!”

Miles blinks, watching the two run off. He looks at Trucy. “Is this…normal?” 

Trucy shrugs, hopping into the chair previously occupied by Maya. “Yeah, pretty much. Daddy and Aunt Maya and Aunt Mia have known each other for like, forever, and it’s always like this.”

“It seems you have quite a lot of aunts and uncles,” Miles says, trying to sound conversational. Children aren’t exactly in his wheelhouse. “Did you…name them all yourself?”

“Only special people get to be an aunt or an uncle,” Trucy replies seriously. “I don’t give that title to just anyone , you have to earn it.”

I wonder what I did to earn it , Miles thinks, but says nothing.

“And anyway,” Trucy continues, “Aunt Maya and Aunt Mia are family so they’re my aunts no matter what.”

“I wasn't aware that they’re related to your father.”

“They’re not,” Trucy says nonchalantly, kicking her feet. “They’re family anyway. Like, Daddy and I aren’t blood related, but we’re family. Family isn’t defined by blood, Uncle Miles, that’s just silly.”

“Ah.” Miles nods, feeling slightly sheepish. He hadn’t meant it to come across like that; he and Franziska certainly aren’t blood related, after all. “Forgive me.”

“It’s cool,” Trucy says easily, giving him a smile. 

“I thought I heard my favorite magician!” A voice says, then, and Mia Fey, clad in a green Fey’s Flowers shirt, ducks through the curtain. She sets a small snake plant in a turquoise pot on the table before wrapping an arm around Trucy to give her a hug. She’s wearing her thick brown hair up in a ponytail today, with a tan bandana holding back her sweeping bangs. She gives Trucy another squeeze before turning to Miles, giving him a perfectly friendly smile. 

“Hello, Miles.”

“Hello, Ms. Fey.”

“We’ve talked about this,” Mia says, tilting her head. “You can just call me Mia. Ms. Fey makes me feel old.”

Miles just makes a noise of acknowledgement and nods. He’s never felt entirely comfortable around Mia, not for any particular reason other than the fact that he’s simply uncomfortable around people he doesn’t know. Occasionally uncomfortable around people he does. 

Mia quirks a brow. “I take it you’re still going to call me Ms. Fey. I didn’t really expect much else,” she says, but it’s nothing other than good-natured. “That’s fine! We’ll get there eventually.” 

“You two know each other?” Trucy gasps.

Mia smiles. “Sure do! We’ve had stores across from each other for years.”

Trucy’s eyes widen. “Uncle Miles and Aunt Mia,” she whispers. 

“ Uncle Miles?” Mia repeats, her smile growing larger. 

“It’s a new thing,” Trucy tells her, and she drops her voice to a hush, but Miles can still hear her quite clearly. “He acts like he doesn’t like it but I’m pretty sure that he does.”

Mia chuckles, and Miles feels the back of his neck grow hot. 

“Okay, Truce. How about you go help your daddy with the rest of the plants, okay?”

“Okay, Aunt Mia!” Trucy salutes Mia, and bolts off to the truck.

Mia sighs, watching her run off. “She’s such a good kid,” she says. 

“She is,” Miles agrees, awkwardly. 

Mia ducks down underneath the table, then emerges holding a spray bottle with the words THAT GOOD PLANT JUICE written on it. She begins to mist the plants, starting with the big, leafy fern, spraying a leaf before carefully wiping it down with a dish towel. “Wiping off the dust,” she explains, catching Miles watching her. “If there’s too much dust on the plant it won’t be able to photosynthesize.”

“…Ah.”

An amused smile tugs at Mia’s lips, and she keeps misting the plants. “So,” she says brightly, clearly intent on holding a conversation. “How’s that lucky bamboo plant of yours doing? You’re taking good care of it, right?”

Why is everyone so interested in that plant? Miles thinks, and shrugs. “It’s still alive.”

Mia snorts, and Miles nearly flinches. He wasn’t expecting her to be the kind of woman that snorted. “Well, I’m glad it’s alive . Phoenix would be devastated if it died.”

“…Quite,” Miles says awkwardly. 

Mia finishes with the fern and moves on to the plant with the colorful leaves in the lovely painted pot. “This is a croton plant,” she says, gently patting one of the leaves. “They’re terribly fussy, so you have to be careful when cleaning them or else their leaves might pop right off. This little fella’s named Crouton.”

“Do…all your plants have names?” Miles asks, recalling the time when Phoenix stopped by the bookstore to ask Miles whether or not he’d named the lucky bamboo. 

“Of course they do! Why wouldn’t they?” Mia replies, smiling. She has a sincere, genuine kind of smile, one that reaches all the way to her eyes. “It’s my personal philosophy that if you name something, you’ll care more about it, and if you take care of your plants they can help take care of you. Keeping something alive that you care about is a very rewarding thing, you know.”

Miles hums. “I suppose that makes sense.”

“Did you name the lucky bamboo Phoenix gave you?”

“No.”

Mia makes a thoughtful sound, wiping down one of the croton’s leaves. “Well, I think you should.”

Miles doesn’t reply. (He doesn’t tell her that a few days after receiving the plant, Kay and Franziska had a bit of a war on what to call the thing, including several inappropriate German words that Miles would rather not repeat, and Kay had been absolutely determined to name the plant Mr. Bamboozle.)

Miles watches as Mia makes her way down to the lucky bamboo plants at the end of the table. She picks one up, one with three stalks all twined around each other. “Did you know that lucky bamboo plants aren’t actually bamboo?” 

“I did not.”

“They’re part of the Dracaena family. You might know them as dragon trees. People mistook them for bamboo because their stalks look so similar.”

Miles fidgets with the fabric at his elbow. “Ah. That’s…interesting.” Wright and Trucy sure are taking a long time. 

“They have special meaning, too. It depends on how many stalks they have, though.” Mia nods to the three-stalked bamboo plant in her hand. “This little fella symbolizes happiness. Four stalks usually symbolizes death, so you shouldn’t buy one of those.” She gives Miles a wink. “Five stalks can bring good fortune, and six can bring wealth. How many stalks does your plant have?”

Miles frowns. He hasn’t really paid it enough attention to know off the top of his head. “Two, I believe.”

Mia smiles a bit wider. “Huh. You don’t say.”

“…What do two stalks mean?” Miles asks, feeling decidedly nervous. 

“ Well ,” Mia says, tapping at her jaw as if she were in thought. “Typically a bamboo plant with two stalks symbolizes love.”

Miles sputters something completely incomprehensible; he’s not even sure himself what he was trying to say. Mia just laughs at him, a light, charming sound, and shakes her head. 

Luckily, or unluckily, depending on how one might look at it, Miles doesn’t have to sit in his embarrassment for much longer, as Phoenix and Trucy return, Phoenix with a stack of painted pots and Trucy with her arms wrapped around one particularly large pot. Maya trails behind them, holding her DS protectively to her chest.

“Where do you want these, Mia?” Phoenix asks.

“Oh, you can set them behind the table. We’ll set them out when we get more space.”

Trucy carefully deposits her own large pot, but the second it’s on the ground she darts over to Miles, clutching at his sleeve. “Uncle Miles?”

“Yes, Trucy?”

“Can we go see the apple cider lady now?”

Miles hesitates, looking up at Phoenix. “Er…wouldn’t you rather go with your father?”

“I want to go with you,” Trucy says firmly, and her grip on his sleeve tightens. 

Phoenix laughs from the other side of the table. “It’s okay, Miles, you can take her! I was gonna help finish setting up here anyway, so it works out. Get me a cup?”

“Will do, Daddy!” Trucy gives Phoenix a thumbs up and promptly tugs Miles away before he can protest. She’s surprisingly strong for a child. 

“The apple cider lady is the best,” Trucy tells Miles seriously as she pulls him along, holding tight to his hand. “She’s magic.”

Miles quirks a brow down at her. “I thought you didn’t believe in magic.”

“I believe in magic, just not the fake stuff. Apple cider is the realest kind of magic.”

“Ah. Forgive me, then.”

Trucy squeezes his hand. “Always.”

That knot in his chest tightens, then, and Miles tries to resist the panicked urge to pull his hand away. He’s not used to people… touching him, and whenever Trucy grabs at his hand or pulls on his sleeve or pant leg it’s always so startling and he never knows just what to do. He may be confused over Phoenix, but there’s no amount of words to describe his convoluted feelings towards Trucy; he’s never met someone quite like her. He’s sure that there’s no one in the world quite like her, really. 

“This way!” Trucy says, pulling him through a small throng of people. The ‘apple cider lady’ has her stall close to the entrance, where she has a sign shaped like a pretty red apple and a handful of cinnamon sticks hanging over the table. The air near her stall smells enticingly of cinnamon and spices, and the woman behind the stall waves as they approach. 

Trucy drags Miles all the way up to the table, and Miles is thankful that no one was waiting in line because he’s certain Trucy would’ve just shoved them aside. 

“Hello, apple cider lady!” Trucy says excitedly.

The woman smiles, and it’s a kind smile. She’s a short, stocky sort of woman, with a round, cheery face, dressed in white and shades of violet.  “Hello there, you two! Would you like a cup?”

“Yes please! Oh, and I need one for my daddy, too.” Trucy pauses. “Actually, we need three total. Do you think Aunt Mia and Aunt Maya want one?”

“Trucy, we don’t have that many hands,” Miles says. 

“Okay, fine. Just three, please.”

The woman chuckles, amused. “Sure thing, dear.” She turns to a pot behind her, which sits on a portable hot plate, and carefully ladles cider into three surprisingly large paper cups. Trucy can’t quite reach over the display stall, so Miles takes a cup to hand to her, and she holds it reverently between her hands, the steam twining around her round, childish face.

“Magic,” she whispers. “Thank you, apple cider lady.”

“Of course, dear. I hope you enjoy it,” the woman says, handing Miles the other two cups. “It’ll be three dollars.”

Miles sets the cups down to fish out his wallet. He nearly drops the leaf Trucy had given him earlier but catches it before it slips to the ground. 

“Can I go look around?” Trucy asks. 

“...As long as you stay where your father and I can see you…well, I suppose it’s alright.”

“I will!” Trucy promises, before darting off with her magic apple cider to wander the market. 

“She’s cute,” the apple cider vendor says, as Miles hands over a five. 

It takes Miles a moment to realize what the vendor actually meant by that, a bit too long of a moment, really, as by the time he realizes he’s already walked away from the stall and can’t very well turn back to inform her that Trucy is not actually his daughter. The apple cider does taste wonderful, just as he suspected, with notes of cinnamon and cloves and nutmeg, and Miles is positive he’d enjoy it much more if he could ignore the heat in his cheeks and the knot tightening in his chest, all from two simple words. 

He gives himself a minute to cool off before returning to the Fey’s Flowers stall. 

“Where’s Trucy?” Phoenix asks, as he approaches. 

“She’s…wandering.” Miles replies. He glances around the market, spotting her quickly at a stall displaying handmade jewelry. “There she is. She asked to look around, is that okay?”

“Oh, that’s totally fine. She’s a smart kid. Ooh, is that for me?” Phoenix reaches out to take one of the apple cider cups, and Miles realizes all too late (he’s awfully slow on the uptake today) that Phoenix took the wrong cup, he took Miles’s cup but he’s already taking a sip before he can say anything to stop him and that heat is returning to the back of Miles’s neck because the implications are just freefalling through his skull. 

“What?” Phoenix blinks at him, and Miles realizes he was staring. 

He swallows, grips the cup in his hand a little tighter. “Oh. Er, nothing.”

“Okay…well, once I finish helping up here we can grab lunch or something from one of the stalls, if you want?”

Miles blinks. “Oh. That sounds…nice.”

“Do you…want to go tell Trucy?” Phoenix asks, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Then after lunch we can look around the market more. If you’re up for it, I mean. You don’t have to stick around if you’d rather go back.”

“That’s alright. I think Trucy would be upset if I leave.”

“Yes. Trucy.” Phoenix runs a thumb over the rim of his apple cider cup, of Miles ’s cup, rather. “Right.”

“Oh my god ,” Maya mutters, and Mia frowns at her.

“I’m…going, then. To find Trucy,” Miles says awkwardly, and departs. He can hear Maya laughing as he walks away, and Mia reprimanding her for being rude. He shakes it off, and heads deeper into the farmer’s market. He heads to where she was when he pointed her out to Phoenix, the handmade jewelry stall, where a man with extremely sparkly white teeth is selling earrings made of painted resin and pressed flowers. He finds she’s still there, squinting up at a pair of studs shaped like tiny playing cards. 

“I don’t have my ears pierced but I want those so bad,” Trucy mutters as he approaches. 

“You can always buy them now and save them,” the vendor offers, but Trucy just sighs. 

“I don’t have any money.”

The vendor shrugs. “I suppose you’re out of luck then, kid.”

Trucy frowns, and turns to Miles. She’s clearly downcast, and Miles scrambles to come up with something to lift her spirits. The only card in his deck, however, is the prospect of food. Children like food, he supposes. 

“Er, Trucy?”

She looks up at him. “Oh, hey, Uncle Miles. What’s up?”

“Your father said we can get lunch soon, once he’s done helping the Fey’s set up.”

Trucy’s eyes brighten almost instantly. “Okay!” she says, bouncing on her heels, and Miles wonders if both the Wrights are this food-motivated or if it’s just Trucy. “Should I go find us a picnic table?”

“If you like.”

Trucy bounds off, her braids bouncing in the wind and that red maple leaf still somehow secured behind her ear. Miles watches her weave through people as she heads towards the little picnic tables set up beside the market, and wonders over the feeling in his chest for a moment before turning back to the earring vendor. 

Kay likes earrings, Miles thinks, though she certainly has enough of them. He scans the options available, but it doesn’t take long for him to find a pair that he knows Kay will adore, a pair of dangling earrings in the shape of waffles, with delicate yellow flowers pressed in the resin. 

He sneakily buys the playing card earrings too, without really knowing what he’s doing. There’s just a part of him that wants to, and that part of him that wants has been taking the wheel quite a lot today, Miles thinks, but he believes that for this, it’s okay.

“Your daughter’s going to be thrilled,” the vendor says, taking the offered money. 

Miles flushes. “She’s…she’s not my daughter. She’s the daughter of a…friend.”

He awkwardly thanks the vendor and tucks the two pairs of earrings safely in his pocket. He’ll slip the playing card studs into Trucy’s canvas bag later, when she isn’t looking. Maybe when Phoenix isn’t looking. He’s not sure how Phoenix feels about pierced ears - will he be upset with Miles for buying them? Would Phoenix get upset over something like that, like a man that he…no, a friend , buying his daughter earrings that she can’t currently wear?

You’re overthinking , Miles tells himself. But, of course, when isn’t he?

While he’s heading over to Trucy, he stops by the apple cider woman and buys another cup for Trucy. He still has his own cup - Phoenix’s, technically - but Trucy had drunk hers at lightning speed. He finds her at a picnic table beneath a sweeping oak tree, and she’s perched on the top rather than the bench, her feet swinging. She lights up when she sees the extra cup of cider, and he gives it to her under the sole condition that she won’t drink it too fast like she did the first one, because she’s going to upset her stomach if she’s not careful. 

They sit there for a bit in peace. It’s not uncomfortable, or awkward, like Miles might expect. Trucy hums some nonsensical tune under her breath and carefully sips her apple cider. There’s a cool breeze blowing, not too cold, but Trucy turns up the cuffs of her sunflower yellow sweater to cover her hands anyway.

She breaks the quiet, eventually. “I never gave you the dragon book back.”

“Well, your father bought it. I don’t expect you to return it.”

“No, not the first one, the second one.”

Miles blinks. He’d entirely forgotten that, the day of the thunderstorm, Trucy had taken the sequel home with her. 

“I can bring it back tomorrow,” Trucy says. 

“That’s…quite alright, Trucy,” Miles tells her, before he really realizes what he’s saying. “You can keep it.”

Trucy’s eyes widen. “Really?”

“I don’t see why not. It’s not a particularly expensive book-“

He’s cut off as Trucy sets down her cup and throws her arms around Miles’s neck, squeezing tight, her cheek pressing against his and Miles freezes, his hands held awkwardly out to the side and his heart thunders away with sudden and rampant affection for a magic girl who quite unexpectedly stole his heart without him ever noticing, just like his wallet only an hour before. 

“Thank you, Uncle Miles,” Trucy whispers, and there’s such a warmth to her voice before she pulls back, and her brows furrow together. “That wasn’t too much, was it? Daddy told me I need to be careful with you.”

Miles frowns. “I’m not made of glass ,” he says indignantly (though he’s feeling awfully fragile right now). 

Trucy giggles. “I know, but Daddy’s always worried we’re overstepping.”

He worries about that ?

Miles glances toward the market. He spots Phoenix almost instantly with his spiky black hair and his forest green sweater; he’s wandering around the market, presumably trying to find them all something for lunch. It seems he keeps getting distracted by stalls, however, and can’t focus enough on just one to make a proper decision. Miles watches him try and politely decline a burnt pastry from a man with a horrendously fake French accent. 

“Uncle Miles?”

“Yes, Trucy?”

“Do you wanna know something kind of secret?” 

Miles turns to look at her. There’s an uncharacteristically serious look in her eyes that makes him slightly nervous, that reminds him of what Phoenix had said earlier: can I ask you something kind of serious?

“I…suppose.”

“Daddy thinks you hate him.”

Miles nearly chokes on his apple cider. He seems to be choking on his drinks quite a lot these days, he thinks, as he sets the cup down and clears his throat. That was not what he was expecting. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“Well, maybe not hate exactly…” Trucy says thoughtfully, “but Daddy thinks you don’t like him cause you were avoiding him all week and now he’s nervous ‘cause he’s trying not to annoy you.”

“I…” Miles hesitates. “That week wasn’t anything to do with you.” It’s a lie, but only partially. The fault lies on him acting like a fool far more than it lies on the Wrights. 

“You should tell Daddy that,” Trucy says, reminiscent of Kay. “He didn’t even want to ask you to come with us today because he was worried we’d be bothering you. I really wanted you to come and he did too, but he kept telling me that we shouldn’t ask you ‘cause you’d probably be busy and not want to come with us anyway.”

“Oh. Well.” Miles fights back the flush threatening his face. He didn’t know there was that side to Phoenix; he really only thought of him as a loud, clumsy man that smiled all the time and little else. “I don’t…dislike your father. Or you, for that matter. I don’t…I don’t know why he would think such a thing.”

Trucy shrugs. “Daddy has this thing about trying to make everyone happy. I think he just wants everyone to be happy with him, you know, because he gets really upset when somebody doesn’t like him. Sometimes, though, he tries so hard to make everyone else happy that he kinda forgets to make himself happy, too. And then he’s sad, but he’s still worried about everyone else so he just pretends to not be sad instead.”

Miles frowns. “Did that…did that happen with me?”

“I don’t think so. He just really wanted to be friends with you, I think, but then it seemed like you didn’t and he got worried that he’d done everything wrong and upset you.” Trucy looks toward the market, towards Phoenix, who unfortunately did not make it away from the man with the fake French accent without buying at least one unappetizing-looking croissant. “Aunt Mia says he thinks too much about everything.”

“I don’t know if you should be telling me all this, Trucy. It seems…private.”

Trucy shook her head. ‘It’s okay. Daddy won’t mind if it’s you.”

Miles blinks, then looks at her. “Why is that?”

The corner of Trucy’s mouth quirks. “Well…he might mind if I tell you that.”

Of course , Miles thinks, and sighs. 

They spend the rest of the day at the farmer’s market, and it goes by surprisingly fast. Phoenix brings them an assortment for lunch, along with the inedible croissant, including late autumn apples, fresh bread and slices of pie. After they eat they wander around until the sun begins to set, early as it often does in fall. They look at stalls and Trucy tries to convince Phoenix to let them buy a dozen pumpkins, but he allows just one, small enough to fit into Trucy’s canvas bag so she won’t need to worry about carrying it. Miles somehow ends up holding said bag (he’s not really sure how), which gives him the perfect opportunity to slip in the playing card earrings.  

Toward the end of the day Mia insists Phoenix go home rather than help her pack up, since Trucy is practically falling asleep on her feet. Miles doesn’t complain - he has a lot to think about in the privacy of his apartment. 

“Daddy, I’m tired,” Trucy says, yawning as they walk towards the entrance. She holds up her arms, her eyes half-shut. 

“Okay, okay.” Phoenix leans down and hoists her up, grunting a bit with the effort. Trucy wraps her arms around his neck and snuggles her face into the crook of his neck. 

“You’re heavy,” he grumbles. 

“Maybe you’re just weak,” Trucy retorts sleepily, and Phoenix fondly rolls his eyes. He glances at Miles, the smile on his face small and easy.

“Should we go?” he asks. 

Miles nods, and then, like nothing, they’re outside the bookstore.

The slowly setting sun twines its golden fingers through Trucy’s hair where she dozes against Phoenix’s shoulder, casts about a haze that softens the world’s sharp edges, blending into the swaying red and orange leaves on the trees. 

Miles holds out Trucy’s canvas bag. “Here,” he says, quietly, partially because he doesn’t want to wake Trucy and partially because the world itself seems quiet, and he doesn’t want to break that. It’s strange how sunsets do that. 

“Could you…” Phoenix trails off, tilting his head towards Trucy. He’s supporting her with both arms; he doesn’t have a hand to spare for the bag.

Miles swallows, and nods. He steps forward and their situation is reversed now, isn’t it, Miles stepping into Phoenix’s space rather than the other way around. He carefully slips the strap of the bag over Phoenix’s neck, and when his fingers brush at Phoenix’s freckled skin he feels him shiver, ever so slightly, at his touch. He doesn’t dare meet Phoenix’s gaze. 

“Thanks,” Phoenix says, lowly. 

Miles nods rather than speaking. Phoenix is watching him but Miles looks down at his hands where they linger on the strap of the bag instead, and he suddenly realizes that he hasn’t let go and he sharply steps away, scuffing his heel on the sidewalk. 

“I should go,” Miles says, the back of his neck burning with heat.

Phoenix nods, shifting his arms around Trucy, who remains fast asleep. “Thank you for coming.” His tenor voice is soft, warm, dangerously so. 

“Of course,” Miles replies, then fidgets with his sleeve, Trucy’s words ringing in his ears from before. “I didn’t mind, really. I had a nice time with the both of you.”

Phoenix swallows, nods again. He glances at his feet. “Good. I did, too.”

“Good,” Miles echoes. 

Do you like him?

I don’t know.

“Er…have a good night, Wright,” Miles says, and he turns for the door. 

“Wait, Miles, before you go, can I ask you something?”

Miles hesitates. “Yes, Wright?”

“Are we friends?”

It’s not a question Miles was expecting, but he wasn’t surprised to hear it. When he turns, he finds that Phoenix isn’t looking at him. He’s looking up at the sky, at the honey-gold clouds streaked through with a similar shade of pink that’s settling on his cheeks. 

“I thought we were,” Phoenix continues, before Miles can speak, and there’s a nervous note to his voice but the words spill out one after another all the same. “But then it seemed like you were avoiding me all last week and I started to get worried that I did something wrong or I misunderstood the situation and you actually just…didn’t… like me, and I’ve been overstepping and making you uncomfortable this entire time because I know I’m…not for everyone,” he says, hesitantly, and Miles thinks of what Trucy had said earlier, about how he wants people to be happy with him. “I just I just want to make sure so I don’t keep bothering you,” he finishes, flicking his gaze to Miles before quickly looking away. 

Miles exhales. He feels strangely calm, despite that ever-present knot in his chest, something he’s grown surprisingly used to, now. “No, Wright. You’re not bothering me.” Then, because he’s feeling daring, or perhaps simply stupid: “Quite the opposite, really.”

Phoenix flushes. “Oh. Good! That’s…good. So we’re friends, then?”

“Something like that,” Miles replies. 

“Good,” Phoenix says again, a smile tugging at his lips. “‘Cause Trucy would be really sad if we couldn’t visit anymore.”

Miles tilts his head. “Just Trucy?”

Phoenix’s smile grows a bit wider. “No. Not just Trucy.” 

They say their goodbyes, then, and they part, Phoenix crossing the street with Trucy fast asleep in his arms, and Miles retreats into the store, locking the door behind him. He steps into the middle of the room, feeling the way his heart is pounding in his chest. He still doesn’t know. He’s still confused, but things are getting clearer. He runs a hand through his hair, looks up at the picture of his father behind the front counter. 

“You would like him,” he says absently. He wonders what his father would say about this situation, what advice he would have to offer. 

Miles sighs, his eyes falling on the lucky bamboo plant on the counter. He moves to pick it up, running his thumb over the two stalks, twining together.

Typically a bamboo plant with two stalks symbolizes love. 

Miles abruptly sets the plant down. He needs a cup of tea, now. 

Chapter Text

He likes you. 

He’s a real nice guy, you know. You should give him a chance. 

Do you like him?

Daddy won’t mind if it’s you.

Are we friends?

That man has a crush on you. 

Miles?

Do you like him?

Miles Edgeworth, do you like Phoenix Wright?

“Uncle Miles?” 

Miles starts, dropping the book in his hands. It clatters to the floor with a thud, breaking the cozy, ambient quiet of the bookstore as it falls open and the pages bend this way and that. Miles bites back a curse and bends to pick it up. Luckily, the damage isn’t too great. There’s no creases, so the bent pages will likely smooth out over time. 

He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He’s losing it, he really is. It’s been like this for almost a week and a half, ever since that accursed farmer’s market, his thoughts scattered to the wind like autumn leaves spiraling frantically out of control. 

“Uncle Miles,” Trucy repeats. “Are you okay?” 

Miles glances at her. She’s sitting behind him on a little stool with wheels that Miles had retrieved for her; it’s a stool that Kay used to use to reach too-high shelves before Miles, convinced she’d fall and hurt herself, banished it to the back room. Now, the stool has been repurposed into Trucy’s own personal vehicle, and she scoots around after Miles with the inventory box in her lap as he restocks shelves. 

Yes, restocking shelves. That’s what he’s supposed to be doing. 

“I’m fine, Trucy,” Miles tells her. Thank you.”

“Are you sure? You spaced out for like, three minutes.”

“Did I?” 

Trucy frowns. “Yeah. It was kind of freaky.”

Miles looks down at the book in his hand. It’s a copy of The Book of Speculation , which he finds annoyingly ironic. He frowns, and sticks it on the shelf (historical fiction, though one could make a case for fantasy). Trucy, now practiced at her job, immediately pulls another book from the inventory box. She scoots closer to Miles on her stool, holding out the book in her small hand. Her fingernails are painted red today, matching the strawberries on her soft white sweater and Miles wonders, absently, whether Phoenix painted them. He once told Miles that they did that; he painted Trucy’s nails and she painted his.

Miles takes the book: The Lobotomist’s Wife. Trucy’s getting better at guessing which books he needs for the section they’re in. Or, perhaps, she’s merely been lucky. He thanks her and shelves the book.

Trucy smiles up at Miles, and she looks, for a moment, as if she’s going to say something else but hesitates, and she gets a thoughtful look on her face as she mulls it over that’s so distinctly Wright in origin that it makes Miles’s heart ache: her eyebrows furrow together and she purses her lips in thought, a perfect carbon copy of Phoenix’s thinking face, and it’s a wonder that these two aren’t actually related by blood. 

Miles waits, feeling slightly uneasy; he has a feeling this is something important to her, and she’s not going to hand him the next book until she speaks her mind. However, the last time a Wright had something important to say it unlocked a whole host of rather… inconvenient feelings for Miles that he’s dutifully ignoring (both the question, we’re friends, then? and the subsequent response, something like that ). 

“Uncle Miles,” Trucy says finally, her voice slow and hopeful, “will you help me with something?”

Miles lifts a brow. “It depends on what that something might be.”

“It’s not illegal ! I’m only a little girl.” 

He feels the smile tugging on his lips; that’s been happening quite a lot, recently. Damn these Wrights and their ability to break through his walls. “I wasn’t thinking you’d ask anything illegal of me, Trucy, though I’ve learned not to doubt your capabilities.”

Trucy giggles, kicking her feet, and Miles’s chest tightens in that oh-so-familiar way. He knows he’s growing fond of her, terribly, awfully, horribly fond, though he’s still slightly hesitant to admit it. Because to admit he’s fond of Trucy Wright means he has to admit something else, too, something he’d rather remain in denial over. It’s been about a week and a half since the farmer’s market, since the moment Wright stood on his stoop and asked them if they were friends and for an heart-stopping moment Miles wondered if they weren’t just a tiny bit more, and he fears that something inside him has been set into motion like a great ocean wave crashing to shore, unstoppable and imminent. But for now, he wants to be in denial. Complete and utter denial. 

“So are you going to help me?” Trucy asks.

Miles crosses his arms, shoves down his thoughts, his feelings, taps his finger at the crook of his elbow. “You haven’t told me what you require my help with yet.”

Trucy stares up at him for a moment, before biting at her lower lip and getting to her feet. She very carefully sets the box on her little stool-on-wheels, and Miles watches as she peeks around the corner of the historical fiction bookshelf, as if making sure the coast is clear. She peers around the other side of the shelf as well; she’s extremely thorough in her check for eavesdroppers. Then, she turns back to Miles, and makes a gesture for him to come close, down to her level. He raises a brow but obeys, crouching so she can look him in the eye. 

“First, you have to promise not to tell this to anyone, especially Daddy,” she says seriously, her voice hushed. 

“I was under the impression this wouldn’t be illegal.”

Trucy smacks Miles lightly on the arm, in the way she so often smacks Phoenix when he says something ridiculous. “Uncle Miles!”

He can’t help it, he’s smiling, now. “Alright, alright. What is it?”

Trucy hesitates, before leaning a bit closer. “I want to bake Daddy a cake for his birthday,” she whispers, and Miles blinks. It’s not quite what he was expecting. “It’s next week and I want to make something special for him, and I need you to help me make it perfect.”

“You…want me …to help you…bake your father a cake?”

“If I could do it on my own, I would! I’ve baked tons of stuff before, I’m really good at cookies,” Trucy continues, her voice still hushed (and Miles understands now that it’s to keep her father, who’s browsing a few shelves down, from hearing). “But Daddy obviously can’t be there when I’m making his cake and I’m not allowed to use the oven if I’m home alone. So I need your help.”

“Er…wouldn’t one of the Feys be better suited to assist you?” Miles asks, and Trucy makes a face.

“Aunt Mia’s good at baking but she’s always busy, and Aunt Maya isn’t allowed in the kitchen anymore so I can’t ask her. Uncle Larry isn’t in town but I don’t really want him to help anyway ‘cause he’s kinda weird, so that leaves you! Oh, and Kay told me that you’re really good at baking,” Trucy adds. 

Miles sighs. “Of course she did.”

 “Will you help?” Trucy asks, and then she reaches out to squeeze his hands, something that she does quite often, really, but it never fails to strike the match and light that warm feeling in Miles’s chest. Her hands are small and warm, the cuffs of her slightly-too large strawberry sweater brushing against Miles’s fingers. She’s watching him so expectantly, her brown eyes wide and Miles feels it in his chest and it’s soft, warm, and sweet. 

(This is another moment in Miles Edgeworth’s life where he learns he cannot say no to Trucy Wright. We’ve seen it before, and we will very likely see it again, but this is a curious point in time where Miles’s inability to say no to her is rather appropriately balanced by the simple fact that he wants to. Not that he would admit it, of course, as he is a man rooted firmly in complete and utter denial.)

“I…suppose I can lend a hand,” Miles says, conceding defeat. 

Trucy’s eyes brighten like jewels, and she flings her arms around Miles’s neck to wrap him in a hug, nearly knocking him over with her full weight. She’s done this before, too. In fact, she did it at the farmer’s market, after he allowed her to keep a book she borrowed from the store, but Miles isn’t used to it. He’s certain, in fact, that he will never be used to it (a thought that implies that it will occur more, a thought that makes him feel even warmer inside).  

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Trucy gushes. “You’re the best , Uncle Miles, it’s going to turn out amazing and Daddy’s gonna love it!”

Miles swallows, hesitantly patting Trucy on the back. “Yes, well. When would you like me to…er, to come help?” he asks, and it hits him for the first time that he will be at the Wright’s place of residence, in their space, in their home , and god forbid he’ll be baking a cake. For Phoenix. 

“Daddy’s birthday is next week, on Sunday,” Trucy says thoughtfully, pulling away, though she keeps her hands at the base of Miles’s neck. “So could you come help the day before? We can tell Daddy you’re just watching me at home while he’s at work.”

“I can, but…won’t your father think it strange that I’m suddenly keeping an eye on you for the first time the day before his birthday?”

Trucy shrugs. “Probably! It’s not like I’m gonna tell him we’re baking him a cake but he’ll probably assume it’s something like that. He can be pretty good at figuring stuff out if he tries, cause he’s like, kind of smart! You should see him when we’re watching Jeopardy .” Then, she grins, tapping a staccato rhythm at his neck with her small hands. “Uncle Miles, I’m so excited! Daddy’s gonna be so happy, especially now that you’re helping.”

Miles feels, a bit, like screaming. 

“Now come on,” Trucy says, oozing excitement as she bounces on the heels of her feet. “Let’s go ask!”

They find Phoenix (with no small amount of trepidation on Miles’s part) deep in the rather labyrinthine fantasy section, with a copy of The Fifth Season in one hand and Black Leopard, Red Wolf in the other, clearly trying to decide between the two. And, judging by the furrow to his brow, he’s failing. 

Miles has seen Phoenix only once since the farmers market a week and a half ago, when he stopped by to thank Miles for buying Trucy those playing card earrings. Miles had been at the front counter when Phoenix walked in, and his heart had gone through such a complicated series of flips and twists that one would think it had a promising career in gymnastics. Phoenix had leaned on the counter, then, his hand close enough to Miles’s where their pinkies just barely brushed, and when he’d thanked him he had a look in his eye that felt a bit to Miles like staring directly into the sun. 

Now, Phoenix, clad in a too-big sweater haphazardly tucked into his jeans, glances up to look at Miles and that crooked smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, gentle creases forming at the corners of his eyes, and Miles’s heart dutifully continues its gymnastics regimen. 

I hate this, he thinks, and he knows it’s only going to get worse. Except it won’t. Because he’s in complete and utter denial. 

Trucy doesn’t waste any time; she doesn’t even let Phoenix say hello. “Daddy, can Uncle Miles watch me next Saturday?”

Phoenix smirks. “Well, hello to you, too, Truce. What do you need Miles to watch you for?”

“It’s a secret,” Trucy declares, and Phoenix lifts a brow. 

His eyes flicker from Trucy to Miles, and back to Trucy, his smile widening. “Next Saturday, huh?” he asks, tilting his head and making a show of thinking it all over. “I suppose it’s alright with me, but only if Miles doesn’t mind.”

“He doesn’t.”

At that, Phoenix snorts, and he gently bops Trucy on the head with one of his books. “Last time I checked your name is Trucy , not Miles. If she’s trying to force you into something, you can say no,” Phoenix informs Miles, as Trucy sticks her tongue out at him. 

The direct eye contact makes Miles’s cheeks feel hot, and he quickly looks away. Miles is supposed to be…what does Kay say? Grumpy and unapproachable. This is not that.  “She’s…she’s not forcing me into anything. Really, I don’t mind.”

“ See ,” Trucy says defensively. “I told you.”

“I was just making sure!” Phoenix laughs, a sound that slips under Miles’s skin and stays there. When he looks back up at Miles with eyes blue-brown and warm, Miles resists the urge to turn on his heel and leave. It’s a feat, really, because the urge is quite strong. “But yeah, you can definitely watch her on Saturday if you want. We can walk you to our apartment from the flower shop during my lunch break. Does that sound okay? You don’t have to watch the bookstore or anything?”

“Both Kay and Franziska will be here,” Miles says, almost without thinking. He curses internally; he had a very good opening right there to turn tail and run, but his foolish tongue betrayed him. 

Phoenix smiles. “Oh, great! You can come over around noon then and we’ll walk you there. I’d let you watch her all day but…well, you don’t know where we live.”

“Great,” Miles echoes. He feels lightheaded. 

Phoenix visibly swallows, and rubs at the back of his neck. “Yeah, great. Um, okay, well. On the topic of lunch breaks, mine is almost over, so we should probably-“

“Daddy,” Trucy interrupts, and there’s a very pointed look in her eye. 

Phoenix flinches, and looks down at his daughter. When he speaks, his voice is tense. “Yes, Trucy?”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“No, I don’t think so, Truce, we can-“

“ Daddy .”

Phoenix exhales sharply. “You’re a menace,” he mutters, and Trucy blows him a kiss. 

Miles stares at them, bewildered, as Phoenix turns to face him again. He doesn’t look Miles in the eye; his gaze flickers from Miles’s face to the floor to Trucy, never sticking in one place. Miles isn't an idiot (despite what Franziska might say) and he can tell that Phoenix is nervous, and the implications of why makes Miles nervous. 

“Um…I’ve actually got something to ask you,” Phoenix says slowly. 

“Alright,” Miles replies, equally slow. “What is it?”

“Oh, uh…I was just, uh, wondering…”

Miles blinks at him. He can feel his heart thundering away in his chest. 

Phoenix blinks back, before quickly looking away, down at the two books in his hands. “Wondering if…you…um…I was just wondering which book you think I should get!”

Trucy puts her face in her hands. 

“Oh,” Miles says, feeling relieved but also distinctly disappointed ( what exactly were you expecting, Miles?) and he glances between the two books before nodding to The Fifth Season. “ They’re both good reads, but Black Leopard, Red Wolf is a bit intense. I believe you’d like The Fifth Season more. It’s a nice fantasy read and I think you’d like it.”

Phoenix nods. “Okay. Cool.” He stares down at the books for a moment, before returning Black Leopard, Red Wolf to the shelf. “Cool, cool, cool.”

“Daddy-“

“Let’s go pay, Truce,” Phoenix says, reaching out for her hand.

“But-“

“Trucy, we can’t spend all of my lunch break here-“

“Daddy!” Trucy exclaims, and she plants her feet right in front of Phoenix with her hands on her hips and such a stern look in her eye that Miles wonders if she’s been taking lessons from Franziska. They stand there looking at each other, Trucy narrowing her eyes at Phoenix and he frowning in response, and Miles gets the distinct feeling that he’s witnessing a kind of stare-down between father and daughter. 

Then, Trucy winks at Phoenix, sticks out her tongue, and turns back to Miles.

“Trucy-“

“Uncle Miles, Daddy wants to ask you to come to his birthday party!”

“ Trucy!” Phoenix hisses, his cheeks turning bright red under his fading summer freckles.

Trucy crosses her arms, a satisfied smile on her face. “You’re welcome, Daddy.”

“Yes, thank you, Truce,” Phoenix replies tightly, the color still high on his cheeks. His gaze flickers to Miles, and then away again. “It’s not…it’s not really a party , it’s just like a little get together. Nothing that serious. It’ll just be us, Mia and Maya, and…” He hesitates, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Well, I was hoping you .”

Miles feels the back of his neck heat up. He will never understand how Phoenix can just say such things. He’s really been trying to keep it together and keep all those…those thoughts that unearthed the day of the farmer’s market firmly locked up in his mind but when Phoenix goes and says things like that with such an earnest look on his face those thoughts begin to leak through the cracks. It’s dangerous and horrifying and warm . 

He has to say no. He cannot, in his right mind, go to Phoenix Wright’s birthday party. He may be able to help Trucy bake a cake but he is not nearly equipped enough for a birthday party, are you kidding ? 

Unfortunately, fate seems to have other plans. Or, if not fate, than one conniving bookstore employee with a propensity for eavesdropping. 

“He’d love to be there!” Kay says, appearing like magic around the bookshelf corner. 

Miles nearly has a heart attack; he hadn’t known she was even there. “Kay, you’re supposed to be watching the counter,” he says, laying a thick warning note in his voice. 

“There’s literally no one in here but them,” Kay replies cheekily, immune, before turning back to Phoenix. “Don’t worry, Mr. Wright. Mr. Edgeworth is definitely gonna be there. Trust me, he wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“ Kay .”

“Actually, can I come too? Then Mr. Edgeworth and I can come together!”

She’s clever. Miles can give her that.

“Oh,” Phoenix says, sounding mildly surprised. “Sure, you can come if you want. You’re definitely welcome. It’ll be next Sunday, around four? And you can call me Phoenix, by the way. Mr. Wright is kinda formal.”

Kay gives Phoenix the OK sign and nudges Miles in the ribs. “We’ll be there with bells on, Phoenix,” she says brightly. 

Phoenix glances at Miles, then, his mouth pulling into a smile. “Can’t wait,” he says softly, and Miles’s heart twists in his chest. 

(As Phoenix and Trucy leave, Miles sees Kay high five Trucy behind Phoenix’s back, and he pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. He’s not making it out of this alive.)

The days leading up to the Saturday before the now-dreaded birthday party fly by almost too quickly. It feels like a blink of an eye and then the day is there, and it’s noon, and Miles is standing outside Feys’ Flowers with Trucy waiting for Phoenix to finish helping a customer inside. 

“I’m so excited,” Trucy whispers, squeezing at Miles’s hand. 

(Miles isn’t quite sure what he’s feeling, so he doesn’t reply. He’s not sure he wants to know what he’s feeling, but that’s been a bit of a trend recently. Again, complete and utter denial.)

Inside, Phoenix laughs at something the customer says, and Miles looks away, down the street. The Wrights live only ten minutes or so from the flower shop, according to Trucy, but she states that sometimes they race home so it only takes six. 

“I always win those,” Trucy tells Miles, “but that’s just ‘cause Daddy’s old and has bad knees.”

Miles blinks. “Erm…how old is your father?”

“He’s turning twenty-seven tomorrow.”

“Trucy, I’m twenty-seven. That’s not old.”

“If it’s not old, then why do you have gray hair?” Trucy asks, innocently batting her eyelashes. 

Miles frowns at her. “Did Kay tell you to say that?”

“Yes.”

“I figured.”

Soon, Phoenix joins them outside, and he has a flower tucked behind his ear that Miles doesn’t recognize, pink with soft round petals, blooming despite the fact it’s October and the sidewalk is painted red and gold with fallen leaves shaken free by the wind. Phoenix notices Miles looking at the flower and he carefully removes it, spinning its stem between his fingers. 

“It’s a camellia,” he explains. “It fell off the bush we have in the shop. They’re late bloomers, so they’re kind of popular around now. Sometimes they last into winter.”

“Ah.” Miles says awkwardly. He frantically scrambles for a related conversation topic, trying to push down the immediate anxiety that bubbled up the moment Phoenix stepped out the door (good lord, were words always this hard?) “Er, Ms. Fey informed me that plants often have meanings to them. Is that true for this one?”

Phoenix’s eyes widen. “Uh, not really - I mean, I don’t know for sure. I, uh, I’m not good with flowers. I only know like, three. Y’know. Tulips and stuff,” he stammers.

“You work at a flower shop, Wright,” Miles says, lifting a brow. “I’d certainly hope you know more than three types.”

“ Oh , um. Yeah. I know some , like, enough to work…here. I…paint more than I sell plants. You know. The mural. And the pots.”

“Daddy, we only have half an hour,” Trucy reminds Phoenix patiently. “We should probably go.”

Phoenix rubs the back of his neck, grinning sheepishly. “Haha. Right. Yes. Let’s do that.”

( He’s a bit of an idiot, you know , Miles reminds himself as he watches Phoenix tuck the camellia behind Trucy’s ear, but the thought does little to deter the stutter of his foolish heart.)

Trucy takes Miles’s hand as they walk, and he feels like she specifically chose his left hand on purpose so Phoenix would walk on his right, but he has no evidence for it. It’s a slightly chilly day, the breeze armed with a mild bite, but Miles is wearing a cashmere sweater and a coat to fight against it. And, though Phoenix is clearly wearing a cozy, cable-knit gray sweater that should, theoretically, keep him warm, Miles notices him shudder against the wind once or twice as they walk. Perhaps he’s simply not good with the cold. 

Miles is all too aware of the reality of the situation at hand; he’s currently on the way to the Wright’s apartment, to help Trucy bake a cake for Phoenix, a man who likes him, a man who he… and then, worst of all, it’s for his birthday , which Miles will be attending with little to no hope of escape thanks to one Kay Faraday. 

It’s enough to make a man lose his mind. 

It’s fine, Miles tells himself, as Trucy gushes over how much she loves her playing card earrings and she’s going to get her ears pierced on her birthday so she can wear them to her magic shows, and if Miles wants to come to said magic shows because she has a special trick in mind for him. (He said yes. How could he say no?)

It’s fine, Miles tells himself, as Phoenix and Trucy bicker over whether apple cider or hot cocoa is better suited for fall, Trucy’s argument being that apple cider is for fall and hot cocoa for winter, whereas Phoenix believes every season is hot cocoa season. When they demand Miles's opinion, he sides with Trucy (much to Phoenix’s dismay) but informs them both that he’s really not a hot cocoa person so he might be a bit biased. Phoenix merely smiles at Miles and tells him that he hasn’t had his hot cocoa yet. 

It’s fine, Miles tells himself, even when the back of Phoenix’s hand accidentally brushes against Miles’s knuckles and the tips of Phoenix’s ears turn bright red. 

It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine. Deny, deny, deny. 

They reach the apartment complex faster than Miles expected. It’s not much from the outside, with a simple, red brick face and a smiling woman at the reception desk who greets Phoenix and Trucy by name. They head up a flight of stairs and down a hallway and then, suddenly, they’re there at the apartment and Phoenix is unlocking the door and Miles notices he has a Steel Samurai keychain and really, Miles cannot take much else of this or that dam in his mind, in his heart, is going to explode. There’s a feeling of anticipation rooted deep within his chest as Phoenix opens the door, Trucy holding tight to his hand and bouncing on her heels with the pink camellia tucked behind her ear. Visiting a friend’s apartment should not come with this much anticipation. 

