Are You Game?

Title: First Name Basis
Author: lythdan
Rating: T for nudity.
Warnings: Nothing but the above, really!
Word count: 366
Prompt: Phoenix/Edgeworth: old friends - underneath, you're still you
Summary: He'd used Phoenix's real name once. He could do it again.
A/N: I had to resist the opportunity to make an awful Wright pun at the end of this ficlet.



Miles remembers when Phoenix acquired that scar on his knee. It feels like another lifetime ago, as though the events of that summer day were experienced by another person, not him. But when he thinks about it, really thinks about it, he can envision himself watching his childhood friend be chased through the park by a young Larry Butz, a squirming frog in his hands. “Put it back, put it back!” Phoenix had squealed, before tripping and falling knees-first into the gravel.

It had been simpler times.

“What's wrong?” The Wright-in-the-present asks, watching Edgeworth's face inquisitively. Miles realizes he has been silent too long, his gaze on that scar, that knee. Phoenix's knee.

“Nothing,” he responds, and he can't resist adding, “some of us prefer to think in silence, Wright.”

Phoenix laughs then, a low chuckle. “You haven't changed a bit, Edgeworth. I hope you never do.” In a display of foolish sentimentality, he presses a kiss to Miles's forehead. When their relationship had first developed in this new direction, it had taken Miles some time to stop squirming away from such intimacy. It was strange how he'd felt more comfortable lying naked with the other man than he did receiving such honest affection. His life since his father's death had been nothing but smoke and mirrors; he'd almost allowed himself to believe that genuineness, honesty, truth no longer existed in this world.

But Wright had never been anything but himself. Perhaps it's time to reconcile past and present, to redefine the double-standard that had been evident in his thinking. “Hmph.” He takes a deep breath. “I've been thinking that you should call me Miles.” Their relationship had started that way so many years ago. They could be that genuine with each other once again. The way Wright's -- Phoenix's -- eyes lights up, Miles can tell that this is the sign he's been waiting for.

“Well, if you're sure, Miles.” Even if his words seek reassurance, Miles marvels at how naturally his name falls off Phoenix's lips.

He claps his hand in one of Phoenix's own. “Of course I am, Phoenix.” It's not nearly as difficult as he thought it would be.

It just feels... right.