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Miles brushed his hand across his friend’s lapel one more time before stepping back.
“Well, how do you feel?”
Phoenix turned to look in one of the mirrors once more, tugging at the bottom of his jacket as a final measure.
“Almost like it’s 2019 again, you know?”
Miles gave a half smile at that. Of course he knew. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be standing here right now to argue with a 35 year-old man over what color his waistcoat should be. (The light blue complimented the best, according to the 16 year-old girl who was currently waiting in the main lobby of the shop they were in.)
There was a bit of a lull after that. A peaceful one though, one where 7 years of emptiness and loathing was finally drawing to a close. It made a few words get caught in Miles’s throat, a few that he’d been wanting to say for a while. (No, not those words. That could wait for another day.)
“I owe you so much.”
Phoenix made a weird noise in his throat at that. Something that sounded in between questioning and shock.
“Edgeworth, I...” he started quietly, before cutting himself off. “Don’t say that. You’ve done so much for me, just look!” He gestured at himself. “I wouldn’t be here without you, you know that. Who else would’ve filed so much paperwork just to get my sorry ass back in court?” Phoenix shot Edgeworth a joking grin, but the other man crossed only his arms, unconvinced.
The grin was only dropped after Phoenix saw the look in Miles’s eyes. He knew if Edgeworth was just complimenting him like that, along with the almost pitiful look in his eyes, it meant that his words had a lot more meaning behind them than Phoenix understood.
Meanwhile, Miles stood thinking about how to get Phoenix to accept his words. He knew he was fighting a losing battle-- no one could beat Phoenix Wright in a battle of compliments-- but the warmth in his heart told him that he must keep pushing the other man. How could he just stand there thinking that he’s done only the bare minimum for the people around him? Miles knew what the bare minimum for friendship looked like, and this quite certainly wasn’t it. A few bumps in the road changed nothing, did Wright not understand that?
“C’mon, Edgeworth, don’t make that face.” Phoenix’s grin had fallen into a comfortable half-smile. “What are friends for, right? As long as you keep coming to Trucy’s shows we’ll call it even.”
“Do you really think that? That all you’ve done for everyone is something we just shrug off?”
Phoenix’s face fully dropped as Miles’s posture grew more intense. His crossed arms interlocked tighter while his shoulders pushed back. The sadness in his grey eyes now had a new add-on of anger. No, not anger, frustration.
“Phoenix Wright, do you understand where I would be right now without you? Just because you’ve had a couple of mishaps in your own life doesn’t erase that-”
“Edgeworth, a new suit doesn’t make me a better person again-”
“That’s not what I said, and it has nothing to do with it. I just want you to understand that everything you’ve done was… worth it.”
Phoenix looked away in denial. Inside his head he almost wanted to accept the compliment, but the ongoing internal fight over if that was selfish or not had yet to be resolved.
“Phoenix, I would be dead without you.”
As Edgeworth’s glare hardened, Phoenix shifted his weight unto his other foot while still averting eye contact.
They weren’t silent for long before Phoenix started again.
“What do you mean by ‘worth it’?”
The words came out slow, and it took a moment for Edgeworth to process them.
“You. You being you was worth it,” Miles was stammering now. “Becoming a lawyer, running across a burning bridge, adopting the little girl who just showed up at your door… and saving a man who didn’t even want to save himself.”
“Miles…” Whether Miles was just imagining the glossiness in Phoenix’s eyes, he wasn’t completely sure.
Miles also wasn’t sure about what came over himself to hug the man in front of him, but despite his negativity towards physical contact, he was doing it anyway.
“Thank you, Phoenix. For everything.”
It took a second, but he was soon hugging back just as hard.
“I couldn't have done it without you.”
Miles smiled into Phoenix’s shoulder, and they just stood like that for a minute before going back to normal.