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"He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how
We are working to completion, working on from then till now."The Old Astronomer to his Pupil - Sarah Williams
The door closes, calming the chaos from outside, and they’re alone.
Miles doesn’t know what to do.
It seemed as though this moment would never come. One’s wedding, as it turns out, is a remarkably public affair. The wedding is for other people, not for you, their planner had informed them brusquely at their first session. Miles had thought the idea ridiculous at first, but like so much of life with Phoenix Wright, he was proven wrong. It was almost a shock when the time to dance finally arrived and everything slowed for three blissfully short minutes in Phoenix’s arms, turns falling more in time to each other’s heartbeats than to the music. Then the spell had broken and the whirling riot of it all had started up again.
This wasn’t to say that their friends had been needy or unhelpful. On the contrary, Miles is fairly sure that the reason things hadn’t gone worse, considering past history, is thanks to a great combined effort from everyone they cared about. He will make sure that they all got their due diligence later, but right now, he doesn’t much care how it makes him sound; he wants time alone with his husband.
His husband .
A man who Miles no longer wants to address as anything else. A man who is sitting on their bed and undoing his tie with a weary look that is no different than the one he wears every night.
He is so beautiful that it nearly hurts to look at him, especially in repose, the most everyday moments that Miles has been privy to witness. And the enormity of it all settles over Miles like a layer of dust after an explosion, the fallout.
As long as they can remember, it seems that Miles and Phoenix have been orbiting each other around the circumstances of their lives, at first inadvertently and then choosing their paths, their near-collisions brief but more and more explosive each time as they drew closer. Now, though, there’s no separation, no other celestial bodies, just a double planet. All obstacles removed, however temporarily, to bring them closer and closer in gravitational harmony.
“Come here,” Phoenix says, his calloused hand outstretched, a smile on half his face.
Miles goes.
Their lips meet, an introduction, until their mouths open slow and natural. The kiss at the altar had been good, of course, it was a kiss from Phoenix, and naturally he’d insisted on dipping Miles—but this is only for them, and it’s all the more special for it. One stroke of Phoenix’s tongue to his is enough to make heat kindle within him, burning away the tension from earlier. He melts into the kiss, and Phoenix is there to hold him up, to help him sit fully on the bed.
How many times have they done this, in how many places?
The last time Miles had this feeling, this knowledge that everything was about to change, he’d had a ring on his left hand, too, except he wasn’t yet used to its weight. Everything else had been so unsure, their lives split between Germany and Los Angeles, Phoenix’s spark shoved into a tiny underground box of a room. Yet when Phoenix had knelt in front of him and asked the question, there was only one answer he’d known to be the truth.
That night when they’d made love, it had been quiet and desperate. It often was in those days, trying to fit everything into a space that would always be too small. They had kissed lips swollen, gripped clothes tight enough to wrinkle them, licked and bit at skin until marks formed. Of course, Miles had just gotten a far more permanent reminder, but he wanted the other ones, too, wanted Phoenix any way he could have him.
Was he selfish, because the ring wasn’t enough? For begging for Phoenix deeper, harder, more , instead of asking for what he really wanted, what he couldn’t have?
In the end, Phoenix had been the one to bring it up. Though he’d learned to be cryptic, he was still no match for how Miles could lawyer his way around a subject, and often dropped his act in favor of his old directness. He sweetened the sudden clarity of the request with a kiss to Miles’ neck just above the borrowed hoodie, a thumb rubbing over the ring: “Stay this time,” he whispered, his stubble scratching, his touch still echoing through Miles’ body like the ringing of a bell.
It wasn’t the first time they’d talked about it, but it was the first time Miles let his eyes close halfway and looked down at their hands together, their fingers with gold between. A future he’d only just begun to imagine. “I want to.” And it was a start.
This isn’t an end to that beginning, because there will be no end. ‘Til death do us part , they’d promised, mere hours ago. But it is a continuation to it, a perpetuous orbit no matter how far apart they strayed in the past. Here they are again, kissing on a bed as they’ve done a thousand different times, except this time Miles can answer the way he wants to, how he’s always wanted to. Yes, he’ll stay. He’ll stay for the rest of their lives.
The arousal is honey-slow as it creeps over them. It’s almost hard to believe that they’re alone now, after everything today. Yet soon the cheers and hollers in Miles’ ears fade ‘til he can only hear Phoenix’s panting breaths, and the congratulatory pats on his back recede from his consciousness to make way for one set of hands, calloused from piano keys and cards and slamming on tables. They leave liquid light behind as they trace over his skin, pull him closer and closer, until he’s bursting out, a supernova, too warm to be held inside his suit any longer.
This brings them to the next step, because they are Miles Edgeworth and Phoenix Wright, and there is always a next step.
