and as I turned to make my way back home, the snow turned into rain

[bluffing-ruffle.livejournal.com]

WHO: Truth and The Law
WHERE: Outside the MAC
WHEN: December 30
WARNINGS: I don't think there's any? Maybe spoilers?
SUMMARY: Avoidant Person A meets Person B, who is the exact Person that Person A has been avoiding. Does 'Person' even look like a word anymore?
FORMAT: Whatever tickles your pickle.



First that man had come by to demonstrate the 'powers' he'd been given, and then--while Edgeworth was still reeling from that encounter--someone had messaged him, claiming to be Phoenix Wright. Granted, it was more than likely a trap, but... it did sound like the man, and if there was one person he could trust to know the truth in this place, it would be him. Even the chosen alias made reference to that.

('Truth'.

How amusing.)

He pulled his coat tighter around himself, and picked at the cuff of the left sleeve, as was his nervous habit. This was dangerous, but he'd already been abducted by a madman and brought to a place from which he was apparently somehow incapable of returning home--meeting this suspicious stranger couldn't make it any more difficult to leave.

His thoughts began returning to the last time he'd seen Wright, and as they did so, he frowned, hoping the other would show up sooner rather than later.

Comments

[likelikelaw.livejournal.com]

He'd forgotten his gloves and scarf in his haste to get out of the apartment (Trucy had wanted to come with him) and to the street in time to catch the bus, paying for the ten cent transfer with a quarter he had in the bottom of his coat pocket. It took twenty-three minutes to get to the M.A.C. and the ride was spent counting the minutes as they passed, checking his watch several times.

Nearly slipping on the icy sidewalk, he walks toward the entrance of the apartment building. It wasn't the cold that made his skin crawl, but the cameras he knew were on the building, watching him.

"Edgeworth," he said the name as soon as he saw the prosecutor, stopping a few feet short of him just outside the front of the building.

[bluffing-ruffle.livejournal.com]

He hadn't yet discovered the cameras, and nobody had mentioned the place being bugged--but he felt uneasy nonetheless. It was a feeling that was made even less bearable by the name that stung him. He hadn't been called that name in two months, and the same person who had last said it was doing so now. Again.

Edgeworth spun slowly on his heel, and felt his mouth become drier than the Gobi Desert, staring at the familiar black spikes.

There was nothing eloquent or even sarcastic that came to mind just then; he settled for glowering at the man instead.

[likelikelaw.livejournal.com]

All right, maybe the joke with Wally had been private, but the glare was almost enough to make him question if it had been. He should have realized sooner, but Edgeworth was acting intensely more hostile than he had when they had last spoken back home. Clearing his throat, he glances toward the doors of the M.A.C. before looking back at him.

"Good to see you too," he managed after a second of thought, keeping his hands in his pockets.

[bluffing-ruffle.livejournal.com]

If the icicles dripping down from the overhang behind him grew just that little bit longer, he never noticed--and how could he, facing away from them as he was?--but he did feel the old familiar icy tone creeping into his voice.

Strange. Such progress before now, and to be forced back into a position like this...

"You never knew when to stop chasing me."

No. He wasn't supposed to be like this anymore. The things that had happened--they were for his own good. He knew that.

Then why was it still so difficult to be grateful?

[likelikelaw.livejournal.com]

"Stop cha-" he chokes on the words in surprise, eyes widening briefly.

Edgeworth had stayed a few weeks after Iris' trial before his work had called him back to Europe. It'd been unscheduled, surprising them both, but Phoenix hadn't complained about it at the time. He didn't have much of a right to in the end. Edgeworth was a friend, but he couldn't force him to move back to Los Angeles after everything.

"I'm not chasing you," he muttered, leveling a glare in return.

It felt too much like the first time he'd talked to Edgeworth after getting his law degree. He couldn't be from before he'd disappeared. Not after he and Edgeworth had started to rebuild their friendship. He couldn't lose that. Not now.

Trying to keep the emotion from his voice, he asks the only question that makes sense, "What year is it?"

[bluffing-ruffle.livejournal.com]

Annoyed by the petulant reply and the ridiculous question, Edgeworth shook his head in mild irritation.

"2008, Wright. Or did you not take the Iron Man-provided calendar with you when you left?"

The snow fell a little quicker.

[likelikelaw.livejournal.com]

"If it was actually 2008, we'd be sixteen. Last time I checked, I was still twenty-seven," his voice is level and he shivers despite himself, hugging himself to keep the sudden chill away. "It might be 2008 here, but I meant back home in L.A."

