[Fic] Ace Attorney: The Air In Space
Jun. 3rd, 2014 05:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mllelaurelFandom: Ace Attorney
Title: The Air In Space
Characters: Apollo Justice, Clay Terran, Juniper Woods, Aura Blackquill, Simon Blackquill, Athena Cykes
Pairings: Apollo/Clay, varying degrees of Apollo/Junie, Apollo/Athena, Apollo/Simon and Apollo/Aura. Mentions of past Aura/Metis.
Rating: T/PG-13
Warnings: Canonical character death and Dual Destinies spoilers.
Summary: Five people Apollo might have kissed. People have funny ways of healing and coping with grief.
Hey, Pollo, did you know they’re gonna have internet up on Mars?
No, seriously. Pollo, bawk-bawk-bawk, are you listening? I thought I was supposed to be the one staring out into space. Pay attention, cause there’s totally going to be a quiz. Okay, so we’re not gonna be able to do much browsing, unless it’s a website on the habitat server. No porn for me, unless I’ve got it on my hard drive, sucks, right? No phone calls either, obviously. The delays would be too long for realtime. But there’ll be e-mail and text, so you better keep me posted.
Hey! Your life’s not boring. Your life is awesome!
***
Junie knits wristbands for him, to cover the burns on his forearms. She says she’s bought a special synthetic blend of yarn, which won’t irritate his healing skin or unravel. The doctors say the scarring won’t be too bad, the grafts are taking. His nerve endings are still wonky, though. Any touch along the grafts or scars is more of a sly, tickling pressure than anything else, and sometimes it itches, deep beneath the skin, in impossible to reach places.
She’s blushing when she hands him the finished item, and her fingers are warm when they brush his. “I hope you like them,” she says. There are little hearts on them. They must have taken her forever to make.
He’s never told her that his arms still hurt, sometimes, in the winter, or when it rains, or when the California air is too dry. He needs the wristbands those days, as much as he needs Clay’s coat on the days he doesn’t feel like getting out of bed. They slide on, just above the cuffs of his shirtsleeves, and with the buttons done up, no one will be the wiser. He feels his skin begin to warm up, accepting the touch of the cloth.
“Of course I like them,” he says, and leans in to kiss the corner of her mouth.
***
Yeah, in 2024, that’s the plan. Sol says he’d bet I could get in. So twenty’s a little young, so what? I bet I could do it! Rules say anyone over eighteen can apply.
There’s just one catch, though. It’s a one-way trip. Bye-bye Earth; bye-bye everyone you know. Must be great for people who’ve got nothing to lose. That’s what I get for making friends, right?
Don’t make that face at me, hell yeah, I’d be sad if I never got to see you again. You, and Sol, and everyone at the Cosmos Space Center. Have I told you about our chief roboticist? Her name’s Aura, and she’s so cranky, it’s great!
What? No, I- She’s taken, okay, geez. Or at least her heart is. I don’t actually know if she and Dr. Cykes are dating, but they should be!
Huh? Oh yeah, that’s our psychology expert. Gotta make sure everyone passes the evals, right? It’d be seriously uncool for someone to crack, out in the great void.
***
Aura Blackquill is not the sort of woman to hold back from what she wants. She can bide her time, sure, but she’s much more likely to move in a straight line.
She doesn’t kiss like someone who wants him, Apollo thinks, even as her hands fist in the back of his shirt collar. She kisses like someone focusing on the flatness of his chest, the way his clothes are red instead of orange, the way he’s two inches shorter than her, where Metis was exactly her height, down to the millimeter.
She kisses like a woman who knows she won’t ever get what she wants, because what she wants is impossible. Students up at MIT theorize about time travel way into the night, but it’s all hypothesis and science fiction. Practical application is centuries away, if ever. What’s happened cannot change, and the dead won’t ever come back.
He should feel weird and used, at being such a blatant stand-in, but he knows what it’s like to miss someone hard enough you can’t feel anything but cold anymore, till you’ll do anything to bring even grief back.
He lets her press him up against the wall, kisses back, tries to breathe in that cold and breathe out understanding and solace.
***
Nah, she never asked me to tell her about my mother. I don’t think shrinks actually do that, outside of SNL skits. I wound up telling her anyway, though.