But you aren’t friends, are you? A voice whispers at the back of Miles’s brain. Don’t you remember what you told him when he asked?

Miles squashes down the thought and forces himself to step inside (though there isn’t much forcing on his end, as Trucy practically drags him inside). It’s surreal, but he’s there, in the Wright’s apartment, and it’s terribly cozy. It’s a bit smaller than his own, and smells, faintly, like cinnamon spice, the kind of smell you get from a well-loved candle frequently burned. There’s a coat rack in the entryway and a little stand for shoes, where Miles can see battered sneakers (Phoenix’s) next to a pair of light-up tennis shoes (Trucy’s). Miles barely has time to hang up his coat, on a peg next to a sparkly blue cape, before Trucy is tugging him further into the apartment, declaring it’s time for a tour. Phoenix trails after them, an amused smile on his face. 

“Come on, come on, come on ,” Trucy says insistently.

Phoenix laughs. “Trucy, you’re going to yank his arm off.”

“Uncle Miles, this is the living room!”

Trucy directs Miles through the entryway right into the living room, which is complete with a comfortable-looking couch draped with blankets, a coffee table and a TV on the wall. Below the TV is a little entertainment station with an old-school NES and several Jeopardy DVDs, as well as an open DVD case of the Princess Bride resting on top. On the far end of the living room is a sliding glass door, leading to a balcony where what looks like an easel is set up under a tarp to protect it from the elements, the railing wrapped in fairy lights. Adjoining the living room is the kitchen, and down a hallway to the right presumably sits the bedrooms and the bathroom, something confirmed by Trucy as she points things out. 

“Well, it’s not as nice as yours, but it’s home,” Phoenix says, lingering in the entryway and he sounds almost nervous that Miles is there, but Miles was nervous when they were in his space, wasn’t he, so why wouldn’t they be nervous too? It’s normal. This is normal. 

“It’s perfectly nice,” Miles says, looking around. The whole place exudes warmth and family and comfort. “It suits you.”

Phoenix’s mouth quirks into a smile and Miles quickly looks away. 

The walls are lined with photos; Miles spots one of Phoenix and Trucy making silly faces at the camera, their eyes squeezed shut and cheeks blown out. There’s one of Trucy in winter, placing a top hat on a snowman, snowflakes in her hair and her brown eyes sparkling. Another displays the front of Fey’s Flowers on opening day, with Mia and Maya Fey beaming before it, Mia clutching a tall, leafy plant with the name Charley written across the pot. 

There’s a few paintings on the walls, too, scattered between the photos, and Miles can only assume they were painted by Phoenix. There’s paintings of flowers and plants and abstract landscapes, all of them bright and unabashedly cheerful in their swirls and vibrant color schemes. In a different style than the rest is a colored-pencil drawing of Trucy in magician’s gear, signed LB at the bottom. 

And, most notably, there are plants everywhere.

Hanging from the ceiling in Phoenix’s hand-painted pots, dotting bookshelves (which Miles notes are full of books from his bookstore) and sitting on the kitchen table, set in corners and spilling out onto the balcony. A collection of succulents lines the windowsill in the living room in tiny pots, and a huge monstera sits on a little stand by the window. Some of the pots have name tags on them, the red and white ones with the adhesive backing so you can stick them anywhere you like, declaring each plant’s name

“You certainly have a lot of plants,” Miles remarks.

Phoenix grins. “Yeah, well, that happens when you work at a plant shop.”

“You have to meet all of them!” Trucy says, taking Miles’s hand again.

Phoenix watches as Trucy introduces Miles to almost every plant in the living room and surrounding area; the monstera by the window with the huge split leaves is named Madonna, and there’s a tumbling, verdant philodendron hanging from a hook above the window, so huge it trails all the way to the ground, sporting a name tag that says Philly on it in blue sharpie. The little succulents on the windowsill are all named after long-dead artists like Van Gogh and Michelangelo (spelled Michael Angelo) and the spider plant on the balcony is named Spaghetti. 

“And this is Rasputin!” Trucy declares, picking up a pot from one of the bookshelves in the living room and presenting it to Miles. It’s a strange little plant; it looks similar to an aloe, but with lines of tiny white bumps along its surface.

“Rasputin?” Miles repeats. He hadn’t questioned any of the other names of the plants (he almost asked with Brutus the Third but determined from the significant lack of Brutus the First and Second that it might be a difficult topic) but Rasputin peaks his interest. 

“Daddy accidentally left him in Aunt Mia’s garage for like, two years without any water or light or anything, and somehow he lived!” Trucy sets the plant back down. “So his name is Rasputin, ‘cause we’re pretty sure he’s immortal.” 

“Trucy, please stop badmouthing me to Miles. I take excellent care of our plants.”

“Not Rasputin, it seems,” Miles says lightly.

“Oh my god. Trucy, you see what you did?” Phoenix frowns, but there’s no heat in his voice, just light, playful fondness that makes Miles’s heart thump a little harder. “You turned him against me.”

Trucy shrugs. “I’m just telling the truth.”

Miles feels the corner of his mouth twitch into a smile, slipping through his poker face and he’s really not going to make it through today, much less tomorrow if he can’t even manage this without acting like a fool. He quickly looks away, scanning the living room for something else to distract him (which is hard, as everything here reminds him of his situation, over and over again) and his eyes catch on the coffee table in the living room, where a game of Monopoly sits half-played. Strangely, though, there are no cards or colorful paper money to be seen, just the board and its little red and green houses, and the game pieces (the top hat and the thimble. Miles can guess whose is whose). 

“Oh, that! We always have a game of Monopoly going,” Trucy explains, catching Miles examining the board. “We’ve been playing that one for like, a month, but I’m obviously going to win.”

“Um, no you are not,” Phoenix says, from where he’s leaning against the living room wall. “I’m going to win.”

“Nuh-uh. You might have more properties but I have houses on Park Place and Boardwalk, so the second you land on one, you’re bankrupt.”

Phoenix lifts a brow, crossing his arms. “How do you know I’ll go bankrupt?” he says cooly. “I have plenty of money.”

“You’re bluffing, Daddy. Prove it.”

“I don’t have to prove my wealth to you. Just look at all my houses,” Phoenix says, pointing at the board. “Would someone who could go bankrupt have that many houses?” 

“Well, yeah, if you spent all your money on them! Which you did! So get your money and prove it!” Trucy demands.

“Do you not keep your money with the game?” Miles asks, amused. 

“Oh, no.” Trucy shakes her head. “We hide our money.”

Miles looks at her curiously. “Why is that?”

“ Someone in this apartment likes to steal money and commit property theft,” Phoenix says pointedly. “So it’s safer if I keep everything hidden from the little cheater that lives here, and she copied me.”

“ I’m the cheater? Daddy, if I tried to count all the times you cheat at Monopoly we would be here for a full day. Maybe two.”

Phoenix shakes his head, that fond smile on his lips. “You aren’t innocent either, kid. Don’t think I forgot about the time I caught you printing off five hundreds.”

Trucy gasps, and frantically looks at Miles. “Uncle Miles, don’t believe him! I would never. I earn all of my money!”

“She doesn’t!” Phoenix cuts in, and he’s laughing, now, an easy, rolling sound. “She prints off money and then tries to convince me it’s all magic.”

Trucy sticks her tongue out at him. “Stop ruining my reputation!” 

“I’m not doing anything but reporting the truth, Truce.”

“Well, then I’m gonna tell Uncle Miles about how you stole all of the tens and hid them so I couldn’t make change and had to pay extra when I landed on your properties!”

It’s Phoenix’s turn to gasp, now, though his is overly theatrical, and he leans his head against the living room wall and puts a hand to his chest. “You wouldn’t dare, ” he says dramatically, causing Trucy to burst into a fit of giggles, which in turn causes Phoenix to laugh so hard that he snorts. 

Miles can’t help it. He really can’t. Perhaps it’s because their laughter is contagious, or perhaps it’s because he’s truly lost his grip when it comes to these two but suddenly there’s laughter bubbling up in his throat and he covers his mouth to hide his smile but it slips out anyway, a low, quiet sound that’s more exhalation of air than anything else. And though Trucy and Phoenix hadn’t noticed, as they’d been too busy laughing at themselves to hear, it was there, and it was real , and even after it dies away in his throat Miles can still feel the throes of it lingering, the potential for more, and behind his hand his smile does not fade. 

It’s a strange and peculiar feeling, the one rooted in Miles’s chest, but he finds it is not as unwelcome as it once was before. 

“Daddy, Daddy, you need to leave ,” Trucy is saying, drawing Miles from his thoughts. “Aunt Mia is gonna wonder what’s taking you so long.”

Phoenix quirks a crooked brow at her. “I think you’re just trying to get rid of me.”

“Well, yeah, that too.”

“You’re not going to deny it?”

“You told me lying is bad,” Trucy says innocently. “Now shoo! Don’t make me magic you away!”

“Okay, okay,” Phoenix laughs, and he gives Miles a grin. “Thanks again for watching her.”

Miles nods. “Of course.”

Phoenix hesitates, then, his hand on the doorknob and he looks at Miles as if he’s about to say something else - do something else - before he blinks and spins around like someone’s flipped a switch, opening the door a bit more forcefully than he likely intended. “Okay!” he says loudly, “Trucy, be good and I love you and I’ll be back around five, goodbye!” 

And then the door slams shut, and he’s gone.

“Daddy’s weird,” Trucy remarks. 

“Yes, he is, isn’t he,” Miles mutters, staring at the closed door. 

Then, Trucy claps her hands together, turning to Miles. “Okay! Now that he’s gone, we can get to work!”

Yes. The cake business. 

Miles follows a skipping Trucy to the kitchen, and finds it just as cozy as the living room. There’s granite countertops and a hardwood floor, and sitting on the kitchen island is a #1 Dad mug alongside another that reads World’s Greatest Magician. A collection of magnets litters the fridge, some the cheap kind you’d find at a gift shop, displaying the different places the Wrights have been and others the blocky, colorful letters that you’d give a child to help it learn to spell. Right now, there’s nothing spelled out, but Miles can imagine Phoenix and Trucy using them to leave little notes for each other during the week. A few sticky-notes bearing reminders are stuck to the fridge as well, some at Phoenix’s height and some at Trucy’s, alongside a piece of paper that reads NO MAYAS ALLOWED held in place with a magnet depicting a cat wearing a top hat. 

“Do you have a recipe?” Miles asks Trucy. 

She pulls a folded piece of paper out of her pocket and hands it to him. “Daddy likes chocolate cake so I asked Aunt Mia to find a recipe for us this morning at the shop.”

“And you have all the ingredients?” Miles asks, scanning the recipe. It’s pretty standard fare, really. Flour, sugar, cocoa powder. Nothing unexpected. 

“Yep, we have everything,” Trucy says, standing on her tiptoes to look at the recipe, too. “Except, I don’t know about the chopped chocolate stuff though. We have chocolate chips, will those work?”

“That should be fine.” Miles rolls up his sleeves, and pauses. He’s extremely neat in the kitchen but he’s not sure how Trucy fares, but he does know that he doesn’t want his slacks to come out of this covered in cocoa powder and flour.  “I…don’t suppose you have an apron?” 

“Oh, you can use Daddy’s!” Trucy says, and she opens a lower drawer by the oven. “Aunt Maya got it for him a while ago but he kind of forgets it exists.”

She withdraws a haphazardly folded bundle of fabric, and judging by the color, Miles can already tell he isn’t going to like it. He takes it from Trucy and unfolds it, revealing a pastel yellow apron with a white frill at the bottom, and embroidered across the front is a picture of a duck holding a bowl and a wooden spoon. The words QUACK SOME EGGS! is written underneath in cursive. 

Miles stares at the apron, then at Trucy. “This wouldn’t happen to be your only apron?”

Trucy smiles innocently. “Sorry, Uncle Miles. It’s our only one.”

“I find that I don’t quite believe you,” Miles says drily, but Trucy just shrugs. With a long-suffering sigh that he typically reserves for Kay, Miles puts the apron on and ties it at his back with a neat bow. At least his clothes will come out of this unscathed, if not his dignity. 

(He takes solace in the fact that Kay will never see this.)

“Shall we begin?” Miles asks Trucy, and her eyes light up. 

They decide to delegate their tasks: Trucy (who stands on a little stool in order to properly reach the counter) handles the dry ingredients while Miles handles the wet, mainly because Trucy wants to use the sieve and she’s not very good at cracking eggs. He watches her out of the corner of his eye as she carefully measures out cups of flour and sugar, but she’s fairly accurate and only spills a bit. The real disaster comes when she dumps the cocoa powder into the sieve, and it surges up in a great cloud to spatter her face with a new coating of freckles. She refuses to clean it off so Miles has to wipe her face off for her, and when he lectures her on not making a mess she sticks out her tongue at him. 

Then, while he whisks up the eggs, oil and vanilla, Trucy whisks the dry ingredients so vigorously that she just gets flour in her hair anyway. 

“Uncle Miles, look,” she says, pointing to where her brown locks have turned white. “My hair looks like yours now!”

He merely gives her an unimpressed look in response and hands her the towel. He’s beginning to think she’s worse than Kay. He’s not sure he’s ready to have them both in the same room tomorrow. 

Miles frowns down at the bowl. Tomorrow . 

But he’s not thinking about tomorrow. Right now, he’s thinking about cake. Nothing else. 

Their first batter attempt is actually rather poor, since Trucy accidentally added a tablespoon of salt instead of a teaspoon (something she realized upon sneakily tasting the batter when Miles wasn’t looking), but their second attempt turns out just fine and Miles carefully puts the pans in the oven as Trucy bounces on her heels behind him. 

As the cake bakes in the oven they make the frosting, a simple affair, really. Miles takes on the task of chopping the chocolate chips into smaller, manageable pieces, because he will not be giving Trucy a sharp knife no matter how hard she tries to convince him.

“I throw knives for my act,” Trucy tells him seriously. “Sharp knives. And I have really good aim. Daddy lets me practice with him! Well…okay, usually I have to bribe him and he has his eyes shut the entire time but I’ve never hit him! I’m super safe with my act and this is even safer so you should let me chop the chocolate.”

Miles simply slides a butter knife across the counter. “If your knife skills are so good then you shouldn’t mind cutting up the butter, then. I’m expecting perfect cubes.”

Trucy pouts, and tosses powdered sugar at his face in retaliation.

Miles sputters, the powdered sugar settling in his hair and his eyelashes. A bit even went up his nose. 

“Now we match even more,” Trucy says innocently, pointing to her own hair, where there’s still flour turning it white. 

“You,” Miles says cooly, as he wipes his face off with a towel, “are a menace.”

Trucy grins. “That’s what Daddy says, too.”

“Yes, and I’m beginning to believe he’s right.”

Trucy giggles, and it’s such a bright, childishly sweet sound that Miles finds himself smiling despite it. 

The frosting takes barely ten minutes, and cake needs about half an hour to bake, so as it sits in the oven Trucy shows Miles different magic tricks to see if he can figure out how she did it. He's able to piece apart most of her card tricks, since they’re fairly straightforward if he’s logical about it, but he can never figure out how she manages to steal his own belongings from right under his nose without him ever noticing. 

“I know it’s misdirection,” he tells her, thoughtfully tapping his finger against his arm, “but I can’t quite tell what you’re misdirecting me with.”

“It’s magic,” Trucy says simply, shrugging. “Do you want me to do it again?”

“Yes. Perhaps I’ll get it this time.”

Trucy grins, and hands him back his wallet. “Pay attention to my hands…”

The time ticks away, and the sun begins to set, casting soft rays across the living room floor as the sky outside fades from blue to watercolor shades of pink and purple and gold. Trucy wraps herself in a blanket, using it as a cape (despite the fact she has one right there on the peg) while she acts out her tricks, making her Monopoly top hat disappear and appear behind Miles's ear, because the behind-the-ear trick is a classic that any self-serving magician would know how to do. When the oven timer dings the cake comes out, smelling rich and chocolatey, a smell that permeates the entire apartment. As Miles carefully sets it on the kitchen counter to cool, Trucy grabs his arm with sudden worry in her eyes. 

“Daddy’s gonna smell the cake when he comes in.”

“Didn’t you say he’d figure out what we’re doing, anyway?”

“I mean, yeah.” Trucy frowns. “But I wanna be sneaky .”

“Well…perhaps we should bake something else then,” Miles says slowly. “Didn’t you say cookies were your specialty?”

At that, Trucy’s eyes sparkle. “A classic misdirection. Uncle Miles, I think you’re learning from my magic tricks after all!”

Miles chuckles. “It’s just logic.”

So they make chocolate chip cookies, too.

Trucy has a special recipe and everything, which she refuses to let Miles see, and she sits on the counter and directs him this way and that instead. Miles thinks it might be retribution for not letting her use the sharp knives. 

A bit after 5 o’clock, when Phoenix returns, the apartment is draped in cozy heat from the oven and the entire place smells of chocolate and brown sugar. Trucy and Miles hadn’t had time to frost the cake as it needed time to cool, but Trucy promised she would handle the decoration and hid the cake and the bowl of frosting in the back of the fridge. She’d even gone so far as to stack boxes of takeout and leftovers to completely obscure the cake (covered in a bowl to keep it fresh) from sight. Trucy had then arranged the cookies on a plate on the kitchen island, and dragged Miles to the living room to do something inconspicuous, so when Phoenix came home he would suspect nothing. 

All Trucy’s plan, that, and, in her opinion, it's quite flawless. 

Luckily, Miles thinks, Phoenix seems like the type of person to play along even if he knows what’s going on. So, as he kicks off his shoes and flops next to Trucy on the couch, that crooked smile on his lips, Miles finds he's not too worried about their secret endeavors coming to light. 

“Hey, Truce,” Phoenix says, tugging on her ponytail. "Hi, Miles."

"Hello, Wright."

Trucy gives her father a quick, one-armed hug. “Hi Daddy! Look, I’m beating Uncle Miles at old people cards.”

“Old people cards?”

Miles sighs. “I’m teaching her how to play two player solitaire. She seems to have quite the talent for card games.”

"I'm a magician," Trucy replies loftily. "Cards are my thing."

"It certainly seems so."

“Don’t even get her started," Phoenix says, ruffling Trucy's hair with a laugh. "You should try playing her in poker. I swear this kid is like a lie detector sometimes. She can call bluffs with scary accuracy.” 

Trucy giggles, smacking Phoenix’s hand away. “Maybe don’t have such obvious tells then!”

“Yeah, yeah.” 

Phoenix stands up, then, stretching out his back (which makes an alarming popping sound) and looks around the living room. “So what have you guys been up to all day? It smells like you’ve been baking.”

“We made cookies!” Trucy says quickly. “Chocolate chip.”

“You let Miles see your secret recipe? Wow, you really must be special,” Phoenix says, tilting his head as he looks at Miles and Miles feels that terrifying little spark in his chest flare up all over again. He busies himself with organizing the cards as Trucy adamantly shakes her head.

“Obviously I didn’t show it to him, Daddy. I just told him what to do the entire time.”

“What if he remembers what you told him?”

“He promised he didn’t. Right, Uncle Miles?”

“As far as I can tell we’ve just been playing cards the entire time,” Miles replies lightly, causing Trucy to grin so wide it nearly splits her face in two, and Phoenix just laughs. “Though, if you’re back, I should really be going.”

Trucy’s face instantly falls, and Miles tries not to take it personally. “You don’t want to stay for dinner? We’re having…Daddy, what are we having?”

“Uh…” Phoenix glances into the kitchen. “I don’t know…leftover spaghetti? And cookies?”

Miles blinks. “As… tempting as it sounds, I should return home. I need to check on Pess, after all.”

“Do you at least want to take some cookies home with you?” Trucy asks, grabbing onto Miles’s hand. “For Pess?”

“Unfortunately, Pess can’t have chocolate, but thank you for asking,” Miles says, his voice surprisingly gentle, even to himself. “I’m sure she appreciates it.”

“Aw. Okay. Well, do you want some?”

“That’s quite alright. I’ll…” Miles pauses. “Well, I’ll be here tomorrow if I want more.”

“Oh, that’s right!” Trucy’s eyes light up, and she turns to smile at Phoenix, who’s now leaning against the wall as he watches them. “Daddy, remember? Uncle Miles is coming tomorrow!”

“Yep, thank you Truce, I really appreciate all the reminders.” Phoenix’s facial expression is something just shy of a grimace, and Miles resists the urge to smirk. It’s a familiar feeling, he suspects, as the ones he often gets with Kay. 

Miles hands Trucy her deck of cards. “Thank you for entertaining me today,” he says sincerely, and Trucy smiles. Then he gets to his feet, slipping past Phoenix (and he doesn’t try to brush their arms together, he really doesn't but Phoenix is standing right before the entryway and there’s just not enough room).

As Miles shrugs his coat on, Phoenix watches, fidgeting with the hem of his sweater. “You sure you don’t want to stay for dinner?” he asks.

“I have to return home to feed Pess,” Miles explains, ignoring the way his heart twists at the offer. And you need to feed Hemingway, he tells himself. And make sure Kay hasn’t burned the entire store down. 

Phoenix nods. “Right. Yeah.”

Miles straightens out his collar, turning to face Phoenix and Trucy. Before he can say anything (goodbye, for example), Trucy lunges for him, hugging Miles around the middle, and she squeezes, hard.

“Thank you for hanging out with me today, Uncle Miles,” she says softly. “I had a lot of fun.”

Miles swallows. “You’re welcome, Trucy. I…I did too.”

A smile plays on Phoenix’s lips, and he leans his head against the wall. “I guess we’ll see you tomorrow, then?”

“Yes,” Miles says, with a hesitant nod. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As he leaves, the door shutting behind him, Miles feels his heart thundering away in his chest. He’d once thought of Phoenix Wright as a bull, stampeding through his china shop heart, but honestly, Trucy’s just as bad as her father in ways entirely unexpected. 

Miles sighs. Good lord, this is going to kill him. He's sure of it. 

Chapter Text

It’s twenty minutes to four on Sunday, October 11th and Miles feels as if he’s about to walk directly into the jaws of some giant, hungry beast. He’s been on edge all day since the very moment he woke up that morning, something even Gumshoe noticed during their weekly visit to the park with Missile and Pess (Miles supposes he might’ve been more snappish and defensive than usual). He glances at the clock, ticking steadily away. With slightly sweaty hands he straightens his collar in the hallway mirror for the eightieth time; perhaps he should change his shirt entirely. Good lord, have his bangs always looked this ridiculous? 

He needs to calm down. Surely the current rate at which his heart is beating cannot be good for his health. 

“You look like a grandpa wearing that,” Kay remarks from her spot draped over Miles’s armchair. 

“Thank you for your input, Kay,” Miles says drily, and straightens his collar again. He’s wearing a white button-up underneath his sweater (the maroon one with the cream cuffs and the hole near his left armpit) and the collar just won’t stay put. 

Kay swings her feet; she’s sitting with her legs dangling over one end of the armchair as she twirls the end of her ponytail between her fingers. Pess sits beside the chair, her head resting in Kay’s lap and her tail thump thump thumping on the living room carpet. She whispers something to Pess (surely about Miles) and giggles. 

Tick tock, goes the clock. 

Miles frowns at his reflection in the mirror. This is fine, he thinks. It’ll only last an hour, maybe two. How long can a birthday party last? Well, he could leave early. Really, he could just walk in, drop off the gift (god, the gift ) and leave. But then Trucy will be disappointed that he didn’t stay for the cake since they took so much effort in making it, and he really doesn’t want to disappoint her. Okay, he can leave after the cake, that’s perfectly manageable. Is it rude to leave early from a birthday party?

“I’m excited to see Trucy,” Kay says brightly from the chair, seemingly oblivious to Miles’s internal plight. “She said she’s gonna teach me card tricks!”

Miles hums. “That sounds nice.”

“I know! And while she’s teaching me card tricks you can have some alone time with Mr. Phoenix Wright.” 

That gets his attention. Miles whips around, fixing Kay with a glare. “ Kay Faraday, ” he sputters. “It is not too late to call and say we can’t go.”

Kay giggles; his threat is wholly ineffective. “Yeah, but then you would’ve bought your fancy gift for nothing. And you promised you’d go.”

“I did no such thing. You’re the one who said I would attend.”

“I’m just looking out for your best interests, boss.”

The implications of her cheeky statement makes his cheeks flush, and he quickly turns away, glancing at the clock. Fifteen minutes. They should probably head out, and Miles’s heart thumps painfully in his chest at the thought. 

He turns back to Kay. He needs a minute. “Let me check on Hemingway before we go.”

As Miles steps outside, Hemingway immediately pokes his head around the trash cans, expecting food. Miles crouches down, a smile tugging at his mouth.

“Hello, Hemingway,” he says quietly, as the cat approaches.

Hemingway’s a ragged old creature, a fact that hasn’t changed since the members of the Corner Bookstore began to take care of him. His missing ear and matted fur tell stories of the life he’s led on the streets, but someday, Miles thinks, he’ll get this cat a bath and a trim and he might just look respectable. 

“They’d like you,” Miles tells Hemingway, watching him snuffle at his fingers for treats or scraps of chicken. “Both of them. Maybe you’ll meet them sometime.”

The thought takes him wandering down well-worn avenues in his mind, roads leading to places that always frighten him no matter how many times his mind has gone there. Miles exhales, a steadying kind of sigh, and Hemingway blinks up at him, his eyes sharp and green. 

Miles experimentally stretches out his hand, letting his fingers brush against Hemingway’s dirty fur, but unlike the last few times where he’s skittered back and hissed a warning, this time, Hemingway lets him. He stays there for about a minute, letting Miles carefully, cautiously scratch at his scruff, before he flicks his stump of a tail and leans away as if to say okay, that’s enough. 

Miles watches as Hemingway stretches and retreats to his box, Kay’s writing on the cardboard faded over the weeks it’s been out in the alley. 

He takes a deep breath.

He can do this. 

The walk to the apartment, just like yesterday, seems almost too short for what should be ten minutes. It feels like Miles simply blinked and there he was, outside the Wright’s apartment, staring at the door. 

He stands there for a moment, holding the brown bag (containing the gift he bought in a near panic a few days ago because how the hell was he supposed to know what this man would like) in his hand and waiting, hesitating, overthinking. He can hear laughter coming from inside, Phoenix’s laughter. He’d recognize it anywhere. 

Miles raises his fist, and knocks.

There’s a crashing sound from inside the apartment, like someone tripped over something and fell bodily to the floor, before the door swings open and there’s Phoenix, his eyes bright and excited and Miles’s nerves spike to an all-time high.

“You came!” Phoenix says breathlessly, a flush high on his cheeks.

“I did,” Miles says slowly, forcing his nerves to settle. It’s not actually that hard, as Phoenix is sporting a rather interesting choice in headwear that rather dissolves the situation entirely. “Er…nice tiara.”

He’s wearing a cheap silver tiara, complete with a pink feather boa around the base and plastic heart-shaped jewels surrounding the words BIRTHDAY QUEEN. 

Phoenix grins. “I know, right? Maya got it years ago and it’s kind of become a tradition at this point to wear it on your birthday. Honestly, I kind of like it. I think the pink draws out my eyes,” he says jokingly, and then he winks at Miles, as if to illustrate his point.

Miles flushes. This man is ridiculous. 

“So where’s Kay?” Phoenix asks, leaning against the doorframe. “I thought she said she’d be coming with you?”

“She’s standing at the end of the hall. She wants to be ‘fashionably late’.”

From down the hall, Kay groans, so loud that Miles is fairly certain the entire floor hears her. “Mr. Edge worth ! It’s not gonna be cool if you go and ruin it!” 

Phoenix snorts. He sticks his head into the hallway to look at Kay (forcing Miles to lean backwards), where she’s sullenly approaching with her arms crossed. “I can pretend I didn’t hear if you want.”

“It’s fine ,” Kay grumbles, joining Miles. “Ooh, birthday queen, I like it. Cool grandpa sweater.”

Phoenix is wearing an oversized brown sweater, loosely tucked into his jeans, the vintage kind striped with several different patterns. He looks down at it and frowns. “Ugh. Don’t tell Maya you called it that, she calls me an old man all the time and does not need any more ammo.” Then he steps back a bit, out of the doorway. “You guys wanna come in?”

“You don’t even have to ask,” Kay says, and bounds inside. 

Before stepping in, Miles holds out the small brown bag. Best to get this over with, he thinks. “This is for you,” he says awkwardly. “I wasn’t really sure what to get you so I hope this is…acceptable.” 

“Is it a book?” Phoenix asks, taking the bag. 

“What? No. Why would you assume it’s a book?”

Phoenix blinks at him. “Uh…no reason.” As he peers inside the bag, his eyes light up like stars. “Oh my god , Miles.”

Miles feels his face heat up. “Is…is it okay?”

“This is more than okay. Holy shit. These are like, super high quality, where did you find these?” Phoenix exclaims, pulling one of the paints out of the bag to examine it further. 

They’re oil paints, and Miles really doesn’t know a single thing about paint or quality or anything (he hadn’t even known there were different types , and he’d stood there for longer than he’d like to admit trying to figure out the difference between acrylic and oil and which Phoenix might like more, don’t even get him started on gouache) but the woman at the art store had said if he’s looking for good paint, this brand was it. 

“I haven’t used oil paint like this since college since getting good color is so difficult with cheaper paint,” Phoenix gushes. “Jesus, Miles, thank you . This is…this is really sweet of you.”

He returns the tube of paint to the bag. When he looks back up at Miles, his eyes are bright, and he hesitates for a moment before throwing his arms around Miles’s shoulders and wrapping him in a brief, tight hug. Then, he pulls back, ducking his head so Miles can’t see his face (not that Miles is looking; he’s a bit shocked over what just happened) and gestures vaguely to the inside of the apartment. 

Miles wordlessly follows, fighting back his flush and removing his jacket to hang up on the peg inside the door but then he stops, right there in the entryway, because sitting primly on the armchair in the Wright’s living room, is Franziska von Karma.

“Hello, Miles Edgeworth,” Franziska says calmly. 

Miles blinks. “Why on earth are you here?” 

She tilts her head, lifting her perfectly sculpted brows. “What, am I not allowed to attend the birthday party of my girlfriend’s best friend?”

Miles stares at her, and Franziska merely smirks. She’s waiting for him to piece it all together, he knows that, but luckily he’s been told he’s a very clever man. All in all, it takes him about a minute. 

“You’re dating Maya Fey? ”

“Yes.”

“Why is this the first time I’m hearing of this?”

“You knew I had a girlfriend.”

“You never told me who she was .”

Franziska shrugs. “Well, you never asked.”

“You’re my sister, ” Miles says, exasperated. “I didn’t realize I needed to be so specific in asking you about your dating life.”

Phoenix, who's been watching them similar to one would a tennis match, holds up a hand. “Wait. Hold on. Franziska’s your sister?”

“ Not by blood,” Franziska says, examining her sharp acrylic nails, painted a pastel blue.

“How did I not know that?” Phoenix sputters. “Maya, did you know that?”

Maya sticks her head out from the kitchen. “Know what?”

“That Miles and Franziska are siblings.”

“Um, yeah? Look at them, Nick. They have the same angry face.”

Phoenix turns back to them, and stares at the both of them for a good, long while. Then he sighs. “Yeah, you’re right. They do have the same angry face.”

Before Miles (or Franziska) can respond in kind, Trucy comes barreling out of the hallway leading toward the bedrooms, and she careens into Miles and flings her arms around his waist. “Uncle Miles!” she squeals. “I missed you!”

“Trucy, you saw me yesterday.”

Trucy ignores him. “Now that you’re here we can start the magic show!”

“The magic show?”

“It’s a tradition,” Phoenix explains. “Trucy always performs for us on her birthdays.”

“What happens on your birthday, then?” Miles asks Trucy, and she giggles.

“Daddy usually takes me to a magic show so I get one, too, and it’s extra fun ‘cause I get to try and figure out how the professionals do it,” Trucy says, beaming up at Miles. “Now come on! I was waiting for you but we can start now!”

At Trucy’s behest, they all congregate in the living room. Franziska and Maya settle together in the large, cushy armchair with their legs and fingers intertwined, Maya half on Franziska’s lap. Mia tucks herself into one end of the couch, her legs pulled up comfortably beside her. Miles sits at the other end with Kay right in front of him on the floor, leaning her back against the couch, and Phoenix settles in between Miles and Mia on the couch but he’s sitting closer to Miles than he is to Mia, so close that his leg just barely, ever so slightly, brushes against Miles’s. As he sits down he glances at Miles out of the corner of his eye and smiles, soft, and Miles feels his heart stutter in his chest. 

Trucy stands across from them, behind the coffee table. She’s changed into her sparkly blue cape and top hat, her gloved hands propped on her hips and Miles feels something warm in his ribs seeing her there, beaming at them. 

“Thank you all for coming to my show,” Trucy says brightly, and when she smiles it’s a one-thousand watter. “Since this is a casual kind of show I won’t bring out my magic panties, but I would like to introduce you to my lovely assistant, the Amazing Mr. Hat!” 

“Who is Mr. Hat?” Miles whispers to Phoenix (deciding it best to just avoid the topic of magic underwear). 

“He’s kind of like a puppet?” Phoenix whispers back, leaning close to Miles so no one else overhears. “Maybe a ventriloquist dummy would be more accurate. He’s…startlingly realistic.”

Miles raises a curious brow at Phoenix, only then realizing how close Phoenix is and he quickly yanks back a bit, feeling the heat flood his cheeks. 

Trucy, meanwhile, has brought out Mr. Hat, who does appear to be a human-sized dummy in a cape. As he emerges, the dummy somehow whisks Trucy’s hat off her head and deposits it on his own. Miles watches a bit closer, and catches Trucy slightly shifting her arm behind her back as Mr. Hat gallantly tips the brim of the top hat. “Everyone, meet Mr. Hat!”

“Hello, Mr. Hat!” Kay says brightly, and Maya waves enthusiastically. 

“Hello, Kay,” Mr. Hat says (rather, Trucy says. Miles is quite impressed with her ventriloquism). 

Kay gasps. “Oh my god he talks. Mr. Edgeworth, he talks.”

“Kay, pay attention.”

“Now, Mr. Hat is going to help me with my first trick.” Trucy twirls her hand, and a candle appears between her fingers. “Would you mind lighting this for me?”

She does something that makes it look like Mr. Hat leans in toward the candle, and when Trucy turns, spinning on her heel with her cape flaring about her, she has a lit candle in her right hand, pinched between her thumb and middle finger. She wiggles her other fingers, winking at Kay, who’s watching with wide eyes, before blowing out the candle. Then, she shifts the candle in her right hand so she’s holding it upright by the base in all of her fingers, whistling the happy birthday theme this whole time. She grins, and begins to lightly tap the candle at its wick, once, twice, three times so it slips through her fingers further into her right hand, before performing a flourish with her left as if she’s wholly pushing the candle into her palm and when she opens her right hand there isn’t a candle there as one would inspect, but instead, there’s a quarter, and the candle has vanished. 

“Ta da!” Trucy says, running the coin over her knuckles, and Maya and Phoenix clap enthusiastically for her. 

Kay gapes. “Oh my god. How did you do that.”

Trucy props her hands on her waist. “Magician’s secret, Kay! I can’t just tell you all my tricks.” She glances at Miles, her eyebrow raised, as if trying to see whether he figured it out or not.

It’s not one of the tricks she’d performed for Miles yesterday, but though it’s unfamiliar, Miles pieces it together after a moment or two of consideration. There’s no feasible way the candle could’ve transmogrified into a coin, of course, so the question lies in where the candle went, and where the coin came from. The only logical option is that the candle must currently be in her left hand somehow, and she’s been holding onto the coin in her right the entire trick, since she’s not wearing sleeves, she was facing them the entire time and there clearly isn’t a candle on the ground. 

Miles folds his hand together, leaning his elbows on his knees. “Trucy, would you mind doing it again?”

“Yeah, could you? I bet I can figure it out this time,” Kay says, mimicking Miles’s posture. 

Trucy giggles, and repeats the whole trick, just as she had done it before, winks and all. By the end, the candle vanished and the coin magically in her right hand, Kay is just as bemused but Miles leans back with a satisfied nod. He sees it now; the final time she tapped the candle into her right hand she flicked it backwards into her left palm, so subtly that if he wasn’t looking for it he never would’ve seen it (Trucy’s an extremely talented magician, after all).

That solves the problem of the candle, and Miles could see as Trucy moved her left hand she propped it on her hip where she could slip the candle into her pocket as everyone focused on the coin in her right hand, which is the second issue to solve. Miles assumes she’d need to have the coin in her right hand the entire time, and figures the only way she could without anyone noticing is to have it carefully pinched between her thumb and middle finger, right behind the candle and placed in such a way that her open palm and spread fingers make it look like her hand is fully empty besides the candle. Likely, when she adjusts the candle, Trucy slips the coin in place in her palm. 

Trucy spins the coin in her fingers. “So, did you figure it out, Uncle Miles?” she asks. 

“Yes, I believe so.”

“ Already?” Phoenix exhales, surprised. “Dang. I know Trucy said you were good but I didn’t know you were that good. I’ve literally never figured out any of her tricks.”

“Unsurprising,” Franziska says drily. “Trucy is an excellent magician and I wouldn’t expect a fool like yourself to be able to do such a thing.”

Phoenix frowns at her. “That hurt, Franziska.”

She shrugs loftily and Maya giggles at her side. 

Kay shakes her head. “Girl, you should be doing this professionally. You’d make like, a gazillion dollars.”

“Well, I need to get good enough where no one can figure out my tricks,” Trucy says, and she sticks her tongue out at Miles. “Not even you!”

Miles smirks. 

“Well, if you figured it all out, Mr. Edgeworth, then how’d she do it?” Kay asks, twisting to look up at Miles from her spot on the floor. “‘Cause to me it looked like she was just doing crazy magic stuff.”

Miles glances up at Trucy, giving her a small smile. “I’d never dream of revealing a magician’s secret.”

Trucy beams, then turns to Mr. Hat. “Be careful,” she tells the puppet, in a loud stage whisper, “or this guy’s gonna take your job as assistant.”

It’s a joke that makes the room chuckle, and Trucy winks at Miles before returning to her act. She performs several more tricks, a few of them ones that she’d shown Miles yesterday and a few she hadn’t. All of them are amazing, and she performs them with such enthusiasm and talent that it’s impossible not to smile when watching her. The entire time Phoenix has such a soft, proud and happy smile on his face and Miles feels warm. 

Her grand finale is a complicated endeavor that ends with her whisking her cape across the table and revealing the birthday cake she and Miles had made yesterday, complete with lit candles and a sunflower carefully painted with food coloring, the words Happy Birthday Daddy! written in pretty cursive beneath it. 

Phoenix’s eyes go wide. “Oh my god, Trucy, did you make this? It looks amazing.”

“Well, Uncle Miles helped me,” Trucy admits, “but I did all the decorations.”

“I knew you two were baking something other than cookies yesterday!” Phoenix exclaims. He gets to his feet, stepping carefully over Kay to wrap Trucy in a hug so fierce it lifts her off her feet. “God, Truce, I love you so much.”

“Awwww!” Maya coos. She squeezes Franziska’s hand. “This is so sweet.”

Phoenix looks at Miles, his eyes sparkling. He mouths a thank you before Trucy tugs him away to get plates and utensils for the cake, and Miles dutifully ignores the pointed look Kay gives him. 

The time ticks by; the rest of Phoenix’s birthday is spent eating cake and watching Trucy demonstrate different card tricks in the living room. It’s a very casual affair; at some point Maya steals the BIRTHDAY QUEEN crown off Phoenix’s head and bestows it upon Franziska, who seems to tolerate it coming from her girlfriend. Miles is certain she’d murder anyone else who tried something like that. At some point Phoenix and Mia disappear into the kitchen, and the soft sound of their voices drifts into the living room as Trucy starts her next card trick for Kay (and, by extension, Miles, who hasn’t moved from his spot on the couch). 

“So for this one, I’m just going to do a simple riffle shuffle,” Trucy says, narrating as she goes. She splits the deck in half in her hands, shuffling the cards together with the skill of a professional casino dealer. “Now I’ll flip this top card over…”

She plucks the top card from the deck and holds it out for Kay to see. 

“Five of spades,” Kay says, nodding. “Got it.”

Trucy shifts the card, then, so she’s holding it horizontally between her thumb and forefinger, the face of the card facing up, and then makes a deft movement with her wrist, shaking the card back and forth and suddenly, seamlessly, it’s an entirely different card, revealed with a wink and a ta da!

“Trucy,” Kay says seriously, taking her hands in her own. “I need to know how to do that.”

Trucy giggles. “I’m a magician! The whole thing is that we don’t reveal our secrets.”

“I’ll teach you how to pick a lock.”

She pauses. She twirls the card between her fingers, the ace of diamonds. “Like, any lock?”

“ Any lock.”

“How do you know how to pick locks?” 

Kay shrugs. “How do you know how to do magic?”

 “Huh,” Trucy says, considering this. “That’s a good point.”

“Is she about to teach my daughter to be a criminal?” Phoenix whispers to Miles (Miles nearly jumps right out of his skin. He hadn’t realized Phoenix had returned from the kitchen). 

“I have a feeling they’re already in cahoots at this point,” Miles replies, shrugging. “There’s nothing we can do.”

They watch as Trucy sticks out her hand. “You’ve got a deal, Kay Faraday!” she says brightly, and Kay gives her an enthusiastic shake. With their contract made, Trucy gets up and crosses to Kay’s side of the table, sitting beside her. Kay automatically leans on Trucy, resting her cheek against the crown of Trucy’s head. Miles shifts a bit to watch, and he’s all too aware of the way Phoenix leans his forearms on the back of the couch, lingering in the space above Miles’s head. 

“Okay, I’m gonna show you how to do a flip stick,” Trucy says, shuffling the cards. 

“Flip stick,” Kay repeats, and Trucy nods.

“Basically, it’s a way to flick the card into the palm of your hand while doing whatever kind of fancy move you want with your other hand to make it look like you vanished it,” she explains, and she slowly demonstrates the move for Kay, showing how she shifts the card into her palm using her thumb to make it appear like it vanished to someone looking at her hands straight on. 

“Moving your other hand around in a fancy way is a kind of misdirection, because people are gonna look at that hand instead of your other one, which is hiding the card.” Trucy then does the move in reverse, spreading her right hand and using her thumb to flick the card back to its original place. “Then you can reappear it like that.”

“ Oh ,” Kay says, like she’s having an epiphany. “That makes so much sense. Can I try it?”

“Sure!” Trucy hands her the card. 

Kay attempts the move, but ends up dropping the card. “Oh. It’s harder than it looks.”

Trucy giggles. “It took me a few tries to be able to do it. Make sure you’re holding the corner between your fingers, like this.” She rearranges Kay’s fingers on the card. “Like that! Now try moving it with your thumb.”

Kay tries again, and gasps when it actually works. “Oh my god, Mr. Edgeworth did you see that? I’m doing magic!”

Miles smiles despite himself. “Very impressive, Kay.” 

“I’m definitely teaching you lockpicking after this,” Kay tells Trucy, and Trucy just giggles and starts another card trick.

Around six thirty, Miles breaks away to step outside. The whole party has been much more bearable than he originally anticipated; part of him is embarrassed for how much he overreacted leading up to it. There’s a quiet breeze on the balcony tonight, chilly enough at this time of fall where Miles pulls his sweater cuffs over his knuckles to keep his hands warm. If he looks at the sky for long enough he can make out a few stars; the light pollution in town isn’t too terrible, after all. He knows a few constellations, and he finds himself searching for them in the dark, moonlit sky: Orion, Ursa Major. He used to read star charts when he was younger, stolen from the reference section of the bookstore, only because he liked the stories hidden within the stars. The fairy lights wrapped around the balcony railing twinkle, little stars down here on earth. 

He takes in a deep breath, exhales, slow and measured, giving his mind and heart some time to settle.

Then, the door slides open behind him.

“Hello, Miles.”

He flinches. He’d been expecting Phoenix to follow him out to the balcony, if he’s being honest with himself ( expecting, hoping, wishing) but he had not, under any circumstances, been expecting Mia Fey.

“Hello, Ms. Fey,” Miles says politely, as she draws up to the railing beside him.

She sighs, glancing at him through her bangs. “Really, Miles. You can call me Mia. I think we’re friends at this point.”

At this point ? Miles thinks, but doesn’t voice it. “…Right. Er, do you need some privacy? I can go back inside.”

Mia waves a hand. “No, no. I came out here to talk to you,” she says, leaning her forearms on the railing. The wind twines through her cocoa-brown hair, and she looks up at the sky as if she’s searching for constellations, too. “I wanted to ask you a question.”

“A question?” Miles repeats, worrying at the cuff of his sweater. Anxiety creeps under his skin unbidden, which only grows worse as Mia turns to face him with such a stern look in her typically warm brown eyes that she could almost ( almost) rival Franziska. If he was a man more taken to swearing, he might find himself doing so now under the considerable weight of Mia’s gaze.

“Yes,” she says, her tone perfectly light but there’s a warning there behind the pleasantry that Miles can’t help but notice. “About Phoenix.”

Oh, god. Miles tries to keep his voice even. “What about him?” 

Mia tilts her head, a movement reminiscent of Phoenix’s but he usually doesn’t do it with such a piercing look on his face. “What are your intentions with him?”

She asked it so bluntly and matter-of-factly that for a moment Miles didn’t register what exactly she asked him. When it dawns on him, his voice catches in his throat and his brain short-circuits entirely. He’s not a man frequently at a loss for words, but Mia Fey, in one fell swoop, has left him speechless. 

If Mia notices his internal panic, she’s gracious enough not to mention it. When he doesn’t immediately respond to her query she continues, crossing her arms firmly over her chest. “He’s a good person, Miles, a really good person. He’s sweet and funny and a bit of an idiot, sometimes, but he can be wickedly clever if he puts his mind to it. And stubborn. God, I’ve never met a more stubborn man.” She lifts a brow at Miles. “But I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that.”