It was like talking to a stranger almost. Edgeworth hadn't been this hostile toward him in years. Not since after his trial. The faint nagging feeling that he had heard about others coming in from different places in time hits him sharply and he looks away from Edgeworth to the row of meters across the street.

Return his gaze to the prosecutor, he examines him quietly in the rapidly falling snow. He looked younger, if only a little, the lines around his eyes less visible now, the grey in his hair only half so obvious, and the tension in his shoulders made it impossible not to realize. He'd missed it before, the subtle changes a few years made between the man he'd saved and the one he called a best friend.

"Your trial-?" he manages, his voice barely carrying between them, hoping that Edgeworth had at least been through that.

Phoenix would save him again if he had to, at any cost, but the idea of coming face to face with the same broken man he had three years ago was painful enough to make him unable to finish the question.

[bluffing-ruffle.livejournal.com]

"Yes," he replied, the word clipped and cold. "You did the same in my world as you no doubt did in yours. Exposed the truth."

And worse, the lies--most of which he had believed... and some of which he himself had perpetrated.

He said no more than that, just waiting, staring the other down, listening for the expected request for gratitude that was not presently forthcoming.

[likelikelaw.livejournal.com]

Phoenix swallowed, his throat tightening at his suspicions being confirmed. Tightening his hands into fists, he nods at the response, expecting it. He'd deal with it, get through to him again if he had to, and maybe - maybe prepare him for the future if he could. Engarde's trial had nearly broken Phoenix and the horrible fear of what might have happened if he had gotten the not guilty verdict he'd wanted so much those first two days, still paralyzed him sometimes. He'd learned his lesson then and hopefully whatever happened here would keep Edgeworth from changing the past when he returned.

, he reminded himself.

He thought briefly of Door and how quickly he had dashed out of the apartment to come here. He would have to explain this all to her now.

"I'm glad to see you," he said finally. "Even if...well, it's different."

[bluffing-ruffle.livejournal.com]

He wanted to turn on his heel and walk back into the apartment, to ignore this man and his words and his history. He couldn't possibly know everything; it couldn't have happened exactly that way in this other timeline. It would have been some other coversation, if he did, some other reaction. Anger. Hatred. Accusations and denials instead of cold, fumbling words.

Edgeworth would not tell him.

"I'm sure."

[likelikelaw.livejournal.com]

He flinched then at the short words and found himself struggling to respond. It felt wrong to interfere, to treat him as he would if he were two years older, and somehow he could tell that Edgeworth would only get more quiet and more bitter the longer he pushed.

He had chosen death to get away and now Phoenix was here, reminding him of it, and just how different were things for them if this was the response? How would he have reacted to seeing him then? He'd been angry enough and just as bitter.

"I'm sorry," it seemed meaningless to say it, but he meant it. "I just...wanted to see you. It's been a while, Edgeworth. Months in my world."

[bluffing-ruffle.livejournal.com]

He couldn't really begrudge Wright talking to him that way. He had no idea what had happened, other than that they apparently hadn't spoken in some time. If Wright was anything, he was absolutely dogged in his pursuit and protection of those he considered friends and family--if his alternate self in that world had disappeared, then of course the man before him would be glad to see him.

Nevertheless, he remained slightly unhappy to see Wright.

"Now you have," he heard himself saying. "Is that all?"

[likelikelaw.livejournal.com]

"Yeah," he swallowed, tucking his hands further into the pockets of his coat, clenching them into fists.

This whole thing felt wrong; there was something more to all of this and he couldn't figure it out. There wasn't even any evidence and it made his head ache to think that he didn't even have the magatama anymore, even if the thought of using it on Edgeworth felt like even more of an invasion than should be allowed.

"Yeah, that's all," he finished, shaking a stray hair out of his eyes, and sighing.

[bluffing-ruffle.livejournal.com]

"Then I believe I have work to do," he replied, the smothered anger that lay so near to his heart burning just close enough through the covers of emotional ice that it tainted his words with the very edge of bitterness.

He watched Wright for one... single moment longer, waiting to hear something, inwardly needing words that weren't going to come, desperately pleading for the hatred he so badly deserved and wanted that he would never get, before tearing his eyes away from the man and giving an annoyed grunt.

He turned and moved back towards the lobby without another sound, or even a 'good-bye', his last statement the only words he would give Wright to cling to on his exit.

The peaceful, white flakes of ice that had continued to fall from above melted, and instead of the calm snowfall that had previously underscored the scene, there was only a cold, wet rain that quickly picked up speed and soon threatened to become a torrent.