You remember what it was like, when she was at the hospital, and they told Dad he’d have to choose whether to take her off the respirator. I came home from school that day, and he was just sitting there, on the couch in the dark, so quiet I got scared he might be dead.
I never told you about that before? Sorry. I wasn’t ready, I guess.
Dad said I could take her ashes with me, scatter them up there. She’d have liked that. She always liked seeing new places, she even met my dad while they were both in the Peace Corps.
***
They’re both exhausted after the trial. Apollo’s eyes feel like a giant has been kicking grit into them all day, and Athena’s body language is still turned subtly inward. At least she’s not seeing blood anymore.
“I’m sorry I doubted you,” he says.
Athena shakes her head. “I doubted myself for a while there, so no worries.” He can’t believe she’d just just up and forgive him, like that. She rummages through the fridge, finds a canned smoothie. “So, what do you think, ready to tackle the next case?”
He groans loudly enough to wake at least an army of zombies.
“...You okay?”
“I’m fine,” he says, and those words are never going to mean the same things again, are they?
“You don’t sound it,” she says. “No offense!” He’s pretty sure she didn’t need her extra-sensitive hearing to tell as much.
“Not sure what I am,” he replies. “Can’t we just figure it out in the morning?” Athena nods, her long hair falling into her eyes.
He can’t remember which of them kisses the other first, but he can feel her shoulders shaking under his hands, tears smudging from her face to his. She tastes like strawberry-banana.
Maybe we don’t have to be fine tonight, even if the rest of the world is fixed, he thinks, but maybe tomorrow we will be.
***
So yeah, I guess I’m not going to Mars. Just into orbit, but still, how cool is that! Wish I could take you there with me, bet you’d like to watch all of the Earth below us as the sun rises. The guys at CSC say it’s the coolest thing they’ve ever seen, and videos don’t do it justice.
Heh. Justice. I still can’t believe that’s your actual name. How old were you, when you picked it out?
Nah, dude, I can’t talk. I’d have probably named myself something like. I don’t know, Neil Collins Aldrin Studmeister. Looking back, Mom and Dad totally made the right call. ‘Clay Terran’ sounds like a solid kinda guy. Knows what he’s doing. You can still be grounded, you know, without staying on the ground.
***
“Have you decided whether you will take my sister’s case yet?” Prosecutor Blackquill asks. They’re both stalling for time. This isn’t the reason he’s here.
Apollo rubs his temples. “It’s not going to be easy. She’s matter-of-fact guilty.” He’s not sure Mr. Wright even knows what to do with a guilty client. This is where having been trained by Kristoph instead of Mia Fey is going to come in handy, isn’t it? “I mean, I’ll see what I can do to get her a plea bargain, since she didn’t wind up hurting anyone and the circumstances really were extenuating. Athena can get the psych data to back everything I’m saying.”
“Hmph. You take a lot of words just to say ‘yes, I will,’ Justice-dono.”
Apollo rolls his eyes, and Blackquill’s bird lands on his head. “Should we go in?”
They’re standing in front of the Cosmos Space Center. Inside, memorials have been erected for the current crew’s fallen comrades. It’s a nice thought, but opening that door is still going to be painful.
The prosecutor bends down. His lips are searing hot against Apollo’s forehead, then on his mouth, for barely more than a second. It’s a strange sort of benediction, like one of those kisses passed between members of the Camorra. It says we’re alike, you and I. I won’t betray you, so long as you’ll do likewise for me. “No sense in wasting any more time,” Blackquill says and walks forward.
***
I’m glad I met you, you know that right?
Hey, come on, don’t say I would have been ‘fine’ without you. Oh, that kind of fine. Haha, I see how it is! Yeah, I’m pretty damn fine, if I do say so myself.
Shut up, I do not flex in front of the mirror. Who told you that?
But anyway, I’m serious. I needed someone who really got what it was like, that day back in middle school, and you could have gone all bystander syndrome on my ass. You didn’t. You were there, for some guy you barely knew, and you better believe that means a lot. You made me laugh when I didn’t think I ever would again.
Yes, Pollo, cause your face is funny. Your hair looked like a chicken back then, too.
Hey, I’m just telling it like it is, don’t throw socks at me, have those even been washed? Eww.
Fine, fine. Hey, c’mere. What are you looking at me like that for? I’m not going anywhere. Just into space. So long, suckers!
Still can’t take you with me, though. Guess I better make up for it now, eh?