This moment had been planned, and by Phoenix of all people. It was a shock when he had suggested it, turning his computer screen towards Miles with a smile in his particular shade of bashful mixed with confident. Even if they both know that they’re wearing lingerie underneath their suits… well, Miles certainly isn’t any less excited to see it. Yet all the same he’ll take his time while they disrobe. If everything else has been rushed, let them have this moment to themselves, unhurried, the only thing frantic about it the pace of their hearts in their chests.
Despite it all, Miles has the impulse to turn away as he sheds his suit, but he doesn’t—largely because he cannot move the second he sees the first bits of white lace beneath Phoenix’s dress shirt. In a trance, Miles takes off piece by piece, uncaring where they land for one of the only times in memory, before he turns and reaches into the outer compartment of his luggage, grabbing the last piece to complete the image: a white veil, clipped to the back of his hair. And he may not be a virgin, but with the way Phoenix looks at him, walking towards him like he’s walking on air, he feels… holy.
What is decidedly not is the kiss that they share, no preamble, just a crash against each other, lace against lace and warm skin beneath that. “Beautiful,” Phoenix mumbles, “you’re beautiful Miles, honey.” He winds his strong arms around Miles’ neck, and Miles’ fingers find the band of Phoenix’s garter belt, but neither of them are quite aware of the movements; they’re more focused on the addictive slide of their mouths together, hot and slick, clear in intention. They stumble to the bed, the edge of the mattress hitting the back of Phoenix’s knees and forcing him to sit, but it’s no hindrance. Throughout, they stay connected as much as they can, breaking only to laugh quietly and reseal their mouths, until Phoenix is flat on his back with Miles perched on his hips.
There’s only two thin layers of fabric between them, and Miles can feel the line of Phoenix’s cock beneath him as clearly as he can feel himself dripping. He gasps Phoenix’s name—his husband’s name—the first thing he’s said since they started kissing, and he grinds down, made clumsy and uninhibited by need he didn’t notice until now. “Please,” he says. He’s not sure what he’s asking for; he’d take anything at this point, because he already has everything. Phoenix has given him the world, and at the same time narrowed it down to the head of a pin.
Phoenix moves back a bit, bringing Miles along, atop the thick, expensive covers on their marriage bed. Miles braces a hand down on him, his left hand, the ring glinting in the light. It matches the engagement band, a promise fulfilled for all to see, and he makes a soft noise into the room’s quiet, both at the sight and the friction of movement. “Shh,” Phoenix pants, “it’s okay, Miles, I have you.”
He misinterpreted the sound, reading worry into it, but he speaks so kindly that Miles will never tire of hearing it. “I love you so very much,” Miles says to him. The response is silent, Phoenix’s hand coming up to cover his own, gold glinting above gold.
There is no way that Miles can stand to part from him now, even to take off the clothes that remain. Instead, he rolls his hips, and this time, he doesn’t have to ask for more. They’re united in wanting to be as close as possible. If they could, they’d wear each other, in scent and touch and bruises, the same way they’re wearing the lace.
Phoenix fumbles for the lube one-handed, clicking the cap open—Miles is too busy kissing a line on the cords of his neck to pay attention—and then his hand is pushing down the back of Miles’ panties, fumbling until he finds his hole. The touch isn’t even cold given how worked up they both are, so instead of gasping, Miles sinks into it gratefully, rocking back onto the finger, then forward so he presses up against Phoenix’s cock. Give and take is natural now, no longer some unwieldy thing seesawing back and forth between them.
They don’t have patience for too much preparation; it’s still difficult to believe, after everything, that this time together isn’t a ticking clock. With two fingers slipping out of him, Miles climbs unsteadily out of Phoenix’s lap and falls to the pillows. The whiteness of the sheets surrounds him. It would feel like a dream, like heaven, if it weren’t for the pure desire keeping him anchored. His husband’s face swims into focus above him, flushed and real , and Miles grabs him and pulls him close against him, inside him, until they’re finally one, like a statue cut from a single block of marble.
And when they come, only a few minutes later, it’s like two stars finally colliding. Everything goes too bright to see.
It’s not until they’re mostly asleep for the first time that night that Phoenix gives Miles one last gift, mouth half-buried in his hairline. “I’m gonna retake the bar,” he murmurs.
For something so important, he says it quietly enough that in his stupor, Miles might have thought he dreamed it completely, were it not for Phoenix lifting his hand to his lips and pressing a kiss right over the brand new band.
The truth is this: no matter how many celestial bodies Miles uses as a metaphor, they are firmly anchored to Earth. A mundane conclusion, perhaps, but after two lifetimes of world-shattering events, that seems like a dream that used to be out of reach, brought down like the stars for them to touch. It lights Miles’ life in the same way each time he sees his ring flashing from his left hand—the heavens bottled, his world made new.
He falls asleep, his husband in his arms, with all the certainty of an unbroken promise.