Miles’s face flushes. Somewhere, far, far in the back of his brain where he’s still capable of conscious thought, he thinks that if this isn’t hell, the devil best be taking notes. But Mia isn’t done yet. 

“I think of Phoenix like my brother, Miles. I care about him a lot, and I am not going to let him get hurt again by somebody he cares about.”

Finally, he manages to scrape his voice together enough to stutter out a weak, “again?”

“Yes, again. Phoenix has a heart of gold, you know. He’s far too nice for his own good, and he can’t say no to people because he wants everyone to be happy. He feels a lot and he trusts easily, loves easily,” she says, her gaze sharpening on Miles, “but the world isn’t kind to people like that. He’s gotten hurt in the past.” A dark shadow flickers across her face. “Really hurt, by someone he cared too much about. I’m not letting that happen a second time. So, I’ll ask again: what are your intentions with him?”

Miles stares at her. The look in her eye, the implications of her words, it’s all so sharp and pointed that it could easily crack a lesser man than Miles Edgeworth (he’s infinitely grateful in that moment for extensive training in the reception of harsh glares and vicious words by one Franziska von Karma). Though, the look on Mia’s face isn’t cruel, wicked, or harsh. It’s nothing other than the look one gets when protecting someone they love, and he stands there helplessly wondering what exactly are his intentions with Phoenix Wright because a few weeks ago he genuinely didn’t know but now he’s getting the awful sense that he might actually have an idea of what he really intends, what he truly wants. 

“I…” He cuts off, snapping his jaw shut. He glances towards the door, but Phoenix is in the living room and he sure as hell isn’t going to walk in there to face him, not after this. He could jump off the balcony. It isn’t that far off a drop. 

Mia sighs, and he jumps at the sound. “Okay. I can see you’re just as hopeless as he is.” 

Before Miles can stammer something indignant she puts her hands on his shoulders, her grip warm and unrestrictive, looks him dead in the eye, and gets straight to the point. 

“Miles, do you care about him?”

“I-“

“And I don’t mean as a friend,” Mia interrupts. Her voice is calm, gentle, and patient. “I’m asking if you care about him. About them.”

Miles’s cheeks feel hot, the back of his neck feels hot. His mind is racing, his heart is racing. He can hear Kay’s voice at the back of his mind, where it’s been since the day she asked that damned question ( do you like him) and he thinks of Trucy, of her smile sweet like spun sugar and her sparkling brown eyes, of the way it feels when she wraps her arms around his neck and squeezes. He thinks of Phoenix, of the way he loves his daughter because she’s the most important being in his life, of his crooked grin and easy laugh and how he’d read The Hound of the Baskervilles aloud in his apartment during a thunderstorm and his mismatched eyes met Miles’s over the top of the book and they’d been soft and content and warm. 

Miles glances inside the apartment. He can see Phoenix and Trucy in the living room with Kay; by the wild gestures she’s making Kay is clearly telling some grand story and Trucy is wholly enraptured, Phoenix watching them both with mirth in his eyes, and when his gaze flickers towards the balcony door (a casual movement like he’s been doing it all night) and his eyes meet Miles’s and that soft smile on his face pulls into something more before he turns back to Kay and Trucy. 

Miles’s heart flutters. 

“Miles?” Mia asks, her voice soft. 

“I…” He closes his mouth. Opens it, closes it again.

And he nods. 

Because that’s the truth, isn’t it?

He cares about the Wrights, and he cares about them a lot.

Mia blinks at him, before drawing back. She folds her arms, scrutinizing Miles, who feels as open and exposed as an insect under a magnifying glass. She hums.

“I don’t think I need to be worried about you, Miles,” she says lightly, and she smiles, tilting her head to the side. “But if you hurt my family I will murder you.”

“…Right,” Miles says, and it comes out weak and slightly strained. He didn’t think the owner of a flower shop could be so frightening. 

Mia laughs, a clear, bright sound. “Oh, don’t worry. I doubt it’ll come to that,” she says, and pats Miles’s arm. “He likes you a lot, you know. He and Trucy both.”

Miles just nods. Any words he might want to say are stuck in his throat, and even those shrivel away as the balcony door slides open. 

“Doing good, Phoenix?” Mia asks, and jumping off the balcony looks awfully tempting right about now.

Phoenix grins at her, his gaze flicking to Miles, then back to Mia. “Yeah, just stepping out for some air.” 

“Well, I’ll leave you to it, then.” Mia says, and she winks at Miles as she leaves, and the balcony door sliding shut has a horrible finality to it, closing off Phoenix and Miles from everyone else, giving them privacy. 

Good lord.

Phoenix steps up beside Miles, occupying the space previously filled by Mia and like earlier on the couch he stands just close enough for their arms to lightly brush and Miles imagines he can feel the heat radiating off of Phoenix through his vintage grandpa sweater. 

“It’s nice out,” Phoenix remarks, looking up at the sky. “You can even see all the constellations.”

Miles just nods. He’s still a bit preoccupied with recent revelations. 

As if reading his mind, Phoenix tilts his head towards Miles in that way of his and asks, “So what were you talking about with Mia?”

You , Miles thinks wryly. “She was just giving me some advice.”

Phoenix gives Miles a quizzical look, but doesn’t press any further. He leans a bit further on the railing, stretching out his arms. “Trucy was wondering where you went.”

“I can go back in, if she likes.”

“Nah, that’s okay. She and Kay are dancing right now anyways.”

Miles glances over his shoulder to look inside through the sliding glass door, watching the spectacle: Franziska and Maya (he wonders how on earth he didn’t know, and marvels over how happy his sister looks) and Kay and Trucy, a sight that makes his heart twist. Trucy’s standing on Kay’s feet and holding tight to her hands, giggling as Kay hops and twirls around the room. Mia’s watching them from the couch, laughing. 

It’s a dangerous feeling, the one settling in Miles’s chest. 

“So they are,” he says absently. 

“I’m pretty sure Trucy taught Kay sleight of hand earlier,” Phoenix says, following Miles’s gaze. “You know, like what she did with your wallet when we went to the farmer’s market?”

“Wonderful,” Miles mutters. “Now Kay’s going to try and steal everything I own off my person for the rest of my life. Thank you for making my life infinitely more difficult.”

Phoenix chuckles, and cheekily bumps Miles’s shoulder with his own. “Well, Kay did promise to teach Trucy how to pick locks, so it’s only fair.”

Miles can’t help but smile. “I suppose.”

He can hear the music through the tiniest crack in the sliding glass door, a song full of sweeping violin and piano. The stars glitter overhead, and when Phoenix turns to face Miles more fully the fairy lights reflect in his eyes like stars themselves. Their hands are so close on the rail that they’re practically touching.

Miles feels his heart skitter and jump in his chest, a wild horse unable to be tamed. Even with the fall breeze, he feels hot. 

“I have a birthday wish,” Phoenix says. 

“Oh?” Miles shifts, and their shoulders bump again. “And what might that be?”

“Well, I feel like you’re going to say no.”

“I might, depending on what you ask,” Miles says, and he feels as if there’s no air in his lungs at all so his words come out a bit breathless. 

Phoenix stares at him for a moment, his eyes slightly lidded and a smile tugging at his lips. Then, he pushes off the railing and holds out his hand. 

“Will you dance with me?”

Miles’s heart nearly drops out of his chest. “ What ?”

“Dance with me,” Phoenix repeats, tilting his head. “For my birthday.”

“And what does your birthday have to do with it?”

“Well,” Phoenix says, drawing out the L, “since it’s my birthday, you have to do whatever I ask you to, especially if it’s a birthday wish. It’s like a law or something.”

“That’s not a law ,” Miles retorts, but he can feel an amused smile tugging on his lips. 

Phoenix rolls his eyes, grinning that crooked, boyish grin, and when he holds out his hand again Miles can see that his summer freckles have begun to fade. “Come on,” he says, “it’ll be fun.”

“I have a feeling you’re not going to let me say no.”

“I have been told I’m really, really stubborn.” Phoenix wiggles his fingers. “But if you really don’t want to, you don’t have to. I’m not going to make you do anything, I just…” He pauses. There’s a dusting of red on his cheeks. “I just really want to dance with you.”

Miles swallows, glances at Phoenix’s outstretched hand.

( do you care about him)

He hesitates. His heart is racing. This is ridiculous, he’s ridiculous. He’s a fully grown man and he’s acting like a child with a school crush and on this man of all people, a man wearing the oldest sweater Miles has ever seen and had been proudly wearing a plastic crown that says BIRTHDAY QUEEN on it earlier. 

Phoenix tilts his head. His hand falters, slightly. “It’s okay if you say no,” he says, uncertainty thick in his voice. 

( you do you do you do you do)

Miles sucks in a breath. He meets Phoenix’s gaze, who looks startled at the sudden eye contact.

And takes his hand.

Phoenix immediately freezes, his eyes going wide. His hand is warm, slightly calloused, and Miles’s heart is beating so loud he can hear the blood rushing in his ears. 

“I didn’t think…” Phoenix says, his voice low.

Neither did I, Miles thinks, but says nothing. The music swells inside, all violins and tinkling piano and faintly he can hear the lilting sound of Kay and Trucy’s laughter. 

Phoenix swallows, and shifts his hand to the side, interlacing their fingers together. “I’m going to be honest,” he says haltingly, staring at their hands between them, “and tell you I don’t actually know how to dance.”

Miles huffs a shaky, nervous laugh. “Are you telling me you asked me to dance without even knowing how?”

“Maybe,” Phoenix says sheepishly, and Miles can feel it now, that tight knot in his chest blooming like a sunflower, roots twined around his ribcage and taking hold of his heart. He’s not sure how long it’s been there but it’s there, and it’s real, and he has a feeling it’s not going away, and worst of all he’s okay with it. 

“Then I suppose I’ll lead.”

Phoenix’s eyes widen. “You know how to dance?”

“Of course I do.”

“Like, waltzes and stuff?”

“Er, yes?”

“ Seriously ?”

Miles raises a brow. “Why would I lie about knowing how to waltz?”

“I don’t know, it’s a fancy person dance.”

“It’s not fancy , it’s a waltz.”

“Waltzes are inherently fancy.”

“They’re one of the most common dances. It’s not difficult, it’s just a box step. Anyone can do it.”

“Miles, look me in the eyes and tell me if you think I know what a box step is.”

Miles fights back an amused chuckle. “I suppose I’ll be teaching you how to waltz then.”

“Oh boy, I get to learn a fancy person dance,” Phoenix says teasingly. “You think I’m up for the challenge?”

“If you can raise a daughter, you can waltz.”

Phoenix snorts. “I don’t really think those two are connected, but okay, I trust you. Um…where am I supposed to put my hands?”

Miles rolls his eyes. He takes Phoenix’s left hand and puts it in place on his arm, and Phoenix steps closer, only an inch, but it feels like he’s drawn right up into Miles’s space and sucked out all the air between them. Then, Miles stretches out their interlaced hands to the side, before carefully settling his own left hand at Phoenix’s hip. Only then do his nerves, vanished during their bickering, return in full force as he realizes exactly what he’s doing. Luckily, he doesn’t have to face Phoenix at all, because Phoenix is staring very intently at his feet, his brows furrowed in concentration.

“Are you ready?” Miles says softly, as the song inside changes to something slower, something with a lowly thrumming cello. 

Phoenix nods, still focused on his feet. “Ready.”

And they dance. 

Miles leads, and Phoenix hesitantly follows, carefully stepping in time to the music drifting from inside. Miles quietly counts the time under his breath, onetwothree onetwothree and he doesn’t even have to speak very loudly because Phoenix is right there. It’s dangerous territory, and god, does Miles know it. It’s dangerous and terrifying and real, Phoenix’s hand in his as he stumbles over the steps, accidentally stepping on Miles’s feet but then Phoenix laughs at his clumsiness and Miles’s tension loosens, slips away like a discarded article of clothing thrown on the floor and suddenly he’s chuckling too without even realizing it. 

The music is soft, slow, the cello trilling alongside faint whispers of piano. The balcony is just wide enough for them to spin, to walk the whole box step and repeat again under the watchful eyes of the stars above, their fingers twined together and Phoenix’s hand a steady weight on Miles’s arm. Phoenix is a quick study, and after a minute or two he moves more confidently and looks up from his feet long enough to meet Miles’s gaze with those bright eyes of his and Miles’s heart thunders away in his chest. 

“This isn’t so hard,” Phoenix says. His voice is low, like he doesn’t want to break the quiet that’s settled between them like a warm blanket at the end of a cold day. 

“I told you. It’s not a difficult dance.”

“Do people spin each other in waltzes?”

“It depends on the waltz.”

Phoenix’s eyes brighten, and then he’s lifting their joined hands up, and Miles raises a brow as he tries to spin himself under Miles’s arm but spins don’t work like that, the person leading initiates the spin so Phoenix just ends up twisting their arms together and he stumbles against Miles’s chest, Miles’s hand flying to the small of Phoenix’s back and god, he’s so, so close. 

Phoenix looks up at Miles. They’re inches away, his eyes wide, Miles’s face hot. 

“That didn’t work,” Phoenix says softly. 

Miles shakes his head, the movement microscopic. “You don’t spin yourself, you spin your partner,” he replies, his voice equally breathless. 

“Miles.” Phoenix’s voice has dropped to a murmur. 

Miles tries not to shudder. “Yes?” 

“You have to dip me.”

The moment shatters, and Miles nearly drops him. 

“What ?” he sputters, feeling that now-familiar heat creeping up the back of his neck. 

“Dip me! Don’t people do that when waltzing?”

“Well, yes, but I…no. Absolutely not.”

“Miles, listen.” Phoenix squeezes his hand. “This is part of my birthday wish. I want to be dipped, and I want to be dipped now .”

“I am not dipping you. For starters, you’re too heavy. I’ll likely drop you.”

Phoenix grins, and he’s so close that Miles can see the flecks of green and gold in his mismatched eyes, along with that little cluster of freckles right on the bridge of his nose. He tilts his head ever so slightly to the side. “That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

Miles stares at him for a moment, at this ridiculous man, and he can feel himself caving in before he can find his voice to say so. He wordlessly slips his hand to the small of Phoenix’s back. He can feel Phoenix’s hand tightening on his arm, can feel his tiny gasp because they’re so close that they’re chests are practically touching. He braces his feet, and, and, and…

He drops him. 

Miles isn’t a weak man, so he can’t blame it entirely on Phoenix being too heavy; perhaps it was simply a combination of that and his fraying nerves. But, in any case, Phoenix slips and hits the balcony floor with an oof, but he’s still holding tight to Miles so as he falls backwards he drags Miles right down with him. 

They crash together, Phoenix’s back hitting the ground and Miles catching himself on his elbows, his arms framing either side of Phoenix’s face. Their chests are pressed slightly together, Miles’s legs bracketing Phoenix and they stay there staring at each other, heartbeats racing in unison and in that moment Phoenix glances down at Miles’s lips for the briefest instant, barely the span of a breath before his eyes flick back up and lock onto Miles and Miles feels something like a shiver of lightning dance its way across his spine. 

Abruptly, he stands, moving so fast that he nearly bashes his head in on the balcony railing. He can tell his face is burning red by the head in his cheeks and at the back of his neck, and his heart is pounding so hard he feels like he’s going to throw up. He hears Phoenix get to his feet, and he glances at him. 

They stare at each other for a moment, both of their faces flushed and eyes wide, before Phoenix bursts into laughter, and Miles can feel the very vibrations of it. It doesn’t take long for Miles to start laughing, too, though where Phoenix’s laugh is bright and loud and unrestrained, Miles’s is soft and low but it’s laughter all the same.

Their laughter rings through the night, and the stars above watch with amusement in their eyes as the balcony door flings open, Trucy and Kay spilling out to drag the two men inside for more dancing, more cake, more laughter, and when Miles returns to his apartment later that night he can still feel the faint traces of a smile on his face, Trucy’s arms around his waist and the warmth of Phoenix’s hand tucked in his own. 

Chapter Text

By the time Halloween rolls around, when all the trees outside have turned red-gold and not a single leaf of green remains, and the late-blooming flowers like pale purple asters and meadow saffrons bloom in the windows of Fey’s Flowers across the street, the bookstore at the corner of 14th and Fen has undergone a rather dramatic transformation at the devious hands of one Kay Faraday. 

She set to work only a few days after Phoenix’s birthday party (a day which Miles is desperately trying not to think about every waking hour of his life) under the belief that by September’s end the store should’ve already been draped rafters to floorboards with Halloween decor, and is therefore sorely lacking in all manner of things, such as construction paper bats in the windows and handmade ghostly bookmarks to give away at the front counter. It took Kay approximately four days to appropriately lavish the store with decorations (in Miles’s opinion), but even now, on the last day of the month, she’s still placing finishing touches. Miles can hear her giggling somewhere amongst the shelves, surely putting up the yarn cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling despite the fact he strictly told her she wasn’t allowed. 

He prides himself on a clean store, and not even Halloween will ruin that reputation. 

Not that Kay listens to him. 

Miles cringes a bit at the thought of having to tidy up all of Kay’s decorations. She’s plastered bats in the storefront window, painstakingly cut out by hand with red eyes and white fangs drawn in marker, and at some point she enlisted Gumshoe’s help to hang long rows of string-lighted tissue paper ghosts between the bookshelves since Miles won’t allow her to stand on the swivel stool any longer. There’s a garland on the front counter that reads BOO! in carefully cut-out letters, surrounded by paper candy corn and cartoonish spiders. She’d even found a cowboy hat for the lucky bamboo plant on the front counter. Miles wasn’t aware that cowboy hats came that small. 

Kay does this every year, and Miles can at least admit that it’s all a bit charming. He doesn’t have much to do with it, really; he lets Kay run rampant (because it’s not like he can stop her, if he’s being honest with himself) and she seems to have an enjoyable time doing it. And it is amusing to watch her sit on the little bench in the storefront window and cut out those construction paper bats with her tongue sticking out between her teeth like that. 

Said bench is now sufficiently filled with carved pumpkins, another thing that Kay does every year. It’s a tradition, now, put in place about three years ago where all the bookstore employees (and Gumshoe, who Kay says counts as an honorary employee) get together and spend a night carving pumpkins for the storefront window. 

It’s always an… experience , to say the very least of it. Miles isn’t sure why he puts himself in a room with Kay, Gumshoe, Franziska and several sharp knives every single year, but he does, perhaps only to subvert what can only be several potential disasters. Making sure Kay doesn’t accidentally stab herself while simultaneously trying to prevent Gumshoe from spilling pumpkin guts all over his kitchen floor is a significant test of Miles’s multitasking abilities, all while dealing with Franziska flaunting about the absolute perfection of her jack o’lanterns. One year there were even rulers involved (as she insisted on proving she carved the straightest lines). 

Thinking back on it now, Miles does wonder at the fact he hasn’t entirely lost his mind. 

This year’s pumpkins sit proudly in the windowsill now; Franziska’s as perfect as ever, looking as if it were plucked from a Halloween magazine front cover, Gumshoe’s large and orange and undoubtedly carved by him, with misshapen triangular eyes and a grinning mouth full of lopsided teeth. He’s incredibly skilled with his hands, Gumshoe, and can fix anything from a broken watch to a dishwasher but apparently that skill does not extend to pumpkin carving. Kay had been a bit ambitious with her own pumpkin and had attempted to carve…well, Miles isn’t exactly sure. She tried to carve something . He thinks it might be Hemingway (those could be cat ears if he squints) but he doesn’t want to offend her by asking.

Miles’s own carved pumpkin had turned out…fine. It’s neither awful nor incredible; he isn’t particularly artistic or creative, but in his opinion it’s a perfectly serviceable pumpkin no matter if Kay thinks it’s boring or not. And, in his defense, he spent most of the night babysitting three full-grown adults and trying to keep them from destroying his apartment and each other with various knives and pumpkin guts, so sue him if his pumpkin is a bit lacking. 

Miles sighs, toying with one of the pages of his book. It’s a barely-read copy of The Haunting of Hill House, thrust rather forcibly into his hands a week ago by Franziska with the demand that he finish reading to by the end of October because honestly, Miles, you haven’t read a single horror novel this entire season and as a bookstore owner that’s positively shameful. His plan had been to spend the day catching up on it, as Franziska will likely kill him if he doesn’t finish it. It was a rather good plan: it’s the perfect day to read as the Corner Bookstore isn’t officially open on Halloween, at least, not until late afternoon when sticky-handed children come ‘round and start demanding candy. Logically, he should be done with the book right now, or at the very least halfway, but he hadn’t accounted for his damned distracted thoughts. 

(I’m certain you can guess what he’s thinking about.)

His eyes wander out the window, away from the book to the fiery maple leaves falling in great, sweeping strokes across the street onto the sidewalk in front of the flower shop, and he catches himself before his gaze lingers just long enough to spot certain individuals inside. He knows they’re just as fervent for Halloween over there as Kay is; Trucy, on a visit to the bookstore a few days ago, informed Miles that they have a plastic skeleton called Skeletony (named by one Maya Fey). Similarly to the bookstore, they’ve put up bats in the windows, and the display plants have changed pots from Phoenix’s usual abstract, colorful style to painted pumpkins and witches and ghosts. Miles has even seen Mia Fey in costume when she was out sweeping the sidewalk just a bit ago; he believes she’s some kind of fortune teller, dressed in shades of draping purple fabric and all sorts of golden bangles. 

He wonders, absently, what Phoenix and Trucy are dressed up as. 

Stop it, Miles! He forces himself to look back at his book, away from the store, away from these thoughts and back at words that form little more than nonsensical sentences that he’s too horribly distracted to comprehend, and resists the urge to bang his head against the counter. 

That birthday party ruined his life. It really did, and ever since that day he’s had this awful newfound knowledge sitting in his chest like a germinating seed, and every dangerous, illogical thought he has is nothing but water and fertilizer to help the heavens-be-damned thing bud and grow and bloom and god, he’s going to lose his mind. 

Miles sighs again, this time a forceful exhalation of breath. The worst part of it all is that someone knows, and that someone is Mia Fey of all people, which makes it all the more real. If he had it his way, none would be the wiser, and he could stuff these inconsequential, inconvenient feelings deep, deep down in a box and toss away the key. But she knows, and she asked him his intentions and whether he would be good to Phoenix and then he’s thinking of Phoenix (again, again, again) and the way his eyes, like the earth and the sea, had crinkled at the corners when Miles taught him how to dance and the way his laugh rumbles through his chest like an old and trusty engine and then Miles is gripping the edge of The Haunting of Hill House so tightly he’s going to rip the page if he doesn’t calm down. 

He hasn’t done a single thing about his…predicament, as he’s been calling it, except think, mull, stew, ponder and brood, just like this. And what would you do, Miles, given the chance, he asks himself, because he doesn’t know how to navigate this kind of thing, this new, brand new experience, and he’s just a lost explorer at sea without a compass or stars to guide him home. He’s a logical man (this is a fact we’ve established quite well) but he’s typically prepared for whatever comes across his path and therefore can keep a calm and logical mind in the fact of conflict or adversity, but it’s not he ever, not in a million years, imagined he’d be developing feelings for Phoenix and Trucy Wright. 

He is not prepared for this. 

And this lack of preparation is causing him to do the most illogical things. 

Example number one: just a few days after the birthday party, Trucy had stopped by to thank Miles for helping her bake Phoenix’s cake and she’d spoken with so much earnestness and warmth in her eyes that it gave Miles something akin to an arrhythmia and he had to excuse himself to the back room to get his heart back under control. This has never happened before with her, and it’s completely illogical and ridiculous that it would be happening now .

Example number two: about a week ago, Phoenix ( god ) visited to buy the final book in Trucy’s Dragon Slippers series. Miles, for absolutely no logical reason whatsoever, had given him that book completely free of charge. He doesn’t know what drove him to do such a thing; he owns a bookstore , for heaven’s sake, he can’t just go running around giving away books like some kind of library as he pleases, and the look on Phoenix’s face after he had awkwardly insisted has forever been ingrained into his memory along with every other ridiculous thing that man has done, and it all made Miles want to vault the desk and run. 

But he’s fine. Really. He’s doing well, and he certainly hasn’t thought about the way Phoenix’s gaze had flickered right down to his mouth after they’d danced on the balcony several times a day. 

Anyway. 

Miles glances out the window again, drumming his fingers on the open page. Across the street a leaf breaks free, drifting to the street in lazy, winding circles. It’s red and orange, the same as the leaf currently sitting upstairs on his kitchen counter, the leaf Trucy had given to him when they visited the farmer’s market together. He doesn’t quite know what to do with a leaf , but he cannot in good conscience throw something like that away. It’s lasted surprisingly long; he expected it to become old and brittle over time, but it’s still there on his counter, slightly bent from its time in his wallet but just as bright as before. His gaze flickers from the maple trees to the sidewalk to the flower shop; he’s trying to catch a glimpse of spiky black hair, of the twirl of a cape, again. 

He slams his book shut. 

Pess, at his feet, jumps, and as Miles feels the movement against his leg he’s drawn back to reality.

“Sorry, love,” he mutters, reaching down to scratch Pess behind the ears, but stops when he looks at her. He frowns. “What are you wearing?”

Pess wags her tail at Miles. She currently has a red paisley bandana tied around her fluffy neck, and little booties with fake spurs on her feet, but that isn’t all. She’s also wearing a pair of glittery angel wings and a halo. He stares at her for a moment as he catalogs this information (is this where the tiny cowboy hat came from?) before sighing, looking out into the depths of the bookstore. There’s only one person this can be attributed to, really, and he can hear her talking to someone among the shelves. He didn’t know there was anyone else here, but, granted, he hasn't quite been paying attention. He’s sure he knows who it is, anyway. 

“Kay?” Miles calls out. “Could you come here for a moment, please?”

The soft lilt of Kay’s voice falls silent. Then, after a moment, she emerges from the sci-fi section, blinking innocently at Miles as she brushes a strand of her dark hair behind her ear. She’s wearing it up in a large, messy bun today; she’s not yet dressed for tonight. “What’s up, boss?” she asks, keeping one hand behind her back where Miles is almost certain she’s holding a ball of cobweb-colored yarn. 

Of course, he thinks, and resists the urge to shake his head. He’ll pick and choose his battles with Kay today. “What exactly is Pess wearing?”

“Oh, you saw?”

Miles raises a brow. “Were you assuming I wouldn’t?” 

“I mean, you’ve been like, major distracted today so I was kind of expecting you not to,” Kay says, and she wiggles her eyebrows at Miles. “Got someone on the brain there, Mr. Edgeworth?”

Miles feels his face heat up. “That’s certainly besides the point. Why is my dog wearing angel wings and spurs?”

“ Well,” Kay says, drawing out the word, “we couldn’t really decide on what her costume should be, like, what her theme should be, y’know? Angel? Cowboy? It’s a hard pick , boss. I said cowboy, Sebby said angel…” she shrugs (and, as if summoned by his nickname alone, Sebastian Debeste pops his head around Kay. Miles isn’t surprised in the slightest). “So we compromised and did both, and I think she looks really cute.”

“Are you telling me,” Miles says calmly, crossing his arms and schooling his expression into one he knows Kay doesn’t like being on the receiving end of, “that you and Sebastian dressed up my dog to be a dead cowboy?”

“An angel cowboy,” Kay corrects. 

“Or a cow…um…a cow angel,” Sebastian adds, lamely. 

Kay pats him consolingly on the shoulder. “That didn’t really work out but I’m glad you tried.”

“…Thanks.”

“Sebastian, I wasn’t aware you would be here today,” Miles says lightly (though he’s directing the statement more towards Kay than Sebastian, as he’s often asked her to let him know when she’s bringing the boy over). 

“Hi, Mr. Edgeworth,” Sebastian says awkwardly, fidgeting with something in his hands. It looks like a retractable baton, the kind that one would use to conduct music. It’s always on his person, and he’s often toying with it. “Kay said I could come. Is…is that okay?”

He’s a curious sort, Sebastian. He’s Kay’s best friend, a fidgety boy with distinctly fluffy hair and round brown eyes prone to tears. Kay has explained to Miles once or twice that Sebastian doesn’t come from a good home, something that Miles himself has noticed in the way Sebastian flinches whenever someone raises their voice too loud, or in his tendency to tear up if he thinks someone is laughing at him. It’s not something Miles feels comfortable asking about, feeling it isn’t his place, so he allows Sebastian to spend however much time he wants in the bookstore without any questions asked, though he rarely actually buys a book. 

“That’s perfectly fine,” Miles replies, trying his best to make it sound reassuring. “You know you’re always welcome here. I take it Kay has roped you into assisting her with decorations?”

Sebastian nods. “She told me it’s…um…what did you say it was?”

“Literally life or death that we get this bookstore decked out for Halloween,” Kay fills in.

“Yeah. That.”

“I’m fairly certain the bookstore is fairly…decked out,” Miles says, quirking a brow at Kay. “You’ve been working at it for quite some time now, as has Franziska with her horror displays. Surely you don’t need to continue now that the day has actually come?”

“The work of a genius is never done,” Kay replies, propping her hands on her hips. Though, she seems to have forgotten about the ball of yarn she’s been trying to hide, and her derisive movement causes it to fall and tumble to the floor. Sebastian quickly tries to grab it but fails, and as the yarn bounces away both teenagers look up at Miles with the paled expressions of those who know they’ve been caught red-handed.

“I’m sure I have no idea what that is for,” Miles says drily, leveling Kay with a firm look, “as I’m fairly certain an employee of mine wouldn’t go behind my back and do something I explicitly told her not to do.”

Kay waves a hand, and when she laughs it’s only slightly strained. “Pssh, what? I’m a rule follower to the core. I love the rules, are you kidding?”

Miles glances at Sebastian, whose eyes are wide. “Sebastian, you wouldn’t be helping her do something she isn’t supposed to be doing, is she?”

Sebastian, if possible, pales even further, and Miles does feel a bit bad. The boy is practically incapable of lying. 

“Don’t answer that, Sebby!” Kay exclaims, slapping a hand over Sebastian’s mouth. “We plead the fifth!”

Miles tries not to be so amused. “This is not a court of law, Kay. That doesn’t work here.”

“Whatever! If we wanna get upset at someone we should be upset with you! You’re not even dressed up today!”

“What does that have to do-“

Kay gesticulates wildly at Miles. “Like, you’re not even wearing a fun shirt!”

“I don’t own fun shirts,” Miles says, ignoring the dig (and the less-than-subtle change of subject). “I own functional shirts.”

“Yeah, okay . A functional shirt can be a fun shirt. A fun ctional shirt,” she grins, winking at Sebastian. “Look, see, my sweater is totally fun and also completely functional. It covers my body and keeps me warm, which is like, top tier shirt function, and it has Gengars on it.” 

She gestures at her sweater tucked haphazardly into ripped blue jeans, which is gray with some kind of…creature ( Gengars?) patterned across it with red eyes and wide, smiling mouths. At Miles’s blank look, she groans, throwing her head back. “Oh my god, it’s Gengar, Mr. Edgeworth. The Pokémon? Pokémon is literally my whole theme today, look at the earrings.”

She moves her head to the side to point out her earrings, which are shaped like little red and white balls.

Miles blinks at her. “How…nice.”

“I don’t think he knows what you’re talking about,” Sebastian whispers, though his whisper is loud enough that Miles is certain he could hear him outside the store. 

“Shh! Don’t tell him that, he doesn’t like not knowing stuff,” Kay whispers back, just as loudly.

“I can hear both of you, you know.”

“No you can’t,” Kay retorts, and Sebastian snickers. “Only cool people that dress up for Halloween can hear us.”

“I’m quite sure that my lack of costume has little to do with my hearing ability.”

“Little but not none,” Kay says sagely. 

Miles rolls his eyes. 

“You’re not dressing up at all, Mr. Edgeworth?” Sebastian asks, trying to tamp down his giggling.

“I’m certainly not.”

“Lame!” Kay chirps, kicking the yarn ball around on the ground, like she’s playing with the world’s smallest soccer ball. “Do you know what I think you should dress up as?”

“I couldn’t possibly,” Miles says drily. 

“ I think you should be a sexy maid.”

Miles simply sighs as Sebastian, in trying to hold back his laughter, makes a choked, strangled sound. Years of dealing with Kay have essentially made him immune to her general… Kayness. “Your insight is duly noted, Kay,” he tells her. “Thank you.”

“Anytime,” Kay says sweetly, and turns back to Sebastian. “Mr. Edgeworth may be lame and boring but I’m going to make up for it! I’m going as the Great Thief Yatagarasu and Gummy’s gonna be my detective sidekick!”

“The…” Sebastian frowns, his brows furrowing together. “Yagata…”

“Yatagarasu,” Kay repeats patiently. “You probably haven’t read the books. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you, but my dad was a super cool author and he wrote the best stories about the Great Thief Yatagarasu. They were an infamous thief that would steal the truth to expose big bad corrupt politicians and stuff! I go as the Great Thief, like, every year ‘cause it’s literally the coolest thing that anybody could ever be. Look, I even have the speech memorized.” 

Miles smiles to himself. He’d met Kay’s father only once before, when he was much, much younger. He and his own father had been close friends, from what he remembers. He props his chin in his hand as Kay strikes a dramatic pose; he’s heard this speech many times before. 

“Even in the depths of night,” she begins, with an intense look on her face, “when no other bird dares to take flight, one alone soars to shine the light of righteousness on the world’s blight!” She thrusts her fists to her hips, raising her chin (and her voice). “And that one is me! For I am the Great Thief, Yatagarasu!”

Then, she looks down expectantly at Sebastian, whose eyes are wide. 

“Whoah,” he says, right on cue. 

Kay grins. “I know, right?”

“Are you going out with Kay tonight, Sebastian?” Miles asks. 

Sebastian shakes his head, fidgeting with his sleeves. “Um…Pops doesn’t really like stuff like this.”

Kay sticks out her tongue.“Ugh, that’s dumb.” Then, she wraps her arm around Sebastian’s shoulders and tugs him close, a more affectionate version of a headlock. “I’ll sneak you some candy tomorrow, okay? Now come on! We have to finish up in the back! Doing, um…non rule-breaky things.”

As Kay drags Sebastian back to the depths of the store, Miles checks the clock. He has a bit of time to mentally prepare himself before the younger children start coming around. As much as Miles would like to simply close the store and spend the rest of the night upstairs with Pess, he’s found that closing the bookstore on Halloween is a surefire way to ensure the entire town dislikes you, because the children want candy and he better cough some up (or else). Luckily, Miles doesn’t need to buy anything himself; he enlists Gumshoe for that. It’s not like Miles knows what children like. 

It’s not that he doesn’t like children. They’re just…messy, and unpredictable. And loud. Potentially destructive, and they always want to pet Pess with their sticky little hands and then they get all sorts of things stuck in her fur. He’s never met a child that he particularly enjoyed being around.

Well. Miles glances across the street, feeling his chest tighten in that familiar, now-pleasant way. 

He supposes there are exceptions. 

Gumshoe arrives at around 4 o’clock bearing candy; he’s dressed up to take Kay out, though his costume looks nearly identical to his usual outfit: slacks, white shirt, suspender. The only difference is his usual tattered green coat has been exchanged for one that’s tan, and well-taken care of. Miles had leant him his father’s old trenchcoat so he could look a bit more like the detective from that old show he and his father used to watch together, Columbo. It had felt a bit strange handing over that beloved coat to Gumshoe, but Gumshoe had nearly teared up at the prospect of wearing Miles’s father’s trenchcoat and promised on his life he would take good care of it, and Miles, believe it or not, does find that he trusts him. 

They’re a bit too old for trick or treating, in Miles’s opinion, but Kay and Gumshoe certainly seem to have a lot of fun doing it. Gumshoe even brought Missile along, and the little Shiba is barking excitedly at Pess in her angel cowboy costume. Missile himself has a black bandana on, embroidered with skeletons and ghosts.

“He’ll gnaw on anything else I put on ‘im,” Gumshoe explains, when Kay asks why Missile is lacking a more elaborate outfit. “He’s a little devil.”

Kay kicks her feet where she’s sitting on the front counter (yet another losing battle, though Miles does try). She’s since changed into her own Great Thief costume, a rather elaborate number featuring knee-high boots and what looks like a large key stuck through her ponytail. She points at Missile, who’s sniffing at Pess’s angel wings. “See, Missile likes Pess’s costume,” she says to Miles. 

Miles rolls his eyes. “Quite. Remind me when will I be rid of you?”

“That’s harsh, Mr. Edgeworth,” Gumshoe says. 

“He’s right, that’s harsh,” Kay echoes, and pointedly kicks her heels into the counter. “ But , we’re just waiting on Maya and Franziska. We’re all gonna go together!”

“Oh? I wasn’t aware of that.”

“Yeah! Maya’s super cool, we talked a lot at Phoenix’s birthday party. Mainly about how stupid you guys are,” Kay adds, and Miles feels the back of his neck turn hot.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

Kay snorts. “Uh-huh.”

Luckily, Miles is saved from any more torment by the younger Fey herself as she comes exploding through the door, very reminiscent of one Phoenix Wright (it must be a family trait, Miles thinks). She’s in costume: bright, flowing red pants, a velvety maroon belt and a loose white shirt patterned with lines of red. She’s also wielding a frying pan, and her long dark hair is loose around her shoulders. Miles doesn’t immediately recognize the outfit, that is, until Franziska comes in after her.

When he sees his sister enter the bookstore, he has to try very hard to keep a straight face. At her pointed look in his direction, it seems like he’s failing. 

Franziska’s dressed in a white button up shirt, tucked into a pair of brown trousers cinched tightly at the waist with a belt, and a bulky, brown leather jacket. There’s a brown fedora perched jauntily on her head, and tucked through one of her belt loops is what looks like an incredibly real bullwhip.

She makes a shockingly good Indiana Jones, but Miles really shouldn’t have expected anything else.  

“Holy shit! ” Kay exclaims. 

“I know,” Maya says, grinning. “Doesn’t she look badass?”

“I do like the whip,” Franziska mutters, running a finger along the bullwhip, which, really, isn’t concerning at all. 

Gumshoe looks pale. “ Please tell me that ain’t real,” he says, a remark which goes largely ignored, which doesn’t seem to make him feel any better. 

Maya tries to twirl her frying pan in her hand (and nearly drops it). “Honestly I think we should enter a couples costume contest or something. Like, Indiana Jones and Marion? We’d fucking kill .”

Franziska snorts. “Of course we would. We have the perfect costumes.”

“And here I was thinking I’d have the coolest costume,” Kay says, sticking out her lower lip. “That’s fine, though, we’ll just all look super rad together. Should we get going?”

Maya grins. “If we want to steal all the candy away from innocent children, yes. And if that house on 12th street isn’t giving out full-size candy bars this year I will scream.”

“Come on, then, let’s get your full-size candy bars,” Franziska says fondly, patting Maya’s arm. “Goodbye, little brother. I’m expecting that book to be completed by the time I return.”

Miles rolls his eyes. “Alright, Fran. Have fun. Kay, be safe, alright?” 

Kay salutes Miles, and hops off the counter to speed out the door after Maya and Franziska, Gumshoe and Missile in tow, and the bookstore plunges into silence, finally.

Of course, Miles isn’t sure why he expected peace and quiet tonight of all nights. Really, the fact that he wasn’t prepared for two certain individuals to pop into the store is almost ridiculous (foolish, Franziska might say) on his part. He has approximately sixteen minutes of peaceful reading before the bell above the door rings, and quick as a flash a small figure appears like magic in front of the counter.

“Hi, Uncle Miles!”

Miles barely manages to conceal his start of surprise. She’d gotten to the counter so fast he’d barely had time to acknowledge she was there. “Hello, Trucy,” he says, that warm feeling sparking in his chest, and he starts to say something else but his voice dies in his throat as he gets a better look at her and, more specifically, what she’s wearing. 

To start, she’s wearing a beard. A large, bushy white beard, to be specific, one so big that it hangs halfway down her front, and it takes Miles a minute to see beyond that to the black gown and the heavy-looking gavel.

Miles blinks. “Are you…”

“I’m a judge!” Trucy says brightly, waving the gavel. “Like Judge Judy?”

“Judge Judy does not have a beard, last I checked.”

“Well, yeah, but we had a Santa beard in our apartment and I couldn’t not wear it.” Trucy shrugs. “This is the perfect excuse to wear a Santa beard, Uncle Miles.”

“…Right. Forgive my ignorance.”

Trucy giggles. “Just this once. Why aren’t you dressed up? Ooh, wait, or are you dressed up? Like, as a librarian or…um…an old man?”

Miles is shocked that such a statement elicits the bright, fond feeling that it does in his chest. “No, Trucy, I am not dressed up as an old man. I don’t typically dress up for Halloween, since I usually stay and watch the store.”

“Oh, okay! Does that mean you have a bunch of candy for trick or treaters and stuff?”

“I do.”

Trucy’s eyes widen. “Would you…perhaps…consider giving some to your favorite magician?”

“I didn’t realize David Copperfield was in my store,” Miles says lightly, smiling as Trucy gasps in absolute horror at the implication that someone besides her could possibly be Miles’s favorite magician (because of course it’s her, who else could it be?). “I’m joking, of course. Do you like KitKats?”

“ Yes ,” Trucy says enthusiastically, and squeals in delight as Miles deposits one in her small hand. 

Miles glances around as she excitedly stuffs the bar into her candy bag (which has top hats and rabbits on it). “Er, Trucy, where is your father? I’m assuming he’s taking you out tonight?”

“Oh, he’s coming. He’s ‘gearing himself up’,” Trucy says, making air quotes with her fingers.

“He’s…what?”

Trucy shrugs, then looks toward the door. “Oh, there he is,” she says, right as Phoenix bursts through, slightly out of breath. 

“ Trucy, ” he wheezes. “We talked about you running off.”

“Sorry, Daddy,” Trucy replies, though she doesn’t sound overly apologetic. “You were taking a really long time.”

Phoenix flushes. “I was getting ready,” he mutters, rubbing at the back of his neck. He, too, is in costume (Miles assumes), the costume being a startlingly dapper suit. It’s blue, paired with a slightly crooked red tie that hasn’t been knotted quite right, and his hair even looks like it’s recently seen a brush. He has a pin on his lapel, which looks to me made exclusively out of cardboard and sharpie. 

His sudden arrival (and appearance) makes Miles’s heart stutter aggressively in his chest, and he immediately looks down at the counter instead of at Phoenix, for his sanity, if nothing else. “And what exactly are you supposed to be, Wright?” he says, wincing when his voice pitches slightly upward. 

Even looking away, he can still tell Phoenix is grinning. “Well, since Trucy’s a judge, I’m a defense attorney!”

“What an…interesting costume idea.”

“It was Trucy’s. She wanted an excuse to wear the Santa beard.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Why aren’t you dressed up? Or are you dressed as a librarian or something?”

Miles rolls his eyes. These two. 

“He’s not dressed up ‘cause he has to watch the store and give candy to everyone, Daddy,” Trucy explains, before Miles can himself. 

“What, you can’t dress up while watching the store?” Phoenix says, leaning on the front counter, right up into Miles’s space and he smells faintly of paint and cinnamon.

“I don’t dress up,” Miles replies lightly, still not looking at Phoenix. He’s looking very dutifully at his book. 

Phoenix, of course, changes that by ducking right into his field of view ( too close too close too close) . “I bet it would make all the neighborhood kids think you’re less scary.”

“ What ? I’m not-“

“Nope, you are,” Phoenix interrupts, grinning. “You’ve got some serious RBF, dude.”

“I…what?”

“ You know. Resting…” Phoenix pauses, glancing at Trucy. “Uh…female dog face.”

“I know what the word is, Daddy,” Trucy says. 

“Truce, please, I’m trying to uphold my image as a respectable parent.”

“I have a resting nothing face,” Miles sputters. 

Phoenix (horrifyingly, heart-stoppingly) pats Miles’s hand. “It’s okay to admit it, Miles. The first step to overcoming a problem is acceptance.” And then (even worse) he leans in a bit further, drops his voice to a low whisper and says, “and it’s kind of charming, too.”

Miles feels his face turn bright red and he’s half-convinced he’s going to die, right then and there. He knows he can only blame himself; Phoenix has gotten bolder since they danced together on the balcony; he was already touchy before but lord, does Miles have regrets (or does he? He’s not quite sure). 

Trucy, either oblivious to his internal plight or benevolent enough not to say anything, reaches across the counter and grabs Miles’s other hand. “You know what, Uncle Miles?”

“Yes, Trucy?” Miles asks, his voice slightly warbled (Phoenix grins like he’s victorious, that absolute endearing bastard ). 

“You should come with us!”

Miles shakes his head. He figured Trucy was going to ask, and mentally prepared himself for it. “Unfortunately, Trucy, I have to stay and watch the store.”

“But that’s boring ,” Phoenix groans. “You could come out with us and have like, way more fun.”

“Alas, I have responsibilities,” Miles says drily. 

“ Pleaaaase?” Trucy begs. “ Pess is all dressed up too and it would be a waste if we couldn’t take her around for the whole neighborhood to see!” 

Phoenix chuckles. “She’s got a point. Though I don’t really know what she’s supposed to be.”

“An angel cowboy, apparently,” Miles says, and shrugs. “Ask Kay.”

“Duh,” Trucy says, pointing at Pess with her gavel. “Look at her wings.”

Phoenix snorts. “Right, right. How silly of me.”

“Now are you coming or not, Uncle Miles?”

“As…tempting as this all sounds, I have to watch the store. Someone has to be here to ensure children get their candy.”

“ Or you could stick a bowl outside the door and let them take it themselves,” Phoenix suggests, with a shrug. “Then you don’t have to deal with children and you can come with us!”

Miles blinks. It’s not a terrible idea. But he can’t ; there’s no way in hell he can go out trick or treating with the Wrights, god, his heart likely couldn’t take it. 

“I…don’t have a costume,” he says weakly, as a last line of defense. 