Heh, yeah, I can think of a few ways.
Title: The Air In Space
Characters: Apollo Justice, Clay Terran, Juniper Woods, Aura Blackquill, Simon Blackquill, Athena Cykes
Pairings: Apollo/Clay, varying degrees of Apollo/Junie, Apollo/Athena, Apollo/Simon and Apollo/Aura. Mentions of past Aura/Metis.
Rating: T/PG-13
Warnings: Canonical character death and Dual Destinies spoilers.
Summary: Five people Apollo might have kissed. People have funny ways of healing and coping with grief.
Hey, Pollo, did you know they’re gonna have internet up on Mars?
No, seriously. Pollo, bawk-bawk-bawk, are you listening? I thought I was supposed to be the one staring out into space. Pay attention, cause there’s totally going to be a quiz. Okay, so we’re not gonna be able to do much browsing, unless it’s a website on the habitat server. No porn for me, unless I’ve got it on my hard drive, sucks, right? No phone calls either, obviously. The delays would be too long for realtime. But there’ll be e-mail and text, so you better keep me posted.
Hey! Your life’s not boring. Your life is awesome!
***
Junie knits wristbands for him, to cover the burns on his forearms. She says she’s bought a special synthetic blend of yarn, which won’t irritate his healing skin or unravel. The doctors say the scarring won’t be too bad, the grafts are taking. His nerve endings are still wonky, though. Any touch along the grafts or scars is more of a sly, tickling pressure than anything else, and sometimes it itches, deep beneath the skin, in impossible to reach places.
She’s blushing when she hands him the finished item, and her fingers are warm when they brush his. “I hope you like them,” she says. There are little hearts on them. They must have taken her forever to make.
He’s never told her that his arms still hurt, sometimes, in the winter, or when it rains, or when the California air is too dry. He needs the wristbands those days, as much as he needs Clay’s coat on the days he doesn’t feel like getting out of bed. They slide on, just above the cuffs of his shirtsleeves, and with the buttons done up, no one will be the wiser. He feels his skin begin to warm up, accepting the touch of the cloth.
“Of course I like them,” he says, and leans in to kiss the corner of her mouth.
***
Yeah, in 2024, that’s the plan. Sol says he’d bet I could get in. So twenty’s a little young, so what? I bet I could do it! Rules say anyone over eighteen can apply.
There’s just one catch, though. It’s a one-way trip. Bye-bye Earth; bye-bye everyone you know. Must be great for people who’ve got nothing to lose. That’s what I get for making friends, right?
Don’t make that face at me, hell yeah, I’d be sad if I never got to see you again. You, and Sol, and everyone at the Cosmos Space Center. Have I told you about our chief roboticist? Her name’s Aura, and she’s so cranky, it’s great!
What? No, I- She’s taken, okay, geez. Or at least her heart is. I don’t actually know if she and Dr. Cykes are dating, but they should be!
Huh? Oh yeah, that’s our psychology expert. Gotta make sure everyone passes the evals, right? It’d be seriously uncool for someone to crack, out in the great void.
***
Aura Blackquill is not the sort of woman to hold back from what she wants. She can bide her time, sure, but she’s much more likely to move in a straight line.
She doesn’t kiss like someone who wants him, Apollo thinks, even as her hands fist in the back of his shirt collar. She kisses like someone focusing on the flatness of his chest, the way his clothes are red instead of orange, the way he’s two inches shorter than her, where Metis was exactly her height, down to the millimeter.
She kisses like a woman who knows she won’t ever get what she wants, because what she wants is impossible. Students up at MIT theorize about time travel way into the night, but it’s all hypothesis and science fiction. Practical application is centuries away, if ever. What’s happened cannot change, and the dead won’t ever come back.
He should feel weird and used, at being such a blatant stand-in, but he knows what it’s like to miss someone hard enough you can’t feel anything but cold anymore, till you’ll do anything to bring even grief back.
He lets her press him up against the wall, kisses back, tries to breathe in that cold and breathe out understanding and solace.
***
Nah, she never asked me to tell her about my mother. I don’t think shrinks actually do that, outside of SNL skits. I wound up telling her anyway, though.
You remember what it was like, when she was at the hospital, and they told Dad he’d have to choose whether to take her off the respirator. I came home from school that day, and he was just sitting there, on the couch in the dark, so quiet I got scared he might be dead.
