The prosecutor's lips felt increasingly parched as he surveyed the unimaginably horrific and emotionally disturbing scene be played out before him.

Phoenix was shaking, sobbing, screaming.

But none of it got through to him. Not a single contorted expression.
"A-All you want from me is sex! You don't love me! If you loved me, then the first thing that you'd have done if I had become drunk would not have been to... To coerce me into having sex with you!"
"Phoenix, I do love you!" He was being selfish.
"N-No you don't. You just want something from me! You just want to make me trust you - make me dependent - and then leave again!"
"I would never leave you again." He was being selfish.
"You... You're just like anyone else! You don't see love as anything more than a toy. You don't see me as anything more than a toy!"
"Of course I do, Phoenix! You're everything to me!"

He was being selfish.

"You're too late." The shorter man forcefully pulled himself away from the makeshift embrace created by the other's arms, jerking away from all of the promised warmth and light that Edgeworth's words had held and rejecting everything in favour of safety, comfort and solitude. No metaphorical imagery could brighten the scenery of the world for him again. The hemispheres of his eyes had already been tainted by the idealism of ugliness, had already witnessed a once reputable attorney be tarnished in seconds by a stranger and 200 pounds.
"If you had asked me 10 years ago, then..." The silvery-haired man bore his bulging eyes into the other's beautiful pair as he anticipated what details would next be divulged by those rosy lips; what new tagline would ruin him next?
"I would probably have said yes. I would probably have been over the moon at your proposal, but things are different now." Edgeworth lifted himself up from the bed, eagerly bounding towards the shorter man;
"Things don't have to be different." Phoenix turned away once again - his resolve seeming more definite this time.
"Yes, they do, because I've seen what love truly is. It's taken me far too many people and far too many paid one-night stands for me to get to this realisation - and I'm not going to give my knowledge up now. I'm not going to fall for it again."
"I can't see you as a prostitute." Blatant words slid out of a thin-lipped mouth with ease, leering at the shorter man from different positions in the room, as the prosecutor expectantly awaited a response.

Had he said the right thing? What if Phoenix hadn't meant that he'd become a prostitute in the first place? What if he'd misread the situation enti-

"Of course you can't." A faint 'whoosh' sound effect was the only indication that the taller man had of the defence attorney's sudden 180 degree turn to face him again, his clouded grey eyes only just managing to focus on the opposing man's brilliant blue ones, the light darting across them - a blinding reflection flaunting a sword.
"You weren't there for me when I was at my worst - when nobody else could help me -, so of course you can't!"
"What on earth are you talking about?"
"W-While you were busy galavanting off I lost my badge, remember? And Kristoph betrayed me, remember?"
"So what you're insinuating is-"
"I'm not insinuating anything!" Phoenix's sudden increase in volume silenced even the silvery-haired man. The defence attorney rarely lost his temper so publicly - it was an interesting yet terrifying phenomenon to behold.
"I did become a prostitute, Edgeworth. While you were gone, I changed. I realised why love had never worked out for me. I wasn't in on the joke - love is just sex. Love is just a mixture of raw desire and opportunity."
"You're wrong."
"Then prove me wrong!"

Edgeworth took a tentative step towards the broken man in front of him.

"You are the most beautiful man I've ever met." Words fluttered out of a usually expressionless mouth as though they had been rehearsed daily - slaved away at until every rough pronunciation, every jagged edge, had been polished until it was good enough to be recited to a monarch - and as though they had been long-lived. Was this a monologue? Was it a form of self-expression unbeknownst to mankind? The surrealistic feeling, the serenity, provided by the prosecutor's utopian sentences certainly made Phoenix perplexed beyond belief;

After all, he had never met something which could not be torn apart by logic before.

Hands. Hands gingerly cupped rosy cheeks, warmth being generously shared by the soft skin coating them.
"You are the most generous man I have ever met." Thumbs glided across tender flesh until they met a firm, roundish, jawline;
"You are the funniest man I have ever met." Those thumbs ignored the pinkish blossoms blooming upon the cheeks beneath them as they slowly traversed in a downward direction in search of a defined collarbone.
"You are the most talented man I have ever met." They were fingers this time - not thumbs. Fingers teasingly tiptoed as parallels in unison, one on either broad shoulder of the subject.
"You are the most intelligent man I have ever met." Fingers slid down the arms until they found opposing hands with less patience than previously displayed;
"You are perfect."