“You can be a lawyer with me! Or…whatever the other one is.”

“A prosecutor?” Miles says skeptically, raising a brow as he tries to fight back his blush. “I don’t-“

Phoenix gives him a look. “Miles, there’s no way you don’t have a suit. I had a suit. And Trucy can make your badge!”

Miles’s mind is racing. He does have a suit, two in fact, one of which is black, which won’t go well with the shade of blue Phoenix is wearing. The other suit, well…

He makes the mistake of looking at Trucy, then, and her eyes are just so big and sweet and pleading that he knows then that he’s going to have to go out into the neighborhood wearing a themed costume with the local single dad and his daughter (and Pess) and every single person in town is going to hear about it by tomorrow. For god’s sake, it’s going to look like they’re…like they’re…

Miles sighs. “Let me go change.”

Trucy’s so excited she scrambles over the counter to hug him ‘round the neck.             

 Phoenix, to his credit, tries very hard to hold back his laughter. “Where did you find that?” He asks, his voice strained from the effort of it. “I’ve…uh, never seen a suit that specific color before.”

“It’s pink ,” Trucy shrieks, in absolute delight. 

Miles frowns. He’s regretting this. “It is not pink. It’s burgundy.”

“Personally I think it’s more maroon,” Phoenix says thoughtfully. “Burgundy is a bit lighter.” At Miles’s look, he shrugs. “What? I’m an artist. I know my colors.”

“What is that ?” Trucy says, pointing at Miles’s neck.

“A cravat,” Miles explains, and he’s already tired and they haven’t even left the bookstore yet. “Or a jabot. Whichever you prefer.”

“It looks like a bunch of napkins. Like when you try and pull out one napkin from the napkin holder thingy and a bunch come out instead.”

“Thank you, Trucy.”

Phoenix is covering his mouth with his hand to hide his smile, but Miles can still see the upturned edges of his lips, and hear it in his voice when he speaks. “It looks good on you,” he says, and the worst part of it is he sounds sincere. “I would let you be my lawyer.”

“A prosecutor tries to prove guilt , Wright, not innocence. You’re the defense attorney here.”

“Well, would you let me be your lawyer, then?”

“No.”

“Not even if you were accused of murder?”

“I definitely wouldn’t want you as my lawyer in that scenario.”

“I dunno, I think I could acquit you. What do you think, Judge Trucy?”

Trucy giggles, and taps her gavel on the counter. “Not guilty!” she proclaims, putting on a deep, impressive-sounding voice. “Now let’s go ! I wanna get to houses before all the good candy gets taken!”

And so they plunge into the neighborhood, a bowl of candy left on a stool outside the bookstore and the front door sufficiently locked. Pess trots along on her leash, standing out significantly with the rest of their outfits but she certainly doesn’t seem to mind, and Phoenix looks at Miles out of the corner of his eye and smiles that crooked smile and Miles can’t decide whether this is the worst idea of his life or a good one. 

The night is a series of knocking on doors, suburban moms cooing over Trucy and Phoenix’s costume and then their eyes widening in surprise when they see Miles with them, a disbelieving smile on their face, especially when Trucy shows up clutching tight to Miles’s hand. Miles doesn’t even want to know what kind of thoughts are going through their heads (but he knows what those thoughts are, and the fact that they put a warm little spark in his chest is mildly infuriating). 

The worst part of the night occurs about an hour in, when they run into Maya, Franziska, Kay and Gumshoe, and Maya just points at the two of them and goes “ HA!” so loudly it rings down the street.

Kay then leaves Maya and Franziska to join their little group (“I think they wanna go make out,” she tells them, and both Miles and Phoenix make a face) and Gumshoe says his farewells so he can take a sleepy Missile home, and before Miles realizes it they’re suddenly all making their way back to Phoenix’s apartment in the fading light and Miles doesn’t even recall saying yes to an invite or anyone really mentioning them all going back together at all but then they’re there, walking down the hall to the door and Phoenix is unlocking it with his keys on their Steel Samurai keychain. 

It’s strange to think the place has become familiar, but it has. When Miles walks inside he slips off his suit jacket without even thinking about it, hanging it on the same peg he’s hung his coat before like it’s his , and he certainly catches the way Phoenix looks at him in just the waistcoat when he does and Miles certainly doesn’t get flustered over it. He sits on the couch and Phoenix flops down beside him, his suit jacket already long gone (discarded on a kitchen chair) and his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing his freckled forearms. His knee bumps into Miles’s. 

Kay flings herself onto the living room carpet belly-first like she belongs there, like she hasn’t only been here once before. She’s good at that though, Miles thinks, slotting herself into places like this. She rearranges her tall ponytail into a messy bun to keep her hair out of the way before patting the carpet in front of her.

“Come on, Trucy, we gotta check our hauls!” she exclaims, beaming up at Trucy. “Dump it!”

Trucy (sans beard: she removed it and hung it up on the same peg as her cape) giggles and complies, striking a dramatic pose as she overturns her bag with a swift magician’s flourish, and candy goes everywhere. Miles immediately clicks his tongue for Pess; he doesn’t want her getting sick. 

“I’m not cleaning that up,” Phoenix says, and it goes largely ignored. The girls are too busy inspecting their candy hauls.

Kay taps her jaw thoughtfully. “We thinkin’ tradesies, magic girl?”

“Make an offer,” Trucy replies, grinning. 

“Reeses for a KitKat?”

“What about the Skittles?”

Kay frowns. “Hm…I give you the Reese’s and we split the Skittles?”

“As long as I get all the red ones.”

“Deal.”

They shake hands, and the trade is made. They carry on like this for about ten minutes, exchanging candy and discarding the ones they don’t like (including those odd little candies in the strawberry wrappers, and one bag of candy corn). The whole time, Miles is acutely aware of Phoenix yawning beside him. 

Eventually, they finish trading candy and join Miles and Phoenix on the couch; Trucy tucks herself in between Miles and Phoenix, filling up that minimal space, and Kay flops on the other side of Miles. Pess stretches, settling herself at their feet. 

“Bad horror movie time?” Kay asks, already reaching for the remote.

Phoenix frowns. “It’s not scary, is it?”

Trucy giggles. “Daddy’s a scaredy cat.”

“I am not ,” Phoenix protests. “I just…startle easily. The loud noises are very startling.”

“No, no, yeah, totally understandable,” Kay says, smirking. “I’ll just pick a movie without loud noises, then, and you won’t be scared at all, right? Unless you think you might be scared by other things?”

Phoenix stares at her. “You’re a devious one.”

“This is nothing,” Miles tells him. 

Kay pulls up a movie called Silver Bullet , which none of them have seen before but her, and she promises it’s “something special”. As the movie starts, Phoenix is immediately startled by a loud noise, and they have to pause ten minutes in for him to loudly accuse Kay of breaking her promise, the effectiveness of which is broken by the fact that both she and Trucy are laughing at him.

“Daddy, it’s okay to be scared by the loud noises,” Trucy says innocently. “Do you want me to get you a nightlight?”

Phoenix makes a face at her. “You little gremlin, ” he says (through his laughter) and he lunges at her to tickle her sides, nearly knocking his skull against Miles’s shoulder. 

Trucy squeals and presses herself further against Miles to escape, practically scrambling across his lap to squeeze herself in between him and Trucy. Miles sputters and Phoenix laughs, and when he slumps back against the couch he ends up a little closer to Miles, their shoulders touching.

The movie goes on. It’s horribly cheesy in all the best ways, with campy special effects and ridiculous line delivery, a movie best watched with others to make fun of it. When the entire church congregation turns into werewolves, including the pianist, who continues to play despite her claws, they have to pause the movie because they’re all laughing so hard (though Miles’s laughter is more of a low, amused chuckle). When the movie ends they take a moment to congratulate Phoenix for predicting exactly who in town was the murderous werewolf, and his prize for such an achievement is three pink Starbursts and a small bag of M&M’s. 

Though it’s getting late and Miles should certainly take Kay and Pess home, another movie is queued up, but Miles remembers very little of it. At that point they were all sleepy, Kay and Trucy on the downslide of their sugar high and Miles and Phoenix simply tired from the day. Though they rub sleep from their eyes and try to stay awake, their exhaustion eventually takes them all. It takes a yawning Phoenix first (though, really, it took Pess a while ago and she snoozes now at their feet), and as he succumbs his head falls onto Miles’s shoulder and the backs of their knuckles brush on the couch and if Miles weren’t so tired he might horribly overthink it all. (He is, however, in that lovely place between wake and sleep, where life is a little bit simpler and all the tiny things that might cause worry don’t seem so consequential, so if Phoenix Wright falls asleep slumped against him with a weight real and warm and lovely then so be it.) Kay and Trucy are next, snuggled into each other as they are, one of Trucy’s hands tucked into Miles’s. Miles is last to go, and though he remembers little of the movie he does recall feeling warm, and his dreams are pleasant.

Miles blinks awake, and for a brief moment he doesn’t recall where he is, but then he feels a head on his shoulder and a hand in his and the TV before him, the movie ended long ago and the screen frozen at the end credits. His sleepy mind puts together the pieces: that’s Kay slumped against his right side, her cheek pressing against his upper arm, and Trucy, who in sleep has fallen half in his lap. He can feel Pess at his feet, the rise and fall of her ribs. Which means the head on his left shoulder is Phoenix’s, isn’t it, his dark hair tickling at Miles’s neck. At some point in their shared slumber Phoenix has wrapped his arm around Miles’s, and their hands have fallen together, warm and real. The only sound is slow, rhythmic breathing, and the occasional shff of fabric as Kay twitches in the midst of a dream. They’re all still fast asleep, and Miles experiences that curious, peaceful feeling of being the only one in the entire house that’s awake. 

He shifts, grunting at the crick in his neck and shaking the blanket of sleep from his head, careful not to dislodge anyone. He searches around for a clock that he’ll be able to read in the dark; he just barely makes out the one on the oven, displaying in glowing green that it’s currently 12:45 AM. 

Lord. 

“Wright,” Miles whispers, gently nudging Phoenix with his shoulder. “Wright, wake up.” 

Phoenix merely mumbles something in his sleep as a reply, pressing his face into the crook of Miles’s neck and squeezing their hands together a bit tighter, sending a shiver down Miles’s spine. He swallows, and tries again, this time carefully unclasping their hands (though a part of him doesn’t want to) and using it to lightly pat the side of Phoenix’s face.

“Phoenix,” he murmurs, “wake up.”

That seems to do it; Phoenix’s eyes flutter, and he sleepily blinks up at Miles, their faces barely a few inches apart. “Hmngh…Miles?” he says, his voice soft, thick with sleep. Miles’s heart twists.

“We fell asleep.”

Phoenix tries to fight back a yawn and fails. “Wha…what time issit…?”

“Almost one.”

Phoenix pulls back, blinking the sleep from his eyes. The soft light from the TV illuminates the side of his face, the earthy brown of his left eye and those secret golden flakes within, his other hidden in darkness. “One?” He repeats, the information processing in his head. 

Miles nods. “I’m not sure how long we’ve been asleep,” he says, keeping his voice quiet so as to not wake Kay or Trucy. Or Pess. 

Phoenix exhales. “We should get Truce to bed.”

“Should we wake her up?” Miles whispers, glancing down at Trucy. She’s fisted a hand into the fabric of his slacks, her cheek pressed against his upper thigh. 

Phoenix shakes his head, slowly getting to his feet. He yawns. “She’s a heavy sleeper. We can just carry her.”

“Alright. I can…I can get her, but…” Miles tilts his head towards Kay, who’s still slumped firmly against his side. 

“Here, let me help,” Phoenix mutters, and he steps over Miles, reaching for Kay. 

“Don’t wake her,” Miles whispers.

“I won’t.” He gently takes Kay by the shoulders, pulling her away from Miles’s side. She makes a soft noise of protest, but doesn’t wake. Miles slowly extracts himself, keeping his arm around Trucy’s back so he can lift her up as he stands, slipping his other arm under her knees. Once up, Phoenix carefully lowers Kay to the couch so she’s lying on her side, her dark hair pooling beneath her cheek and spilling over the edge of the couch. 

“Mission complete,” Phoenix whispers, smiling up at Miles. “Do you want me to take Trucy?”

“I’ve got her,” Miles replies. She doesn’t weigh that much (really, she weighs just a bit more than Pess), and in her sleep she presses her face against Miles’s chest, making a quiet sound. 

Phoenix straightens, and he steps closer to run a hand over Trucy’s face, brushing back her bangs, mussed from sleep. His eyes flicker up to Miles, warm in the light of the TV. A quiet smile tugs at his lips, and he lets his hand fall away, past the curve of Trucy’s cheek to Miles’s wrist, where he lightly tugs at the cuff of his sleeve. “Her room is down the hall. Here, follow me.”

They step over Pess (who’s woken up, and watches them sleepily with her head on her paws) and Miles trails after Phoenix down the dark hallway, their footsteps muffled by the carpet. Trucy’s room is on the right, across from the bathroom, and Phoenix pushes open the door and stands aside for Miles to step through. Inside, Phoenix flicks on a nightlight to fill the room with a soft amber glow, the color of honey and maple leaves in fall. 

Phoenix pulls aside Trucy’s bedsheets (which are blue with golden stars on them) and Miles carefully sets her down, his shoulder bumping against Phoenix’s as he tucks her in. As Miles steps back, he glances around Trucy’s room; it looks as if Phoenix has painted some kind of mural on the wall beside her bed, but the night light doesn’t illuminate the room enough for him to make out what it is. There’s a small desk piled up with loose cards and what looks like a miniature guillotine, Trucy’s blue top hat and other objects that surely have some magical quality to them. He spots the Dragon Slippers trilogy on her nightstand, and it stokes that warm, warm fire in his chest. 

Phoenix adjusts Trucy’s covers, runs a thumb along her cheek, and then leans in, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Love you, Truce,” he murmurs. “Sleep well.”

The display makes Miles feel warm, and he toys with the fabric at his elbow. 

“She likes you a lot, you know,” Phoenix says softly, not looking at him.

Miles blinks. He stares at the back of Phoenix’s head. “She…well. I…like her too. She’s a very sweet girl.”

“She is,” Phoenix agrees, chuckling. He turns, glancing at Miles out of the corner of his eye. “You know, she doesn’t usually warm up to people as fast as she did with you.”

Miles looks up at him, eyebrows raised. “What do you mean?”

Phoenix gets to his feet. He slips past Miles, and as he walks by he reaches out for Miles’s sleeve again, like in the living room. He nods to the doorway, a silent gesture to step out of the room, to let Trucy sleep. Miles lets himself be led out into the hall, watching as Phoenix quietly shuts the bedroom door. 

“She’s…not very trusting,” Phoenix says, as the door closes with a gentle click. His voice is low, soft, and he turns to face Miles head on. “It’s hard to tell, she’s a really good actor. I only know because I’ve spent so much time with her, but usually when she meets someone new she’ll act really friendly and everything even though she doesn’t trust them.”

He shifts, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorframe behind him. His eyes wander across Miles’s face. “Her biological dad…what he did…she…she loved that bastard so much and he broke her heart,” he says, and there’s a quiet anger in his voice, a kind of old, lived-in anger that won’t be acted upon, not anymore, but it’s one that’ll stay. “So it takes her a long time to actually open up and be herself, her real self, because she doesn’t want to be hurt again. She puts on an act and hides her real feelings…but it wasn’t like that with you. She’s real with you.”

Miles swallows. He’s not sure what to say, but Phoenix speaks again before he can come up with something. 

“Thank you."

“For what?” Miles asks, tilting his head to the side. 

Phoenix shrugs. “For letting her be real with you. She really, really likes you.”

Then he turns, like he didn’t just say something that turned Miles’s insides to warm candy-sweet mush, and heads for the living room. Miles stands there, feeling overwhelmed. He fidgets with the cuffs of his dress shirt, the buttons of his waistcoat, then takes in a deep breath and trails after Phoenix. When he emerges from the hallway Phoenix glances up at him; he’s standing by the couch with a blanket in his arms. Miles watches as he drapes it over Kay. 

Once he’s done, Phoenix straightens, facing Miles. He turned off the TV while Miles was lingering in the hall, plunging the room into a soft sort of darkness. As Miles’s eyes adjust he finds himself searching for Phoenix’s face, a task made easier as Phoenix draws closer.

“Do you want to stay?” Phoenix asks, quietly. 

“Stay?” Miles repeats, dumbly.

Phoenix shrugs. “It’s pretty late. I don’t want you guys to walk home in the dark, and clearly Kay’s comfortable.”

Miles glances around the living room.

“There’s a guest bedroom,” Phoenix adds quickly, answering Miles’s unasked question. “It’s at the end of the hall. It’s kind of my studio, but it’s got one of those…uh…wall beds? It’s where Maya and Mia usually sleep when they stay over. We’ve got spare sheets in the closet and extra pillows and - shit, the room probably smells like paint. I’ve been using those paints you got me for my birthday and they’re wonderful , really, I’ve been having a lot of fun with them and the pigment is so strong but they also smell a lot like…um. Paint. So the room probably also smells like paint. I can get you an air freshener though. I think we have those Febreze things that you plug into the wall.”

He’s rambling, and Miles is thoroughly charmed no matter how hard he tries to ignore it. 

“I think we have one that smells like…uh, laundry, or whatever the smell is but we might also have an apple cinnamon one, Trucy likes those so we keep a lot around for the bathroom and they run out really fast so we have a whole stash of them so if you want a Febreze wall clip in thingy you can definitely have one since we have like, a million-“

“Phoenix,” Miles says lightly, and Phoenix snaps his jaw shut. 

He frowns, rubbing at the back of his neck as a sheepish expression comes over his face. “I was rambling.”

“You certainly were.”

“Sorry. I can’t help it sometimes.”

“It’s alright,” Miles says. It’s endearing. “I don’t mind. Really.”

Phoenix blinks up at him, that crooked smile of his flashing across his face. “So…will you stay?” he asks again, drawing close to Miles. He tilts his head, eyes bright in the dark. “I can make pancakes in the morning.”

“You know how to make pancakes?” Miles says skeptically. 

Phoenix frowns. “Okay, fine. Trucy will make pancakes in the morning.”

At that, Miles chuckles, causing Phoenix’s mouth to quirk back up. “Don’t worry. I can make pancakes.”

“Does that…does that mean you’ll stay?”

“I’m certainly not going to leave just to come back to make you pancakes,” Miles replies, raising his brows. 

Phoenix’s eyes brighten, his smile widening, and it’s warm and sweet and Miles feels as if his heart is going to explode out of his chest. “Trucy’s going to ask for chocolate chips in her pancakes.”

“Well, so will Kay, so I suppose I’ll have to, then.”

“I’m not complaining. I like chocolate chips.”

“Unsurprising,” Miles says drily, but he can feel the smile tugging at his lips. He’s doomed. 

Phoenix points out the guest room (at the end of the hall, a door Miles hadn’t noticed before right near Phoenix’s own room) and fetches spare sheets for Miles from the closet, along with the promised air freshener (apple cinnamon spice). It’s a cozy room, and the Murphy bed looks to be a comfortable size. Pess pads in from the living room, and curls up on the carpet in the middle of the guest room, beside an easel with a half-finished painting of wild white roses growing on the side of a brick building. There’s a desk, too, and Miles spots the paint he got Phoenix for his birthday, along with brushes scattered everywhere and canvases stacked in the corner. It’s messy, like Phoenix. Miles resists the urge to smile. 

“I hope you sleep well,” Phoenix says, lingering in the hallway. 

“I’m sure I will,” Miles says, turning in the doorway to look at him. “Thank you for letting us stay.”

“Only because you promised pancakes,” Phoenix says teasingly, though he asked Miles to stay before the concept of pancakes ever arose, but Miles doesn’t mention it. He watches Phoenix pad down the hall to his own bedroom, and because he’s watching he sees him pause at the door of his own bedroom and turn back to Miles, catching his eye. He stands there, for a moment, in his slightly wrinkled button-up shirt and loose tie, his hair mussed from sleeping with his head on Miles’s shoulder. 

“For the record,” Phoenix says, a slight waver in his voice, “I like you, too.”

And then he shuts the door, and Miles freezes like a statue, his face burning. He stands there for a while, longer than he’d like to admit, before he shakes himself out of it and takes his spare sheets and his Febreze apple cinnamon air freshener into the guest room. The room does, in fact, smell like paint, but it isn’t an overly unpleasant smell. It’s a smell that reminds him of Phoenix, a thought that lingers in his head until he eventually falls asleep, the air freshener sitting unused on the desk. 

And then, in the morning, he makes them all pancakes with chocolate chips. 

Chapter Text

On a chilly day in early November, as the sky above slowly turns white the way it often does when snow looms on the horizon, Miles somehow finds himself at the calm center of a chaotic storm at Fey’s Flowers, wearing a cozy turtleneck the color of old pine forests and a dusting of dirt on his worn cap-toe oxfords, with a large, mildly heavy plant held firmly against his chest. It’s warm in the store, much warmer than it is outside; the thermostat is set to such a tropical degree that Maya is wearing a short-sleeved shirt. Miles can feel himself perspiring slightly in his sweater, but there’s not much he can do about it. 

Their heating bill must be atrocious, Miles thinks, but says nothing. The last thing he needs is Mia Fey’s ire, especially when she’s in such a frantic state. He wasn’t aware that preparing a plant store for winter could cause quite so many problems; he watches as Mia darts back and forth across the store, gnawing on her lower lip while she rearranges plants, one eye on the humidity gauge in her hand at all times.

Miles isn’t exactly sure why he got roped into all this. It’s not as if he knows a lick about plants, much less how to prepare them for winter, but of all people to come to the bookstore to request his help it had been Trucy, in all her angelic, blue-caped glory. Being that he hasn’t yet developed an ability to turn her down, here he is, in the middle of the store, holding a plant. He can at least take solace in the fact that it’s been a slow day at the bookstore; his presence won’t be sorely missed. Now that fall has officially passed, quick as a wink it seems, the trees sit bare outside the storefronts and a telling chill has settled over the town like a threadbare blanket, ill-suited to ward off the impending snow. And, as it turns out, not many people want to venture out into said chill to buy a book. 

Miles adjusts the pot in his hands. It’s intricately painted, Phoenix’s work, of course: golden sunflowers and camellias on white terracotta. The plant it houses is lush, with large, glossy leaves streaked through with a myriad of colors that remind Miles of the once vibrant maple leaves. Mia had thrust it into his hands about five minutes ago before darting back to the shelves; she’s currently bickering with her sister over where to put a humidifier for the tropical plants. It’s been like this all day, according to Trucy: grow lights and humidifiers and if the temperature should be turned up or down, because if it’s turned up the plants might go into shock when the door is opened and a gust of cold air blows in, but if it’s turned down some of the tropicals might suffer, but perhaps not if they turn it down a degree every few days until it gets to a sustainable temperature?

Again. Miles had no idea plants could be so problematic. He’s content with his books, thank you very much, and though he knows that once books become ancient enough they, too, have certain humidity and temperature requirements, he’s lucky in the fact that none of his books are quite so fussy. 

“ The peace lilies don’t need to be right by the humidifier,” Maya says loudly, drawing Miles’s attention. “The ferns need the humidity way more or they’re just gonna shrivel up and die.”

Mia sighs. It’s a sigh of complete and utter exasperation, one that Miles knows well.  “I understand your concerns, but the lilies are accustomed to high humidity levels. Moving the humidifier might send them into shock.”

“Okay, then we use small humidifiers for the lilies and the big one for the ferns.” Maya claps her hands together, grinning. “Problem solved!” 

“But if we move the big humidifier, it’s going to be in the way. It’s better in the corner,” Mia says, her voice ever patient, but Miles can still hear the slight strain in her tone. He understands why; they’ve had this argument three times already. 

Maya groans, throwing her head back. “Then we move the ferns!”

“We don’t have hooks to hang them over here,” Mia counters, pointing at the ceiling. “And they’re going to be pressed against the walls.”

Maya makes a frustrated, strangled sound in the back of her throat and props her hands on her hips. She’s wearing her hair in a thick bun today, but some strands have escaped and they frame her face and dangle down her back in thin wisps. “Okay. Okay. This is fine. We can figure this out. We do this literally every winter.”

“Yes, we do. You’d think it would get easier at some point,” Mia mutters. 

“What exactly is the problem here?” Miles asks, slightly bemused. Trucy, who had been his translator for all of the plant jargon up until this point, has vanished somewhere in the back to help her father look for more humidifiers. He’s felt a bit in the dark ever since.

Mia sighs again, brushing her bangs up off her forehead. “We need to figure out how to keep our plants happy during the winter. Humidity is a big issue, since winter dries out the air so much. It’s a bit of an organizational puzzle, since our low humidity plants need to be far enough away, but all our high humidities need to be close. Maya wants to move the large humidifier,” she says, pointing to the blocky white machine in the far corner of the store, “over to the ferns,” she points again to where the large, bushy Boston ferns are hanging from the ceiling in the middle, “but I’m concerned it’ll send our peace lilies into humidity shock, and it may affect the low humidities that are closer to the door, since this humidifier is really strong. We can’t use the smaller humidifiers either since those ones aren’t strong enough to reach the ferns.”

“Ah. And you can’t move the ferns to the corner since you don’t have hooks in the ceiling there?”

“Right,” Mia confirms.

“Good lord. Plants certainly do require a lot of care, don’t they? I had no idea their requirements might change come winter,” Miles muses, turning the pot in his hands. The glossy leaves tickle at the underside of his jaw. 

Mia smirks at Miles’s words, her dark eyes sparkling. “You, not knowing something? How humbling for you,” she says, and though her tone is teasing, Miles scowls at her.

“I was about to say that it makes a certain amount of sense, considering differing climates,” he says haughtily, and Mia just laughs at him. Her knowledge of his… feelings for her employee and basically-brother has developed into this: teasing him at every possible turn. Miles knows he should be irritated. He knows he would be, at one point in his life, but there’s something about the way Mia does it, about the amused look in her eye that’s the same as the one she gets when she teases Phoenix and Maya, that makes it easier to bear, almost welcome, even. It feels like he’s part of something. It’s strange, and Miles doesn’t quite understand it himself. 

Clearly finished with her teasing, Mia waves a hand at the plants. “All plants are different, but they typically go dormant over the winter since there’s less light, less heat…” She shrugs. “That’s why we’re setting up the grow lights in the back. Those are easier.”

“And you’re not keeping the plants by the windows to make sure they don’t touch the cold glass and go into shock?”

Mia quirks a brow, smiles. “Perhaps you do know something about plants after all.”

“It’s just logic, Miss Fey,” Miles says, frowning. 

“ Mia .”

“Mia,” he amends. 

“And yes, we’re moving the plants to get away from the windows. They’re drafty, no matter what we do. We put up curtains, we put towels at the bottom, but they’re still drafty. And we’re setting up extra humidifiers, since it’s just so dry. Hence this whole problem.” She chews on her lower lip. “I suppose we could use pebble trays.”

Maya groans immediately. “ Ugh , no. Mia, you can’t. The pebble trays are so much work.”

“They are not. You just put water in them.”

“Mia, you know Nick literally never remembers to fill the pebble trays.”

“Filling the pebble trays is your job, Maya, not Phoenix’s,” Mia says pointedly. “Unless you’ve been shirking your responsibilities to, oh, I don’t know, go on your phone at work when you think I’m not looking? To…perhaps, text your girlfriend ? ”

“Um, I would never do that. I only text my girlfriend during my paid lunch breaks.”

“Which you take twice a day . Lunch only happens once , Maya.”

“Not if you’re a hobbit.”

Mia puts her face in her hands. “We cannot have this argument again,” she mutters. 

“Elevenses, luncheon and afternoon tea, Mia!” Maya exclaims. “You should consider yourself lucky that I work during elevenses out of the goodness of my heart. ”

While the Fey sisters bicker, Miles scans the room, drumming his fingers against the plant pot. His mind whirrs, working through the puzzle. They can’t move the ferns, but they can’t move the large humidifier, either. The smaller humidifiers aren’t strong enough for the ferns since they won’t reach from the shelves or tables, and they can’t get a second large humidifier because it’ll be in the way of customer traffic. He glances up at the ceiling around the ferns; there’s one or two hooks not in use for a plant. He clears his throat, and Mia and Maya pause in their argument of hobbit meal times to look at him.

“Er. Sorry to interrupt, but could you potentially hang a humidifier from the ceiling?” Miles asks, nodding at the spare hooks. “Then you wouldn’t have to move the large one in the corner, or the ferns. You could simply hang up a humidifier or two specifically for the ferns, and it should be close enough to be efficient.”

Mia and Maya stare at him for a moment, their brown eyes wide. Then, almost in unison, they glance at the ceiling, and then at each other. 

“Oh my god ,” Maya mutters. “Are we stupid? Why did we not think of that? Mia, I think we might be stupid.”

“We have those teardrop shaped, battery operated humidifiers that would fit perfectly in a macrame hanger,” Mia says, relief flooding her voice. “My god, Miles, Phoenix does like to gush about you being smart but now I understand why.”

Miles feels his cheeks go hot. “Er…quite,” he says awkwardly. “Glad I could…be of assistance.”

The Fey sisters scamper off, leaving Miles to stand there with his plant. He wonders, absently, what the plant’s name might be. He knows the Feys (and the Wrights) like to name their plants; certainly this one has some kind of ridiculous name. He’ll have to inquire with Phoenix later. 

Miles glances around the store; likely due to the winter chaos, it looks a bit different from the last time he was here. There’s a rug on the hardwood floor, curtains in the front window (to assist with the drafts) and a few more small side tables scattered around in corners and against walls, laden down with plants. There’s a candle lit at the register that smells of pumpkin and cloves, toiling down to the very end of the wick, and it mingles pleasantly with the strong scent of earth and plants. 

Most noticeably, Phoenix has finished his mural on the back wall. It’s a lovely thing, made up of large flowers in gentle pastels that bloom across the wall, framed by soft leaves in shades of green and forest-blue, and there are little creatures like fist-sized ladybugs and bumblebees and dragonflies with stained-glass wings peering through the foliage. It’s the kind of mural where you find something new the longer you look, and if his signature wasn’t scrawled in messy handwriting at the bottom corner Miles almost couldn’t believe a man like Phoenix Wright ( clumsy, ridiculous, endearing) made something quite like this. He has half a mind to ask him to paint something for the children’s section in the bookstore. Perhaps a dragon, he muses, thinking of Trucy. A dragon on a hoard of gold, or, perhaps more in line with the book series, surrounded by stained glass.  

Miles’s gaze continues to wander until he spots the artist himself, where he’s standing near the curtain to the back room with Maya while she explains Miles’s idea to him. A tiny thrill runs up his spine at the sight of him; he’s wearing a baggy old sweatshirt tucked into his loose-fitting jeans with a decal of Willie Nelson on it, so old and faded that Miles is almost certain on first glance that it’s thrifted, with paint stains around the cuffs and a large splotch of pink at the elbow like Phoenix accidentally leaned into the paint can. He’s been helping rearrange the store for winter today as well, moving around plants and humidifiers as directed by the Fey sisters, though he and Miles have both been kept busy by Mia and haven’t had the time to talk.

As if he could feel Miles’s gaze like some kind of magnetic pull (or, more likely, he’s been looking at Miles just as much as he has at Phoenix) Phoenix glances up and their eyes meet over Maya’s head, and Phoenix grins, crooked and unabashed. Miles can’t resist the tug at the corner of his mouth before he turns away, only to find Mia staring at him, one brow raised and a knowing look on her face. 

“Don’t,” Miles says sharply, and she merely laughs. 

“You’re both hopeless,” she says, taking the croton plant from his hands so she can find a spot for it on a shelf. 

Miles glances back at Phoenix just in time to see Maya smack him on the cheek, and she makes a snide remark at Phoenix, telling him ( loudly) to quit getting distracted by his nerdy boyfriend. Phoenix laughs awkwardly in response, rubbing at the back of his neck while his cheeks turn red and Miles feels his own face burn with heat.

It’s only been a few days since Halloween. Though Mia has kept Phoenix and Trucy sufficiently occupied with winter preparations, so he hasn’t actually seen them until today, it hasn’t stopped Miles from thinking (and thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking). It’s not his fault, really, it’s Phoenix’s , for saying the most ridiculous things that get burned into Miles’s head like a red-hot brand and they just won’t go away. Miles doesn’t even have to try to remember it:

For the record , Phoenix had said, silhouetted in the door of his bedroom with his eyes bright and slightly unsure, like he didn’t know if he wanted to finish his sentence or not but at that point he simply couldn’t stop himself, I like you, too.

Miles isn’t an idiot, despite what his sister might say. He was already well aware of Phoenix’s… affection for him; he’s a logical individual and, really, he’s put these pieces together once before. Despite that, despite the fact that he knows , he knows that Phoenix Wright likes him ( likes him) and the evidence for it has only been piling up for quite some time and it’s really impossible to ignore now, despite all that, he still can barely keep it all contained, can barely think about it without feeling his face flush and his heart stutter in his chest like an awkward child on a playground when the person they fancy comes up and holds their hand and says that they like-like them. 

And he knows why. 

He’s known for a while. 

Maybe Franziska is right on one point. He may not be an idiot, or a moron, but he’s certainly a fool. A fool that’s falling rather hopelessly for Phoenix Wright. 

Miles swallows, and immediately wishes he was still holding that plant so he would have something to do with his hands. He crosses his arms tight across his chest like that’ll keep his heart from bursting out from his rib cage and his mind wanders to Halloween night and Phoenix tucking in Trucy and kissing her on the forehead and tugging Miles along by the cuff off his sleeve and draping a blanket over Kay on the couch and asking, shyly, if Miles would like to stay. At one point in his life, Miles is certain he wouldn’t have thought a Murphy bed in an art-studio-slash-guest-room that smelled like paint and canvas appealing, or that he might develop a fondness for something as silly as rambling and clumsiness and an apple cinnamon air freshener but he’s a bit terrified to admit that he’s become quite a different person since, like magic, Trucy Wright appeared in his bookstore and asked for a book about real magic and her father burst through the front door after her and unequivocally changed Miles’s life. 

Lord, with these kinds of thoughts stuck in his head he’s impressed he fell asleep at the Wright’s at all. But he did fall asleep, Pess curled at his feet, and he slept uncharacteristically peacefully. Typically, he doesn’t do well sleeping in an unfamiliar bed, but Halloween night he did not wake until his usual time of 6 AM to take Pess out for her early morning walk (in his undershirt from the day before and a pair of, god save his soul, Phoenix’s sweatpants that had been bundled up along with his spare sheets). When he returned, he was confident he’d be the only one awake; he knew for a fact Kay would still be fast asleep on the couch, and Phoenix and Trucy did not strike him as early risers. He was, however, pleasantly surprised to find Trucy sitting at the kitchen island, half-awake and swinging her feet in pajamas with flamingos on them. Blue flamingos, curiously enough.

She’d rubbed sleep from her eyes when she saw him, yawning through her words. “G’morning, Uncle Miles.”

“Good morning, Trucy,” Miles had replied, in a quiet, fond voice. “Why are you up so early?”

Trucy slipped from the chair to say hello to Pess, giggling as the dog licked at her face. She scratched Pess behind both ears as she replied. “My first daddy always got up super early so he could practice his tricks in the morning before everyone else got up, and I liked to watch him. So…I guess I’m kind of just used to it?”

Miles made a soft noise of acknowledgement. He doesn’t know much about Trucy’s biological father, but he knows it isn’t his place to ask for more information. So he crouched down beside her to stroke Pess’s back, glancing at Trucy out of the corner of his eye. “It’s nice to be awake before everyone else though, isn’t it? It gives you time to get ready for the day.”

“It is nice,” Trucy agreed. “And then I can make Daddy breakfast, and he always gets really excited about that.”

“Why doesn’t he make breakfast?” Miles asked, quirking a brow.

Trucy giggled. “All Daddy can make is spaghetti. But I don’t mind! I like making food, it’s really fun. It’s kinda like magic.”

“Yes, I remember that. You said your speciality is chocolate chip cookies, correct?”

Trucy’s eyes lit up at that, as if she were thrilled with the fact that Miles remembered. “Yes! I’ll make them for you sometime. I’m also really good at pancakes.”

“Your father said something along those lines. Though, I did tell him I’d be making the pancakes this morning, but if you like, I’d be more than happy to assist you in making them.”

Trucy grinned. “Can I measure out the flour?” 

“As long as you promise not to throw it in my face,” Miles replied, but of course, there was no heat in it. 

Trucy stuck out her tongue and lightly bumped Miles’s shoulder with her own, an echo of what Phoenix always does. “That was a one time thing. Magician’s promise.”

“I should certainly hope so,” Miles replied, but his voice was light, and he knew he was smiling.

It took only the smell of the pancakes to arouse Kay from the couch; she appeared still in her rumpled Yatagarasu costume and giggled at the fact that Miles was wearing a pair of Phoenix’s sweatpants (he dutifully ignored it. It wasn’t like he was going to wear his slacks from the night before; despite laying them carefully across a chair they still ended up a bit wrinkled, and that was an excuse he would die with). Both she and Trucy demanded chocolate chips in their pancakes and Miles, being outnumbered and knowing better than to put himself on the wrong side of these particular girls, had no choice but to comply. Eventually Phoenix joined them, roused by Kay and Trucy’s laughter, half-asleep until he reached the table and saw Miles in the kitchen with chocolate chip pancake batter smeared on his jaw from Trucy’s wild hand movements with the spatula while telling Kay a story a few minutes earlier, at which point Phoenix’s cheeks turned bright red and his eyes grew wide as he remembered what happened the night before.

They hadn’t had the time to talk about it that morning, really, before Miles left with Pess and Kay in tow to open the bookstore. Though, Miles didn’t know if they needed to talk about it. He knew that Phoenix liked him, and deep down, he had a feeling that Phoenix knew the inverse was true as well. 

What was it Mia had said, on the balcony during Phoenix’s birthday party? He can be wickedly clever if he puts his mind to it.

Of course he has to know. His recent actions simply wouldn’t make sense otherwise. 

The sudden buzz of his phone in his back pocket draws Miles back to reality, away from his thoughts. He answers it without looking at the caller ID. “Miles Edgeworth speaking.”

“Uh, hey there, boss!”

“Kay?” Miles feels a minuscule spark of panic light in his chest. Kay never calls him. His tone turns worried, immediately. “Is everything alright?” 

“Oh, yeah, um, everything is fine!” she replies, a little too quickly. “But could you come back though? Like, right now?”

Miles frowns, and tries to keep his voice calm. “Kay. What is going on? Are you alright?”

He sees Phoenix tilt his head at him from across the room; clearly, he caught on to the tension in Miles’s voice. Everything okay?” he mouths, and Miles makes a noncommittal gesture with his hand; he’s more focused on Kay than explaining what’s happening to Phoenix. 

“No, no, really, it’s not like we got robbed or stabbed or anything like that, like, we all have all our limbs and before you ask, yes, Pess is fine, but it’s just…you know Hemingway?”

“Yes, Kay, I know him. Why?” Miles asks suspiciously. 

“He’s in the bookstore.”

“He’s what ?” 

“He’s in the bookstore,” Kay repeats, and her voice grows distant for a moment, as if she’s pulling away from the phone to look around the storefront. “He’s just kind of sitting on Pess’s bed right now. He looks, like, really proud of himself, in that smug kind of cat way.”

Miles switches the phone to his other hand, crossing the room to pull his overcoat from the coat rack near the front door. “How on earth did he get in?”

“I went out to replace his blankets since the ones he had in his box were getting kind of old, and I figured they’d probably need to be cleaned, y’know? But when I opened the door he was sitting on the stoop and he just kind of…walked in? And he wandered around for a little bit and then sat down on Pess’s bed. I didn’t really know what to do so I kind of just let him do it ‘cause I figured he wouldn’t appreciate me trying to stop him.”

“Good lord. Okay,” Miles mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Don’t try and move him, I don’t want him to bite you-“

“ Bite you?” Phoenix echoes, nearly causing Miles to jump out of his skin. He’d been so focused on Kay that he hadn’t realized Phoenix had been trailing behind him. Miles flaps a hand at him, waving him off. 

Kay snorts over the phone, and Miles can almost hear her rolling her eyes. “I’m not stupid, Mr. Edgeworth, I’m not gonna try to move him.”

“Well, good. Is Pess upstairs?”

“Yeah, don’t worry. She’s been up there all day so she never even saw him walk in.”

“Alright. Don’t let her downstairs-“

“ Obviously I won’t! Jeez. What do you think of me, boss?”

“Miles, what the hell are you talking about?” Phoenix hisses. “Is there a rabid raccoon in the bookstore right now? Do I need to call 911 or something? Or would it be animal control? Shit, I don’t know what their number is. I could look it up.”

Kay chuckles. “I can hear your boyfriend freaking out.”

“Will both of you be quiet?” Miles snaps. “Kay, just. Don’t provoke him. I’ll be right over.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Edgeworth. Give Phoenix a kissy for me!”

Miles promptly hangs up, and Phoenix barely waits for him to tuck his phone in his pocket before tugging at his arm. “Um, hey, Miles? If there’s a rabid raccoon in your bookstore with Kay you have to tell me.” His words are light and joking, but his voice is colored with concern. 

“There is not a raccoon in my bookstore. It’s a cat.“

Phoenix’s eyes widen in delight. “You’re kidding. You have a bookstore cat? Like Dewey?”

“ No . He’s a stray,” Miles replies. “And learn how to be quiet when someone is on the phone, will you?”

“You’re the one who was talking about something biting Kay, of course I got worried.”

“That’s kind of you to be concerned. Though, Hemingway’s only ever bitten Franziska. He tolerates Kay fairly well.”

“He’s bitten-wait, Hemingway ?” He repeats incredulously, his voice thick with mirth. “I’ll bet my entire life’s savings that you’re the one who gave him that name.” 

“Do shut up, Wright,” Miles says drily, fighting back a smile. 

Phoenix’s hand hasn’t left Miles’s arm, and his fingers tighten just a bit at the crook of his elbow as he smiles, ducking ever closer, the bastard. “No! Only you would name a stray cat after some boring old author, Miles.”

“He’s not boring . His writing may be dry, certainly, but he’s a Nobel Prize winning author and I do believe everyone would benefit from reading his collected works since they were so influential on twentieth century literature, and he had a fascinating personal life-“

“You’re rambling,” Phoenix teases, and Miles gives him a look. 

“I do not ramble, unlike some people,” he says haughtily (though he finds Phoenix’s rambling terribly endearing). “But it’s good you interrupted me. I have to deal with a stray cat in my bookstore-“

“Can I come?” Phoenix interrupts excitedly. “I want to meet Hemingway!”

Miles sighs. “Fine. If you must. But you have to be quiet, alright? I don’t want you scaring him off.”

Phoenix mimics zipping his lips shut and tossing away the key, and then winks , and Miles doesn’t even try not to be charmed anymore.

Phoenix quickly explains the situation to Mia as Miles stands impatiently in the doorway, and they cross the street together. The wind bites at their cheeks; the snow is coming soon, Miles knows it. Kay, sitting perched on the front counter inside the bookstore, waves at Miles through the glass and waggles her eyebrows suggestively upon seeing Phoenix. He glares at her, and she sticks out her tongue. She points to Pess’s bed where it sits out of sight under the front window. 

“No sudden movements,” Miles reminds Phoenix, who rolls his eyes. Then, he carefully turns the door handle. He steps inside, Phoenix on his tail, and sure enough, sitting right in the middle of Pess’s cozy, weathered bed is Hemingway the stray cat. As Miles closes the door behind him, Hemingway looks up at him with pride in his green eyes, as if to say, well, what are you going to do about it?

“ I told you he’s got a smug ass look on his face,” Kay says. 

Miles sighs, giving Kay another look before turning back to Hemingway. “Hello, Hem,” he says softly. He doesn’t want his voice to frighten him off. “You’re getting dirt on Pess’s bed.”

“ Hem ,” Phoenix whispers, giddy. “That’s so cute.”

“I thought we were being quiet?”

“Oh, shit. Sorry.”

Hemingway flicks his one remaining ear. He doesn’t look particularly apologetic about dirtying Pess’s bed, and he eyes Phoenix suspiciously where he stands behind Miles. Miles notes, in the light of the bookstore, that Hemingway looks much better than he did when they first met all that time ago in July. He’s filled out a bit; he certainly isn’t as skinny, and though his coat is still matted and scraggly it looks healthier, as well. 

“Jesus,” Phoenix mutters, now that he’s got a better look at Hemingway over Miles’s shoulder. “He kind of looks like he could beat me up.”

“He’s a cat, Phoenix.”

“Yeah, but look at him. He has battle scars. ”

“Battle scars,” Miles repeats, lifting a brow. 

“Half his tail is missing! And his entire ear. I’m pretty sure those count as battle scars.”

 This entire time, Hemingway’s been licking dutifully at his paw and rubbing at his face, though the cleaning is doing little good. As Miles and Phoenix fall silent, he surprises them all by leisurely getting to his feet and stretching out, long and luxurious, before circling around Miles’s ankles and brushing up against his slacks. 

Miles freezes. 

“Awww, he likes you!” Phoenix whisper-squeals. “That’s so cute .”

Miles doesn’t reply; he stands there, for a moment, stiff as a board. Hemingway has done this before, but never for this long, and never so purposefully , and he’s afraid of scaring him off. Carefully, hesitantly, he leans down, reaching out his hand to put in Hemingway’s line of sight. After a brief sniff, Hemingway bumps his forehead against Miles’s knuckles, and Kay gasps from by the counter. 

“Mr. Edgeworth!” she stage-whispers. “Try petting him!”

He does; he experimentally runs a hand down Hemingway’s back, light and cautious; he’s barely touching his fur, much less the actual skin of his back. He’s done this before, and the first time Hemingway bolted and hissed and swatted, and every time since (a total of five, perhaps) that Miles has tried to pet the cat he’s still bolted, though the distance he’s run has been less and less each time, and this time, he doesn’t bolt at all. He just stands there, staring up at Miles with those emerald eyes of his. 

