Okay, Edgeworth to Lucifer! Obviously, this is not a um great relationship. Edgeworth hates Lucifer, of course; anyone who would cause so much harm to so many people is deserving of hatred and more. He is afraid of him, as well, on a very deep level, since you can't watch someone quite literally hold your life in his hands and not fear him afterwards. He is afraid of him on behalf of his friends, as well - he's afraid that Lucifer might go after Phoenix, or one of his housemates.
But it really goes beyond even common fear or common hatred for Edgeworth - because what Lucifer has done has made Edgeworth altogether helpless in this. Edgeworth has always been able to take action inasmuch as his career has been concerned; he has never been faced with a criminal who was utterly untouchable. Even in the early days, back when he was a rookie prosecutor starting out in a pretty heavily corrupt and dysfunctional D.A.'s office, he still had enough power that he could work quietly to see that the criminals his bosses didn't want him to go after at least were having cases built against them. But now Edgeworth has this criminal, and has a case against him, but cannot apprehend him; he is unable to force him to suffer the penalties which ought to be laid out for him.
And that's making Edgeworth more than a little desperate and crazy. There have been a few times in Edgeworth's life where he was helpless, where he was unable to act - when his father died, when he was set up to stand trial for murder - and during those times, he just completely shut down. He just gave up completely. And subconsciously, he knows that if he recognizes that there is nothing that he can do, then that will be death to his mental conception of himself; it'll be death to his spirit and his determination; and so he's fighting to help himself feel in any way like he's making progress on this case. So he's working to two in the morning, starting to burn the candle at both ends like he hasn't in a number of years, and he's really starting to feel the strain. He really needs to feel like he has control over something.
tl;dr Lucifer is why he is miserable and unpleasant right now
no subject
Okay, Edgeworth to Lucifer! Obviously, this is not a um great relationship. Edgeworth hates Lucifer, of course; anyone who would cause so much harm to so many people is deserving of hatred and more. He is afraid of him, as well, on a very deep level, since you can't watch someone quite literally hold your life in his hands and not fear him afterwards. He is afraid of him on behalf of his friends, as well - he's afraid that Lucifer might go after Phoenix, or one of his housemates.
But it really goes beyond even common fear or common hatred for Edgeworth - because what Lucifer has done has made Edgeworth altogether helpless in this. Edgeworth has always been able to take action inasmuch as his career has been concerned; he has never been faced with a criminal who was utterly untouchable. Even in the early days, back when he was a rookie prosecutor starting out in a pretty heavily corrupt and dysfunctional D.A.'s office, he still had enough power that he could work quietly to see that the criminals his bosses didn't want him to go after at least were having cases built against them. But now Edgeworth has this criminal, and has a case against him, but cannot apprehend him; he is unable to force him to suffer the penalties which ought to be laid out for him.
And that's making Edgeworth more than a little desperate and crazy. There have been a few times in Edgeworth's life where he was helpless, where he was unable to act - when his father died, when he was set up to stand trial for murder - and during those times, he just completely shut down. He just gave up completely. And subconsciously, he knows that if he recognizes that there is nothing that he can do, then that will be death to his mental conception of himself; it'll be death to his spirit and his determination; and so he's fighting to help himself feel in any way like he's making progress on this case. So he's working to two in the morning, starting to burn the candle at both ends like he hasn't in a number of years, and he's really starting to feel the strain. He really needs to feel like he has control over something.
tl;dr Lucifer is why he is miserable and unpleasant right now