I never told you about that before? Sorry. I wasn’t ready, I guess.
Dad said I could take her ashes with me, scatter them up there. She’d have liked that. She always liked seeing new places, she even met my dad while they were both in the Peace Corps.
***
They’re both exhausted after the trial. Apollo’s eyes feel like a giant has been kicking grit into them all day, and Athena’s body language is still turned subtly inward. At least she’s not seeing blood anymore.
“I’m sorry I doubted you,” he says.
Athena shakes her head. “I doubted myself for a while there, so no worries.” He can’t believe she’d just just up and forgive him, like that. She rummages through the fridge, finds a canned smoothie. “So, what do you think, ready to tackle the next case?”
He groans loudly enough to wake at least an army of zombies.
“...You okay?”
“I’m fine,” he says, and those words are never going to mean the same things again, are they?
“You don’t sound it,” she says. “No offense!” He’s pretty sure she didn’t need her extra-sensitive hearing to tell as much.
“Not sure what I am,” he replies. “Can’t we just figure it out in the morning?” Athena nods, her long hair falling into her eyes.
He can’t remember which of them kisses the other first, but he can feel her shoulders shaking under his hands, tears smudging from her face to his. She tastes like strawberry-banana.
Maybe we don’t have to be fine tonight, even if the rest of the world is fixed, he thinks, but maybe tomorrow we will be.
***
So yeah, I guess I’m not going to Mars. Just into orbit, but still, how cool is that! Wish I could take you there with me, bet you’d like to watch all of the Earth below us as the sun rises. The guys at CSC say it’s the coolest thing they’ve ever seen, and videos don’t do it justice.
Heh. Justice. I still can’t believe that’s your actual name. How old were you, when you picked it out?
Nah, dude, I can’t talk. I’d have probably named myself something like. I don’t know, Neil Collins Aldrin Studmeister. Looking back, Mom and Dad totally made the right call. ‘Clay Terran’ sounds like a solid kinda guy. Knows what he’s doing. You can still be grounded, you know, without staying on the ground.
***
“Have you decided whether you will take my sister’s case yet?” Prosecutor Blackquill asks. They’re both stalling for time. This isn’t the reason he’s here.
Apollo rubs his temples. “It’s not going to be easy. She’s matter-of-fact guilty.” He’s not sure Mr. Wright even knows what to do with a guilty client. This is where having been trained by Kristoph instead of Mia Fey is going to come in handy, isn’t it? “I mean, I’ll see what I can do to get her a plea bargain, since she didn’t wind up hurting anyone and the circumstances really were extenuating. Athena can get the psych data to back everything I’m saying.”
“Hmph. You take a lot of words just to say ‘yes, I will,’ Justice-dono.”
Apollo rolls his eyes, and Blackquill’s bird lands on his head. “Should we go in?”
They’re standing in front of the Cosmos Space Center. Inside, memorials have been erected for the current crew’s fallen comrades. It’s a nice thought, but opening that door is still going to be painful.
The prosecutor bends down. His lips are searing hot against Apollo’s forehead, then on his mouth, for barely more than a second. It’s a strange sort of benediction, like one of those kisses passed between members of the Camorra. It says we’re alike, you and I. I won’t betray you, so long as you’ll do likewise for me. “No sense in wasting any more time,” Blackquill says and walks forward.
***
I’m glad I met you, you know that right?
Hey, come on, don’t say I would have been ‘fine’ without you. Oh, that kind of fine. Haha, I see how it is! Yeah, I’m pretty damn fine, if I do say so myself.
Shut up, I do not flex in front of the mirror. Who told you that?
But anyway, I’m serious. I needed someone who really got what it was like, that day back in middle school, and you could have gone all bystander syndrome on my ass. You didn’t. You were there, for some guy you barely knew, and you better believe that means a lot. You made me laugh when I didn’t think I ever would again.
Yes, Pollo, cause your face is funny. Your hair looked like a chicken back then, too.
Hey, I’m just telling it like it is, don’t throw socks at me, have those even been washed? Eww.
Fine, fine. Hey, c’mere. What are you looking at me like that for? I’m not going anywhere. Just into space. So long, suckers!
Still can’t take you with me, though. Guess I better make up for it now, eh?
Heh, yeah, I can think of a few ways.