His fur is rough and coarse, a product of years and years living in back alleys and fighting for food, water, shelter, just to stay alive. He has a mat of fur near the untamed scruff of his neck, and Miles cautiously tries to untangle it with his fingers, and Hemingway even tolerates that, if just for a bit. Eventually he pulls back, whether from boredom and simply because he’s done with being touched, Miles cannot tell. After one more stretch and a yawn big enough to show off his sharp, yellow-white teeth, Hemingway returns to Pess’s bed and curls up right in the middle and promptly falls fast asleep. 

Miles stands there and stares, his hand held still in mid-air before he straightens. 

“Hey, boss?” Kay says, from the front counter.

“Yes, Kay?”

“I think you just adopted a cat.”

“…Quite.” Then, he eyes her from the corner of his eye. “Counter, please.”

After a beat, he hears her groan, followed by the sound of her heavy boots thumping to the floor. 

A day later, Miles moves Hemingway’s bowl inside the bookstore, towards the back under the stairs, and purchases him a new bed, one that’s much better than a cardboard box in an alley, though Kay insists on keeping the box since it has ‘sentimental value’. He also puts a sign up in the store explaining the situation, along with the warning to please not try and touch the cat, and agreeing that yes, he is filthy, and yes, they are working on it. Luckily, as long as they don’t bother him, Hemingway is remarkably disinterested in the customers. 

It takes about a week for the bookstore employees (and company) to grow used to Hemingway in the store rather than the alley, to see how he fits in among the rest of them. It’s clear that Miles is his favorite; he’s the only one allowed to actually pet Hemingway, and Miles hopes that means eventually he’ll be able to brush the dirty beast. At least now that he’s in the store he’s not accumulating any more filth. 

Hemingway tolerates Kay enough to let her scratch him under the chin or behind the ear, but never for too long. He doesn’t hiss at Gumshoe anymore, likely because Gumshoe always has some kind of food on him and apparently has no knowledge of what a cat is and isn’t supposed to eat, so he’ll give him anything he can find in his pockets. To Franziska, Hemingway barely spares a passing glance, and Miles does try his best not to find it as amusing as he does, but he’s never seen Franziska get so offended over something before and the idea that a scraggly old cat gets her in such a tizzy is remarkably funny. 

Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, really) Hemingway quite likes Trucy. Miles had been hesitant to introduce her to the cat, since she’s so young and he doesn’t want her to get hurt, but he seems to like Trucy almost as much as Miles, though he won’t let her pet him for long periods of time. Miles supposes it’s quite impossible to dislike Trucy, even if you’re a crotchety old cat. 

But, on the other hand, Hemingway positively hates Phoenix. 

It’s comical, really, because Phoenix desperately wants Hemingway to like him. He’s tried everything, from catnip to the fancy treats that Kay refers to as “cat gogurt” to getting on his knees and begging Hemingway to just not hiss and scratch at him literally every time he’s in his presence because why the hell do you like his daughter but not him , but to no avail. Anytime Phoenix tries to go near Hemingway, the cat will hiss at him and bolt to his box in the back of the bookstore. 

“I don’t understand why he doesn’t like me,” Phoenix says mournfully, the second week of Hemingway’s stay in the bookstore. It’s creeping into the middle of November, and the sky threatens snow every day, something that Phoenix often complains about when he stops by to deliver coffee and tea from the cafe next door. He’s here on such a delivery today (he brought Kay a chocolate croissant as a surprise) and stayed to find himself a new book. 

“Perhaps it’s because you’re loud, obnoxious, and have no concept of personal space,” Miles suggests, ringing up Phoenix’s chosen book ( The Stardust Thief . Miles suspects Phoenix chose it for the cover, but he’s sure he’ll end up liking it anyway. It’s a rather compelling read, an interesting spin on the classic tale of Aladdin ). 

Phoenix makes an offended sound in the back of his throat, slumping on the counter. “ Miles . You’re not allowed to be mean to me when I’m suffering . ”

“You’re not suffering, and I’m certainly not being mean to you.”

“Are too,” Phoenix says petulantly, grinning up at Miles, as if daring him to say am not. But of course Miles doesn’t; he won’t fall for such childish bait. Seeing this, Phoenix sticks out his tongue and rolls his head onto his cheek, staring out the window. Then, he slowly straightens up, his eyes going wide and bright. 

“Miles, Miles, look!” he whispers excitedly, frantically smacking at Miles’s hand as if he didn’t already have his full and undivided attention. His hand stays there after, his thumb tucked under Miles’s palm, and he points out the window. “ Look .”

Miles leans across the front counter, following Phoenix’s line of sight to see what on earth has gotten him so riled up, but once he looks out the window he understands. 

It’s finally begun to snow. 

Chapter Text

After that very first snow of the year, it only kept snowing. It fell all night and the following day in fluffy, soundless flakes, the kind that catch and sparkle for a breath on Pess’s warm nose, each snowflake perfect and clear in its geometry before it melts away to nothing. Bare tree branches don heavy white blankets and delicate, crystalline patterns of ice decorate the corners of the bookstore’s windows, melted away by Kay drawing smiley faces in the frost. 

Though it stirs up painful memories for Miles of his father’s death, winter is always a lovely season. He likes the way that the colder it gets outside, the warmer and cozier it feels within the bookstore, and how hot tea seems to taste all the better after a chilly walk with Pess in the biting wind. As the sun sets he’ll flick on the old lamp in the back by the stairs, the one with the lampshade that looks like stained glass, and it’ll bathe the store in a soft auburn light. It’ll be quiet, it’s always quiet in winter, the sound outside cushioned by the snow. The only sounds to be heard will be the crackle of the pine forest candle that Miles keeps at the front counter, and the gentle shf of book pages, turning and turning.

(And Hemingway snoring, Miles supposes. He finds that if he draws his attention away from whatever he’s doing during a work day, he can hear him snuffling in his sleep in his bed at the back of the store. Miles sometimes wonders if Hemingway has ever had a warm place to go in winter, or if this is the first time in his long life living uncared for that he’s had somewhere to curl up and escape the cold.)

It’s on a gently snowing Sunday morning that Miles finds himself at the front counter, a well-worn copy of Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane in hand, this one found at the very bottom of a recent used book shipment with the cover slightly bent. The store isn’t open, of course, but today is a day reserved solely for cleaning. Miles finished his chores quite some time ago (sweeping, clearing out and reorganizing the back room, the arduous task of trying to clean Hemingway’s corner without upsetting the cat) so all that’s left for him to do is sit at the front counter and keep on eye on Kay as she sets up the new winter book display.

It’s a bit unusual, really, that Kay is doing the winter display. Typically Miles does it, and Kay sticks to summer (usually with Sebastian’s help, though his help is usually along the lines of moral support since his dyslexia gives him a little trouble with books). The spring displays are a collaborative effort, and Franziska, of course, has claimed the fall displays for her own. This winter, however, apropos of nothing, Kay requested one of the winter displays with no shortage of enthusiasm. She’d even crossed the street to ask Trucy to help, which, of course, she did, so now both girls stand by the front display deliberating over which books they should add. 

So far their picks have been good choices, wintry books like Greenglass House , Beartown and Once Upon a River . The world’s youngest practicing magician herself spent about an hour painstakingly cutting out paper snowflakes from white and blue construction paper to paste about the display, and Kay had the clever idea to write employee recommendations on them. It looks lovely, in Miles’s opinion; they’re doing a splendid job. Certainly much better than he might be doing in his current…state. His mind has been quite occupied as of late.

Though at least half of it isn’t his fault.

He glances up from his book, watching Trucy dart between the shelves, looking at different books for ones that might fit the display. Her hair is tied back in two little braids today, bound with shiny blue bows; Miles wonders if Trucy braided them herself or if Phoenix did. Phoenix seems like the type of father to learn how to braid so he can do his daughter’s hair. Kay once tried to teach Miles how to braid, but he never managed to get a handle on it. He’s not sure why Kay thought he could learn to braid; he couldn’t even fold paper cranes when he was younger.

“Can we do this one?” Trucy asks, darting back to Kay as she waves a book in her hand. The bracelet she lost in the children’s section on the first day Miles met her is tied firmly on her wrist. Not for the first time, Miles questions how it managed to fall off at all. The knot seems very secure.

“ Egg and Spoon ,” Kay reads, taking the book from Trucy. “I like the cover art. What’s it about?”

“Well, it’s kinda hard to explain, but basically it’s about this peasant girl named Elena - and I always thought it was pronounced El ena and not Elaina but Daddy said it’s probably like Elaina even though it’s spelled differently - and then there’s also this rich girl named Ekaterina and her nickname is Kat, and Kat’s on her way to see the tsar cause she wants to marry the prince. Well, she doesn’t really want to marry the prince but she’s supposed to want to because she’s like, a noble, and she’s on a train to Moscow that goes through Elena’s village and they accidentally switch places so now Elena is on her way to see the tsar instead of Kat and she’s pretending to be Kat and not because she wants to but because she has to and Kat’s stuck behind in the village and Baba Yaga’s in it, too!”

“Woah, woah, breathe , Trucy,” Kay says, giggling. “That sounds interesting!”

“It is! I first found it at a different bookstore and I only picked it because the title was silly but now it’s my favorite book!”

Kay quirks a brow, tilting her head to the side. The action causes her earrings, which are shaped like tiny dangling snowmen, to jangle slightly. She has a similar snowman embroidered on the front pocket of her chocolate brown overalls, a white sweater underneath to match. “But Baba Yaga’s in it? Isn’t she a witch? With the house on chicken legs?”

“Yeah! She’s really funny. She has a pet talking cat, too.”

“Okay, but I thought you , Ms. Magician, had a whole thing for real magic. Isn’t witch magic the fake stuff?” Kay asks, tapping the book cover.

Trucy frowns, furrows her brow as if she’s turning Kay’s words over in her mind. After a beat, she shakes her head. “I’ll make an exception for this one ‘cause it’s really good. And Uncle Miles once told me that I’d like a lot more books if I kept in mind that it’s not supposed to be real.”

Kay snorts. “Yeah, that sounds like something he’d say. If you think the book is a good fit, then let’s put it on! We can put it right on top where everyone can see it,” she says, setting Egg and Spoon at the very top spot. She rearranges a paper snowflake beside it, then pauses, snowflake in hand. 

“Trucy,” Kay says.

“Kay,” Trucy replies.

“Would you like to write a recommendation card for Egg and Spoon?” 

Trucy’s eyes widen. She glances at the snowflake in Kay’s hand, then back at Kay. “But... I don’t work here. Only employees can do that, right?”

“Gummy doesn’t work here either but he got to write recommendation cards for our mystery display last year! And you’re literally helping me with the display right now . I think that means you’re an honorary employee. Right, Mr. Edgeworth?”

Trucy looks over at Miles, and her brown eyes are so huge and sparkling with restrained excitement that Miles has to fight back a fond smile. These Wrights , he thinks. 

“You’re certainly welcome to write a card if you’d like, Trucy. Especially since you’re the one who cut them out.”

She gasps. “ Thank you, Uncle Miles! You’re the best!” 

Kay hands her the snowflake and Trucy takes it with reverent hands, and promptly sits in the windowsill to storm up what she wants to write on it. It takes her a couple minutes and a deliberation or two with Kay, who sits behind her with her chin propped on the crown of Trucy’s head, before she actually writes anything down at all. When she does, it’s with carefully straight writing, as clear as she can possibly make it though Miles knows her handwriting is already perfectly neat (unlike her father’s).

Miles glances at the clock as Trucy tapes the snowflake next to the book; it’s almost time for his Sunday walk with Pess. Though, he didn’t really need to check the clock for that. Pess has been sitting beside him behind the counter with her leash in her mouth for the past ten minutes, surreptitiously glancing at Miles every now and then to make sure he’s seen her. 

“Alright, Pess, you menace,” Miles sighs fondly. “Would you like to go for your walk?”

At that, Pess springs to her feet, her tail wagging so wildly that it smacks against the counter and makes a loud thwump! She races to the door, dancing on her paws as Miles retrieves his coat from the backroom. 

“Kay, I’m going to take Pess on her walk,” Miles says, winding his scarf around his throat. “Will you be alright while I’m out?”

He doesn’t have to be looking at Kay to know she’s rolling her eyes. “If that’s code for please don’t break anything while I’m gone , first off, rude, and second, I promise that I’ll be perfectly good and work on the display and nothing else at all.”

Miles raises a brow at her as he clips Pess’s leash to her collar. “Well, I’m rather inclined to not believe you after that little speech. Are you sure you won’t destroy my bookstore while I’m gone?”

Kay snorts. “Darn, you caught me, boss. I was gonna burn all your books,” she says sarcastically, sticking out her tongue. “I swear I’ll be good, I won’t let anyone in ‘cause the store is closed and I’ll make sure Hemingway doesn’t get out, blah blah blah, I know the rules.”

“Thank you, Kay,” Miles says, smiling. 

“Are you going by the café, Uncle Miles?” Trucy asks, sticking her head out from behind Kay.

“I am. I’m going to the park.”

At the word park , Pess whines impatiently and leans against Miles’s legs.

“Oh, can I come with you? I’m meeting Daddy at the café but I don’t know if he’s there yet so I didn’t want to go over by myself. Especially because Daddy thinks Mr. Armando hates him, so he won’t let me go inside alone. Is it okay if I go, Kay?”

“Yeah, sure thing, Ms. Magician, but only if you bring me back a chocolate croissant.”

“Promise,” Trucy says, grinning widely. She sticks out her pinkie and Kay takes it in hers, their faces solemn as they seal the deal. Then, she gives Kay a quick hug before dashing over to Miles. 

“Why on earth does your father think that Mr. Armando hates him?” Miles asks, bemused, as Trucy pulls on her coat and snow boots. She’d taken them off so as to not track in snow, slush, water, dirt, and all the other things Miles dislikes in his bookstore.

Trucy shrugs. “I think Mr. Armando has a crush on Aunt Mia cause he’s always really weird when she comes with us to the café. My cousin Pearly says that Mr. Armando sees Daddy as his love rival.”

“His love rival,” Miles repeats, holding the door open for Trucy and waving goodbye to Kay. They step outside, Pess already straining at her leash before Miles has the chance to shut the door. The air feels crisp and the sky is a bright, shining blue.

“Yeah, it’s silly!” Trucy shakes her head, tugging her mittens out of her coat pockets. “But Pearly sometimes doesn’t see things for how they actually are. She kind of feels things, but I’m more good at noticing stuff other than feelings.”

“You are exceptionally observant, especially for your age,” Miles agrees. 

It wasn’t a particularly long walk to the café since it’s right next door, so they get there before the cold starts to seep in. Trucy pauses in front of the door, however, a pensive look in her eye. She looks up at Miles as the chill slowly brings out that soft red in her cheeks and she takes his free hand, the one not holding Pess’s leash, in between hers. 

“Trucy?” Miles asks. “Is everything alright?”

“Daddy’s in love with you,” she says factually. 

Miles stares at her for a moment, a long moment, and she stares right back. Pess snuffles at the snow-coated sidewalk between them, perfectly oblivious.

“Yes,” Miles says finally, and he feels as if the cold has stolen all the air from his lungs. “I know.”

“Are you in love with Daddy?”

“That’s…complicated.” 

“Is it?” Trucy asks, tilting her head, so reminiscent of her father. “I think that sometimes people say things are complicated because they don’t actually want to answer.”

“That’s a very wise observation, Trucy,” Miles says weakly. 

“Is this a question you don’t want to answer?”

Miles feels a bit faint. He wasn’t expecting to be interrogated on his walk today. He’d much rather swap places with Pess; she seems to be having a wonderful time trying to snap up snowflakes. He scrambles for a suitable answer for Trucy, but she speaks before he does. 

“It’s okay, Uncle Miles. I think I already know, anyway.”

He just stares at her, because what else could he possibly do in this moment, and she grins. 

“I just told you I’m good at noticing stuff. And you even said I’m exceptionally observant .” Trucy squeezes his hand. “Daddy loves you and so do I, but it’s okay if you don’t love us like that right now. There’s lots of different kinds of love so you can love us in your own way and we can love you in ours. But…” she pauses, looks down at the ground and her voice suddenly grows much quieter, more nervous, like she’s saying something she’s scared to be wrong about, “If you do love us like that, like Daddy loves you and like I love you, then we’d be really happy. Both of us.”

Miles swallows. The snow falls. “Trucy, I-“

“Miles! Trucy!”

Miles jumps, and Pess barks. As if he’d been manifested from the snow just by the talk of him, Phoenix bounds up to Miles and Trucy, his face flushed with the cold and his hands shoved under his armpits. He looks like he’s wearing two sweaters and a coat on top of that, the tips of his ears bright red.

“Hey,” he says to Miles, grinning. “I didn’t know you’d be here with Truce.”

Miles swallows, his unfinished conversation with Trucy very much at the forefront of his mind, and he’s thankful that he can blame his red face on the cold. Change the subject, Miles. Don’t think about it right now. “I’m about to take Pess on her walk and Trucy requested I wait with her here until you arrive,” he replies, “since apparently the café owner hates you.”

Phoenix groans, rolling his head back. “He does . He calls me Mr . Trite and whenever I correct him I feel like he wants to throw his coffee cup at me. Coffee included, and I know he drinks that stuff scalding hot.”

“Mr. Trite?” Miles repeats.

“It’s not funny!”

“I’m not laughing.”

“You’re smirking. I can see it.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes you are!” Phoenix exclaims, and pokes his finger into Miles’s face. “Your lip is twitching. I can see it.”

Miles leans back, his eyebrows raised and now he’s fighting a smile because this man is ridiculous, truly. “If you insist, Phoenix.”

Trucy tugs on Phoenix’s sleeve. “Daddy, can we get hot chocolate now?” 

“Absolutely, Trucy. Anything to get out of this awful cold.” Phoenix makes a face, then turns to Miles. “Do you want to get hot chocolate with us? Or tea, if you’d like that more? I can pay.”

Miles hesitates. He glances down at Pess, who’s watching him with her big, sweet eyes. He should be with her at the park right now but, really, she seems pleased simply to be outside (he supposes it helps that Trucy hasn’t stopped petting her this entire time). He knows the café is pet friendly. He doesn’t have a reason to say no , except for the fact that Phoenix Wright is in love with him and Miles cannot reasonably say without a doubt in his mind that he doesn’t feel the same and that’s terrifying, or, it’s supposed to be terrifying, but perhaps Miles is simply growing used to the feeling because instead of fear spiking through his heart and driving him away he finds himself nodding and smiling and saying yes, hot chocolate sounds nice, and there’s a bell over the café door that rings as they go inside. 

The Godot Coffee Company is a cozy, quiet little café run by an extremely eccentric man. Miles is almost certain that Diego Armando has never had a wink of sleep in his life and instead runs entirely on coffee, judged solely by the fact that Miles has smelled coffee brewing from next door as early as two in the morning and as late as eleven-thirty at night, and his bronze skin hides any eye bags he might have. He has dark eyes and wild hair like a lion’s mane, and Miles has never seen him without a mug in his hand. Though Diego lives off coffee he does make a decent cup of tea, and apparently a halfway decent hot chocolate. Kay’s favorite pastries come from the café as well; a local family that Kay is almost entirely certain used to be mafia sells their baked goods there every day. 

Miles heads in first, Pess padding politely at his heels and Trucy at his side (Phoenix seems to be trying to hide behind Miles). The café is quiet today, which makes sense for a Sunday afternoon in such a sleepy town. It smells strongly of coffee, but not in a way that’s unpleasant, and the old industrial-style lights are dimmed. The walls are made of exposed red brick, the one behind the front counter is almost entirely taken up by a huge chalkboard, listing all sorts of drinks and bakery items. There’s soft, smooth jazz playing over the speakers and only two customers in the whole place, settled in a booth near the back: a boy in the loudest pink-and-yellow jacket that Miles has ever seen, talking animatedly to a girl with soft eyes and a purple bandana tied in her hair. At one point, the boy makes a wild gesture and nearly knocks his coffee mug over right onto the girl’s sketchpad but catches it just in time with a curse on his lips. The girl giggles, and when she moves her sketchpad a little closer to herself, away from the boy’s cup, he makes a face at her. 

Diego Armando himself is behind the counter, of course, sipping at his coffee as Miles approaches. Miles doesn’t need to look into the cup to know what kind of coffee it is: Diego only drinks black and isn’t afraid to let everybody know it. 

“Hello, Miles,” Diego drawls, in his low, softly-accented voice. “It’s been a while since you stopped by my little café. Did the smell of the roast bring you in?”

“No,” Miles says shortly. “You’re perfectly aware I drink tea.”

Diego snorts. “Tea is the weak man’s coffee, Miles. You’ve never experienced a real cup,” he says, tapping his own on the counter. “It must be black, like the night, and perfectly bitter, and after you drink you- oh, hello, Trucy.”

During his little speech Trucy had crept up to the counter and stood on the very tips of her slightly too-big winter boots to peer over the counter.

“Hi, Mr. Armando,” Trucy says politely. 

“Are you here with your father?”

“Yes. He’s behind Uncle Miles?”

Diego raises a thick brow, and glances up at Miles, and then Phoenix, who awkwardly steps out from where he was hiding behind Miles’s back.

“Hello,” Phoenix says awkwardly. 

“Mr. Trite,” Diego replies, smirking. “You look…cold.”

“Well, that’s because…I am. Cold. It’s cold outside.” Phoenix makes a gesture at the windows. “Y’know. Snow. It’s winter.”

Diego slides his gaze back to Miles. “Tea, I presume,” he says dryly. 

“Do you have chai?”

“Don’t insult me,” Diego snorts. “Of course I have chai. Just because I don’t prefer it doesn’t mean I don’t stock it. What kind of business do you think I’m running?”

Miles resists the urge to roll his eyes. 

“And what’s the little magician want?” Diego asks, turning his gaze to Trucy. He seems much softer when he’s talking to her, Miles notes. 

Trucy grins. “Daddy and I both want hot chocolate, and Daddy wants the dark chocolate one. I like the normal one.”

“Sure thing, kiddo. You paying, Trite?”

“Yes,” Phoenix grits out, clearly irritated by Diego’s belligerent mispronunciation of his name.. 

“Good to know artists make enough money for life’s best indulgences,” Diego says, handing Phoenix the receipt. “A good drink can be a powerful thing, after all.”

They leave the café with their drinks in hand, but not after one or two more pointed comments from Diego. The man certainly has a barbed tongue when he wants it, Miles thinks, taking a sip of his chai as they step out into the chill. It’s lovely, but could use more cinnamon. He wonders if Diego buys a concentrate or makes it himself. 

“I told you he hates me,” Phoenix groans. He waves a hand around wildly in the direction of the café. “Did you see how he was glaring at me that entire time?”

“I don’t think he hates you, Phoenix,” Miles says, taking another sip. “Diego is a…peculiar man. Don’t take it to heart.”

“Daddy doesn’t like it when people don’t like him,” Trucy pipes in.

Phoenix frowns at her. “I don’t think anyone likes it, Truce.”

“Yeah, but you really don’t like it. Don’t you remember when you thought Uncle Miles-“

“That’s enough of that,” Phoenix interrupts loudly, and takes a pointed, noisy slurp of his hot chocolate. “Miles, are you going to the park now?”

“Yes. I’m afraid if I keep Pess away any longer she might rebel,” Miles replies, scratching Pess behind the ear with his free hand. She wags her tail, prancing impatiently in place.

Phoenix shuffles his feet, glancing at Trucy. “Well…would you mind if we come with? We’re not really busy today…and a walk in the park sounds nice. With you.”

“Oh,” Miles says. He feels his face heat up. “Er, you’re more than welcome to, if you like.”

“You don’t mind?”

“Not at all.”

“Cool,” Phoenix says, his eyes meeting Miles’s for a moment before flicking away, back down to his to-go cup. “Cool.”

Trucy pets Pess and giggles. 

The walk to the park is peaceful. Winter has a way of making everything quieter, calmer, especially on days like these where all the sleeping little creatures bundle up safe in their nests and holes and burrows as the snow falls light and silent, the air cold but not too cold, just the right temperature to turn the tips of noses red, to encourage cozy sweater and warm scarves and hot drinks in mittened hands. The park itself is entirely empty; surely people are busy snuggled up on their couches in heavy blankets, reading books or watching old movies, so they have the world mostly to themselves for this Sunday afternoon, just Miles, Pess, and the Wrights. 

Pess strains at her leash upon getting to the park, her tail wagging wildly. Gumshoe isn’t here with Missile today like usual; they’re out of town for the weekend and, when Missile doesn’t appear, Pess’s ears droop a bit. She seems disappointed by the lack of her best doggy friend, which doesn’t go unnoticed. 

Trucy crouches down in front of Pess, vigorously petting her neck fluff. “Don’t worry, Pess, we can play! I can throw snowballs for you if you want and we can run around in the snow and it’ll be super fun,” she says, and kisses Pess right on the tip of her nose.

Pess wags her tail and licks at Trucy’s face, and Trucy giggles and the sound is wonderful and bright in the quiet. 

“Go ahead then, Trucy,” Miles says, bending down to unhook Pess’s leash. “Make sure you don’t go too far.”

Trucy beams. “We won’t!” She says, before she and Pess take off into the park, snow kicking up behind them. 

Phoenix chuckles, watching Trucy run off with Pess at her heels. “She really loves your dog.”

“Of course she does,” Miles replies lightly. “It’s impossible to not love Pess.”

Phoenix looks as if he might say something but then decides against it, taking a sip of his hot chocolate instead, cupped carefully between his hands. They start walking towards the little bridge that arcs over the river. 

“How is it?” Miles asks, nodding at Phoenix’s cup. 

“The hot chocolate? Oh, it’s good. Even if he hates my guts, Diego makes some pretty good hot chocolate. It could use some cayenne, though,” 

Miles raises a brow. “Cayenne?”

“What, you don’t put cayenne in your hot chocolate?” Phoenix asks, grinning over the rim of his cup. There’s a soft red flush to his cheeks, and Miles wonders if it’s just from the cold. 

“I can’t say I frequently drink hot chocolate in general,” Miles admits, looking away, “and I certainly don’t drink it with spices.”

“It’s really good. My grandma would make it for me all the time, but she made hers really spicy. I won’t do that to you.” Phoenix gently bumps Miles’s shoulder with his own. “I’ll only put a little, I promise.”

Miles hums. “It sounds nice.” 

They reach the little bridge that crosses the river, though the river has begun to freeze. If Miles looks close enough he can see the water running beneath the clear ice, ever-flowing. He exhales, watching the way his breath wisps and swirls in the winter air, mingles with Phoenix’s beside him to form tiny clouds. Phoenix is standing close, the lines of their arms nearly touching but not quite. 

“You seem to have quite the propensity for drinks,” Miles remarks, watching Phoenix take a sip from the corner of his eye. “You made something at my apartment, that one time during the thunderstorm in summer. It was…tea that wasn’t actually tea?”

“Turmeric milk tea?”

“Yes, that was it. It was nice.”

“Yeah,” Phoenix mutters, staring into his cup. “It was nice.”

Across the park, Pess is rolling on her back in the snow, her legs kicking up in the air as Trucy laughs and sprinkles snow over her belly. Even from here, several yards away, Miles can hear her laughter, and it warms him from the inside out. She’s such a special girl; Miles has never met anyone quite like her. He thinks about what she said earlier while taking another sip of his chai: If you do love us like that, like Daddy loves you and like I love you, then we’d be really happy.

Miles knows Phoenix Wright is in love with him. He knows that, and has known for a while. But for some reason hearing that Trucy loves him…

He takes another sip. The chai is warm and sweet and spicy, but he feels warm inside for other reasons, too. He’s surprised at how calm he is about this, but he’s had plenty of time to think. 

Phoenix shudders quite violently beside him, hunching his shoulders up by his ears. Miles glances over and can tell he’s shivering; he’s holding his cup firmly between his hands like that might help warm them up, even though he surely doesn’t have much drink left. 

“Are you cold?” Miles asks, though the answer is clearly yes . 

“I told you that winter and I don’t mix,” Phoenix mutters, stuffing his hands under his arms. 

Miles quirks a brow. “It’s not even that cold out.”

“It’s plenty cold,” he retorts, giving Miles a look. “Are you seriously not cold at all?”

“I’m perfectly warm. Would you like to go back?”

“ No,” Phoenix says immediately. “Actually, I’m fine. Not cold at all,” he adds, but Miles swears he can hear his teeth chattering. 

Miles resists the urge to roll his eyes, and starts to unwrap his scarf. “Here. You can take my scarf.”

“No! I don’t want to take your scarf because then you’re going to be cold-“

“I promise I’ll be fine. You clearly need it more-“

“You say that now because you have the scarf on-“

“I’m fairly confident I can manage without it, Phoenix-“

“Okay but what if your neck gets super cold and then I have your scarf but you don’t want to ask for it back because you already gave it to me-“

“Good lord, Wright, just take it,” Miles says, exasperated. “I want you to take it.”

Phoenix snaps his jaw shut, and he has that look in his eye that tells Miles he clearly doesn’t want to take it and he’d rather be stubborn about it, but he says nothing. So Miles finishes unwrapping his scarf; it’s a nice, thick woolen scarf, white, with little tassels on the end. He loops the middle around the back of Phoenix’s neck, and as he starts to wrap it around his fingers graze Phoenix’s skin for just a moment, and it’s warm against his own, but Phoenix jolts back like he’s been burned. 

Miles blinks, his hands trailing down the scarf to hold it lightly at its tasseled ends. “Are you…alright?”

“Sorry, sorry, it’s just…your hands are freezing ,” Phoenix wheezes. 

“My hands…Phoenix, I barely touched you.”

“I still felt it!” Phoenix says defensively, brushing at the sides of his neck. “Have you felt your hands? Are you okay? Why are they so cold?”

Miles stares at him for a moment and Phoenix stares back, snuggled in Miles’s scarf with that defensive look on his face, and Miles just can’t help the laughter that bubbles up in his chest and he covers his mouth as it slips out, his breath billowing out in soft, swirling wisps as he laughs. 

“Miles!” Phoenix whines. “Don’t laugh ! I’m not kidding, your hands were freezing.”

“Yes, because we are outdoors in winter,” Miles says drily, hiding his smile behind his hand. “Anyone’s hands would be cold, though I think you’re being a bit dramatic.”

“I am not !” Phoenix exclaims. 

Miles tries to stave off his smile. “Right. Of course not.”

“Fine. You know what? I’ll prove I’m not being dramatic,” Phoenix says, setting his cup down on the bridge railing. 

“I can imagine what cold hands feel like,” Miles replies, raising a brow.

Phoenix doesn’t say anything. Without preamble, he shoves his hand into the snow on the railing. Miles can tell he instantly regrets it by the look on his face, and he pulls his hands back, shaking the snow off with a hiss.

“Phoenix, what are you-“

And then Phoenix steps closer, right up into Miles’s personal space like he’s so prone to do, and he glances up at Miles with his lovely mismatched eyes and crooked brows and a little mischievous smile inches onto his face and suddenly he reaches out, grabbing either side of Miles’s face with his snow-cold hands, still slightly damp, and Miles resists the urge to shiver.

“See?” Phoenix says, and he’s so close that Miles can feel the warmth of his breath. “It’s cold .”

“Yes, quite. But I didn’t plunge my hands in snow,” Miles says drily, “and I barely touched you. So I think this isn’t quite the same.”

“Okay, fine. I just wanted revenge ‘cause you laughed at me.”

Miles raises his brows. “Right. Well, I apologize for that.”

“Are my hands cold?”

“Extremely.”

“Good,” Phoenix says, and then blinks, like he just realized how close they were, what they were doing. He visibly swallows, his hands slipping on either side of Miles’s face so his fingers trail ever so slightly down his cheeks, his thumbs resting right behind his ears at the crook of his jaw. “I…uh…”

“Phoenix?” Miles asks, his voice soft. They’re so close. He can feel his heart racing in his chest and Phoenix is right there , wearing his scarf. 

“Um,” Phoenix replies, and his eyes flicker down, right at Miles’s mouth, before darting back up quick as lightning to meet Miles’s gaze. His cheeks are red and Miles is sure it’s not just the cold, because his cheeks are red, too. Miles forces his own gaze to stay steady, unwavering. 

He wonders if Phoenix’s lips taste like hot chocolate. 

Trucy’s laughter rings through the park and they jerk apart. Phoenix swallows, rubs at the back of his neck and Miles glances out over the park as Trucy and Pess come running. 

Pess bounds right up to Miles, leaning heavy on his legs. She’s a bit damp with snow but her eyes are wide and bright, her tail wagging.

“Hello, Pess. Did you have a good time with Trucy?” Miles asks fondly. 

“Pess almost got a squirrel,” Trucy says, slightly out of breath from chasing behind Pess. 

“Oh, dear,” Miles mutters, scratching Pess behind an ear. “She’s quite a menace to the squirrel population in this park.”

Trucy blinks innocently up at Miles and Phoenix, taking Phoenix’s hand. “Did you two have a nice time over here?”

Phoenix’s face flushes even harder and Miles resists the urge to flush himself. She and Pess both, he thinks. They’re sweethearts, but also little demons. After a beat, he decides to add Kay to that mix as well, though she’s a bit more on the demon side. 

“Did you find anything cool out there?” Phoenix asks Trucy, after a very not-subtle clearing of the throat. 

Trucy shakes her head. “No, just snow and leaves and that one squirrel. Do you wanna wander around and look for more squirrels for Pess to chase?”

“She certainly doesn’t need more squirrels to terrorize,” Miles says, amused, “but walking around sounds nice.” 

“Well, here. Let me recycle your cup for you so we don’t have to carry them around,” Phoenix says, and when he takes Miles’s cup their hands brush together, and his fingers are still a bit cold. Miles imagines he can still feel the outline of his hands on his face. 

As Phoenix wanders off in search of a recycling bin, Trucy wanders off the bridge down to the frozen river. She crouches down right at the edge, reaching out one gloved hand to gently push down on the ice. She watches as it bobs back to the surface. “Do you think the frogs are okay in there?”

Miles squats down beside her. “I’m sure they’re perfectly alright. I’ve heard that frogs like to bury in the mud at the bottom of rivers and lakes to stay warm during winter.”

“I wonder what kind of dreams they have,” Trucy muses. 

“I would think they’d dream of spring.”

“That’s a good guess. We’ll have to wait for spring to ask them.”

Phoenix reappears behind them, tapping Trucy on the shoulder. “Come here. I found something you might like.”

He leads them to a spot a yard or so away from the bridge, on the opposite side of the park where, in spring and summer, lovely wildflower gardens grow and bees and dragonflies thrive. But now, in winter, it’s a quiet bed of snow.

“Look, Truce,” Phoenix says softly, tugging on Trucy’s hand. “Do you see that? What do you think those are?”

He points to the ground, where a set of animal tracks winds through the snow and loops around trees, surely belonging to some wild creature searching for food. Trucy carefully squats next to the tracks, scrutinizing them with her big brown eyes. They’re small tracks, with clear, defined claws. 

Trucy takes her time, following the tracks until they slip under a bush laden down with snow, where they vanish and do not reappear. 

“Well?” Phoenix asks, as Trucy makes her way back to them. “Figured it out?”

“Dragons,” Trucy declares solemnly. 

“Dragons?” Phoenix repeats, amused. “Those are pretty small for dragon tracks, don’t you think?”

“Dragons can be small. They could be baby dragons, or just a small dragon species.”

“ I’ve never seen a small dragon.”

“Aunt Maya says you should stop judging things on narrow-minded cultural assumptions.”

“Okay, we don’t have to bring her into this,” Phoenix says, crossing his arms, and Miles can tell he’s fighting back a smile. “How about this, then? Dragons are reptiles. Cold-blooded, right? They couldn’t stand the cold, especially if they’re small.”

Trucy shakes her head. “Yes they can! They have fire in their stomachs to keep them warm.”

“Oh, do they?”

“ Duh .”

Phoenix glances at Miles, giving him an amused smirk. “This is your fault, you know,” he says lightly. “You got her hooked on dragons.” Then, he turns back to Trucy. “Well, you wanna follow these tracks and see if we can find an actual dragon at the end?”

Trucy grins like a spot of sunlight in the snow, and she’s recently lost one of her teeth so she has a gap in her bright, shiny smile. She grabs onto Phoenix’s hand and starts tugging him toward the trees where she lost her “dragon” tracks before, until Phoenix reaches down to grab her by the waist and swings Trucy up, up, up, onto his shoulders and their laughter rings through the wintry woods and Miles does love them after all. 

Chapter Text

Tick. Tock. 

Miles takes a sip of his tea - today, a robust rooibos with a dollop of honey at the bottom of the cup, the way his father always made it. When Miles was young, his father would make him a cup after a particularly rough day. He called it happy tea, and he’d always put extra wildflower honey in the bottom so it’d be warm and sweet, and then he’d read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with Miles curled up beside him. 

Tick. Tock.

The teacup chinks softly against the saucer as Miles sets it down, right beside the lucky bamboo plant that sits on the front counter. He still has that copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes , on his shelf upstairs. The same copy that Phoenix read aloud during the last thunderstorm of the summer, his fingers orange with turmeric and his voice soft with something else. 

Tick. Tock.

It’s quiet in the bookstore. Kay isn’t here; she asked for the day off to do something fun with Sebastian. Miles isn’t sure what exactly, but she was certainly acting strange when she asked. He wonders if she might need a break from work. Perhaps he could grant her some extra time off for the holidays.

Upstairs the clock ticks away, tick tock, tick tock , as Miles files online orders, slipping them onto Franziska’s coward cart. It’s easy and methodical, the kind of mindless work he enjoys doing on quiet winter days like these. Find the book, print the receipt, sign the bottom in his neat script with a thank you and slip the receipt in the front cover, repeat. He’s just picked up a copy of Greenglass House (a book perfect for winter, with pages full of stained glass and snowdrifts) when the bell above the front door beings to ring with the kind of wild abandon he’s grown to associate with one of two, rather three things: one, Kay Faraday, simply being herself, or two, Trucy Wright, when she’s bearing particularly exciting news. The third option, which has become more and more common over the past few weeks, is both Kay and Trucy together, usually doing something silly like seeing who can make it to the bookstore fastest from the flower shop across the street. 

(From what Miles has heard, it’s usually Kay, though Trucy often thinks it’s unfair since Kay’s legs are significantly longer than hers.)

“ Uncle Miles!” Trucy shrieks from the front door, snow melting on her puffy blue jacket. “ I have something to tell you!”

Ah, Miles thinks. Option two. 

“There’s no need to shout, Trucy,” Miles says calmly, placing the receipt in the inside cover of Greenglass House . Phoenix would like the cover art, he thinks. “I’m right here.”

“Oh. Hi, Uncle Miles,” Trucy says, and giggles. 

As she takes her coat off, Hemingway rounds the corner, likely summoned by the sound of her voice. He looks much nicer these days, his coat more glossy and his temperament much calmer. He’s a fraction of the wild, ragged creature that once slunk around the garbage cans behind the Corner Bookstore, though he still hates Phoenix just as much as before (much to Phoenix’s disappointment). 

Hemingway approaches Trucy with the kind of nonchalant saunter only a cat can do, and Trucy crouches down to pat him on the head. “Hi, Hem! Are you being good?” 

Hemingway flicks his tail in response (he has been good, Miles thinks, except for the time last week when he swatted Pess on the nose when she tried to curl up beside him for a nap). He tolerates Trucy’s affection for a few more seconds before slinking off to the back of the store where he came from, surely to sleep the winter day away in the warmth of his bed, sans one lanky, fluffy dog. 

“Where’s Pess?” Trucy asks, peering around the bookshelves. Usually Pess, upon hearing Trucy’s voice, races to the front of the store to lean against her legs, tail wagging wildly. But today, there is no sight of her. 

“Franziska has her for the weekend,” Miles explains. 

“Oh. When is she gonna be back?”

“Likely Monday afternoon.”

Trucy frowns. “Aw. That’s so far away,” she says sadly, tugging her scarf off.

“It’s only a few days. You can take her on a walk when she returns, if you like.”

“Okay!” Trucy finishes unwrapping herself from her layers of clothes, hanging each one meticulously on the coat rack by the front door, before bounding up to the counter. She opens her mouth, surely to tell Miles what exactly has gotten her so excited, but then she stops, and points right at his face.

“You’re wearing glasses!” Trucy exclaims, in the tone one might use when accusing someone of murder. 

“How astute of you,” Miles says drily.

“I don’t know what that word means.”

“It’s another way to say you’re perceptive and observant,” Miles replies, glancing down at Trucy over the rim of his reading glasses. He really only wears them when it’s dark or if he has a headache; he’s wearing them today since the bookstore lighting can get a bit dim in winter. He’s sometimes alarmed at how much he looks like his father when wearing them; it feels a bit as if there’s a ghost trailing behind him when he catches a glimpse of his reflection out of the corner of his eye. It’s an odd feeling, though less upsetting now than it once was. 

“Perceptive and observant,” Trucy repeats, then shakes her head. “Well, why didn’t you just say that, then? We don’t need fancy words around here, Uncle Miles.”

Miles quirks a brow, sliding Greenglass House into place on the orders cart. “Right. Bookstores have no use for fancy words, do they?”

“Absolutely not.”

Miles can’t help it; he smiles, and it feels nice to do. “We could sit and discuss etymology if you like,” he says, purposefully using a fancy word just to see the way Trucy wrinkles her nose at it, “but I believe you came in here to tell me something important?”

“Oh, right! I almost forgot! Gimme a sec.” Trucy abruptly ducks out of sight below the counter. 

Miles blinks. He leans a little further over the counter to see what exactly she’s doing, but before he gets a good look she pops back up, grinning. Then, she hops up on the counter - or, rather, she scrambles up. She scoots across the countertop and dangles her legs over the edge on Miles’s side, gently bumping his hip with her foot, and then Miles realizes what she’d been doing; she’d taken her shoes off so as to not get snow and dirt all over the counter. 

“Hi!” she says, brightly. 

“Hello. You know that you’re not allowed on the counter.”

“Yeah, Kay says you yell at her all the time for it.”

“I - I don’t yell at her.”

Trucy giggles. “I know. You’re too nice to yell at anybody! Or even if you did, you’d feel really bad about it after.”

“I seem to recall upon our first meeting that you said I wasn’t very nice.”

“No, you said that. I knew all along that you’re nice. Daddy wouldn’t like you so much if you weren’t.” 

Miles feels his cheeks heat up as he recalls a previous conversation with Trucy, just outside the bookstore, one where she declared quite clearly that her father was wholly in love with him, and she loved him, too. “…Right,” he says, faintly. 

“Anyway, that’s not important right now. My cousin is coming to visit tomorrow!”

“Your cousin?”

“Yes! Her name is Pearl and she’s the best ,” Trucy says, grinning her spun-sugar smile. “We’re gonna go ice skating with Daddy and Aunty Mia and Maya and I’m not really that good at skating but Pearls is good! She’s good at everything, really, it’s kind of crazy! I don’t get to see her very often because her mom is really protective and doesn’t let her visit a whole lot but Daddy finally convinced her to let Pearls come and stay for a few days so she’s coming tomorrow and I’m so excited - “

“Breathe, Trucy,” Miles says, smiling. She’s just like her father, he thinks. 

Trucy obeys, taking a breath. “You should meet her,” she says, once her lungs are properly refilled. 

Miles hums, picking up another book from the pile: The Thursday Murder Club. “You want me to meet your cousin?” he asks skeptically, scanning the book’s barcode. 

“Yes!” Trucy says insistently, and she places her small hand on Miles’s arm as she says it. “She would love you. Like, so much.”

“Do you really think so?” Miles asks, quirking a brow at her. 

“I’m positive. Remember, I’m astute. I know about these kinds of things.”

“I thought we weren’t using fancy words.”

“This is a one time thing,” Trucy giggles. 

“Ah, yes,” Miles replies in his most serious voice. “Certainly.”

Trucy giggles again, kicking her socked feet the way Kay does when she’s sitting on the counter. Her socks are decorated with dogs in snow boots and thick scarves. For a while, she watches Miles file books, swinging her feet and trying to mimic the exact sound the barcode scanner makes when it scans a book. After he’s gotten through three or four more books (including a very loved copy of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, complete with dog-eared pages and notes scribbled in the margins of the previous owner’s opinions), Trucy taps his wrist again. 

“Uncle Miles,” she says, tilting her head, and there’s a look in her eye like she’s about to say something incredibly important so Miles sets down the barcode scanner and faces her head on. 

“Yes, Trucy?”

“Will you come ice skating with us tomorrow, so you can meet Pearls?”

Miles pauses. “You really want me to meet her?” he asks, voice soft. There’s snow falling outside the window, the light, fluffy kind that catches the light just so, turning the flakes into drifting stars. The shadows of the snow dance across the shiny hardwood floor like something lovely and ephemeral, just like these small, gentle moments with Trucy, Miles thinks. 

“Yes. She’s one of my favorite people,” Trucy says, backlit by snow, “and so are you. And Aunt Mia and Maya are going to be there, and Daddy, and…I want all my favorite people there together.” 

“I’m…one of your favorite people?” 

“Of course you are,” Trucy says simply. “I thought you knew.”

A smile tugs at the corners of Miles’s mouth, and without really thinking about it he reaches up, brushes a thumb over Trucy’s cheek and tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Thank you, Trucy. You’re one of my favorite people, too.”

Trucy’s eyes brighten, and she throws her arms around Miles’s neck, her hair brushing against his cheek. After a beat, Miles shifts, wraps his hand around Trucy’s back and hugs her in return.

Miles isn’t sure why he feels so anxious about meeting a little girl. 

Perhaps it’s because he’s not very good with children, or perhaps it’s the idea that this specific little girl is essentially a Wright-by-proxy, but as he stands in the snow-cloaked park watching Trucy and Kay chase each other around, he feels undeniably nervous. 

