[Fic] Ace Attorney: Complicated
Jun. 26th, 2014 05:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mllelaurelFandom: Ace Attorney
Title: Complicated
Characters: Apollo Justice, Klavier Gavin
Pairings: Apollo/Klavier
Rating: T/PG-13
Warnings: None
Summary: Klavier's hesitant to get involved with Apollo, after seeing him unconsciously imitating Kristoph in court. Apollo takes measures to convince him. (Written for the Phoenix Wright Kink Meme.)
“Call me a cynic,” Klavier said, and Apollo gaped at him.
“Yeah, maybe in Bizarro Land!”
Klavier’s reflection shimmered and distorted in the greenish waters of Gourd Lake. “Herr Forehead, please, let me finish.”
It wasn’t the first time they’d met like this, on a day free of cases, restless feet carrying them across the city, till they came face to face. Total, unplanned serendipity. Two weeks ago, they’d wound up at a bar Klavier had raved about, after running into each other on the Purple Line. The week before that, Apollo had found an espresso deposited in his hand, as he zoned out in some park. “You look tired,” Klavier had said, and Apollo had rolled his eyes and muttered “gee, thanks, way to pay me a compliment, asshole,” but found himself hiding a smile, all the same.
The question of it hung in the air. Had been hanging in the air for almost as long as they’d known each other, and it’d been long enough that any variation on it would be embarrassing. Childish bullshit Apollo thought he’d grown out of. Do u like me, y/n? Hearts all over notebook optional.
For himself, Apollo had already answered that question. It wasn’t hearts and flowers. Wasn’t love at first sight. Seeing the prosecutor’s tanned form leaning into his personal space for the first time had been like a kick in the lower intestine. Gavin, he’d remembered thinking, and waiting for the other shoe to drop all the way through Wocky’s trial. Through Machi’s. Through Vera’s.
Any day now, his mentor’s ridiculous baby brother would turn out to conceal the same ice and poison, he’d thought, just under the skin-colored mask of his pretty face and cheerful smile. At best, he’d be shallow and dissolute. Selfish to a fault, the way his brother had talked of him, fond but dismissive, on the rare occasions Kristoph had brought him up at all.
The shoe never dropped. Apollo found himself looking across the courtroom and seeing a brilliant, determined, hard-working young man. Someone as invested in helping people as Apollo himself. Idealistic to a fault in his personal standards, but clear-eyed and practical in how he looked at the world and the legal system.
It would have been so much easier if only Klavier Gavin wasn’t someone worth liking. Wasn’t funny and warm. Didn’t make Apollo’s feet tap to the beat of his godawful songs, however grudgingly.
Maybe it was a good thing Klavier was the master of annoying as fuck mixed signals, because if Apollo started thinking of him as perfect, that was a yellow brick road straight to ‘too good to be true.’ Better to have those little annoying things than to start wondering again. Even if mixed signals, in this case, likely meant a decided lack of interest in his courtroom rival.
And if so? Apollo was fine with that, damn it. Mr. Wright hadn’t raised him to be a Nice Guy (trademark pending.) Actually, Mr. Wright hadn’t raised him at all, but that was beside the point. If Klavier’s flirting, his arms flung across Apollo’s shoulders, the soft glints in his eyes, which seemed like they were aimed at Apollo alone, were just for show, just the way the rock star said ‘hi,’ that was fine, too. He just wished it was an unequivocal ‘no,’ if that were the case, instead of an everlasting ‘maybe.’
Finally, Apollo had realized that if he wanted a straight answer, perhaps he should, oh, say, ask the damned question, straight up. No mincing words. Preferably with a minimum of junior high-style thumb twiddling.
“Are you flirting with me?” he’d asked, and Klavier had answered the question with a question, like a total tool.
“Would you like me to?”
It was a good thing Apollo considered him a friend, and it was a very good thing Apollo had resolved to be the one of the two of them who didn’t suck at basic communication, because an answer like that made him want to throw up his hands and storm off. Which, granted, would have made him look like a bigger diva than Klavier himself.
“I- Oh, hell.” He raked both hands through his hair. “You know, every way of saying this is cheesy or stupid, or insincere-sounding.” Except for the big one, and that would have been insincere, saying ‘I love you,’ like that, without any preamble. Love took time and growing closeness. They could get there, maybe, he thought, then tried to stamp the thought from his mind. “I hate the English language, I don’t speak German, and you don’t speak Spanish.”
“Try Latin, perhaps?” Klavier had suggested, smile playing across his face.
