"I'm sorry, Phoenix,"
"You already did that, silly," A sleepy Phoenix mumbled into the chest of the other whom he had inadvertently wrapped his arms around upon waking.
"Remember?" The shorter man added when the other was despondent;
"So stop crying,"
"You know that's not how it works, Phoenix," Miles gave the other's body a soft squeeze, pressing him tighter into his chest.
"I feel guilty."
"Don't," Phoenix's light touch upon the silvery-haired man's cheek, tenderly banishing waves of tears away in one fell swoop, made Miles's inside fizz with delight. The taller man felt effervescent: as though he were floating atop rainy clouds. Phoenix made him feel special.
"The problem was never you. It's never been you, Miles,"
"Even when I beat you up?" Phoenix averted his fatigued blue eyes for a moment in silence.
"I mean, if you hadn't, my corpse would probably be rotting away in that cell right now," Miles let out a sob at the horrific visage: Phoenix Wright, 25 and full of hope, lying inanimate with grit filling his plethora of gaping crimson wounds, his dulled eyes wide open, forever stuck in his inescapable final moments.
"If anyone's to blame, it's me," Phoenix smiled.
"What? Don't be ridiculous-"
"I trusted Kristoph right up until he hurt me." Miles frowned.
"When you asked me to help you, I... I wasn't really going to do anything," Phoenix tried to bury his head impossibly deeper into Miles, feeling hands soothingly rub his back.
"What do you mean?"
"I was convinced someone had set Kristoph up so I was just stalling, I guess," Phoenix quivered and Miles hated the idea that he might start crying again. If Phoenix cried again, he'd have to extract his soul from his own body in order to erase his emotions and become entirely hollow in order to numb the pain.
"That is, until I confronted him about it."
"What happened when you confronted him?" Miles lowered his voice, sensing the skittish tensing of muscles he'd worked hard at to relieve.
"I'd, um.." Phoenix trailed off. He looked down.
"I'd rather not talk about it."
"Does it have anything to do with this?"

Miles, perhaps insensitively, tentatively pried away concealing fabric from the other's shoulder to reveal an ugly set of dried train-tracks suspiciously spanning the length of a human bite. They appeared as though nobody had tended to them, platelets and crusts of blood angrily cursing at the world resided atop an innocent shoulderblade as Phoenix flinched away from the taller man's invasive touch.
"How did you-"
"I saw it when we were in the chamber. I could tell it was fresh." Phoenix gave a nervous nod, quietly speaking:
"He roughed me up a bit,"
"It's ok. You're safe now. I'll protect you." Phoenix looked up at Miles with quivering lips and a bitter laugh.
"Thanks, but I'm never going to be safe again." Blue eyes became nothing, hollow, with not even a sheen as they stared into the distance - beyond Miles and tangible mortality.
"Kristoph and Dahlia, they're laughing at me. You probably will too, in time."
"Never." Miles nudged the other's soft cheeks with his knuckles in order to regain his attention. It worked. Sort of.
"I'm not like them. I love you."
"That sounds nice. I don't think either of them ever said that to me. A bit cliché for murderers, I guess." Miles wanted to kiss the deceased, frail look and empty, baseless laugh off of the other man - to make Phoenix's toes curl, to make something move in order to prove he was still inhabiting that body.
"I have a type, don't I?" His smile basked in a self-deprecation which scorched Miles.
"What?"
"You know. Murderous backstabbers."
"What are you trying to insinuate?"
"Are we boyfriends?" Phoenix had to suppress a wave of nausea as the question slipped from his lips. It was the same thing he'd asked Kristoph.

Unlike Kristoph, Miles's answer was immediate.
"Yes." A pause with averting silver eyes:
"And husbands, I hope, someday." Phoenix coyly smiled with a slight blush.
"Are you sure you won't be sick of me by then?"
"90 percent."
"90 percent? I'm so hurt, I think I'm going to break up with you already!" The shorter man pouted, poking Miles in mock irritation before the telltale laugh escaped its prison. It was genuine - Miles could tell by the heartiness, by the way it made Phoenix glow again - and it made the taller man beam.
"Perhaps I can convince you to stay?" Miles smirked.
"Oh? I'm interested."

Giving Phoenix every opportunity to pull away or say no, Miles gently craned his neck in order to lean in and planted his lips atop the other's. Phoenix's eyes widened slightly before relaxing into the gesture, eyelashes even prettily skimming the bags beneath with a smile, his lips parting. Miles's glossy hair - slightly unkempt by everything that had occurred - teased the other's skin with gentle touches, his own smile widening as he pressed against the other with desperation, venting everything out in the motions of his tongue: the fear, the sadness and the pining all caressing the roof of Phoenix's mouth at once. Phoenix kindly took it all, his own tongue engrossed in entangling itself with the other, moaning into the kiss as he felt hands wandering on him, his own hands firmly planted on a broad pair of shoulders for support. He was always weak when it came to the physicality: the enactment of mutual longing seemed to make every muscle in his body unanimously agree to morph into jelly. That was ok, though. Phoenix trusted Miles to keep him upright even when his own body betrayed him. They moved as one without - many - collisions, their hearts fluttering beneath each gentle caress as they savoured the surrounding silence; this space - a glorified patients' room - was their space right now. Their breaths and pants and desperation were the ones filling it - not Gavin's.

Despite Miles's best attempts to pursue his lips, Phoenix eventually had to pull away in order to breathe, his head feeling as though helium had been directly pumped into it and his swollen bottom lip burning slightly due to the scab Gavin had tainted it with. Miles took a few breaths, smiling:
"Did I convince you?" Phoenix dumbly stared at the other.
"Convince me about what?"