Phoenix lightly bumps his shoulder with his own. They’re standing on the little bridge that arcs over the river in the park. Miles nearly kissed Phoenix on this bridge a few days ago. 

“Whatcha thinkin’ about?” Phoenix asks. 

Miles hums. He can smell the spice from Phoenix’s to-go cup of hot chocolate; he’d brought his own special spice mix to add in after ordering it from the café because he was too intimidated by Diego to ask for spice while he was actually there, and the steam from the cup mingles with the cold air. It’s one of those winter days where the sky is clear blue and cloudless, the sun bright, though not particularly warm. Yesterday’s snow coats the entire park, pristine and sparkling except for the places where Kay and Trucy have been, leaving behind a chaotic trail of footprints and carefully-made snow angels. 

“Trucy is…very excited for this cousin of yours to meet me,” Miles says hesitantly, his fingers twitching in his pockets.

Phoenix grins; Miles doesn’t have to be looking to know that. “Are you worried Pearls isn’t gonna like you?”

“Historically, children and I haven’t mixed.”

“You get along with Trucy just fine,” Phoenix says, tilting his head. “She loves you.”

“Yes, I…I know that,” Miles mutters. 

“ And Kay told me about this one kid who comes in on Saturdays to get some comic book that you both really like and she says you give it to him way cheaper than you’re supposed to,” Phoenix continues, sipping at his hot chocolate as Miles’s face goes red.

“That’s - that’s not - I don’t -“

Phoenix glances at Miles out of the corner of his eye, his lips twitching into one of those small, sweet smiles that Miles likes so much, the ones that feel like they’re just for him. “What? I think it’s cute.”

Miles swallows hard and forces his gaze out over the park. He’s not sure he’ll ever be able to handle how quickly Phoenix seems to be able to go from a flustered mess to such a smooth talker. It’s that clever, razor-sharp wit Mia Fey once mentioned, Miles thinks. 

“She’s really sweet. Pearls, I mean,” Phoenix says, shifting his weight so he’s leaning against Miles, just a bit. “She can be kinda serious at times, especially for her age, and sometimes it feels like she’s staring right into your soul ‘cause she’s got these big, intense brown eyes but she’s a sweet kid, I promise. I know she’ll like you, and I know my judgment can be a little questionable at times but you can take it from Trucy! If she thinks Pearls will like you then you don’t have to worry.”

“If you say so,” Miles replies, and the odd, anxious knot in his chest untangles, if only by a bit. 

And then he gets hit in the face with a snowball. 

(Now, to shift the narrative to moments before disaster, to Kay and Trucy where they’re sitting on a park bench a few yards away.) 

“Listen, magic girl, I’m a snowball making expert,” Kay says, nudging Trucy’s knee with her own. 

“Are snowballs that hard to make?” Trucy asks, swinging her feet in their fluffy snow boots. 

“Anyone can make a snowball, Trucy, but it’s hard to make a perfect snowball. Watch and learn.”

Trucy obediently scoots in closer to watch as Kay scoops up a pile of snow. She starts patting it into a ball, rolling the snow around in her hands as she does. 

“For starters,” Kay instructs, “you have to make the snowball perfectly spherical.”

“Why is that?” 

“Perfect spheres are more aerodynamic,” Kay replies factually.

Trucy’s eyebrows quirk up. “Is that true?”

Kay shrugs. “I dunno, but it feels true.” She rolls her snowball between her mittens, making a show of examining it and smoothing down any angles with. “If you have any flat sides you can always add more snow, like this, y’see?”

Trucy scoops up some snow herself, copying Kay. “Like this?”

“Pack it in a little tighter, and make sure to roll when you’re packing. It’ll help it be more round. Oh, and don’t be afraid to really smack it. You don’t want the snowball coming apart the second you chuck it!”

Trucy nods, following Kay’s instructions. Soon she presents a nearly-perfectly-round snowball to Kay, who nods in approval. 

“That’s a good first try! Keep it up and you’ll be a snowball-making wizard in no time. And that’s real magic right there.” Kay tosses her own snowball between her gloved hands. “Now, do you wanna see a pro snowball fighter in action?”

“A pro snowball fighter?” Trucy repeats.

Kay grins, bright and toothy. “I’ve never lost a fight!”

Which is true. Just ask Sebastian. 

“Lemme prove how aerodynamic this sucker is,” Kay continues, patting her snowball. “I bet I can hit that tree.”

“Which tree?”

“That one, next to the bush.”

Trucy tilts her head. “By Daddy and Uncle Miles?”

“Yep.”

“But you might hit them!”

“ Pshhhh . I’ve got like, super good aim. I bet I could throw this snowball right between their heads without hitting them.”

Trucy’s eyes narrow. “No you can’t,” she says. 

“Yes I can!” Kay replies, almost instantly. “Want me to prove it?”

“Okay, but if you miss you… um… have to be my assistant in my next magic show?”

Kay grins. “Deal, magic girl. But I’m definitely not going to miss.”

She hops to her feet, and winds up the shot much like a baseball pitcher would. She glances back to wink at Trucy before she hurls the snowball as hard as she possibly can, and promptly nails her boss right in the face.)

Miles stands there, snow and slush and freezing water slowly dripping down the side of his face. He blinks, resisting the urge to shiver as a chunk of snow slips under his collar. Phoenix is standing wide-eyed beside him, covering his mouth with his hand like he’s trying to hide his smile but his shoulders are clearly shaking with mirth.

“Oh my god,” Phoenix wheezes, fighting back laughter. “Are you…are you okay?”

“Um…” Kay says, eyes wide. “Oops?”

“Kay,” Miles says calmly, cold, cold water tracing down his jaw, “Would you come here for a moment?”

“Time to run!” Kay exclaims. She grabs Trucy’s hand and bolts for the trees, kicking up snow in her wake. 

At that, Phoenix finally breaks, laughter escaping through his fingers. His laugh is bright, loud. “Sorry, sorry, I don’t mean to laugh,” he stammers through his mirth, and when he takes a breath he snorts and Miles finds it horribly endearing. 

Still wheezing with laughter, Phoenix reaches out, brushes snow from Miles’s hair. His hand is warm, his fingers linger, the smile on his face wide and crooked. “Did that hurt? She chucked that thing like, really hard. You almost fell over.”

“I did not almost fall over.” Miles retorts, brushing snow off his shoulders. “And only my pride is bruised, I believe. Good lord, that’s cold.”

Phoenix tilts his head. “Do you want my…I mean, I guess it’s your scarf. Do you want your scarf back?”

“ No . No. Keep it,” Miles says, glancing up at Phoenix, at his own scarf wrapped snugly around his neck, wondering over the way his heart flutters at the very idea of him wearing it. “I’m fine. Though I may actually fire Kay this time for this.”

“Well, we’ll take her. We can always use more help at the flower shop.”

“I don’t think Kay and Maya should be allowed to spend that much time together. They may set the store on fire.”

Phoenix snorts. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

It’s at that point, Miles still shaking snow from his hair with Phoenix’s eyes lingering on him, that the Feys arrive.

Miles’s first impression of Pearl Fey is that she’s much smaller than he anticipated. Though, he imagines it may just appear that way from the sheer amount of clothing she’s swimming in: a giant, puffy winter jacket, boots that reach up to her knees and not one but two scarves tied firmly around her lower face and neck, a hat tugged down past her ears and gloves so large that Miles is sure her hands only take up a third of the space inside. At first glance he thought her simply a bundle of walking clothes. 

She’s around Trucy’s age, perhaps a year or so younger. As they approach, she ducks behind Maya and clutches at her long skirt, peering out at Miles. Her eyes are wide and when she stares up at him it’s with a kind of thoughtful expression that leaves Miles feeling uncomfortably exposed and laid bare. Her hair is closer to Mia’s in color rather than Maya’s dark mane; he can see a strand of it curling around her cheek, soft and light brown. 

Phoenix crouches down in front of her, smiling wide enough that the skin around his eyes crinkle. “Pearls, this is Miles. He’s my…” Phoenix pauses, glances at Miles, then back at Pearl. “He’s a really good friend of mine.”

Pearl blinks. Her eyes flicker between Phoenix and Miles, Fey-brown and thoughtful and Miles wonders if it’s not so much a Pearl thing but just a Fey thing, to have a gaze so intense that it feels as if they’re looking into his soul because he’s seen this very look on Mia, too. Then, Pearl reaches out and sets her small hand on Phoenix’s arm and leans in as if she’s about to whisper a secret, but when she speaks her voice is clear and light and carries, though soft, to Miles’s ears too. 

“Is he your special someone?” she asks, and Phoenix’s face flushes so red that it’s a marvel he doesn’t melt the snow around him. 

Mia and Maya promptly burst into laughter. 

“Ah…that’s…um…” Phoenix looks wide-eyed at Miles, his cheeks pink and there’s an undeniable question in his gaze that makes Miles’s heart skip a beat before he shakes his head at Pearl. “Not…not exactly.”

“Don’t worry, Miles, she asks that about literally everyone,” Maya says, slapping Miles heartily on the back (with surprising force for such a small girl. It nearly rivals Gumshoe). “For years she thought Nick and I were ‘ special someones’.” 

Mia chuckles. “She thought I was first, before Maya. It seems she may be more accurate this time around though, hm?” She asks, nudging Miles with her elbow. 

Miles resists the urge to say something untoward; he would very much like to make a good impression on this wide-eyed little girl. So instead, he just glares at her, something he’s very well-practiced in. Though it has little effect on Mia anymore, it seems: she just rolls her eyes and grins.

“Is there a reason you’re so wet?” She asks, quirking a brow at his dripping hair and damp coat.

“I’ll give you a guess,” Miles replies, casting his gaze towards Kay, who’s hiding behind a tree nearby with Trucy. Trucy doesn’t linger for long, though; upon seeing Pearls she immediately bounds over, arms open wide. She tackles Pearl in a hug, squeezing tight and pressing her cheek up against Pearl’s.

“I missed you!” Trucy exclaims, and Pearl giggles, soft and shy. “Have you met Uncle Miles yet?”

Pearl glances nervously at Miles again, and Trucy gestures for Miles to come closer. So, he squats down next to Phoenix, before Pearl, and holds out his hand. 

“Hello,” he says cautiously. “It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot of wonderful things about you from Phoenix and Trucy.”

Pearl stares at him, looking for all the world like some kind of mythical beast walked up to her and offered its paw for a shake. 

Trucy gives her a gentle nudge. “It’s okay, Pearl. He’s good,” she whispers, and gives Miles a wink. “He believes in dragons.”

I don’t think I ever said that, Miles thinks, but says nothing against it. Eventually, Pearl blinks, and very carefully takes his hand in her own and gives it one tiny shake. 

“I like your hair,” she says, and her voice is quiet, sweet and honest. “It’s very pretty.”

“Oh. Er, thank you, Miss Fey.”

Pearl giggles; Miles wonders if she’s ever been called Miss Fey before, but she seems to like it. 

“Uncle Miles is gonna come ice skating with us,” Trucy tells Pearl, taking her gloved hand in hers. “Is that okay? He’s probably just gonna hang out around Daddy the whole time but I wanna make sure you’re okay with it.”

Pearl looks back to Miles, and she looks, for a moment, as if she’s sizing him up, assessing his worth and deciding whether or not she’s actually okay with him joining such a serious and intimate activity as ice skating. 

Miles finds his nerves acting up again under her scrutiny, and he can feel Phoenix giving him an amused look out of the corner of his eye. Why is this little girl so scary? He thinks, but he doesn’t break eye contact with her. 

Finally, finally , Pearl nods. “He can come,” she says decisively, “as long as he doesn’t say anything mean.”

“I promise,” Miles says, and when she frees her tiny hand from her glove to hold out her pinky, he takes it in his own without a second thought. He’s learned that pinky promises are very important in the Wright-Fey family; they are not to be taken lightly, so he makes sure to keep his face as serious as possible. 

It seemed to be the right move, because once she pulls her hand back Pearl smiles, and it’s small and shy and lovely, and Miles at once understands why everyone in the family seems to love Pearl Fey so much. 

And so, promise made and Miles’s involvement approved, they all pile in Mia’s Subaru (it’s a snug fit, with Pearl sitting on Maya’s lap and Trucy on Phoenix’s) and drive to the rink, though it isn’t that far. 

It’s a small, cozy rink. There’s not too many people here other than the few staff working and one or two families, which means they have the ice mostly to themselves. Phoenix insists on paying for Miles’s skates, and Pearl shyly asks if they have any with pink laces. Luckily they do, and even though they’re one size too big Pearl wears them proudly, shoving tissues into the toes to make sure her feet don’t slide around too much. 

It’s been a while since Miles went skating, but he was rather good at it as a child. He went skating often with Franziska and his father; Franziska once decided she wanted to become a world-class figure skater after watching the Winter Olympics and demanded Miles take her to the ice rink as much as possible so she could practice spins and skating backwards. This means he spent a lot of time on the ice during winter, so even though he hasn’t been on it in years he isn’t too worried about his abilities. At the very least he’s pretty sure he won’t make a fool out of himself in front of Phoenix Wright and his entire family.

Skates in hand, they deposit their shoes in lockers and head to the benches that circle the ice, on those strange rubbery mats that ice rinks often have that protect the skate blades from hard ground. Mia helps Pearl tie her pink-laced skates, making sure that they feel comfortable and promising that she’ll hold her hand the entire time and not let go unless Pearl wants her to. Pearl seems nervous; Miles wonders if she gets the chance to skate very often where she’s from, or perhaps she’s simply nervous all the time. 

Maya and Kay are already placing bets on which one of them is the better skater before even hitting the ice. The two of them are quite the dynamic, disastrous duo, Miles thinks. He smiles at their antics, Kay claiming with misplaced confidence that she could nail “one of those twirly jumpy things the fancy skaters do”, and he wonders a bit about how much this feels like family. He wishes Franziska were here; she would show everyone up in seconds. He’s sure she’d love to skate with her girlfriend. Perhaps they’ll have to come back sometime. 

Miles finishes tying his skates and stands up from the bench; he’d been sitting next to Phoenix and Trucy. He tests his balance, coaxing the familiarity back before turning to Phoenix, who’s been taking a rather long time. 

“Are you ready?” he asks, quirking a brow. 

“Yes, I just…” Phoenix frowns, bent over his skates. Miles tilts his head so he can see Phoenix’s fingers fumbling over the laces. 

“Ah. I see. Perhaps we can ask for skates with Velcro straps. I’m sure we could find a children’s size large enough to fit you.”

“Shut up , Miles!” Phoenix snaps, though it comes out as more of a defensive whine as he smacks Miles on the leg. “My hands are cold! It’s making things difficult .”

Miles smirks. “Of course.” 

He watches Phoenix struggle for a bit longer, the laces slipping through his cold fingers before shaking his head. 

“Just let me do it, Wright,” Miles says, crouching down before him. 

“No, look, I’ve almost got it.”

“I’m afraid we’re going to be here until sundown before you manage it, at this rate.”

“I can do it myself!” 

“Clearly not, or they’d be tied already.”

Trucy leans over from where she’s struggling with her own laces, though she has a bit more of a plausible reason, as she’s a little girl wearing very large gloves. “Uncle Miles, can you tie my skates, too?”

“Of course, Trucy.”

“Can you tie a bow in the laces?”

“Certainly.” Miles lifts a brow at Phoenix. “Would you like a bow in your laces, too?”

Phoenix frowns. It borders on a pout. Miles stares calmly back, and waits. 

“Yes,” Phoenix says finally, petulantly. 

Miles smirks, and proceeds to deftly Trucy’s laces into neat little bows. When he’s done, she bounces to her feet, albeit clumsily due to the skates, and kisses Miles on the cheek. It’s a spot of warmth on his cold skin, and when she pulls back he subconsciously lifts his fingers to touch his cheek. 

“Thank you, Uncle Miles!” Trucy says brightly, before tottering off to the ice to find Pearl. 

Miles blinks after her, before shaking his head and moving onto Phoenix’s laces. Phoenix pouts the entire time he’s tying them, even when Miles makes a show of carefully tying bows. Once they’re tied, he gets to his feet, his balance still slightly thrown by the skates. He holds out his hand to Phoenix.

“Ready now?”

Phoenix hesitates, and Miles thinks that he’s going to do something silly like untie his laces just to prove he could do it all along. But he doesn’t do that. Instead, he reaches out and grabs Miles’s hand, pulling him down to his level and then with his other cupping Miles’s chin, and Miles thinks for a heart-stopping moment that Phoenix is about to kiss him simply because he tied a bow in the laces of his skates. But he doesn’t. At least, it isn’t a kiss in the way that Miles is expecting. Phoenix lightly kisses Miles on the cheek, just like Trucy did and he lingers there, his cold fingers slightly squishing his cheek. 

“Thank you, Miles,” Phoenix says, his eyes sparkling, before he pushes past Miles to the rink. 

Miles stands there for a moment, struck dumb. He touches his hand to his chest, amazed that, somehow, these Wright’s haven’t given him a heart attack yet.

They’ve gotten pretty damn close.

He takes a deep breath, hoping the Feys (and Kay, more importantly) will believe the flush on his cheeks is simply due to the cold. 

It turns out his childhood lessons with Franziska paid off. It comes back quickly, after a minute or two of catching his balance and remembering how he needs to hold himself. He was never any good at the fancy maneuvers that Kay and Maya seem so insistent on doing, but he can skate backwards, which seems to impress Trucy and Pearls at the very least. 

For most of their time there Pearl is clinging tightly to Mia’s hand as Mia skates around the rink, giving her tips on how far apart to keep her feet and making sure she doesn’t lean too far forward.

“Just stand up straight, Pearls. Yes, just like that! See, you’re a natural,” Mia says brightly, patting Pearl’s cheek. 

Trucy skates right alongside Pearl, her arms flung out to either side to keep her balance. Sometimes she trips over her skates and has to catch herself on Mia to keep from falling, but sometimes she fails and tumbles to the ice. Each time Phoenix darts over like a shot to check and see if she’s okay. She always is, always giggling and never hurt, and it makes Miles smile to see it. 

Maya and Kay are both rather ungraceful skaters, but they entertain themselves by trying to perfect a figure skater style pirouette on the ice. As far as Miles can tell Kay has yet to pull off her fancy move that she boasted about before, but not for a lack of trying. Last time Miles checked, she’d fallen down at least five times, usually dragging Maya down with her. 

“Come on, Kay, get your ass back up!” He hears Maya exclaim, after their most recent tumble. “I need to perfect this move so I can impress my girlfriend.”

(Miles resists the urge to smirk. He’s sure anything that Maya does will impress Franziska; his little sister is head over heels for her.)

Phoenix, on the other hand, is surprisingly good at skating, something Miles remarks on. 

“You’re rather good at this for someone who can barely tie his skates,” he says, watching Phoenix spin around on his skates to check if Trucy is doing alright. 

Phoenix reaches out to shove him, clearly with intent to push him over but Miles deftly skates out of the way before he can manage it, so he sticks his tongue out at Miles instead. “For your information,” he says, his tone full of snark, “I played hockey when I was a kid.”

Miles tries and fails to keep the surprise off his face. “Really? You played hockey?”

“What, you think since I’m an artist I can’t play sports?” 

“Well, no. I’m just surprised you had the balance for it.”

“What the hell!” Phoenix tries again to push Miles over but only succeeds in losing his own balance and nearly falling himself, grabbing Miles’s arm to prevent it, his skates skidding on the ice. When he pulls himself up using Miles’s arm as an anchor, their noses bump together and he’s so close that Miles can count the fading summer freckles dotting his cheeks, right below his lower eyelashes. 

Then, Maya wolf-whistles and they jolt apart. 

They spend a few more hours skating until the younger girls get sleepy, so they return their skates and bundle up and head back to the parking lot. 

“Do you want a ride?” Mia asks, holding a yawning Pearl by the hand. Maya looks just as sleepy, texting on her phone in the front seat. Kay took her up on the offer, apparently, and is bundled up in the backseat. 

“That’s okay,” Phoenix says. “We can walk. My apartment isn’t that far.”

Mia tilts her head. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, don’t worry, Mia. It’s a nice night.”

“Right.” Mia smiles, and it’s a smile directed at the both of them. “Be safe, you two.”

“You two, Mia. Goodnight.”

They wave her off, and Trucy yawns, tightening her grip around Miles’s neck. He isn’t sure at what point she ended up in his arms, but she certainly doesn’t seem willing to walk home now, so Miles shifts to make sure she’s comfortable and ensures Phoenix that no, he doesn’t mind and no, it isn’t a bother to walk home with them at all and yes, it’s okay, he’s doing it because he wants to. 

They walk in relative silence, Trucy a solid, comfortable weight in Miles’s arms, her cheek pressed into the crook of his neck. He catches Phoenix looking at him a few times, his eyes soft. It’s not that long of a walk at all; the town is fairly small but the time seems to slip by anyway without them even noticing. When they reach Phoenix’s apartment complex he trips over the welcome mat and nearly falls on his face, and Miles has to shush him through his smile to keep Phoenix from laughing too loudly and waking Trucy the whole way up to his floor. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Phoenix giggles, covering his mouth with one hand as he tries to unlock his door with the other. 

“You’re ridiculous,” Miles replies, fond. 

Once inside, Phoenix sheds his coat and flicks on the living room lamp, bathing his now-familiar apartment with warm auburn light. He turns, touching Miles’s arm. 

“I can take her,” he says softly, so Miles passes Trucy over to her father to be taken to bed. Trucy makes a soft, sleepy noise as her pillow of Miles’s shoulder suddenly vanishes, but she doesn’t wake as she shifts into Phoenix’s arms. 

“You’re getting heavy,” Miles hears Phoenix whisper to his daughter, and he watches as Phoenix presses a kiss to Trucy’s temple, carrying her to her bedroom. 

He has mild deja vu of the last time he was here at night over Halloween. Miles exhales, running a hand through his hair. Several months ago he’d never have thought he’d be here in this moment, so comfortable with his life and the people who have barged their way in. Comfortable in someone else’s home, someone else’s life. 

Miles feels his lips twitch into a soft, private smile. He huffs a quiet laugh at himself, and passes softly through the living room, careful not to make too much noise. He passes the pictures on the wall, the photos of this family he’s been knitted into, and steps out on the balcony. He contemplates flicking on the fairy lights, but the night is so clear and the moon so bright that he ultimately decides against it. He brushes snow off the rail and leans his forearms against it, watching the way his breath clouds before him and slowly evaporates. 

It isn’t snowing. It’s the kind of still, winter night where the stars above are bright and clear, like he could reach out and draw a line from star to star like a giant, celestial connect-the-dots. The wind was sharp and biting, but not in an unpleasant way. Just a real, grounding way. 

After a while (he’s not sure how long; he’d lost track of time the way you sometimes do when standing outside and taking the world in) Miles hears the door slide open then shut, and Phoenix joins him at the railing bearing two mugs. He presses one into Miles’s hands. It’s forest green and looks handmade, the glaze slightly uneven and charming. Miles wraps his fingers around the mug, feeling the warmth seep into his palms. 

“Hot chocolate,” Phoenix explains, taking a sip of his own (from a World’s Best Dad mug). “I put a little spice in yours but not that much. And cinnamon and stuff. I kind of guessed at what you’d like.”

Miles takes an experimental sip; it’s still a bit too hot, but the mild spice is pleasant on his tongue. He hums. “Did you add cloves?”

Phoenix grins nervously over the rim of his mug, nodding. “Yeah. Do you...you like cloves, right?”

“Yes. It’s good,” Miles says, taking another sip. “Perhaps more cinnamon next time.”

“Next time,” Phoenix repeats, then smiles even wider. “Yeah. I can do that.” 

He rests his forearms on the railing next to Miles; he’d pulled the sleeves of his oversized sweater over his knuckles, his fingers wrapped tight around his mug. His nails are painted blue, Trucy’s work, Phoenix imagines. 

“Is she sleeping?” Miles asks, nodding to inside.

“Yeah. She was pretty tired from all the excitement of seeing Pearl, I think. They’re getting together tomorrow to do something with Mia.”

“That sounds nice.”

“Pearls is like, her best friend. She always gets so excited to see her…” Phoenix sighs, his breath wispy around his face. “I wish her mom would let her visit more.”

“At least she got to visit for the holidays,” Miles says, and Phoenix hums in agreement. 

“Are you doing anything?” He asks. “For the holidays, I mean.”

“Ah. Well.” Miles rotates his own mug in his hands. “Perhaps something with Franziska and Kay, but nothing big. This time of year…it doesn’t exactly agree with me,” he says slowly. 

Phoenix lifts his crooked eyebrows; Miles can tell his curiosity is piqued. “Really?”

“Yes. I…” Miles swallows. He thinks of his father, the brightest light in his life before it flickered out, and he closes his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it, really. If that’s okay.”

“No no no, don’t worry, it’s cool! I won’t make you talk about anything you don’t want to, of course,” Phoenix says quickly, and Miles can hear the panic lacing through his voice. “I’m sorry for pressing-“

“We can talk about it sometime,” Miles interrupts, and he gives Phoenix a small smile. “Just…not today. It’s been a good day today, and I don’t want to ruin it by talking about something sad.”

“Okay,” Phoenix says, softly, his blue-brown eyes searching Miles’s face. “That’s totally okay.”

They lapse back into silence. Somewhere, far away, a bird sings a note low and solemn. An owl perhaps, Miles thinks. Gumshoe would know. He likes birds. 

It’s Phoenix, unsurprisingly, that breaks their companionable silence. “You know, the last time we were on my balcony I convinced you to dance with me,” he says, tilting his head to the side like he’s listening for a far-off tune, perhaps the one they heard when they danced together. 

“Yes, I know,” Miles replies drily. “You were an awful dance partner.”

“ Awful? I was not awful. ”

“I distinctly recall you dropping me.”

“That - that was - okay, fine, maybe I dropped you a little -“

“You fully dropped me.”

“Maybe it was part of the dance!”

“How many waltzes have you been to where people drop their partners?” Miles asks, aghast. 

“Maybe you haven’t been to the right kinds of waltzes, Miles Edgeworth,” Phoenix teases back, and the corners of his mouth quirks up in the way they do right before he laughs, and when he does his laugh is loud and bright and god, Miles wants to kiss him. But he doesn’t; he looks down at his mug and traces the soft curve of its handle with a finger, warmth buzzing in his chest. He likes this kind of peaceful content, likes the way it sits with him, easy and natural. He likes the way it feels just to be standing on a balcony in winter with Phoenix, the stars bright and clear above. 

Phoenix hums; he’s staring down into his mug as if he might be able to read his future in the dark dregs of the hot chocolate. He shifts, and when their shoulders gently bump together Miles doesn’t pull away. Phoenix seems to take that as an invitation of sorts and he leans against Miles so the lines of their arms are flush together, solid and heavy. 

“Is this okay?” Phoenix asks, his voice quiet (appropriately so, for a wintry night on a gently-lit balcony with cups of hot chocolate and frantically beating hearts is a soft moment, one which deserves soft voices and soft words). 

Miles looks down at his own mug, down at his hand so close to Phoenix’s, their pinky fingers just barely touching. He feels as if, at one point, it would feel like quite the monumental effort to simply shift his hand, to move his pinky so it’s settled across Phoenix’s, not quite holding hands but something close to it. But it isn’t difficult. It isn’t taxing or frightening or anything other than pleasant and real, and when he does it he can feel the way Phoenix shifts in surprise beside him. 

“It’s okay,” Miles says, and he means it.  

Chapter Text

In the span of a single week, Miles Edgeworth nearly kisses Phoenix Wright three times. 

The very first time is on a Tuesday morning, a lovely day marked by a gentle, barely-there snowfall. Before the actual incident occurs, however, a few things happen.  After he wakes the traditional way (Pess launching on his chest and licking at his cheek until he sputters awake), Miles slogs through his morning routine: cups of tea instead of real food, shivering outside the store while Pess shoves her chocolatey snout into the snow, tail wagging. 

“Hello, Miles!” Mia Fey calls from across the street, broom in hand. Even in winter, she doesn’t quit with her sweeping routine. The day Miles sees the front stoop of Fey’s Flowers even remotely unclean will be the very day hell freezes over. 

“Good morning, Mia.”

Mia gasps, loud enough to be heard across the great divide of tar. Miles knows that gasp by this point; he’s heard from each member of the Fey-Wright family. “Oh my god. Did you finally call me Mia? Are my days of being called Miss Fey over?”

Miles gives her a look, though he fears it loses a bit of potency from this distance. “I suppose so,” he says mildly.

Mia grins, bright and lovely. “If all it took was falling for my brother to get you to call me by my first name, I would’ve set you up way sooner.”

“Thank you for shouting that for the entire street to hear,” Miles sighs.

“But you didn’t deny it!”

Miles promptly clicks his tongue for Pess and goes inside. Before the door closes behind him, he hears Mia shout “Welcome to the family, Miles!” 

For the next half hour or so, Miles goes about his morning, preparing the store for opening, sweeping, checking to see if the lucky bamboo plant on the front counter needs watering, feeding Hemingway, all the simple mindless things he enjoys. It’s then that Franziska arrives, to proper terrorize Miles in that special sisterly way of hers. 

She walks into the bookstore like a controlled whirlwind as usual, wearing glossy blue stilettos despite the snow, a peacoat to match and a beret in her perfect hair. She’s not scheduled to work, but she shakes her coat free of snow and hangs it up anyway, click clicks her way right to the counter where Miles is standing, folds her hands politely on the counter as if she’s about to have a pleasant and cordial conservation. Then she flips her hair over her shoulder, clears her throat and says “Let’s talk about Phoenix Wright.”

Miles exhales. Judging by the way the morning began with Mia, he should’ve been expecting something like this. For all he knows all the Fey girls and Franziska have been discussing he and Phoenix behind their backs since the beginning. 

Realistically, they likely have.

“Franziska,” Miles says, intending to keep his cool throughout this entire conversation, “I’m sure we don’t need to-“

“It’s been months, Miles. Stop being a foolish idiot.”

He pinches at the bridge of his nose. Perhaps he won’t be keeping his cool after all. 

“I already had to tell you that he’s in love with you,” Franziska says when Miles doesn’t reply, drumming her perfect acrylics on the counter. “I am fully prepared to tell you that you’re in love with him simply so you get a move on and I don’t have to look at your foolish, lovesick face any longer. Or should I say faces, plural?”

“First of all, you did not tell me that. You told me he had a crush on me, which I already had gathered at the time.”

“And the second part? Do you deny it?” Franziska asks, and she raises her eyebrows at Miles in that way of hers, when she’s issuing a challenge. Prove me wrong, she’s saying. Deny it. 

Miles lifts his chin.“I don’t deny it,” he says cooly. 

“So you’re admitting it, then?”

“…Yes. At least, something…close to it.”

Franziska stares at Miles for a moment, and then, to his surprise, lets out a laugh, sharp and loud. “God, finally, Miles. It’s good to know you’re not as much of a moron as I originally thought.”

“How kind of you to say,” Miles says sarcastically.

His retort goes unnoticed by Franziska; she has her mind on other things.“Now, what are you going to do about it?”

“I hardly think that’s any of your business, Fran,” Miles says, exasperated. 

“Of course it’s my business. You’re my little brother.”

“Your business? You seem to forget that you withheld that you’re dating Maya Fey, and apparently have been for quite a while. That’s not my business?”

Franziska scoffs. “I don’t owe you the details of my personal life,” she says, waving a flippant hand. 

“Oh, and I owe you mine?” 

“Yes. Now you seem to be getting it.”

“Of course,” Miles says, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. He knows this is Franziska’s convoluted way of caring for him, of making sure he isn’t lost in his own thoughts and anxiety and fear. But a person can only take so much of this before beginning to feel like a child, or something along those lines, at least. 

At Miles’s silence, Franziska sighs. “Miles, just…don’t get caught up in your head. You know you have a chance here, as disgusting as it is for me to witness.”

“For someone who is as ‘disgusted’ as you claim, you do seem to try and convince me to confess my feelings quite often.”

Franziska rolls her eyes. “As I said before, I hate looking at your foolish lovesick face. I want you to get rid of it.”

Miles sighs, hides a small smile because he knows it’ll make Franziska flip. “Of course, Fran. I’ll…do my best.”

“You better.” Franziska turns, looking around the quiet bookstore. Her gaze lingers on Hemingway, whose slinking behind a bookshelf. Miles wonders if she’s still torn up over the fact that old cat dislikes her so much. She shifts, looking at Miles over her shoulder with her perfect eyebrows arched. 

“Miles,” she says, “when are you going to tell him why you’re closing the store?” 

Miles swallows. “Eventually.”

“Eventually,” she repeats. Then, she shakes her head. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Are you worrying about me, Franziska?”

“I’m not worrying, idiot,” Franziska snaps immediately, glaring at him over her shoulder. “All of this is for my own personal benefit.”

“Of course,” Miles says. “Of course.”

With that, Franziska storms towards the door, fetching her coat. “I’ll be back later to look at the accounts. Try not to put us in ruin in the meantime,” she says. A perfect example of a Franziska goodbye, Miles thinks, except typically her quick goodbyes don’t end with colliding with the world’s youngest magician in the doorway. 

“Oh! Hi, Aunty Fran!” Trucy beams. “I didn’t see you there.”

“Aunty Fran,” Miles repeats, amused. 

“Hello, Trucy,” Franziska says, after sending Miles a death glare over her shoulder. 

“Aunt Maya is waiting for you at the flower shop,” Trucy says, “and she told me not to tell you how long she spent doing her makeup so she looks pretty for you, so if she asks, I didn’t say anything.”

Miles knows Franziska well enough to tell when she’s hiding a smile, even from the back of her head. She has a way of tensing up. 

“I won’t tell her a thing,” Franziska says sincerely, and leaves. 

“Bye, Aunty Fran! Hi, Uncle Miles!” Trucy says brightly, stomping the snow off her boots on the mat. Trailing behind her is one Pearl Fey, brown eyes wide and nervous. 

“Hello, Trucy. Hello, Miss Fey.”

Pearl giggles behind her scarf. “Hi Mr. Edgeworth,” she says, tripping over the syllables so it sounds more like Edj-i-worth. 

“Okay, Pearl,” Trucy says, spinning on her heel in a way that seems practiced (and Miles can’t help but imagine it with a cape) “this is the Corner Bookstore!” 

She waves a gloved hand around at the shelves while Pearl looks around with her big brown eyes, hands folded before her. “Uncle Miles owns it and he also lives here above the store which is super cool,” Trucy continues, “and his place is really really nice and his couch is super comfy. But that’s not what I brought you here for! Uncle Miles, are Pess and Hemingway around?”

“Pess is upstairs, but I can certainly go fetch her. Hemingway is…somewhere about,” Miles says, coming out from around the front counter. “Would you like me to go get Pess for you?”

“Yes please! I brought Pearl over because I want her to meet them,” Trucy explains. “She really likes animals and I think Hemingway would like her, and Pess definitely would.”

“Well, be careful. You know what Hemingway is like around strangers,” Miles says. “And Franziska was just here so he’s a bit on edge.”

“We’ll be the most careful.”

“Alright. I’ll fetch Pess for you, then. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled you see you.”

Trucy beams, and gives Miles a quick hug. “Thank you! Oh, and Daddy’s gonna be here in a bit. Hemingway hates him,” she says, turning to Pearl, “even more than Aunty Franziska. So we should go find him now, and then we can meet Pess.”

Pearl nods solemnly at this plan, so the two girls take off their snowy boots and huge coats (Pearl is notably less bundled up than she was the day Miles met her) and proceed to creep off through the store as quietly as they can, though the floorboards still creak under their feet and they burst into giggles every few seconds. Miles smiles when he hears Trucy whispering facts about the bookstore to Pearl, as if she’s a very quiet tour guide proud to show off Miles’s store.

Feeling warm with fondness, Miles ascends the stairs to let Pess down for the girls, and by the time he comes back down the bell above the front door has rung and Phoenix has arrived. He’s bearing to-go cups in hand and snow in his hair, which he shakes off similarly to how Pess shakes herself dry after a bath. 

“Hey, Miles,” Phoenix says, that crooked smile creeping across his face as he watches Miles come down the stairs and approach. “Are the girls here?”

“Yes. I believe they’re in the nook, meeting Hemingway.”

Pess bounds up to Phoenix, wagging her tail and leaning her full weight against his legs, causing him to stumble back. 

“Pess! I can’t pet you right now,” Phoenix says, half-laughing. “My hands are full!”

Miles huffs a laugh. “Here, let me help you.” 

He takes the to-go cups from Phoenix to set on the counter, watches as Phoenix gives Pess a thorough petting, complete with several who’s a good girl? and it’s you! You’re a good girl! Pess’s tail is wagging 

Miles smiles at the scene and walks back around the front counter. “Is one of these for me?” he asks, examining the to-go cups. One of them has a smiley-face drawn on it in highlighter, which, really, answers his question for him. 

“Yeah, I got you tea,” Phoenix replies, giggling as Pess tries to lick at his face. “I know you like chai but I thought I’d get you something different this time.”

“What is it?” Miles asks, though he can tell it’s matcha instantly by the smell once he takes the cup, and Phoenix says as much. 

“I didn’t really know if you like matcha or not but the kid working today said it was good with extra vanilla so I thought I’d give it a go. His name is Wocky, isn’t that wild?”

“Says the man named Phoenix,” Miles says lightly, taking an experimental sip. It’s sweet and earthy, like matcha should be. Not his usual cup of tea, quite literally, but good all the same. 

“Shut up! My name is unique,” Phoenix says, teasingly glaring up at him from where he’s kneeling on the floor, scratching Pess behind the ears. “Can you imagine if my name was like…Phil? Imagine if my name was Phillip, Miles. Phillip Wright. Would that be better? Would you prefer that?”

Miles shakes his head, fighting back a smile. “No. Phoenix suits you.”

“Thank you,” Phoenix grins triumphantly, like he’s won, and gets to his feet. “Ugh, I shouldn’t have knelt that long. My knees hurt.”

“I wasn’t aware I was conversing with a sixty year old man.”

Phoenix gives him a look. “Don’t even start with that. I get enough from Maya.”

Miles shrugs and hides his smile behind his cup. 

Phoenix smiles, too, glances down at the desk before catching sight of the bamboo plant where it sits by the register. “Oh my god, you still have this little guy!” He picks up the plant, still in the same pot it was in the day he gave it to Miles. “Aw, you’re doing so well, aren’t you, little fella?”

“Yes, well. It seemed rather determined to stay alive.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve been neglecting him?”

Miles hums; he had neglected the little plant for quite a while, back when he was convinced Phoenix Wright was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. “The plant is alive, isn’t it?” He says, by way of actually answering. 

Phoenix raises a brow. “Maybe I should take him back if you’re mistreating him. Have you even given him a name yet?”

“Of course not. It’s a plant.”

“Didn’t I tell you it’s good luck to name your plants?”

“Yes, and I’m fairly certain I told you that a lucky bamboo plant is already lucky. It doesn’t need any more, does it?”

“One can never have too much luck,” Phoenix says sagely, setting the plant back down. As he does, he turns his head, and Miles catches sight of a streak of white paint at his jawline. 

“You have paint on your face,” he points out, though this is nothing new. Miles has come to expect Phoenix with paint on his skin, as constant as his freckles and that faint white scar at his lip. 

“Oh, do I?” Phoenix reaches up to brush at his cheek, feeling for the paint. “I didn’t realize. I was painting pots earlier and I guess I got some on my hands and smeared it on my face.”

“I’m not surprised. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without paint on your person somewhere.”

Phoenix shrugs. “Comes with the job. Did I get it?”

“No, its on your jaw. Over here,” Miles says, pointing at the spot on his own face. 

Phoenix brushes at his face again, frowning when Miles shakes his head again. “Ugh, Miles, I can’t see my own face. Can you just get it for me?”

“Really?” Miles asks, quirking a brow. “You want me to wipe your face like a child?”

Phoenix sticks his tongue out at him. “Don’t be mean. You’re the one who pointed it out.”

Miles sighs, but it’s fond, isn’t it, horribly fond. He pulls a tissue from the box on the counter, pours a little water on it from his cup and reaches across to try and wipe it off. Phoenix dutifully leans in a little closer, turns his head to let Miles get at it easier, and for a moment Miles is so focused on scrubbing off the paint that he doesn’t notice the heat creeping its way across Phoenix’s face, the dark blush seeping in under his tanned and freckled skin. But he does notice, same as he notices the way Phoenix glances at him out of the corner of his eye before looking away, notices the way their unoccupied hands are brushing together on the counter. 

“Did you get it?” Phoenix says, and his voice is quiet, low. He’s caught Miles’s gaze with his right eye, the brown one, the one flecked with bits of gold. 

Miles swallows, takes one more pass with the tissue to catch any last flecks of dried white paint. “Yes,” he replies, his voice equally soft. “I got it.”

Phoenix turns his head and both of his pretty eyes meet Miles’s, and Miles can hear Phoenix’s breath catch and it makes his breath catch in his own throat. He’s thought about it before, kissing Phoenix Wright, of course he has. It’s flitted through his mind in situations like these, where they’re close enough to do so with very minimal effort like when they were on the bridge in the snow. He knows Phoenix would be okay with it. He knows Phoenix wants it. 

“Miles?” Phoenix asks, tilting his head ever so slightly and Miles remembers a time when he used to hate how often Phoenix would say his name but now he finds he likes how it falls out of his mouth. Slowly, his hand moves, his fingers brushing against Miles’s, hinting at intertwining together. “Do you..?” 

“Pess!” Trucy shrieks, and the two men jerk apart as she rounds the corner, dragging Pearl behind her. “Oh, hey, Daddy.”

“Hey, Truce,” Phoenix says, running a hand through his hair. His voice is slightly strangled, and Miles quickly turns away to hide his blush, pretending to sort through the online orders cart. “Did you and Pearls meet Hemingway?”

“Yeah! He was actually pretty nice and he let Pearl touch him a little bit but I didn’t want to push it so we came out to see Pess!”

Miles hears Pearl gasp, presumably upon seeing Pess. He grabs a book at random to file and forces himself to calm down before turning back around. When he does, he sees Pearl wide-eyed petting Pess for the first time and Trucy giggling beside her as a pleased Pess thumps her tail on the hardwood floor. It’s charming and precious and Pearl looks like she’s having the greatest day of her life, and Trucy looks proud, like this store is apart of her and she’s excited to be able to share it. And there’s Phoenix, leaning on the counter with his to-go cup in his hands, grinning bright and crooked at the girls with a blush still high on his cheeks, a blush that Miles caused. 

Miles swallows, feeling frazzled and weightless and grounded all at the same time, and starts to file the book. 

The second time Miles nearly kisses Phoenix doesn’t really count, because it’s in a dream. But if you were to ask Miles, he might say that it does count, because in the way that dreams so often do, it felt undeniably real. Though, after the fact, he remembers very little about the dream itself. He does not remember where they are. He does not remember if they are in the bookstore or the flower shop or the park, or perhaps someplace that only exists in Miles’s sleeping mind. He doesn’t remember what he himself is wearing, but that’s hardly important in dreams. He thinks it may have been snowing, or perhaps it was sunny. 

But what he does remember is this:

He remembers flowers bright like the sun and a tune, the kind of tune that tickles the edge of your brain with its familiarity but no matter how hard you try you can never place it. 

He remembers Phoenix there, eyes bright, wearing the Foreigner shirt he had on the first day they officially met. He has flowers in his hair, freckles on his skin. They talked about something, but their words didn’t stick in his mind. 

He remembers at some point they were dancing, just like that night on the balcony where Phoenix dropped him flat on his back because he insisted on dipping him, but this dance is something different. It is not a waltz at all, nor any kind of dance that has a name. It’s two people making up the steps as they go to a song they both know but can’t place. 

And Miles remembers Phoenix’s laughter, lovely and distinctive and he’s laughing into the crook of Miles’s neck, his arms around his waist and it felt real, then, his breath on his skin and when he looks up he’s right there and the crows feet at the corner’s of his eyes are crinkled and delightful, and he says something but Miles isn’t paying attention because he’s looking at the curve of Phoenix’s mouth as he speaks and wonders why he hasn’t yet leaned in. 

And when Miles wakes, Pess is licking at his face and his is heart racing, racing, racing. 

The third time is on a bright and sunny Friday afternoon, though anyone who lives in a place with freezing winters knows that clear days with blue, cloudless skies are always the coldest. The trees outside are heavily laden with snow, their branches bent under the weight of thick white blankets, and in the Corner Bookstore’s empty flowerbeds there are tiny footprints in the snow from round birds hopping about beneath the sill.

Inside the bookstore, it’s much warmer. There are wood-wick candles lit on the front counter, filling the whole store with the scent of sage and cinnamon and the sound of crackling wood. Hemingway is dozing on Pess’s bed underneath the front window (which has become more of his bed than Pess’s, at this point), curled up into a tight, fluffy gray ball. He looks much better these days, and even allowed Miles to brush him for about a minute the other day, with plenty of chicken as incentive. Pess herself, having been evicted from her own bed, is currently adamant on being underfoot at all times as Miles tries to restock the shelves. 

It’s been a day of restocking, unpacking new shipments, reorganizing shelves and listening to Kay insist that Lord of the Rings counts as queer fiction and should be shelved as such instead of fantasy (“Okay, but have you literally ever seen straight people interact the way Sam and Frodo do?”) It’s not the first time this discussion has been had in the Corner Bookstore, and it certainly won’t be the last. 

Miles, however, isn’t paying attention. He’s left Kay to Franziska’s slowly fraying patience while he tries to navigate restocking the upper shelves without tripping over Pess. The positives of a restock day is that the work keeps his mind off certain artists and magicians or even just how tired he feels today or the fact that he really needs to go to the grocery store sometime soon; instead, he can focus on scanning alphabetized shelves and catching all the books that patrons stuck back between titles at random with no regard for the bookstore’s very clear and obvious system. He huffs in annoyance when he finds a copy of Feral Creatures completely out of place and immediately puts the book back where it belongs. How difficult is it to look at the author’s last name and return a book accordingly? Really, people can be so dense sometimes. 