Apollo swatted at him. “Would you be serious, for half a second?” Breathing in, breathing out. “Yes, okay, I’m attracted to you. I like you. You don’t have to do anything about it. We don’t even have to mention it again, if you don’t want to, and if you think I’ll be awkward about it in court, so help me, I will punch you. I just wanted to get it out in the open, because another year of this not-sure-if-flirting, and I may go legitimately nuts.”
Klavier dropped down, so that he was sitting right at the lake’s edge, long legs dangling almost all the way into the water. A stray burst of hot Santa Ana wind batted a Samurai Dog wrapper into his face. “What if it’s complicated?” he asked. Another question. Eighteen more, and he’d have a good game of it going.
Well, two could play at that game. “What if it is?” Apollo shot back. “Tell me how, and we can figure it out. Or is ‘complicated’ a code word for ‘I’m too nice to just turn you down?’ And if so fuck that!”
Klavier’s eyes went hard for a moment. “What sort of pushover do you take me for, Herr Forehead?”
Apollo sat next to him. “Fair enough. So it’s. Complicated. So tell me?”
“You remind me of Kris, sometimes,” Klavier said, and the bottom of Apollo’s stomach dropped out.
“The hell?”
“Call me a cynic,” Klavier said, and here they were again.
“Ja, I am drawn to you. Ja, I would very much like to kiss you, to whisper perfectly harmless things in your ear and watch you turn funny colors from the feel of my breath on your skin.” Funny colors, like the ones Apollo was turning right the fuck now. “But call me crazy, Apollo. I get invested. And I refuse to get invested in someone else who might turn out nothing like I’d imagined.”
“You think I’m like Kristoph?” Stay calm, Justice, stay calm. This is not the time to explode, even if- argh!
“Recall fraulein Cykes’ trial,” Klavier said, his tone of voice familiar, like he was directing the judge to a particularly damning exhibit of evidence. All the anger drained out of Apollo, just like that.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” he said. “It had to be evidence, because if I let emotions get involved…” If Athena, of all people, had been the one who killed Clay... Bright, clever, kind Athena, who’d earned Apollo’s trust and affection so quickly, and suddenly Apollo understood exactly what Klavier must have been feeling.
Better to don the bandages than to face the possibility of her being a lying murderer.
Better for Klavier to keep Apollo at an arm’s length, then to let him in and watch him turn against him. Like Kristoph had. Like Daryan Crescend had, and hadn’t they been close friends?
“I was scared,” Apollo said. “I. I’m not proud of anything I did then, okay? But even then, even during that trial, I wanted to be wrong. I wanted her to be innocent, even if I was a douche to her, all the while. And then she was, and it was the best feeling in the world, because I had my friend back. I’d never lost her at all.”
“Scared.” Klavier smiled ruefully. “You know, you’re never supposed to admit such things. Saying them makes it real.”
Apollo shrugged. “If it’s real, you can fight it.”
“Should I put you on trial, then, Apollo? For crimes you have never committed. Crimes you might not commit at all. You seemed so like him, that day. The look in your eyes. The way your hands gestured.”
“Did I?” Apollo winced inwardly. “I didn’t know what else to do. I wasn’t strong enough, so I had to reach for someone who might be.”
Klavier’s eyes narrowed and he laughed. “Strong? Him?” His mouth twisted. “I’d thought so, too, but in the end, he was nothing but a pathetic wreck, desperate not to get caught. Desperate for the world not to know he would cheat and even kill, would carelessly destroy good men, and for what? Is that what you think strength is?”
“No! Look, I wasn’t thinking about it rationally, or doing it on purpose. I just knew I wasn’t good enough.” Hadn’t been good enough to save Clay from dying, not that he could have known, or been there when the Phantom struck. “I reached for the first things I’d been taught.”
“And what else has he taught you, hm?”
Apollo stared up at the sky. “I don’t know. Hopefully nothing I can’t unlearn." Just the basic tenets of law. A passion for the facts of the case. A desire to do well, to live up to some unseen standards. "I don’t want to become him, either. I think I’d rather die than become someone like him.”
They were close enough, side by side, that Apollo could feel Klavier freeze, every muscle going stiff. “Don’t you dare,” he said. “Think of fraulein Trucy’s feelings, if nothing else. I’d like to think she would miss you, if you were gone.”
“And you?”
Klavier turned toward him, face a desperate roil of emotions. “You’d ask such questions. Ja, I would miss you. Do you think you didn’t give me a scare, after the courtroom bombing? What other defense attorney would make such great faces at me, if you were to fall?”
“Mr. Wright, probably.” Better to keep it light. This conversation was already spiraling faster than Apollo could have anticipated.
