Chapter Text
Epilogue – July 2027
“Hey, you’re back finally!” a jovial voice cried from the back of the restaurant.
“Hey, Papa! It’s good to be back,” Phoenix replied cheerfully.
Miles waved at the owner (his first name was unknown, he'd just been "Papa Rony" since their first time here) and followed the waitress to their table. It had been over eight years since they’d been here and while the place looked a little worse for wear, it was Phoenix’s big night and he had chosen Rony’s “for old time’s sake”. Technically, yesterday had been Phoenix’s big night and it had taken place at a tapas restaurant (Phoenix did, indeed, love the chicken empanadillas with avocado) with the girls, Apollo, Ema, Klavier, and the newest Wright Anything Agency employee, Athena Cykes. It had been a mostly enjoyable night aside from Klavier “What’s it like being the father of a high school senior?” Gavin, who might soon be learning the joys of salary cuts if he kept that shit up.
But tonight was just for the two of them and the house was empty.
Phoenix tapped at his phone, smiled, and set it on the table face-down. “Look Miles, it’s summer and that’s family vacation time. How about we fly to Portland, check in on Gumshoe and the gang. We can see some toddlers, uh, toddling, and grab a bottle of wine. Then we rent a car for the four of us and drive back south on the 101 over a few days. We can see the redwoods and stop in and see Larry in San Francisco. What do you say?”
“You have never once in our entire history shown an interest in the ocean, but you save one orca and suddenly you want to spend double-digit hours driving alongsi—”
“To be fair, you’d be driving the SUV since I can’t—”
“SUV?? I am never again driving such an atrociously boxy—”
“Yeah, there’s four of us, plus all of our suitcases, since none of us are allowed to use duffel bags anymore, and souvenirs from roadside tourist traps—”
“Tacky, gauche, tawdry—”
“What about toddlers? And Larry?”
“…”
“Scratch that. Back to the double-digit hours driving alongside the ocean—”
“An ocean which you, once again, have never shown the slightest interest—”
“An ocean with which your daughter has a fascination, and has had for nearly as long as we’ve known her, see Exhibit A: her screenname, Exhibit B: the jewelry you’ve gotten her, Exhibit C: the marine life summer camp she is literally at this very week and Exhibit D: the fact that she spent the night before last at the Shipshape Aquarium to feed an orca and a penguin.”
“…”
“…”
“See if she and Trucy have any interest.”
Phoenix angled up his phone from the table so Miles could see the screen.
PteriaPenguin: A road trip by the ocean! That would be incredible, Uncle Nick!
Miles stared at the phone and then back at Phoenix’s smug face. “Really, Phoenix?”
“Checkmate.”
“Urk!”
“I cleared my name and got my badge back and won my first case. I’m fully on the straight and narrow, so how else am I supposed to use my skills of puppetmastery, if not to plan family vacations?”
The pizza arrived and Miles picked up his fork and knife. Phoenix knew when he was ahead and wisely said nothing about this.
“Fine,” grumbled Miles, halfway through the slice. “But I will not be holding a single toddler.”
The discussion turned to the details of the Shipley case in general and Simon Blackquill in particular and then away from work-related matters altogether.
In the parking lot, as they neared Miles’s coupe, he stopped Phoenix from opening the passenger side door, gripping his arms.
“Phoenix, I just want to reiterate how proud of you I am. Between the MASON project and retaking the bar, I know more than almost anyone else the amount of work you’ve put in to be where you are today. It’s inspiring, to say the least. It’s inspiring to those involved in the legal system, to your employees, to Trucy and Pearls, and it’s inspiring to me. We should all be so lucky as to have a tenth of your resolve.”
Miles tightened his hold on Phoenix’s sleeves and pulled him in, trying to fill any gaps his words may have left regarding his feelings. He pushed Phoenix back against the car and wrapped one arm around his back and slid his other into his spiky hair, kissing him as thoroughly as he knew how. When they finally separated, gasping for breath, Phoenix’s lips were swollen and he looked more than a little dazed. “Let’s go home, Miles.”
When they arrived home, he guided Phoenix towards the bedroom, but his partner stopped suddenly in the hallway to admire the triptych of sunflowers in watercolor.
“I still can’t believe you commissioned Larry to paint these for me. They’re legitimately stunning.”
“They truly are, but I’m going to move them to another wall, if you stop to look at them every time I try to get you into the bedroom,” Miles teased.
Phoenix laughed and continued forward into the room. He turned to say something, but Miles grabbed him by the tie and wrapped it around his fist, loop by loop, drawing him in for another fierce kiss. Phoenix cupped his jaw and then his tongue was in Miles’s mouth and Miles let go of the tie to clutch at his shoulder.
Phoenix broke apart first. “You just got me this suit, like, three months ago, so I should probably hang it up.”
“An excellent idea, I’ll do the same.” He really did look very dashing in the waistcoat and the pocket watch chain for the locket was particularly inspired. His personal belief that everyone should have at least one tailored suit held true. Who benefited more from Phoenix Wright in a new, tailored suit was impossible to know and largely irrelevant once the man was out of it and on top of him licking along his jawline. Miles turned his head to nibble on his ear and Phoenix reached between them to grasp both of their pricks in one hand and they both gasped from the sensation. His hand worked gently, slowly squeezing and releasing and Miles could feel himself quickly hardening. He reached up and tipped Phoenix's face back towards his own and kissed him again while running his other hand through the hair of Phoenix's chest until he found his nipple, tweaking it to the same rhythm.
"More," whispered Phoenix into his mouth, and he pinched the nipple tightly between his fingers until Phoenix let out a low keen.
Miles luxuriated, as he always did, in the feeling of his lover on top of him so he guided Phoenix to turn around until his legs were on either side of Miles’s head and his lips were on either side of Miles’s cock. He gasped and reached up to wrap his hand around the base of the dick above him and took it down until his lips reached his fist. Phoenix pulled back to lick along the ridge just under the head and he retaliated by making small circles with his tongue in the slit at the top of Phoenix's cock. He felt a small rush of cool air along his shaft as Phoenix gasped and with his free hand, Miles gripped the thigh near his head more tightly. He could feel the vibrations from Phoenix’s moans up through his own body and back out of his mouth, building, echoing, amplifying. It never took them long like this, and when Miles felt as though he couldn’t hold back any longer, he reached his hand up to trace along the seam of Phoenix’s sac to the sensitive skin underneath. Phoenix couldn’t help thrusting but Miles was expecting it and opened his throat, taking it even deeper. He could feel Phoenix let out a final groan and he could feel hot come flow down his throat and he could feel his own cock pulsing and he could feel Phoenix swallowing around it until the loop became a spiral out of time.
Side-by-side, holding hands as the ceiling fan cooled them off, he turned to look at Phoenix. Miles thought about a time when this was only a fantasy, when he’d lived a life shielded by the icy chill of his own fearful isolation. Sometimes, in moments like these when awash with Phoenix’s natural warmth, he couldn’t even remember what it had been like to be so cold, so remote. But he knew for a fact that this moment, right here, right now, was no fantasy of a lonely man with no place to call home, and he could prove it.
“I love you.”