Miles wraps up in the fantasy section and retrieves the now-empty box that Pess is trying to chew on. He still has a few online orders to fill, and once he’s done he pick out a new book (or perhaps an old one that he’s read before) to lose himself in for the rest of the day. Maybe he’ll take a break and visit Phoenix at the flower shop.

Maybe. 

“Are you doing anything fun after work today?” Miles hears Kay ask Franziska as he passes by the nonfiction section where they’re at work, Pess at his heels.

“Perhaps,” Franziska replies cooly. “It is of no consequence to you.”

Miles can practically hear Kay rolling her eyes. “Honestly, I should’ve known better than to even ask. Let me guess…you’re gonna go axe-throwing with your girlfriend?”

“No. But that is not such a terrible idea,” Franziska says, rounding the corner to the front. Personally, Miles never wants to see his sister with an axe in her hands, especially not after seeing her with that bullwhip on Halloween. She’s frightening enough as is with just her words. 

Kay, trailing after Franziska, drops her own empty box by the front counter where Miles is standing. She straightens, her large snowflake earrings bright against her dark hair. She’s wearing a very…festive holiday sweater with a dinosaur in a Santa hat on it. “Well, I’m gonna be watching shitty Hallmark movies all night with Sebastian and making fun of them,” she says, grinning. “It’s gonna be super fun. We do it every year.”

Franziska scoffs. “Ugh. Those movies are ridiculous.”

“Yeah, duh. That’s like, the whole point of watching them! Don’t you ever watch them with Maya? I bet she’d enjoy them!”

“She does enjoy them. Her favorite is this absolutely foolish movie called The Spirit of Christmas.”

“Oh my god, wait, I think we’ve seen that one!” Kay gasps. “Isn’t it about a guy who was a bootlegger or something and he got like, totally murdered while on a run and then it’s a million years later and he’s haunting the house as a ghost and then a hot lady shows up over Christmas and they fall in love even though he’s a fucking ghost? And somehow he’s like, real at the end? And not a ghost anymore?”

Franziska sighs. “Yes. That’s the one.”

“Do you think,” Kay says, in the tone of voice she usually has when she’s about to say something preposterous, “if you were a bootlegger and you got murdered and got stuck haunting a house and Maya showed up, you would fall in love with her even though you’re a ghost and she’s alive?”

Franziska scoffs. “I would never be a bootlegger.”

“That was literally not the point of the question.”

“Then do not include it as a detail.”

“Okay, Mr. Edgeworth, if you were a bootlegger -“

“No.”

Kay groans. “You guys are no fun. I bet you’d fall in love with Mr. Wright if you were a ghost.”

“Ghosts aren’t real, Kay.”

“Okay, but you didn’t deny the whole fall in love with Mr. Wright part so I’m counting it as a win.”

“If you say so,” Miles says calmly, and returns to filing orders. He wants to empty the cart before the holidays roll around and he closes the store for the rest of the year; he always feels guilty when someone has to wait until several days into January to get their books. He makes a mental note to send out emails later today to remind people to pick up their orders before the twentieth. 

As Franziska fetches a new box from the back and click-click-clicks away in her bright red pumps to continue restocking, Kay throws herself on the counter before Miles, her dark hair spooling over the copy of Comet in Moominland that he’s checking for wear and nearly singing the end of her ponytail in a candle. 

“Kay,” Miles says warningly. 

“Boss,” Kay replies, fluttering her eyelashes up at him. He supposes she’s trying to look innocent. 

“What is it this time?”

“Okay, so what if, hypothetically, because we’ve been such good workers today and you care about us so much and because you’re the best boss ever, you went to get us coffee?”

Miles quirks a brow at her. “And what’s preventing you or Franziska from getting coffee yourself in this hypothetical situation?”

Kay blinks. “Um. Well…hypothetically, we’re just in such a flow state right now that if we stop working now we’ll be less productive later. You know how it is.”

“From what I’ve observed, Franziska has been doing the bulk of the work and you’ve been talking.”

“Okay but I’ve been like, really emotionally supportive.”

“Mm. Does restocking require a lot of emotional support?”

“Mr. Edgeworth, pleaaaaaaase? I really really want a latte but  I don’t want to go and get it because I’ve grown used to Mr. Wright getting us coffee all the time.”

“The cafe is right next door.”

“But it’s cold outside!”

“So you’re perfectly content with me walking in the snow?”

“Miles, just shut your fool mouth and get us coffee,” Franziska calls from the sci-fi section. “I’ll even pay for it if you just get your ass moving.”

Kay gives Miles a pointed look. “You can’t really argue with that.”

“Do I need to remind you that I’m your boss?”

Franziska sticks her head out from around the shelf. She looks unimpressed. “Really, little brother, we all know I’m the boss here. Now be a good employee and get us coffee. I’d like it black with a packet of sugar.”

Miles sighs. He should really fire both of them and be done with it. Though, he’s not sure he’s willing to train in and deal with new hires. Perhaps he should just close the store entirely, then. It would make his life a whole lot easier, he thinks (but he knows, deep, deep down, that he wouldn’t change this for the world). 

“Fine,” he says, much to Kay’s delight. “But I expect you to keep working in the meantime. That includes you, Kay.”

Kay rolls her eyes, a grin tugging at the edges of her mouth. “Yeah, yeah, sure. Scout’s honor or whatever.” 

She watches Miles tug on his coat and gloves, watches too as he moves to grab his scarf before remembering he gave it to Phoenix. 

“You know,” she says, “you should get Mr. Wright something too.”

Miles raises a brow at her over his shoulder as he buttons up his coat. “Oh?”

“Yeah! You can get us coffee and drop it off and then go visit him with hot chocolate or whatever he likes. He always gets you tea and stuff, so you should return the favor sometime, right?”

Miles hums. She has a fair point, but…”You’re not saying this just to keep me out of the store so you can slack off, are you?” He asks cooly, and Kay immediately blanches.

“What? No…I would never do something like that,” she replies, laughing nervously in a way that very clearly illustrates that she was doing exactly that. 

Miles shakes his head. “I’ll be back in a moment. You may take a break if you must.”

“And then you’re gonna go over to see Phoenix?” 

“Yes,” Miles says, and immediately shuts the door before he can hear whatever remark Kay has for that. 

Miles orders Phoenix a hot chocolate, the only thing he knows for sure he’ll like, along with Kay and Franziska’s usuals and a chai with extra cinnamon for himself.

Then, after a beat: “Diego, do you happen to have any cayenne?”

Miles ignores Kay giggling at him and Franziska’s raised eyebrows as he deposits their drinks and leaves. He’s certain Kay won’t get anything done while he’s gone, but that’s fine, really. There isn’t a lot the bookstore needs during this time of the year. 

As he crosses the street, carefully stepping around puddles of slush so he doesn’t stain his nice loafers he wonders whether Phoenix will even be there at all. What if it’s just Mia Fey at the counter and he has to face the embarrassment of stopping by with hot chocolate for someone who isn’t even working that day? And face Mia Fey? 

Miles shakes his head. He’ll be here, he thinks, that man, that man that could be his and might already be, and the moment Miles will lay eyes on him his heart will skip a beat and he marvels over that, marvels over the fact that there is someone in his life that can do that to him. 

He finds he likes that.

He likes that Phoenix Wright makes his heart race. 

With that thought lingering in his head, Miles takes a deep breath and steps inside. 

The plants are bright and verdant and the shop is warm, making Miles feel like he’s stepped back through time into summer despite the soft holiday music playing in the background. The mural on the far wall looks just as beautiful as he remembers it being, all carefully painted flowers and leaves and dragonflies with stained-glass wings, and he thinks about how just days ago the man who painted such a wonderful creation kissed his cheek, held his hand, smiled at him in that way that makes Miles feel fuzzy on the inside, a warmth in his chest like that of thick wool socks fresh from the dryer. 

It doesn’t take long to find Phoenix. In fact, he’s hard to miss; he’s the first thing Miles notices when he steps in, and not for the usual reasons. He notices Phoenix immediately because he is singing a very spirited rendition of Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart at the top of his lungs. He’s singing so loudly, in fact, that he doesn’t hear the bell above the door as Miles enters with his to-go cups.

He’s clearly on the clock: he’s wearing a Fey Flowers’ brand forest green apron on over blue jeans cuffed at the ankles and what both Trucy and Kay would call a grandpa sweater, the old kind striped with muted browns and greens that you only seem to be able to find at thrift shops. His hair is messy like he just woke up a few minutes ago, his sleeves rolled up to expose his tanned forearms as he moves from plant to plant with a silly little watering can shaped like a frog in one hand and a spray bottle (the one labeled THAT GOOD PLANT JUICE that Mia had at the farmer’s market) in the other.

Phoenix is using the spray bottle as a kind of microphone as he fills pebble trays and mists plants, singing the song’s chorus emphatically: “and I need you now tonight, and I need you more than ever,” he trills, spritzing a croton with a crooked grin on his face, “and if you only hold me tight we’ll be holding on forever.”

Miles feels a smile creeping across his own face as he quietly crosses the store to the counter, setting the to-go cups down. The first time he entered Fey’s Flowers Phoenix was singing Rhinestone Cowboy as he worked on the mural; Miles wonders if this is a habit of his, singing while working. His voice isn’t that bad, either, though it does crack slightly as he tries to hit the high notes. And it’s certainly amusing to watch him belt out a song so dramatically while holding a frog-shaped watering can. 

“Once upon a time I was falling in love,” Phoenix sings, standing on the tips of his toes to fill the pebble tray of a high-up plant with water, “and now I’m only falling apart-“

Miles clears his throat, and Phoenix jumps, whirling around so fast he nearly knocks over a poor fern. 

“M-Miles!” Phoenix says, his voice pitching slightly higher with surprise and his cheeks flushing red. “Hello! How…uh…how long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough,” Miles replies, not bothering to quell the smirk on his face. 

“I didn’t hear the bell.”

“Clearly.”

“I usually don’t sing that loudly when customers are here.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

“It’s just been a really slow day. I wasn’t really expecting anyone to come in.”

“Of course.” 

“And…erm… you know what, plants like it when you sing to them!” Phoenix says defensively. “It helps them grow…better. So this is totally fine and normal and you can stop judging me!”

“I’m not judging you at all,” Miles says, putting on the serious voice he usually reserves for Trucy when she’s telling him something particularly important about dragons or magic. “I wouldn’t doubt your expertise. You know more about plants than I do, after all.”

Phoenix rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “Yeah, yeah, shut up. You’re worse than Maya sometimes, you know that?”

“I severely doubt that.”

“On par, then. Is that for me?” Phoenix asks, pointing to the cups on the counter. 

“Yes. I wasn’t really sure if you liked coffee or tea, but I know you like hot chocolate.” 

“From Diego’s?”

Miles nods, hands Phoenix the cup as he draws closer. He watches Phoenix take a deep inhale of the steam, watches as his eyes widen in surprise. 

“No way. There’s cayenne in here?” 

“There is. Diego was impressed you prefer it spicy.”

Phoenix takes a sip and his eyes light up. “Oh my god. This is so good. I mean, not as good as mine, obviously, but still good. I really needed this right now. Both the hot chocolate and seeing you,” he says, grinning up at Miles over the rim of his cup and Miles smiles back, feeling his cheeks pleasantly warm. 

“I was going to get something for Trucy but I wasn’t sure what she’d like, or if she’d even be here, for that matter. I know she likes apple cider, but I’m afraid it’s out of season.”

“That’s okay,” Phoenix says, leaning on the counter and, in turn, slightly closer to Miles. “She’s out with Pearls, Mia and Maya anyway. But she likes most drinks. She likes peppermint hot chocolate, and strawberry lemonade.”

“Lemonade, even in winter?”

“Yeah. We’re the kind of family that eats ice cream in winter, Miles, why wouldn’t we also have strawberry lemonade?”

“Of course,” Miles says, huffing a soft, quiet laugh. “Next time, then. I’ll get her strawberry lemonade.”

“And hot chocolate with cayenne for me?” Phoenix asks, tilting his head.

“All I’ve ever seen you drink is hot chocolate, Phoenix, what else would I possibly get you?” 

Phoenix laughs at that, distinctive and memorable just like in Miles’s dream, and he grabs Miles’s hand with his free one, holds it loosely there between them as if he’s giving him the option to pull away if he wants to, but Miles doesn’t want to pull away. He stays there, lets Phoenix intertwine their fingers though he can feel his cheeks heat up. 

“Thank you,” Phoenix says, soft.

“Of course,” Miles replies. 

Phoenix smiles, that crooked, boyish grin. “I like how you always say that.”

“Say what?”

“You say of course all the time. Instead of you’re welcome. It’s just…nice. It feels like…I don’t know. Like it’s obvious that you’d do something worth thanking you for. Does that make sense?”

Miles stares at Phoenix for a moment. “I…suppose I’ve never really thought about it before.”

“Well, that’s even better then, isn’t it?” Phoenix says, taking another sip of his hot chocolate. “You say it without thinking about it.”

Miles nods, swallows, feels warm. Whatever song is playing in the background changes, turns to something softer, with violins and piano and gentle voices. And they’re close, he and Phoenix, and it seems neither have realized it. It’s funny, isn’t it, how when you become close with someone over time, suddenly the space between you shrinks? And you blink and they’re closer, and you find that you don’t mind. 

Then Phoenix looks up from his cup, steam still billowing from his cup and that mixed with Miles’s chai makes this small space between them smell like spice and clove and cinnamon. 

They’re close enough where Miles could count Phoenix’s eyelashes if he wanted to, could trace lines between the freckles on his flushed red cheeks and make up constellations. Close enough where he could kiss him. He knows Phoenix wants to, can see it in the way his blue-brown eyes drop to Miles’s mouth before snapping up as if he thinks he shouldn’t. But he doesn’t lean in, doesn’t pull away, like he’s waiting for Miles to make that move, to cross this monumental gap. 

He’s waiting for you, that little voice in Miles’s head says. He wants you to want this. 

Do you want this?

Miles’s heart stutters. His palm feels sweaty in Phoenix’s and god he’s going to kiss this man who smells of paint and plants and apple cinnamon air fresheners, whose lips will taste like hot chocolate spiced with cayenne, right here in the middle of the store and Phoenix knows it, too. He can hear Phoenix’s voice hitch when he leans in and it’s the loveliest thing he’s ever heard, and then - 

The bell above the door rings.

Miles jolts back so fast he rams his hip into the counter, and Phoenix (whose face is the same color as the scarlet peace lily in the corner) immediately plasters on a shaky customer-service smile to the young girl who walked in. 

“Hi, how can I help you?” He asks, and Miles can hear the slight tremor in his voice. 

“I’m looking for flowers for my girlfriend…she really likes sunflowers but I don’t think they’re in season right now,” the girl says, toying with the end of her long auburn hair. “So I was thinking about a cute houseplant or something-“ then, she pauses, raising her eyebrows at Phoenix and his reddened cheeks. “Um…are you okay?”

Phoenix flushes even deeper, and Miles has to hide his smile behind his hand as he watches him stutter out a reply. “W-what? Yes. Perfectly okay. What do you mean? We’re all okay here. Are you okay?”

The girl blinks, glancing between Phoenix and Miles, before shrugging. “Okay, whatever you say! Now. Houseplant for my girlfriend. What do you recommend?”

Phoenix ushers the girl over to some of the houseplants on the shelves, and she frets over the plants he glances over his shoulder to give Miles an embarrassed, awkward little smile, his cheeks still slightly red. Miles shakes his head, smiles back and wonders, wonders, wonders. 

Chapter Text

It’s the 20th of December. It’s a snowy Saturday, one that promises a snowstorm late into the night. The storm, when it comes, will be the heavy, blustery kind, and will lead to giant snow drifts on either side of the road once the plow comes through the next morning, perfect for snowball fights. Miles was never the sort of child to actually participate in snowball fights, but he recalls upon the few instances he witnessed one that it felt a bit like war: kids would pick their sides, hide behind their snowdrifts with their partners in arms and battle until their fingers grew stiff with cold through their mittens, their noses running and cheeks bright red. 

Thinking of that now, behind the front counter of the Corner Bookstore, Miles wonders if Phoenix was that kind of child, the kind to go into war alongside his friends and stay out so long that his parents would have to drag him home, with snow in his boots and wind-bitten cheeks. He wonders if he passed all of his strategies onto Trucy. He imagines those two get up to plenty of shenanigans in the snow, especially now that Kay has taught Trucy all her tricks as well. 

The Corner Bookstore has white fairy lights hung in the windows, and a green wreath made of holly branches and pine boughs hanging on the front door. Miles has very little to do with the actual decorating; ever since Kay began working at the bookstore she took on all that responsibility for herself, and it’s her fault that Miles can still find tiny nutcrackers hidden away in nooks and crannies all the way into June. Sometimes he questions whether she actually hid them all during December or if she keeps hiding them all year round for him to find. Both are very reasonable options for Kay Faraday.

She’s running around the store today like a bat out of hell; while Miles is minding the front counter, she’s been darting from patron to patron, recommending books and being as helpful as possible. He can always tell where she is because her earrings today are tiny bells, and they ring and jingle with every bouncing step she takes. She loves the holidays; she’s worn an ugly sweater nearly every day in December thus far, today’s sweater bearing a grouchy-looking pug and the letters BAH HUM PUG embroidered across the bottom. 

Franziska herself is already gone; she came in for her traditional half-day. Before she left, however, she walked up to Miles at the counter, completely cutting in front of a customer so she could reach her hand across and cup Miles’s cheek, her nails slightly sharp and biting though her touch was unexpectedly gentle. 

“You know where to find me,” she told Miles, her eyes like a wild, sweeping storm over the sea. “If you need anything, you will let me know, little brother.”

She says this every year, and every year, regardless of what Miles wants, Franziska barges into his apartment on Christmas to spend the day with him. She’ll do it this year, too, because they’re family, and that’s what family does. 

Before she left, she patted his cheek (though it felt more like a slap). “Don’t be a fool,” she snapped, and turned and left without another word, without even giving Miles the chance to speak. But Miles wasn't put out or upset; this is Franziska's love language, it's the only way she knows how to express how much she cares about her foolish, moronic, idiotic older little brother and Miles knows that, so as he watched her leave there was a smile on his face. And, thankfully, the customer she cut in front of was very understanding about the whole matter. 

As Kay jingles her way through the store, her journey from sci-fi to nonfiction marked by the soft, lovely chime of her earrings, yet another customer stops by the front counter, this one clutching a new copy of A River Enchanted and its sequel in their hands. He checks them out, they leave, and another customer steps up in their place. It’s been like this all day: the 20 th of December is always a busy day for the Corner Bookstore, simply because it’s the very last day the bookstore will be open this year. 

Even though they don’t fully understand why the Corner Bookstore closes for the last half of December, the people who live in this small and sleepy town are used to it. They make sure to buy their holiday presents and winter reading ahead of time; they don’t want to be stuck without books at the end of the year. Miles rarely gets questions about it anymore, except by confused tourists who see the sign in the window and at the front desk. The only explanation he ever gives is “personal reasons”. Sometimes, if he’s feeling generous, he’ll say it’s because of “family”. 

Which is true. It is because of family. 

Later today, when the clock hits five, the store will close, and Kay will put up a colorful sign in the window that reads see you next year in bright, bubbly letters and a smiling face at the bottom. That sign will not move until a few days after the new year. It’s been this way for as long as Miles has owned the Corner Bookstore. 

But this time it’s different. 

About an hour before the store closes, the bookstore gets a visitor amidst the last-minute customers. Miles was expecting it, though he thought it would be Phoenix. 

The bell above the door rings and Trucy Wright steps inside. She glances around, looking surprised at how many people are in the store. She looks small under her clothes, and Miles notes she’s wearing Pearl’s puffy pink coat. Her hair is tied back in two bouncing braids, snow melting in the plaits. She looks around before she finds Miles behind the counter; he gives her a nod as he finishes checking out a customer. 

Trucy pads up to the counter, placing her small hands on the edge. “Uncle Miles? Can I talk to you?”

“Er…I’m a little busy right now, Trucy,” Miles says, giving the patron waiting behind her an apologetic look. 

Kay pops out from around a shelf with a ringing of bells; she’d been recommending some books to a pair of young men, one with a flashy grin and wearing a rather garish amount of purple in Miles’s opinion, the other much shorter (and Miles might think the spiked hair an odd choice if he didn’t know Phoenix Wright). “I can take over the counter, boss,” she says brightly. “Go chat with Truce!” 

“Are you certain?” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Kay waves a dismissive hand. Her nails are sparkly red and green, and Miles absentmindedly wonders if Trucy painted them. Kay drops her voice to a hush as she passes him behind the counter, saying, “Go on then, Mr. Edgeworth, talk to your almost-daughter!”

Miles gives her a look and Kay, wholly used to it, sticks out her tongue at him.

“Alright, Trucy. Shall we talk, then?” Miles asks, and Trucy nods, her braids bouncing at her jawline. He takes her back to the nook; it’s a rare moment where the armchair isn’t occupied by Hemingway. Due to the business of the bookstore, he’s likely hiding in his box under the stairs, so Trucy settles down in the armchair in his place. It’s quieter back here, though they can still hear the bustle of patrons chatting about different titles and stomping their snowy boots all over Miles’s nice hardwood floors. He winces inwardly a bit; he’ll have to mop later tonight after close. 

Finally, Trucy speaks, and she gets right to the point. “Daddy said you were closing the store.”

She says it a bit accusingly, like she feels left out he hadn’t told her himself. Miles had wanted to, of course, but he’d never found a good time for it, having been swept up with the business of the season. In any case, he’d been expecting a conversation like this between the two of them. 

“It’s just for the season,” Miles explains gently, crouching down in front of the armchair so he can look Trucy in the eye. “But we’ll open up next year. We aren’t closing forever.”

“Oh,” Trucy says, frowning slightly. Not quite the reaction Miles had been expecting. “So you’re closing because of the holidays?”

“Yes, that’s partly why.”

Trucy hums. She fidgets a bit with the cuffs of her oversized sweater sleeves, looking as if she’s trying to solve a particularly difficult puzzle. “So…” she says hesitantly, “we…we aren’t gonna see you over the holidays, then, Uncle Miles?”

Her voice is laced with sadness, low notes and hesitancy that Miles hasn’t heard from her before, and it gives him pause. If he’s being honest, he hadn’t really thought about it. He wonders if this is the real reason why Trucy wanted to talk with him today.

“I…I’m not sure,” he says slowly. “I don’t usually spend much time with other people during this time of year.”

“Not even with Aunty Fran? Or Kay?”

Aunty Fran. It makes Miles smile. “I see them a bit, yes. It’s just…it’s a difficult time of year for me.”

Trucy hums again thoughtfully. She has her hands folded and still in her lap, now, and her feet don’t quite reach the ground so she’s swinging them back and forth, lightly thumping the armchair with her heels. She has a distant, lonely look in her eye, as if her thoughts have drifted elsewhere. 

“Trucy?” Miles asks, resting his hand beside her knee on the chair’s seat. “Are you alright?”

She pauses a moment before she replies, and when she does, her tone is small and uncertain. “I don’t really know,” she says, frowning. “I guess I just thought I would be able to see you over the holidays. I…I made you something and everything. For Christmas.”

Miles hesitates, then. He supposes he didn’t realize quite how much Trucy means to him until that very moment, when she’s right there before him like this, so upset over the mere idea that she might not be able to see him over the holidays. He feels his heart twist a bit there in his chest, and it’s habit for him to say no, to apologize and say maybe they can get together in January.

But this time it’s different. 

“Well…maybe we can work something out,” he says, surprising both her and himself. 

Trucy looks up, her eyes wide, watery. “You mean it?” She says, her voice soft and breathless like he just hung the moon in her name. “It would be okay if we saw you?”

Miles exhales slowly. “I…Yes. I think that would be alright,” he says, and he means it. 

It’s quarter past five. The floor is swept, the sign is up. The online orders cart is almost empty; whoever ordered The Golden Compass is simply going to have to wait until January. Miles blows out the candles on the counter and the smoke wisps up into the air in its ephemeral way, curling and twisting, over and over. Kay is crouched in front of the door, her hands lost in Pess’s considerable neck fluff. She always lingers on this day, always takes as long as possible to pull on her boots at coat, almost as if she’s unwilling to leave. 

“Do you have plans for the holidays, Kay?” Miles asks, approaching her by the door. 

Kay pauses in Pess’s vigorous petting. “Yeah, some. Sebby and I are gonna hang out a lot. Probably on Christmas, ‘cause, y’know. Maybe this is the year we can finally convince Franziska to join us for a romcom binge! Especially if Maya likes them.”

Miles nods. Sebastian and Kay don’t exactly have a lot of family to spend the holidays with, and he knows they often spend the season baking cookies and binge watching as many Hallmark and Lifetime movies as they possibly can. 

(Last year he heard they played a spirited game of Just Dance at one in the morning on Christmas day.)

One day he’ll join them. It’s a promise he made to Kay, once, that he’d join their holiday festivities. Though he hasn’t fulfilled that promise quite yet, both he and Kay know that he will, someday. If not through his own volition, perhaps Kay and Sebastian themselves dragging him from his apartment to theirs.

“Are…you doing anything, Mr. Edgeworth?” Kay asks, though he knows she knows his answer is always the same, and surely she’s expecting what he says every year, that he’ll be spending time with Pess, maybe Franziska.

“I think I may be spending time with the Wrights,” Miles says slowly, because this time it’s different. 

Kay’s dark brows crawl to her hairline. “ Really ?” She says, and she sounds genuinely shocked. “They really got to you, huh?”

“What do you mean?”

Kay shrugs. “Just that you’ve changed, Mr. Edgeworth. And it’s nice, actually! I think it’s good for you, the change.”

Miles hums. He’s not quite sure what to say to that, so he shuffles papers on the counter as Kay slowly gets ready to leave. She kisses Pess and slings on her coat, same as she always does. He’s expecting her next line as if it’s scenes from a play, the typical see you next year! And her sparkly laughter like the bells dangling from her ears as she bounces out the door. 

But this time it’s different. 

Kay hesitates in the doorway, her hand lingering there on the frame as she looks out into the snow. The heat is creeping out, the cold creeping in; Miles can feel it through his sweater. 

“Kay?” He asks. “Are you alright?”

When she answers her voice is distracted, faraway. “Yeah, yeah. I was just thinking about doing something stupid.”

“Oh?”

Kay glances over her shoulder, her eyes unusually bright. “Would you get mad at me?” she asks. “If I did something stupid?”

“I suppose it depends on what it is. Though, I don’t think I could be mad at you, Kay. Disappointed, perhaps, if you were being particularly foolish. But not mad.”

“Okay.” She looks back out at the snow, bouncing on the heels of her shoes - bright yellow canvas high-tops that don’t look suitable for the cold at all, in Miles’s opinion.

And then she turns and flings her arms around Miles’s middle, squeezing tight like she’s afraid he’ll vanish if she lets go. 

Miles freezes, for just a moment. But he’s become more experienced at hugs recently, so he’s a little more sure of himself on what to do. As she presses her face into Miles’s chest, he carefully wraps an arm around her back. 

“Kay?” He says, softly. She has never hugged him before. 

“Would you maybe want to hang out this year?” Kay asks, and she’s nervous, Miles can hear it in her voice, muffled as it is in the fabric of his sweater. “With me and Sebby? And Gummy? I know you don’t really do that, but…maybe this year things are different.” 

Her voice catches slightly, like she’s about to cry, but she keeps going. “I’ve been thinking about this all month and I kept trying to work myself up to ask you but I always kind of chickened out.”

“Is that why you’ve been putting in so much extra work and being so odd lately?” Miles asks.

Kay pulls back, and her eyes are slightly red when she rolls them. “ Odd ? I have not been odd. I’ve just been nervous! And people don’t say odd , we aren’t living in the freakin’ UK, Mr. Edgeworth, just say weird .”

Miles huffs a laugh. “Right, right.”

“So…will you? At least think about it?” Kay asks nervously. 

Miles hesitates, but he finds that the answer comes more easily than he expected. Perhaps he has changed, after all. 

“I will certainly think about it, Kay,” he says, and the look on her face is something wonderful.  

Two days after the bookstore closed for the season, Miles is reading. He usually is, however, so this is nothing new. He’s reading a book called Egg and Spoon , because a little girl he holds very close to his heart has told him it’s her favorite, so he feels he needs to read it (curiously, it’s written by the same man who wrote the Wicked series that eventually hit the stage). The book opens up with a monk being arrested, tossed in jail for some grievance done to the Tsar. He talks about writing the Tsar letters to spare his life, like Scheherazade in Arabian Nights . He talks about the Firebird, the only bird in the world who doesn’t cast a shadow because light has no shadow, you see, and the Firebird is made of light. But the story isn’t about the monk, it seems, as Miles turns the page, because now it is about a poor girl who fashioned the corner of her living room into a kind of stage to put on plays for her brothers. 

Miles hums. This does seem like a book Trucy would like. 

He makes it through a few chapters, sipping on his tea (a strange blend that Kay bought him once that he doesn’t exactly like , but feels he should drink anyway because that is the polite thing to do). Pess is sleeping on the couch beside him, and outside it’s just begun to snow. The weather promises a snowstorm in a few hours, the first real snowstorm of winter. Miles likes snowstorms when he’s in the mood for them; there’s something nice about being bundled up safe indoors with a cup of tea, a dog and a book while the weather rages outdoors. When Miles was young and his father still alive, they’d spend snowstorms building blanket forts in the living room, dragging in kitchen chairs and those little battery-operated tea lights to create a warm and cozy den safe from the storm. 

It still hurts to think about his father. Miles knows it will always hurt; it is a pain that will stick with him for the rest of his life, a chunk removed from his heart even though he has learned to cope with it. He will still find himself sleepless on the night of his death, and he will still cry and miss him more than he has missed anything in his life, but that is the way of things when you lose someone you love. It is a loss that never leaves you; you simply learn to live with it. 

Miles turns the page of his book. The poor girl it’s about - her name is Elena - her father is gone, too. She doesn’t know where he’s buried in the town’s little cemetery because they have no markers, so she picks flowers and spins around and hopes some of the blossoms land on his grave.

He’s taking another sip of his frankly horrible tea when he hears a knock at his door. And then another, and another, and another and another. 

Miles pauses in his reading. Perhaps if he waits long enough, he thinks, whoever is interrupting his evening will go away. He’d fully intended to spend the night alone, undisturbed. But whoever is at the door seems intent on ruining his plans, and continues pounding away, like some kind of madman. It can’t be Franziska, Miles thinks, because she has a key to the store, and Kay would’ve certainly picked the lock by now. Perhaps Gumshoe, come to check in on him? It wouldn’t be the first time. 

Miles sighs, sets down his book. He glances at Pess, who cocks her head at him, looking perfectly comfortable on the couch and unbothered by the frantic knocking at the door. 

“You’re a poor excuse for a guard dog,” he informs her, and she wags her tail in response. Silly beast. He pats her on the head as he gets to his feet. 

He puts his slippers on and, terrible cup of tea in hand, pads down the stairs into the darkness of the bookstore. He can’t see whoever is outside through the windows, not even when he turns on the lamp in the nook (but he’s certain it’s Gumshoe, because no one else would bother him this week except for that loyal idiot of a friend). As light floods the store he catches sight of Hemingway curled up in his bed, snoring away. Good lord, he’s a loud one, Miles thinks. 

“And you’re a poor excuse for a guard cat,” he tells Hemingway’s sleeping form, and ducks into the nook to scratch the old thing behind the ear. Hemingway chirps in his sleep, stretches out a paw before curling into a tight ball. Miles can hardly blame him for being relaxed. After years of being on the streets, Miles thinks he might take the offer to be relaxed, too, if he had it. 

And the knocks continue, rapping loud, loud, loud on the door. Miles huffs, rolls his eyes irritably as he unlocks the front door. When he wrenches it open he’s fully prepared to reprimand Gumshoe for ruining his quiet evening (and putting dents in his door) as he’s done so many times before, but this time it’s different. This time the words die in his throat.

Because on his doorstep is Phoenix Wright.

“Hi,” Phoenix says, lowering his mittened fist. He’s bundled up to high heaven, Miles’s scarf wrapped around his neck. 

“Erm. Hello,” Miles replies, and lord, those stairs must’ve taken something out of him because he feels breathless all of a sudden. He subconsciously tightens his grip on his mug and feels his heart stutter as Phoenix rubs at the back of his neck in that shy, boyish way of his. Tiny flecks of snow are settling in his dark hair, the chill turning his cheeks a soft, rosy red. He frowns, glancing away nervously under the weight of Miles’s stare.

“Are you gonna let me in or not?” Phoenix asks, toying with the end of the scarf. “It’s really cold out here.”

Miles blinks. He hadn’t realized he’d been standing right in the doorway; he’d been distracted by other things. “Oh, right, yes. Come in,” he says, stepping aside. 

“Thanks.” Phoenix brushes past him, glancing at Miles out of the corner of his eye as he passes. He shakes the snow out of his hair and shivers, the way you do when you don’t realize how cold you’d been until you step inside somewhere warm. 

“What are you doing here?” Miles asks, though he knows why. 

Phoenix starts, like he’d entirely forgotten Miles was there at all. “Oh! I…um…right. I was wondering…well, Trucy and I were both wondering…” he pauses, glances around the bookstore. He’s wringing his hands together; he’s nervous, and that makes Miles nervous. 

“Spit it out, Wright,” Miles says, grip tight on his mug. 

“Sorry, sorry. It’s not even…I’m kind of working myself up over something that’s really not that weird to ask. Does that ever happen to you? Like, you get embarrassed at first and then you get embarrassed about getting embarrassed over something that wasn’t worth getting embarrassed about?”

“Er…You’ve lost me a little,” Miles admits.  

“Yeah, uh…it wasn’t important. Do you wanna come over?”

He says it so fast that Miles doesn’t digest it at first. But once he does, he blinks. Stares. It’s an unexpected question, one that throws him off and he’s not quite sure what to say. He’s been asked by Franziska, by Gumshoe, even by Kay if he’d like to come over during this time of year but he always says no because he likes to be alone, he’s always been alone but he’s never expected it from Phoenix (though he never had a reason to expect it before this year). But he’s probably just asking to be nice - he doesn’t know why Miles spends this time of year alone, he doesn’t know why he closes the bookstore. He’s just asking to be nice, and Miles will say no, just like he does to Franziska, to Gumshoe, to Kay. 

“Miles?” Phoenix asks nervously. “Are you…gonna say something, or…?”

“You want me to come over?” Miles repeats.

Phoenix nods. “Well, yeah. Unless you have something going on, or if you just don’t want to, that’s totally fine. But I was just sitting down with Trucy and we were watching a movie and then I kept thinking about you and…” He pauses. Then looks at Miles fully, his eyes suddenly serious.

“Are you okay, Miles?” he asks, voice soft. 

“Am I…okay?”

“Yeah. Are you okay?”

Miles swallows. “…Why?” He asks, and he’s worried, for a moment, that perhaps Franziska told him, or Kay. It’s not like it’s a huge secret, his father’s death, he just…he wanted to tell Phoenix on his own time.

“Well…” Phoenix rubs at the back of his neck. “You said the holidays were hard for you, is all. And I don’t know why or what’s going on but I want to make sure that you’re okay. So I thought you could come over, if you want, and we don’t have to talk about it but I can make you hot chocolate. I promised you I’d put more cinnamon in next time, after all, and Trucy was asking if you’d come over to visit for the holidays too. She made you something.”

“Are you…bribing me with hot chocolate? And Trucy?” Miles says, raising a brow.

“I don’t know. Is it working?” Phoenix asks, tilting his head and Miles simply stands there, a little bit stunned because it hits him all at once, his love for this man despite the fact he’s loud and ridiculous and stubborn as a mule and it seems like the only thing he can make is hot chocolate. But he’s soft around the edges, isn’t he, and he’s gently wearing down all of Miles’s sharp and broken edges. 

Phoenix is staring at him expectantly, waiting for an answer. Miles sighs again, crosses behind the front counter. For some reason he wants space , a physical object to force distance between them. “I don’t know, Phoenix. I’ve always been alone this time of year.”

“I know. That’s part of the reason why I asked. I…I know we’re different, and we deal with things differently, probably, but…obviously you should do what’s right for you, but I think if I were in your shoes I’d want to be around people who care about me.”

People who care. Miles avoids Phoenix’s gaze, feels the warmth in his chest anyway. 

“I don’t know why this is a hard time of year for you and you seriously don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to or if you need more time, and you don’t have to come over or even if you want to you don’t have to come over now , but…I just want you to know that it’s an option,” Phoenix says carefully. “That…that I’m an option.”

That sentence alone settles deep in Miles’s chest, and it’s almost too much to bear. He doesn’t know what to say; he’s read countless books and knows so many words but he can’t formulate a proper response for this. No book he’s ever read has prepared him for a situation quite like this, of being known and being loved. 

The wind howls outside, and Phoenix leans on the counter picking at his nail polish all red and green. He’s nervous still, he’s been nervous since he walked in, and he clears his throat and asks with a voice as soft as falling snow, “Will you tell me?” 

Miles doesn’t ask for clarification; he knows what Phoenix is referring to. 

Phoenix is watching him, waiting for an answer. He looks patient and impatient all at the same time, as if he doesn’t want to push but is nervous about the wait between his question and Miles’s answer. It lies unspoken between them, the fact that Miles doesn’t have to, not right now or ever. But Phoenix, despite all his flaws, despite his stubbornness and lack of respect for Miles’s personal space, despite his persistence and bleeding heart that he wears bright red on his sleeve, despite his clumsiness on his feet and with his words has wiggled his way through the cracks in Miles’s armor. He has turned Miles’s life completely upside down and Miles will simply never forgive him for it, not until the end of his days, and he means that in the best way possible. 

So Miles sighs, crosses his arms and fidgets with the fabric at the crook of his elbow. It’s an old nervous tic, one he shares with his sister. “It’s not all that complicated,” he says slowly, staring down at the counter, at those old and faded coffee rings left behind by his father. Miles always puts his cup of tea on one of those rings, and he does that now, fits his cup right into one and Phoenix watches as he does it. “And honestly it’s more tradition than anything else, closing the store around this time of year. I used to do it because I needed to, but now I think…I think I just do it because I want to. It feels right to keep the tradition.”

Phoenix doesn’t say anything. He just waits, his silence an encouragement, an offer. Go on if you want. 

“It’s because of my father,” Miles says finally, heavily. He looks away from Phoenix and fumbles for the lighter, moving to light the wood-wick candle on the counter just to have something to do with his hands. “This store used to be his. Ours. It was just us and the store, really, and then he got sick when I was nine years old. It…wasn’t the kind of sickness that people recover from.”

“Miles,” Phoenix says softly. His hand folds over Miles’s on the counter. 

“He died a few days after Christmas. I didn’t get over his death for a while…I always blamed myself for it. When I was old enough to run the store by myself I was still in that mental place, and this time of year was difficult because of it. So I would close. Running the store without him has always been hard, but it’s harder during the holidays. It’s better now of course, and I’m not in that terrible headspace, thank god, but it still feels right to close the store and just…have this time for myself.”

The words aren’t nearly as hard to say as they once were, but they still hurt. When it’s clear that Miles is done, Phoenix brushes his thumb against the side of Miles’s hand. He doesn’t say anything for a while, but after a beat of silence he nods to the photograph hanging behind the front counter. 

“Is that him? The picture on the wall?”

Miles nods. 

“What was his name?”

He looks down at his cup of tea. “Gregory,” he says. “His name was Gregory.”

“He looks like a really good dad.”

“Yes. He was. He would’ve liked you.”

“Do you think?”

“Of course. He liked lost strays and misfits,” Miles says, his lips quirking into a tiny smile.

Phoenix snorts. “Wow, thanks so much. I’m glad I know what you think of me now,” he says, faking anger, before it melts away and he leans in a little closer over the desk. “Seriously, though. Thank you for telling me. I really appreciate that, but hope I didn’t force you into it.”

“You didn’t,” Miles insists. “I wouldn’t have told you unless I wanted to. And besides,” he says, his smile growing a bit, “I told you I would. Just like you told me you’d put more cinnamon in my hot chocolate the next time you make it.”

“I don’t think those two promises are on the same level, Miles.”

“Perhaps not. But hot chocolate does seem very important in your family.”

“It is. That’s why I want to figure out how to perfect it for you. I even know exactly how Kay likes it - she likes it with dark chocolate, whipped cream and a candy cane.”

“Dark chocolate sounds nice.”

“We can try it with dark chocolate if you want. Dark chocolate and lots of cinnamon.”

“Wonderful.”

Phoenix chuckles, gentle. Miles likes that sound, he thinks. He wonders if he likes that sound simply because it’s Phoenix making it, or because Miles knows he’s the one who made him laugh in the first place. They fall into silence after that, for just a moment, but it’s a soft and companionable silence, not one of those that feels awkward or tense. It’s just them, in a bookstore in the snow. Just Phoenix and Miles. 

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Phoenix mutters, and his voice is so soft it doesn’t break the silence so much as gently part it. He rests his cheek on his folded arms, looking up at Miles half-through his lashes. “I was worried about you.”

“Were you?” 

“Of course I was. Why wouldn’t I be worried about you?”

Miles shrugs. He suddenly feels shy, nervous, like they’re approaching something serious that they cannot turn back from. “I…well. I don’t know, I suppose. You’re…unexpected, sometimes.”

“Unexpected?” Phoenix asks, propping himself up. “How am I unexpected?”

“I don’t know. You’ve been unexpected from the beginning, Phoenix Wright.”

And it’s true. Phoenix has surprised Miles at every turn, from the moment he entered the bookstore chasing down his daughter with paint on his skin and gold in his eyes. 

Phoenix huffs. “I don’t know about that . I think you’ve been the unexpected one, Miles, with…you know. All of this?” He waves a hand between them. 

“All of this?” Miles says, amazed that he’s able to keep his voice as calm and steady as he does. 

“Yeah. All of this,” Phoenix repeats, and his gaze is almost too unbearable to face. But Miles doesn’t break it, not quite yet. He doesn’t know if that makes him brave or foolish. 

Phoenix is the one to break their silence; he was always the braver of the two. “Miles,” he says softly, and he tilts his head to the side in that way of his, his eyes strange and beautiful in the flickering candlelight. “You have to know by now, don’t you?”

Miles swallows, habit deciding he wants to play dumb. “Whatever do you mean?”

He starts to raise his mug to take a sip of his lukewarm, mediocre tea, just to give himself something to do, focusing on the way the liquid laps at the ceramic sides like a tiny ocean contained in just a cup. It’s because Miles is looking down at his tea that he’s surprised when Phoenix wraps his hands around his, gently taking the mug from his hand and setting it down on the counter, right beside the lucky bamboo plant, the one with two stems that symbolizes love. He brings their hands down, intertwines their fingers; his hands are still slightly cold from the outside chill, but they’re quickly warming. 

“Miles,” he repeats, his voice low, soft, slightly shaky. He’s nervous. He’s staring at their hands instead of at Miles’s face, and his words seem to catch, fizzle out on his tongue before he can say any more. Miles feels as his grip tightens every so slightly before Phoenix ducks, his head drooping down low until his forehead touches their knuckles. 

“Phoenix?” Miles asks, barely above a whisper. How could he speak any louder when his heart is pounding in his throat? His lungs are empty, the way they are when he steps out from the warmth of his store into the cold and the sudden chill leaves him breathless.

When Phoenix exhales Miles feels it, a soft rush of air over their intertwined fingers. “Shit,” Phoenix says, soft like a sigh. “I’m sorry, I just…I thought I could wait this all out. I thought I was stronger than this.”

“What are you talking about?” Miles asks, bemused. Phoenix says something else but he’s talking so softly that Miles can’t hear him, so he leans in closer but then Phoenix lifts his face and they’re inches apart, the longest inches in the world. 

“Miles, I like you so much,” Phoenix whispers, his eyes bright and earnest and painfully honest, the words tumbling out of his mouth like a secret told on a playground by one shy boy to another. “And this whole time I’ve been trying so hard not to scare you off or freak you out, and I thought, okay, I’ll be patient. I’m good at being patient. I’ll just wait for you to make the first move because I want to do this at your pace, but now it feels like we’ve just been dancing around each other in circles for weeks and god, Miles, I almost kissed you in the flower shop the other day. I wanted to so badly and I think you did too and ever since the farmer’s market I’ve just wanted…I just want…” he trails off, staring at Miles with that wild look in his mismatched eyes and his gaze flickers down for just a moment to Miles’s mouth before snapping back up. “I want to stop being patient.”

Miles swallows, or at least tries to; his mouth is too dry. His heart feels like it’s either about to stop entirely or burst right out of his chest, stamping a staccato rhythm against his ribcage, caged birds beating their wings. Caged birds about to be freed. 

He thinks he might die. He really does. 

Phoenix must’ve misread the look on his face because he leans back slightly, pulls his hands away and Miles immediately misses their warmth. “I’m sorry,” he says anxiously. “Shit, I’m sorry, Miles, we can forget I ever said anything-“

“Phoenix-“

 “I don’t want to push you or make you move too fast, so we can just…we can forget about this, if you want,” Phoenix continues, his voice desperate like a drowning man begging the water not to pull him deeper. “We can take it slow.”

And they could. Miles could make that escape if he wanted to, he has plenty of time to play dumb, to forget this ever happened, to pretend like he doesn’t want exactly what Phoenix is asking of him and Phoenix would let him, too, because he’s just that kind of person. But as Miles stands there and looks at the desperate expression on Phoenix Wright’s face, at his wild eyes and he just knows , god, he knows and it’s like honey on his tongue. 

“I don’t want to,” Miles says. 