Phoenix took a hitched breath as the taller man continued.

"You are perfect and I love you."
"Edgeworth.."
"And I don't say this because I want sex with you. I say this because I love you. I love you for who you are."
"I'm sorry, Edgeworth,"
"What for?"
"I don't love you."

The prosecutor clenched his fists tightly, creating a flurry of dark pink and yellow patterns, etching his frustration into cream-coloured skin with his nails.

"You're so stupid."
"Ok."
"I hate you."
"Edgeworth, listen, it doesn't have to be like th-"
"Shut up. Shut up. Shutupshutupshutup!" Phoenix suddenly found himself being shoved backwards by 2 far more muscular arms than his own, only having the thought to outstretch a leg to support himself at the last moment.
"We can still be friends-"
"No, we can't, because you're horrible! I hate you!"
"S-Stop it. Stop. You're being childish-"
"Oh, I'm being childish? Well I'm sorry, Wright, but I don't recall me being the one leading someone on!"
"Oh, come on, Edgeworth. You're better than this. You can't seriously be suggesting that you're too immature to accept rejection,"
"I've been giving you all my love for so long - for all this time - and I've looked after you, cared for you, and all you can say is 'no', huh? 'No, Edgeworth, I don't love you.'" The taller man snapped, his teeth gritted in a show of defiance, as he shoved the shorter man backwards yet again, his voice gradually rising in volume and pitch as time sluggishly passed.
"Thank you but, if you've really loved me for so long, then explain why you left without telling me all those years ago. Please."
"Oh, so now you don't believe me?" A hand was raised, Phoenix weakly shivering in response as he awaited the inevitable;
"You stupid, stupid, difficult... Idiot!" The naturally formed weapon slammed down upon the defence attorney's cheeks with surprising swiftness and force, leaving bright red marks upon innocent flesh in its stead.
"I never want to see you again, do you hear me?" Tears were all that the pair had in common now. Hot, sticky tears trailing down the curvatures of their cheeks in unison.
"Fine, then." The spiky-haired man clenched his fists in a likewise manner to the opposing man's, sorrowfully wiping away the makeshift rivers created upon his face with the tips of his fingers, leaving ugly streaks of salted water instead.
"If you thought that I would stand here and take whatever abuse you inflicted upon me, then you were wrong."
"Phoenix..." A dry croak escaped the taller man's parched throat at an extremely tedious pace, his previously narrowed grey eyes following the subject he had just physically harmed with an unruly amount of regret and guilt weighing down those proudly-attained shoulders of his as his eyes skimmed the tips of reddened cheeks.
"No, no. I see how it is." The shorter man sighed despite himself, shakily collecting his pathetic excuse for a mobile phone off of the destroyed bed that the pair had previously been in and straightening out his crumpled blue suit.
"Phoenix I'm so sorry.. I didn't mean i-"
"No, you knew exactly what you meant."
"I didn't." Edgeworth insisted;
"I just got a bit... Frustrated. I really wish that you'd be mine and it upset me when you still told me no after last ni-"
"'Frustrated'," The defence attorney let out a half-hearted laugh, now making a straight beeline for the bedroom door.
"I'll see myself out. Thank you for your... Hospitality." Came the sour accompaniment to his previous exclamation.

The taller man widened his eyes, some natural drug which felt like pure adrenaline coursing through his veins, eagerly urged on by the swift fluttering of his heart.

"Phoenix, please..."

And then the prosecutor had flung himself down the hallways, down the stairs, in pursuit of the one and only man that could ever make him happy - the one and only man that could ever make him cry; all that he saw was blue - a sea of beautiful, glistening, blue ahead of him - just a few arms' reach too far away -, the idealistic hallucination induced by thirst in a desert.
"Phoenix!" The desperation in his trembling voice was now becoming more and more dominant, tears now beginning to join the fleeing blue sea before him - a wobbling blur.
"Don't go..."

Then the door opened, and Edgeworth fell.