Phoenix sucks in a sharp breath. His cheeks are red. “You…you don’t…want to?”

“No. I don’t.” 

Miles circles around the counter. He takes his time, not to be a tease but because he’s trying to quell the shake in his hands, that lovely beat of his heart that he’s grown so used to, grown to like. 

Phoenix is watching Miles with his crooked eyebrows slightly furrowed. He’s a ball of nervous energy, Miles can tell that much without even looking at his face: his spine is stiff, his hands are tight fists at his side like he needs to hold them back lest he do something with them he might regret. Miles feels nervous too, up until the point when he looks up and meets Phoenix’s gaze so much more nervous and vulnerable than his own, and suddenly he feels calm. 

And why wouldn’t he, really? He knows the answer to this question, he knows how this moment will end. Like a story he’s already read the last few pages of. He can feel it like lightning in his veins, thunder thrumming in his bones. 

Phoenix swallows. “Do…do you mean you…”

“Yes,” Miles says instantly, and watches as Phoenix’s cheeks turn even redder. 

“R-really? You’re not…you’re not joking, right? Miles, I swear to god you have to tell me if you’re joking.”

Miles quirks a brow. “Does this seem like something I would joke about to you?”

Phoenix stares at him. His face is aflame, Miles’s probably is too. They stand there for a moment, two hearts beating in a bookstore in the snow, barely a foot apart. 

And then Phoenix does exactly what he does best.

He steps into Miles’s personal space.

His hands come up, painted nails and painted skin, his thumbs brush at Miles’s cheeks. His hands are warm and shaking with nerves; Miles leans in ever so slightly to the touch without thinking about it. They’re the same height, he and Phoenix, which means he can look right into Phoenix’s gaze, which has turned both determined and jittery in the soft light of the store. 

“Miles Edgeworth,” Phoenix says firmly. “I’m going to kiss you.”

He knew it was coming, god, he did, but still Miles feels his brain short-circuit. 

And Phoenix blanches instantly. “Okay, okay, wait,” he stammers. “C- can I? Kiss you, I mean. Because if you say no that’s totally okay too. I really want to kiss you, like, really badly, but if you don’t want me to kiss you I won’t. I’m all about consent and stuff and I’ve been trying to teach Trucy about consent so if I didn’t ask you for your consent I’d feel like a really big hypocrite, especially if you didn’t actually want me to kiss you. Then I’d feel like an asshole and a hypocrite. And I don’t want to pressure you into anything because that’s important too so don’t feel like you have to say yes because even though I want this you don’t have to and if it’s uncomfortable we can stop and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. Which is why I’m asking for your consent. So…do I have your consent? To kiss you?” Phoenix swallows. “I’ve said the word consent a lot.” 

“You’re an idiot,” Miles says.

“What do you-“

And in this dance of theirs Miles takes the lead once more, shifting forward to take Phoenix gently by the collar of his shirt and Phoenix’s mouth snaps shut as he leans in. It’s nothing monumental, nothing earth shattering. It’s just soft and sweet and simple, the kind of kiss that feels easy to do. For a moment, Phoenix just stands there, his hands drifting from Miles’s cheeks to his jaw until he finally seems to get with the program and kisses back, the tips of his fingers brushing at the hair at Miles’s nape. One of his arms drops, wraps around the small of Miles’s back to pull him in, to close that tiny gap between them and the thumb of his other hand brushes at the skin of Miles’s cheek. His lips are slightly chapped, and Miles fancies he can feel the soft flutter of Phoenix’s eyelashes against his cheekbone when he shifts, tilts his head, shivers at the way Phoenix’s fingers slip into his hair. 

It doesn’t last long, but that’s okay, because when Phoenix pulls back Miles gets to see that lovely, dazed look in his pretty, starry eyes. It’s there for a brief moment until the realization hits, and Phoenix’s face flushes red like he’s been lit aflame. 

“ Dios mío,” Phoenix whispers, his hands shooting to his mouth. Miles misses their warmth at his back. “Oh god. Oh my god. I just kissed you - Miles, I just kissed you.”

“Yes, I was there,” Miles agrees, feeling slightly lightheaded. 

“I’m…fuck. Can you…can you give me a moment?”

Miles nods, leans against the front counter and watches in amusement as Phoenix turns away, the tips of his ears bright red as he fans frantically at his face. You were the one who started it, Miles thinks, and wonders a bit at how calm he feels himself. He thought he’d be panicking in this sort of situation, like his heart would be close to bursting from his chest. But he feels calm, content, and delightfully happy. He brushes his thumb across his lips, wondering now at the way Phoenix’s had felt. 

Nice, he thinks. They felt nice. 

“I like you too,” Miles says, an answer to Phoenix’s unspoken question from before, echoes of a conversation they once had in a dark hallway, Phoenix lingering in the door of his bedroom with bright eyes. “I like you a lot, Phoenix Wright,” he says, then pauses, the words stuck in his throat, because Miles Edgeworth is not a man who simply throws his words around. To him, words have weight, substance, meaning , and the words currently stuck there in his throat are the heaviest words he knows, ones he has rarely said to anyone beside his sister, beside his dog, beside his father as he lay dying in the hospital and a thousand times before that. These words belong to so few in his life, but god, they belong to this man, too.

“Phoenix,” Miles says faintly. “I think I might be in love with you.”

The back of Phoenix’s tanned neck flushes red, and he whips around, eyes wide. He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, before he lunges forward and flings his arms around Miles’s neck, hugs him so tightly that he squeezes all the air out of his lungs. He’s shaking slightly and for a moment Miles thinks Phoenix is crying before he pulls back and sees that his blue-brown eyes are sparkling with laughter.  

“I think I’m in love with you too,” Phoenix says, and when he kisses Miles for the second time his hands are firm on either side of his face and he can feel his smile against his own. 

And when they part, Miles slightly breathless and Phoenix flushed red, Miles asks, “Would you and Trucy want to come over tomorrow?” 

“Yes,” Phoenix says instantly, before Miles can even finish the question. “ Yes. ”

Trucy shrieks in delight the moment Miles opens the door to the bookstore the next day, tackling him in a hug. Miles looks up at Phoenix behind her, who looks sheepish and red-cheeked (though that might be from the chill).

“I take it she knows?” Miles says wryly. 

Phoenix rubs at the back of his neck. “She…may have guessed some things.”

“Daddy didn’t stop smiling for hours after he got home!” Trucy exclaims, her arms still wrapped around Miles. She has her bangs pinned away from her eyes with a clip shaped like a holly leaf. “And he kept talking to himself in the kitchen and freaking out and he wouldn’t stop until I sat on his legs and made him tell me what happened.”

“Good lord.”

Phoenix shakes his head, unwrapping what was once Miles’s scarf from his neck and hanging it on the coat rack. “Yeah, don’t let that innocent face fool you. You’re worse than Maya sometimes, you know that, Truce?” he says, reaching over to muss up her hair but she ducks before he can get to her, darting behind Miles and using him like a shield. Phoenix pauses in front of Miles, his hand still raised, ready to muss some hair. 

“Don’t you dare,” Miles says darkly. 

“What do you think, Truce? Should I do it?” Phoenix asks, not taking his eyes off Miles. There’s a smile inching across his face, that old familiar thing, crooked and boyish. It takes nearly all of Miles’s effort not to smile back.

Trucy laughs, the sound lovely and loud as she slips to Miles’s side, hugs his arm to her chest. “I wouldn’t, Daddy. He looks all nice for you! Don’t ruin it!”

“First of all, I look nice for myself , Trucy, thank you,” Miles says, arching a brow down at her. “And secondly, thank you. I would rather your father not mess up my hair.” 

Trucy giggles, the kind of giggle that makes her eyes close with the force of it, and squeezes his arm tighter. And then she looks up at Miles with her eyes bright and innocent, and asks the question that nearly stops his heart right there and then, more than anything Phoenix had said to him yesterday and there’s a smile on her lips as she says it: “Does this mean I can call you Papa Miles now?” 

Miles chokes on air itself and Phoenix’s face practically erupts in flames. 

“ Trucy ,” Phoenix wheezes, covering his face with his hands. “We talked about this.”

“You talked about this?” Miles repeats, his voice faint. 

Trucy bats her lashes. “Only for like, five minutes,” she says sweetly. 

“She’s a menace,” Phoenix mutters, shaking his head. “You’re a menace, Trucy, you hear me?”

Trucy giggles, finally releasing Miles so she can tackle her father. Their laughter fills the store, bounces off the walls, echoes in Miles’s ears as Phoenix picks Trucy up off her feet and spins her around. He eventually lets her go so they can both take off their boots and actually move in from the doorway (Miles, having mopped the floors a few days earlier, does not want to do it again).

As Trucy takes off her snow boots, Miles sees she’s wearing thick, fuzzy socks patterned to look like a calico cat. (Phoenix, once he takes off his own boots, is wearing similar socks patterned like a tabby’s stripes.) It makes Miles feel as if his own socks are rather dull. 

Once their boots are off and coats hung up, Phoenix gives Trucy a very pointed look. “Trucy, would you like to take Pess upstairs? Or would you like to cause more chaos down here?”

“Can I cause chaos upstairs?” Trucy asks, and god, she sounds so much like Kay. 

Miles huffs a laugh at their resemblance alone. “I would prefer it if you didn’t, Trucy,” he tells her. “Perhaps refrain from breaking things.”

Trucy giggles. “Okay, Uncle Miles,” she says, emphasizing the uncle. “ C’mon, Pess! Race you upstairs!”

As Trucy takes off like a rocket, Pess hot on her heels (which makes Miles inwardly wince, as he’s not exactly a fan of people running through his store), Phoenix leans in to take Miles’s hands in his own. 

“Hey,” he says softly. 

“Hello,” Miles replies. 

“Sorry about…all that. And thank you for letting us come over,” Phoenix continues, though he remains in Miles’s personal space like he belongs there, his thumbs brushing over Miles’s knuckles. “You can kick us out literally anytime, okay? I didn’t tell Trucy anything you told me last night about your dad, but she’ll respect it if you need time to yourself.”

Miles nods. “I appreciate that. Thank you.” He brushes back his bangs, glances back at the stairs. “I’ll tell her about him sometime, perhaps next week.”

“You can take your time.”

“She deserves to know just as much as you.”

Phoenix smiles. He leans in slightly, bumps Miles’s shoulder with his own. “Hey,” he says.

Miles raises a brow. “You already said that.”

“I know. Can I kiss you?”

Miles swallows, fights back the sudden blush. There’s no point in getting sheepish now , is there, after everything? 

“Are you going to freak out this time?” Miles asks. 

Phoenix rolls his eyes. “No, Miles, I am not going to freak out. Are you going to let me live that down?”

“No, I don’t believe so,” Miles replies, smirking. 

“You’re the worst.”

“How charming of you to say.”

Phoenix makes a face before slipping his hand around the base of Miles’s neck, drawing him in. Their lips brush together and Phoenix smiles, tapping his pinky finger once, twice, three times against Miles’s jaw before pulling back. It’s nice, this feeling, something sweet and simple threaded through Miles’s heart. 

“So,” Miles says, once Phoenix pulls away and he’s regained control of his heart. “You talked about Trucy calling me-” “

Phoenix cuts him off instantly , his cheeks flushing even redder than before. “ Nope . We are not talking about that right now or I will…I don’t know what I’ll do. I'll probably die. We can discuss that at a later time.”

Miles raises his brows, amused, and he can tell that Phoenix sees the mirth in his eyes by the way he groans. 

“ She brought it up!” he says defensively. “It wasn’t even my idea, I was just saying that we’re…uh… happening and she said that and I told her that you probably don’t want to make that big of a jump right not considering we’ve only kissed like, three times or whatever - okay, not whatever , that was really important to me but you get what I’m saying but she was like “oh well I can’t just call him Uncle Miles because that’d be really weird” and I was like “well it’s kinda early for him to be co-adopting you right now, don’t you think, Trucy”, and then she said-”

“You’re rambling,” Miles cuts in, the corner of his mouth tugging into a smirk. 

Phoenix’s jaw snaps shut, and he’s silent for a moment before he rolls his eyes, a crooked grin gracing his own lips. “Okay, yeah, yeah. What I’m trying to say here is that she won’t call you that. Mainly because I’m not ready for that,” he says, chuckling awkwardly, “but…she just really loves you, Miles. That’s why she’s acting like that.”

“I know,” Miles says, and the feeling in his chest is something light and lovely like feathers and drifting snow and stars. 

Phoenix smiles and it reaches his eyes, making the crow’s feet there crinkle. “Good. Now! Shall we go and make sure my daughter isn’t causing chaos in your apartment?”

Miles rolls his eyes.“You know full well that when it comes to causing chaos, she’s not the Wright I’m concerned about.”

“Mean!” Phoenix gasps. “Maybe I’ll go and break a vase or something, then, because you hurt my feelings.”

Miles raises a brow, responding calmly. “You would only be proving my point.”

“Shit, you’re right. I guess I won’t break anything then. To prove you wrong.”

“How devious of you,” Miles says dryly, and Phoenix chuckles, planting one more quick peck before grabbing Miles by the hand and pulling him towards the stairs. Looking down at their joined hands, Miles is mildly amazed at how normal this all feels. It’s strange that he isn’t panicking, strange that he hasn’t closed himself off quite yet. But this has been a long time coming, he supposes, and he’s had his time to panic and close himself off. They’ve taken months to come to this moment. 

As they open the door to the apartment, left slightly ajar by Trucy, they’re startled by Hemingway materializing from out of nowhere and dashing between their legs, right into the living room where Trucy is curled up on the couch with Pess. 

Phoenix frowns, leaning on the doorframe. “Oh god,” he mutters, watching as Hemingway jumps onto the couch beside Trucy, clearly making himself at home. “He’s going to kill me tonight.”

“He’s not.”

“He’s like your protector or something, Miles. Now that we’re together he’s going to swoop in like an angry, overprotective family member and beat my ass.”

“Together?” Miles repeats. 

Phoenix blinks. He turns to face Miles fully, and suddenly he’s nervous, just like he was yesterday. “Y-yeah. Is that…is that too forward? We can be like…half-together if you want. Or not together at all, if that’s what you want. I’ll be super honest, I personally don’t want the last option.”

Miles smiles. His heart feels light, a feeling he isn’t often accustomed to around this time of year. It’s different, but not in a bad way. It’s okay. “No, no,” he says, toying with the cuff of his sweater. “It’s fine. It’s good, actually.”

Phoenix sucks in a breath, owl-eyed in the doorway. “It’s good?”

“Yes. I…I think I would like it.”

Phoenix’s face lights up, even more than last night, which Miles didn’t think was possible. He pulls Miles into a hug, tugging him into the small space in the doorway so their bodies fill up that frame. There’s little space between them but Miles finds he doesn’t really mind; he’s had so much practice lately with Phoenix taking up his personal space that he truly doesn’t notice anymore. 

“So…are we boyfriends?” Phoenix asks into Miles’s ear. 

Miles cringes. “ Ugh . No. That makes me feel as if I’m in high school.”

“Okay. Hmm…” Phoenix pulls back, leaning against the doorframe with his thinking-face on. “How about partners ?”

Miles hums, turning it over in his mind. “Partners,” he repeats, aware of Phoenix’s expectant look, aware of the fact Trucy is likely eavesdropping inside and is going to tell Kay everything the moment they next meet. But this is what he’s signed up for, isn’t it? This is his life, and these are the people he wants in it. So he nods, ducks his head a bit because he feels a bit shy, still, and his heart is thrumming strong in his chest. “Partners…is good.”

“Okay. Partners, then,” Phoenix says, and he giggles, like an excited little boy. “We’re partners, Miles.” 

“Are you going to freak out?” Miles asks, and he’s smiling too, perhaps wider than he ever has. 

“Only a little,” Phoenix replies, and he pulls Miles into another kiss, this one firmer than the last, both hands gentle on either side of Miles’s face. It only lasts a moment before Phoenix drops his face into the crook of Miles’s neck, his laughter soft on his skin and Miles can feel the vibrations of it. 

Partners. God. Miles feels his heart might burst. 

“Daddy!” Trucy calls; thankfully she can’t see them that well from her spot in the living room. “Stop taking so long!”

“Alright, alright, we’re coming,” Phoenix calls back. He glances back at Miles, his eyes lovely and sparkling before gesturing into the apartment with a tilt of his head. “Shall we?”

The moment they step inside and close the door, Trucy pounces on Uncle Miles. She grabs his hand in her own small one and points at Phoenix, who still has a grip on Miles’s other hand. 

“I’m stealing Uncle Miles,” she says sternly. “You can sit on the couch and wait.”

Phoenix snorts, dropping Miles’s hand and raising his to the sky, like he’s being arrested. “ Jeez , Truce. Clearly Franziska is rubbing off on you.”

Trucy holds her stern expression for just a few seconds longer before it breaks, and she giggles, hiding her smile behind her hand. “Daddy! I was trying to be serious. ”

“You were very serious, Trucy,” Phoenix insists, though his crooked smile says otherwise. “ And I will sit right here on the couch and won’t move a muscle until you’re back.”

“You better not!” 

At that, Trucy grabs Miles’s hand and tugs him into the kitchen. She quickly peers over the counter to make sure Phoenix is staying true to his word (which he is), then turns to Miles with her eyes big and sparkling. It does hit Miles a bit, that moment, as they stand in the kitchen where together they once stood all that time ago, when Miles made peppermint tea and wondered why on earth he let these two into his apartment in the middle of a storm. 

“I made you something,” Trucy says brightly. “For Christmas.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Miles says softly. 

“Well, duh, but I wanted to. I wanted to give it to you away from Daddy because I want it to be special. Now come down here so I can give it to you.” Trucy waves her hand impatiently, gesturing for Miles to crouch to her level.

“You truly have been learning from Franziska, haven’t you?” Miles quips, as he crouches down.

Trucy laughs, the sound bubbling up in her chest like she couldn’t even imagine not laughing. “She’s a good teacher! Now close your eyes.”

Miles obeys. He feels Trucy take his wrist, and the second he feels thread brush his skin he knows what she’s made for him. It takes her one or two tries for her small hands to get the knot just right, and when she does she tells him to open his eyes. He opens them to her bright, smiling face, her eyes wide and sparkling like stars, and a brand new bracelet on his wrist. 

“Now we match,” she says proudly, her hand fitting into Miles’s so their bracelets brush against each other. Whereas her bracelet is patterned with red and green diamonds, his is a pretty shade of maroon with tiny, carefully woven white hearts down the middle. He can tell just by looking at it that this bracelet took a lot of time. 

“Trucy,” Miles says softly. “This is lovely. Thank you.”

“You have to promise to wear it every day.”

“I promise,” Miles says, putting on his most serious voice. “I’ll think of you whenever I see it.”

Trucy grins again, and he loves her smile so much, loves the way it lights up a room and warms his heart. 

“I made it, but Daddy helped me find the right color,” Trucy explains, pointing to the maroon threads. “We were trying to find the same color as the suit you wore for Halloween.”

“Ah.” Miles smiles. “I should’ve guessed as such.”

“Daddy wanted to help make it, but he’s not really that good at weaving. He says his fingers are too big, but I think he did an okay job with mine! But…I did better with yours.” Trucy holds up her own bracelet, much more clumsily made than Miles’s own, green and red diamonds slightly worn and slightly fraying in the way that well-loved things often are, and that question Miles once thought to himself slips back into his mind. 

“Trucy,” he says, his tone careful, questioning. 

“Yes, Uncle Miles?”

Miles tilts his head to the side, tapping Trucy on the wrist, right at the knot of her faded bracelet. “When you first came to the bookstore, this…didn’t simply fall off, did it?”

Trucy blinks. She glances down at the bracelet, then back at Miles. Her gaze is serious, and she gets that look on her face that she has when she’s thoroughly thinking about something, her fingers toying with the bracelet at her wrist. Then, her seriousness breaks like a storm, and she smiles.

“No,” she says simply. “It didn’t.”

“You dropped it on purpose?”

Trucy nods. Miles exhales. 

“Why?”

Trucy hesitates. She keeps fidgeting with her bracelet, turning things over in her mind. Then she looks back up at Miles, suddenly serious again. “Can I tell you a secret?” she asks, just like she has before.

“Of course you can, Trucy.”

“Okay. Okay.” She stands on her tiptoes, glances into the living room over the counter as if to make sure Phoenix isn’t lingering nearby before turning back to Miles. “You can’t ever tell Daddy, okay? Do you promise?”

“I promise.”

“Pinky promise?”

“Of course.” Miles stretches out his pinky, and Trucy quickly takes it, sealing their promise. 

(Looking back on this moment, Miles will find it a little funny, kneeling on his kitchen tiles with Trucy, hiding away from Phoenix in the living room while she explains exactly why she dropped her bracelet in his bookstore all those months ago.)

“Well,” Trucy begins slowly, “I guess in the beginning I just wanted to meet you. I wanted to see what you were like,  ‘cause I’ve heard a lot about you, ‘cause people would talk about you at the flower shop sometimes and they’d say…not so nice things, but then sometimes we’d see you when we’re walking to the café and I always thought you looked kinda lonely and sad. And Daddy and Aunt Mia always thought you were probably at least a little nice.” 

“How encouraging to hear,” Miles says dryly.

Trucy giggles. “No, they did! Auntie Mia once told me that even though you seemed grumpy all the time you still always said hello to her in the morning to her, and that meant something. And she knows about stuff like that! She’s the best at figuring out if people are good and she thought that you were good ,” she says seriously, taking Miles by the hands. Her own hands are so small in his. “So in the beginning I kinda just wanted to see what was true and what you were really like.”

“In the beginning,” Miles repeats.

“Yeah, in the beginning. But then I met you and…I don’t know. You weren’t really what I thought you were gonna be like.”

“And what was I like?”

“Well…you were kinda grouchy and weird,” Trucy says, a smile tugging at her lips. 

Miles huffs a laugh. “Oh, is that all?” He says, faking offense. “Grouchy and weird?”

Trucy shoves him, laughing. “I didn’t mean it like that! I didn’t, Uncle Miles, I swear. I just meant that you were different. And… t his is the part you can’t tell Daddy, okay?”

Miles nods, waiting.

“Daddy…He’d talk about you sometimes to Auntie Mia. Before we met you. He’s always kind of liked you a little bit, I think, because he’s…” Trucy pauses, searching for the words. “He has a soft heart. Like a marshmallow. It’s easy for him to like people. And I wasn’t even thinking about Daddy when I came to meet you, but then when he came to get me and he met you and he was acting all weird around you and getting nervous and rambly like he does, and I just kind of…dropped my bracelet. I didn’t really think about it, it kind of just happened.” Trucy shrugs. 

Miles raises a brow. “So this was an elaborate match-making scheme, then?” He asks, choosing to ignore that new little tidbit of information.

“Not on purpose!” Trucy exclaims. “It just kind of happened. Like…it was a nice bonus. And I’m really happy it happened like that, because I don’t think you’re that lonely anymore.”

Miles stares at her for a moment, this lovely little girl in his kitchen who believes in real magic and dragons and has a smile that could melt glacial ice. He wonders if any of this would’ve happened if she hadn’t dropped her bracelet in his bookstore, if he would’ve somehow stumbled into that flower shop anyway or if Phoenix simply would’ve blazed his way into Miles’s life regardless. Perhaps she’s made with a little bit of magic after all.

“You, Trucy Wright,” Miles says slowly, “are unlike any person I’ve ever met before in my life.”

Trucy giggles, and there’s a bit of nerves in it. “Is…is that a good thing, Uncle Miles?”

Miles smiles, he can’t help it. “It’s a wonderful thing.”

And just like that, Trucy throws her arms around Miles’s neck and nearly knocks him over with the very force of it. Her cheek presses against his and he can feel her smile, bright and lovely. At one point in his life, Miles might’ve been mortified to be in such a situation, kneeling on his kitchen floor with the daughter of a man he loves practically choking him to death, but right now, in this moment, it feels nothing less than right, and he wraps his arm around her to hug her back.

“I love you,” Trucy whispers, right into Miles’s ear. 

Miles feels his breath catch in his throat. He lets himself hug her closer. “I love you too, Trucy,” he mutters back, and her delighted laughter as he says it quickly becomes one of his very favorite sounds. 

Eventually they return to the living room, once Miles makes his tea (chamomile) and Trucy raids his pantry for chocolate chips to snack on. What they find there, however, is rather unexpected. 

Pess is sleeping in her bed under the windowsill, which isn’t the unexpected part. That’s perfectly normal, but what isn’t is Phoenix, sitting ramrod straight on the couch, his eyes wide and wild like he’s being threatened at gunpoint. In his lap is Hemingway. 

“Oh my god, he likes you!” Trucy exclaims, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “See, Daddy, I knew he’d warm up to you!” 

Miles pinches the bridge of his nose. “How did this even happen? Hem hated you, Phoenix.”

“I didn’t even do anything!” Phoenix hisses. “I was just sitting here waiting for you and Trucy to finish up in the kitchen and he was wandering around and then he started getting really close and I honestly thought he was going to come like, attack me or something, like bite my toes off? And then he just… jumped up here and then I thought he was coming for my jugular but he just…laid down…and now I’m scared to move.” 

Phoenix says all of this in a frenzied whisper, though Hemingway clearly isn’t disturbed. The old, scraggly thing has curled up into a ball on Phoenix’s lap and has barely twitched his ear this entire time. He seems perfectly content exactly where he is. 

Miles says as such, as Phoenix’s frown deepens. “Well, he sure has a funny way of showing it.”

“He just takes a while to warm up to people,” Miles says, smile soft as he carefully settles next to Phoenix, doing his best not to disturb Hemingway. Phoenix instantly leans over the small divide between them so their arms align from elbow to shoulder, a movement so natural that it’s like he didn’t even think to do it. 

Phoenix quirks a crooked brow, smiles a crooked smile. “Yeah? He sounds like someone else I know.”

Miles rolls his eyes. “Alright, alright. Enough of that.”

Phoenix laughs, but cuts it short when Hemingway fidgets on his lap. “Oh god,” he mutters. “I’m so scared of this cat. You know, I was going to make your hot chocolate like I promised, with the extra cinnamon and everything, but I’m terrified to move him.”

Miles shakes his head, feels fond. “That’s alright. We’ll have time for hot chocolate later.”

“Yeah,” Phoenix says softly, bumping his temple against Miles’s. “We’ll have a lot of time.”

Then, Trucy comes in from the entryway. She’s holding a book close to her chest; Miles can’t quite see the title. “Can we read?” She asks, tapping the book with one finger. “Like we did last time? With Sherlock Holmes?”

“Of course, Trucy, that’s a wonderful idea.” Miles looks over to Phoenix, raising a brow. “Would you like to read again, Mr. Wright?”

“I read last time,” Phoenix says pointedly. “ And I have a cat in my lap that might kill me if I disturb him.”

“He won’t kill you.”

“You don’t know that. He’s lived on the streets for…probably a decade, Miles. He could be a serial killer.”

“He’s a cat ,” Miles says, exasperated. 

Phoenix sticks out his tongue. “A deadly cat.”

“Alright, alright. I suppose I’m reading, Trucy,” Miles says, and she holds the book out to him; she seems slightly bashful as she does, as if she’s nervous about her book choice. As Miles takes it, he’s surprised to find it’s Dragon Slippers , the book he picked out for Trucy the day they met. Looking at the cover feels almost nostalgic: a picture of a golden dragon looking down at a young woman with blonde hair. He looks back up at Trucy, his eyebrows raised. 

Trucy shrugs at his look, her smile sweet and shy. “It means a lot to me.”

“I think it’s a wonderful choice,” Miles says, smiling back. 

So Trucy slips into the space between Miles’s arm and chest, wrapping Miles’s arm around her back and waist, her head resting at that spot right above his heart. Pess follows her, jumping up onto the couch next to Trucy and settling her head on her paws, like she’s here to listen to the story too. Trucy reaches over Miles’s arm to scratch behind Pess’s ears, then returns her small hands to his forearm, the weight of them pleasant. Phoenix shifts slightly on Miles’s other side, intertwining his hand with Miles’s, slow, so as to not disturb Hemingway from his slumber. He brings Miles’s knuckles to his lips for just a brief moment, the movement simple, kind, before tucking their joined hands there in that space between their thighs. 

Miles opens the book with his free hand. The spine bends gently, having been opened many times before, the pages smooth beneath his fingertips. The wind blows outside, snow gusting across the windows like lovely drifting creatures peering in for just a brief, brief moment to see these three together, existing in the same space for the sheer and simple pleasure of enjoying one another’s company. A quiet bookstore owner, a soft-hearted artist, and the world’s youngest practicing magician. 

And it’s there, Miles can feel it, warm in his chest and glowing like a gently-burning ember. What he means to these two people, and what they mean to him. It feels like something new and familiar all at the same time, something frightening and wonderful. He knows this feeling, he does: it’s similar to what he has with Franziska, with what he has with Kay.

It feels like family. 

 Miles clears his throat, and his voice is soft as steady as reads Dragon Slippers’ very first line: 

“It was my aunt who decided to give me to the dragon.”

Chapter Text

And just like that, winter fades into spring.

The snow melts gradually, eroding away day by day beneath the sun, and all over town the little green things begin to open up and breathe. The lilacs and honeysuckles start to bloom, and Miles finds robins nesting in the eaves of the bookstore’s roof, much to Trucy’s delight. The birches and aspens unfurl their leaves first, bright green and new like fresh-cut emeralds, though the sugar maples that line the road won’t leaf out for a bit longer. The maples like to take their time; it’s something Gumshoe once told Miles, several springs ago. 

Despite spring cresting the horizon, there’s still just enough of a chill in the air for Phoenix to stubbornly insist on wearing his scarf, complaining about the cold whenever they go out. He’ll always wrap the scarf crookedly around his neck so the tasseled ends dangle at different heights, and when Miles goes to fix it Phoenix will smile and call him a perfectionist, then Trucy will demand that Miles fix her scarf because she’s decided she wants to be a perfectionist too just like Miles, and that soft and gentle flame will burn ever brighter in Miles’s chest. It’s a nice feeling. It’s one of several nice feelings Miles has become acquainted with.

It’s been a few months. A few months since that moment in the doorway, when Phoenix asked breathless and shy and nervous if Miles wanted to be with him. A few months since Trucy gave Miles a handmade bracelet he still wears, since she whispered in his ear that she loves him. A few months since Miles has opened his eyes to all the love in his life that he has always had, and all the love in his life that is new. 

And in the days that followed, bleeding into the new year and the reopening of the Corner Bookstore, found Miles telling all the people he held dear in his life what had happened (But not everything, of course. Some details Miles would prefer to keep to himself and figured certain people, like his sister, for example, really had no business knowing). 

Gumshoe had slapped him on the back so hard during one of their usual Sunday visits to the park that Miles very nearly face planted into the snow, and had worked himself up so much in his excitement that he’d started crying. “I-I’m just so happy for you, p-pal!” Gumshoe had stammered, his words slurred through his tears, and then hugged Miles hard enough to snap his spine in half. 

Franziska had scoffed. Miles had expected that reaction. He’d told her over Christmas, a day they’ve always spent together if only because Franziska refuses to take no for an answer (and has a key to both the bookstore and his apartment door, so it’s not like he can simply keep her out. Though, he cannot recall actually giving her said keys). But then, Franziska had put her hand on Miles’s shoulder, the sharp contours of her face softening ever so slightly. “I’m proud of you, you fucking moron,” she’d said, and he could tell she meant it. 

He hadn’t actually told Maya or Mia himself; they simply raced across the street one day as he was sweeping snow off the front stoop and tackled him from both sides (and he would later learn this maneuver has a name: a Fey sandwich). 

Maya had emphatically shouted in his ear that he was officially part of their family, which meant he was legally obligated to participate in their monthly Mario Kart tournaments and she really thinks he should consider playing as Princess Peach because Phoenix always plays as Princess Daisy and Maya firmly believes they should be lesbians together. 

Mia, on the other hand, had simply gripped Miles’s shoulder with a startling amount of force, looked him dead in the eye, and told him if he ever hurt Phoenix she would turn him into fertilizer for her plants.

Miles isn’t sure there’s anyone in his life that he fears more than Mia Fey. 

And when he told Kay over the phone two days after he and Phoenix officially got together, she nearly blew out his eardrums. 

“Ex-fucking- scuse me? ” She’d screamed, loud enough that Miles had to hold the phone away from his ear. 

“Kay, I hardly think that kind of language is necessary,” he said calmly, once Kay had finished. Despite that, he could feel the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth just imagining what she looked like on the other end of the phone, eyes wide as dinner plates and mouth half open, stunned into near speechlessness by Miles’s brief explanation of events. 

Near speechlessness, of course. Miles truly can’t think of anything that could cause Kay Faraday to completely lose her words, not even the fact that he and Phoenix Wright are together. Finally together, some might say. 

Some being certain employees of certain bookstores and flower shops. 

“Um, I think I’m allowed to swear as much as I want,” Kay exclaimed, her voice pitched high, “because my fucking boss didn’t tell me that he was gonna make a move on the hot dad across the street!”

At that point, Miles could hear Sebastian faintly in the background; he sounded distressed but his voice was too quiet for Miles to catch the words. Kay pulled away from the phone to tell him to shut up before returning, her voice breathless and excited.

“I knew this was coming. Like, literally, we all knew but I knew so hard that I honestly should’ve placed bets on it. Would you have been offended if we started betting on your love life? I’m just saying I could’ve made serious bank, and then I could buy the Demon Slayer box set that I’ve been saving up for…but whatever, that does not matter right now because this is even better! I am so fucking hyped up for you right now!” Kay babbled, talking at a mile a minute. “Oh, and Sebby says he’s also happy for you and that if I don’t stop screaming he’s going to make me talk to you outside and get pneumonia and die ‘cause he’s worried about us getting another noise complaint.”

“ I didn’t say that!” Sebastian shrieked in the background. That time, Miles heard him clear as day. 

“Okay, fine, it was implied,” Kay amended. “He implied that he wants me to get pneumonia and die.”

“ KAY.”

“Anyway! Are you guys gonna go on dates and stuff now? Can I come? Oh my god, we should go to the zoo! Mr. Edgeworth, will you take me and Sebby on your date to the zoo? Oh, can Trucy come too?” 

Miles, at that moment, was slightly relieved that no one was in his apartment that could see him smiling. Besides Pess and Hemingway, of course, but he’s certain they won’t tell anybody. “You think I should take him to the zoo?” 

“ Duh. The zoo is like, the best date idea,” Kay said defensively. “It’s low pressure, great for kids, and there’s tons of talking points if things get awkward! Not that I think they would get awkward but if there’s like, a weird lull in conversation, it doesn’t matter, ‘cause look over there!” Kay gasped dramatically on the other side of the phone, like she’d just caught sight of something incredible. “The tigers are fucking!”

“For heaven’s sake, Kay.”

But that was all a few months ago. 

Today, they’re going to the park. 

It’s Sunday, so Miles doesn’t have to mind the bookstore and Fey’s Flowers is closed for renovations (they’re putting in sturdier windows that aren’t quite as drafty), so Mia and Maya have decided to join them; they’ve said they’ll meet Miles, Phoenix, Kay and Trucy there. And Pess, of course. 

On their way, Trucy holds Miles’s hand in her right and Phoenix’s in her left; she likes to stand between them like this, swinging their joined hands back and forth, back and forth. She very excitedly tells Miles that Phoenix is letting her get her ears pierced for her birthday so she can wear the playing card earrings Miles got her at the farmer’s market last fall, and that Kay and Maya are going to let her borrow their earrings whenever she wants. Miles makes a mental note to tell Phoenix of a reputable piercer that he knows; an old friend from college who works at a tattoo parlor near town. Eccentric, and very into wolves. Kay loves him, and Miles is sure Trucy will too.

There are tiny flowers blooming along the sidewalk, little resilient things poking up through the melting snow. The sun is warm on Miles’s neck and Trucy’s hand is soft in his. He catches Phoenix’s eye as Trucy talks about how someday she wants to have those piercings that go up on the top of your ear that she doesn’t know the name for (cartilage, Kay supplies, and proceeds to tell Trucy that her ears are made out of the same thing as shark bones, which makes Trucy’s eyes go wide). Phoenix smiles, a soft, contented half-smile that creates those gentle creases at the corners of his eyes, and Miles can’t help smiling back, really.

It’s a wonderful concept, being loved. 

As if he could read Miles’s thoughts plain on his face, Phoenix leans over and kisses Miles on the cheek, eliciting loud, over-exaggerated groans of fake disgust from Kay and Trucy. To spite them further, Phoenix pulls away with a wet smack , at which Miles rolls his eyes. 

“C’mon, you little rascal, let’s get away from our gross dads,” Kay says jokingly, snatching Trucy up and trying to swing her around like Phoenix does, but she gives up halfway through. “Oh my god, you are so heavy,” she wheezes.

Trucy smacks her on the arm. “I am not ! Daddy can pick me up, and he’s super weak!”

“Wow. Thanks, Truce,” Phoenix says drily. 

Kay sniggers. 

Phoenix rolls his eyes, giving Miles a long-suffering look. “Do you see what I deal with? Can’t you discipline her or something? She listens to you way more than she listens to me. Which, I think, is kinda messed up considering I am literally your father, Trucy.”

Miles chuckles and puts on his most serious voice, crossing his arms over his chest to look as stern as possible. “Trucy, love, you’ve hurt your father’s feelings. Would you like to apologize?”

Trucy giggles, unaffected. She’s always been immune to Miles’s sternness, from the moment they met in the children’s section of the Corner Bookstore. “Sorry, Daddy,” she says. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings when I called you weak.”

“So you admit that I’m super strong?” Phoenix says, raising a brow. He’s fighting back a smile, Miles can tell.

Trucy blinks. “Papa Miles told me I shouldn’t lie.”

Kay bursts into full-bodied laughter at that, the sound ringing through the quiet street. Miles cracks a smirk but quickly hides it behind his hand when Phoenix glares at him.

“You’re supposed to be supporting me,” Phoenix says, mock-offended.

“I apologize,” Miles replies sincerely, and Phoenix just shakes his head. 

“You know, Maya always did say that your dad is an old man,” Kay stage-whispers to Trucy, and at that, Phoenix pounces. He promptly traps Kay in a headlock and proceeds to muss up her hair as much as he can. Kay starts shrieking and thrashing, causing Pess to bark at all the excitement. 

“Take it back!” Phoenix shouts, holding Kay close to his chest. “Take it back and I’ll spare your hair!”

Kay shakes her head wildly, her ponytail smacking Phoenix in the face. “Never!”

Miles sighs. It’s just like them to make such a scene in the middle of the street. He supposes he’s lucky there aren’t more people out and about, but surely the whole block can hear them with the racket they’re making. He does the only thing he can do, really: he gently shushes Pess so she stops barking. 

“Trucy! Abort mission! They’re fighting back!” Kay shrieks through her laughter, squirming against Phoenix’s grasp. He’s laughing too, and the very sound of their laughter, his and Kay’s and Trucy’s, all mingled together is something lovely and warm. “Quick! Bite his ankles so he lets me go!”

“But he’s my daddy, ” Trucy says indignantly, like the idea of Phoenix being her father is the only reason why she wouldn’t bite his ankles. 

Finally, Kay manages to wriggle free after jabbing Phoenix in the stomach with her elbow, and immediately takes off down the sidewalk, calling for Trucy (her little comrade) to escape these heathens and follow her to freedom. 

“One second!” Trucy calls back. She turns to Miles and quickly waves him down to her level so she can kiss him on the cheek, then turns to Phoenix. Luckily, he’s already doubled over from Kay’s elbow to the gut, so she doesn’t have to reach very far. She plants a kiss on his cheek despite Kay shouting that she’s consorting with the enemy.

“I love you!” Trucy says brightly, before racing off after Kay. He watches her chase Kay down the sidewalk, and when Pess tugs at her leash to follow he bends down to unclip it from her collar. She takes off after them like a shot. He can tell the moment they reach the park just a few yards ahead of them, over the little hill in the road, because he can hear Missile barking in excitement where he and Gumshoe are waiting for them. It’s Sunday, after all. 

“Are you alright?” Miles asks Phoenix, who’s still clutching his stomach.

“She hits hard ,” Phoenix croaks out. 

“Yes, she does.”

“I can’t believe you would let her abuse me like this.”

“I truly cannot control her, Phoenix.” 

Phoenix sighs, straightening up. His scarf slips a bit, that old white scarf that Miles gave him so long ago. Miles moves to fix it, his fingers brushing against the skin of Phoenix’s neck. Phoenix shivers, making a face at his cold hands. 

“You owe me hot chocolate when we get home,” he mutters, watching Miles fix the scarf. 

“You know I can’t make it as well as you do.”

“I like it when you make it, though. Even if you always put in too much milk. And too much nutmeg. And-”

Miles glares at him.

“It’s perfect, actually,” Phoenix says quickly. 

Miles huffs a laugh, finishing his job with the scarf and patting Phoenix’s chest. “There, all fixed.”

“Thanks, perfectionist.” Phoenix says, sliding closer to Miles and bumping his shoulder with his own. He intertwines their fingers, even though Miles’s hands are cold and Miles knows he doesn’t like that. “I love you.” 

“Despite the fact I make awful hot chocolate?” Miles says drily, raising his brows.

Phoenix smiles, leaning in to kiss Miles. It’s soft and chaste, and he cups Miles’s cheek with his free hand for just a moment before pulling away. “But you still try to make it, and that’s what matters.”

“If you say so.”

“I love you,” Phoenix repeats, squeezing his hand. He marvels Miles, sometimes, with the ease at which he says things like that. He and Trucy both love so easily and freely, like they were simply born to do it. Yet, their frequent usage of the word love doesn’t make it mean any less coming from their lips. It means everything to Miles, in fact, even though he sometimes struggles to say it. Phoenix has told him before that he never expects Miles to say that he loves him back because he knows he does.

But Miles is feeling brave and content today, so he brings up their joined hands to kiss Phoenix’s knuckles. “I love you, too,” he says, soft and gentle as the new leaves unfurling on the aspen trees, and Phoenix smiles like the sun. 

“Alright. Let’s go check on the kids and make sure they haven’t lit the park on fire.”

As they crest the hill, Phoenix humming faintly under his breath (Foreigner, of course), Miles spots Franziska and Maya walking along a path further away; Maya seems to be engrossed in quite the intense story, gesticulating wildly as she talks, and Franziska watches her with an uncharacteristically soft look on her face. Or perhaps it isn’t so uncharacteristic after all, and Miles simply hasn’t noticed it before. It’s a good look on her, he thinks. She deserves someone in her life to round out all of her sharp edges. 

Kay and Trucy have already vanished somewhere in the trees; Miles is beginning to suspect they have some kind of fort out there. Gumshoe is watching Pess and Missile wrestle in the grass, tossing a tennis ball between his hands as he chats with Mia, who’s laughing loudly and playing with the red scarf wrapped around her neck. They’ve bonded quite unexpectedly over plants, Mia and Gumshoe; just yesterday they were trading tips on keeping orchids alive.

It’s odd and wonderful, seeing this cobbled together collection of people he holds in his heart here in the same place. It’s growing more common these days, which Miles finds he enjoys. He’s found out a lot about himself this past year. Simple things, like how he likes the way Trucy keeps “accidentally” calling him papa instead of uncle , and that he likes how Phoenix’s fingers card through the fine hair at the nape of Miles’s neck when he kisses him. 

Despite this all, his life is not perfect. It never will be, and he’s okay with that. He thinks a perfect life might be rather dull, considering how many perfectly imperfect people he surrounds himself with. He’s thinking about this as he and Phoenix reach that little bridge that arches over the little river. 

Phoenix exhales, leaning his head on Miles’s shoulder. He wraps his arm around Miles’s, and the wind brushes long fingers through his night-sky hair. His faded summer freckles are going to come back soon, Miles thinks, as persistent as the streaks of paint on Phoenix’s tanned skin. There’s one there now, a streak of yellow along his fingers that reminds Miles of the color of sunflowers. 

“Weird little family we’ve got here, huh?” Phoenix says softly, his index finger tapping out an abstract rhythm on Miles’s knuckles. 

And that’s the perfect word for it, isn’t it, Miles thinks, looking out over the park full of the people he loves more than anything. “Yes,” he says, leaning a bit further into Phoenix. “But I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Phoenix smiles, crooked and boyish. “Not even for a lifetime supply of fancy tea?”

“No.”

“Or an alligator skin collar for Pess?”

“Why would I want that, Phoenix?”

“Okay, and hear me out on this one: what about like, a super old book? Like the kind that falls apart if you breathe on it too hard because it’s so ancient and you have to put it in one of those glass display cases with alarms on them like in Knives Out: Glass Onion with that guy and the Mona Lisa? Holy shit, his name is Miles too. Would you ever buy the Mona Lisa, do you think, if you had enough money to? Honestly, I probably wouldn’t ‘cause what the fuck am I supposed to do with the Mona Lisa ? Like, hang it up in my bedroom? I don’t want her watching me while I sleep, y’know? I guess that’s why Glass Onion Miles put it in his living room and not his bedroom…Although that probably wasn’t actually the Mona Lisa in the movie because it lit on fire so easily and the original Mona Lisa was painted on wood and not canvas so it probably wouldn’t have lit up that fast-”

Miles kisses him. As he pulls back Phoenix gives chase, planting one last kiss before his eyes flutter open and he meets Miles’s gaze, mirth in his eyes. 

“Did you just kiss me to shut me up?” he asks, quirking a brow. 

Miles shrugs. “Perhaps. If I did , it was certainly effective.”

“I suppose it was,” Phoenix says thoughtfully. Then, his eyes sparkle, and he adopts a dramatic tone, throwing an arm across his forehead. “Oh no, I think I’m gonna start talking about stupid shit again! You should probably kiss me before I-“

So Miles does, and when Phoenix laughs it’s soft and pleasant against his lips, and Miles cannot help but smile back.