“Ah, but Herr Wright keeps his very best faces for Herr Edgeworth, and thus I’d remain bereft. Besides, I’d just as soon not lose any more people I value, either.” Apollo remembered the look on his face, when he’d learned of Constance Courte’s death. Almost like the world had decided that Klavier Gavin just wasn’t allowed to have nice things.
“I don’t want to die, either,” he said. “Not if I can help it. At least not until I get my first decent paycheck, like a real lawyer.”
Klavier’s smile lit up his face. “So you’re aiming for immortality then, are you? I can live with that.”
“No way. If I was immortal, I might start sparkling, and no one wants that.”
Klavier looked him over, pseudo-thoughtful. “I’d like to think you’d be the sort of vampire who travels the world, helping people and being practical, rather than stalking underaged, codependent girls.”
“Do vampires like that even exist?”
Klavier shrugged. “They should. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re not wrong. Hey, Klavier, can I ask you something?”
Klavier stretched out his arms, shoulder joint popping. “Let the cross-examination continue, Herr Justice.”
“Why haven’t you cut your hair, or at least re-styled it? Doesn’t that remind you of him, too?”
Klavier’s hands hovered over his twist, protectively. “Ah-ah, leave my hair alone, Justice. I happen to like that style, and I’ll be damned if I let him ruin it for me.” A pause. “Ach, I see what you’re getting at.”
“A person’s not hair, though,” Apollo admitted. “Hair can’t turn on you. Can’t turn around and start killing people.”
“I don’t know, there was one particularly gruesome story, all over the tabloids.”
“The jury can take it as granted that hair. Is. Not. A. Person. Shut up, Gavin.”
“Ja, and I am not very good at dealing with doubt. Where there is doubt, darkness can always sneak in.”
“Do you trust me?” Apollo found himself asking.
“I’d like to,” Klavier replied. “I’d like to, very much.”
“Even if I’m about to tell you something that’s going to sound like more tabloids?”
“So you are a vampire? Fascinating. I’ve heard having someone's teeth at your throat can be very sensual.”
“Still not a vampire, and you’re still a lunatic.” A smile threatened to escape.
He rolled up his sleeve, tugged the bracelet free from his arm. “Here, put this on.”
Klavier grinned. “Are you proposing to me, Herr Forehead? I don’t know what to say! This is all so very sudden.”
“Does that look like a ring, to you?”
A playful smirk. “Not unless it’s the kind supposed to go around your-”
“If you say what I think you’re about to say, I’m shoving you in the lake, Gavin!”
“Arm! I was going to say ‘arm.’ What did you think I was going to say, Herr Sittenstrolch?”
“Just put it on.”
Klavier did. “Now what?”
“Now I tell you how it works. When someone’s lying in front of me - direct lies, where they know they’re lying - that bracelet tightens around my wrist. It can work for evasions as well. Here, let me show you.” Apollo closed his eyes, and prayed that it would, actually, work. Maybe the bracelet would remain dormant on Klavier’s wrist. Maybe the prosecutor would be left thinking Apollo had gone round the bend, or was condescending to him. Maybe he’d wonder what Apollo was hiding, with such a flashy, improbable misdirect.
He reached over, touching his fingers to the edge of the bracelet. Just this once, he thought. Please. He’s not me, obviously, but he’s someone important to me. I need this to work.
“My name is Apollo Justice.”
“I should hope so,” Klavier said.
“My name is Phoenix Wright.” Klavier’s eyes widened.
“All right, you pushed some sort of hidden button, just now, didn’t you?”
Apollo took his hand away. Please, keep working. “I’m wearing a blue suit.”
“Remote control?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, do you want me to strip, to prove there’s nothing up my sleeve?”
“You’d do that for me? In public?”
Apollo buried his face in his hands. “Look, Doubting Thomas, just run with the unlikely, for a moment.” He sighed. “Not that I can blame you. Sounds crazy, right?”
Klavier studied his face, for a moment. “It does. Then again, you've never struck me as a prankster. Go on.”
“I owe Trucy five bucks.” Nothing. “Trucy owes me five bucks.”
“She does not seem to be in your debt,” Klavier confirmed.
Deep breath, getting serious now.
“I’ve killed someone, before.”
Klavier clutched his wrist, wincing in pain.
“Sorry. I’ve wanted to kill someone before, for real, not just saying it facetiously.”
Another pulse from the bracelet.
“I’ve never killed anyone, through action or inaction, directly or otherwise. If I’ve ever caused anyone’s death, it was a complete accident and I don’t know about it, and if I learned… Fuck. I don’t know what I’d do. I probably couldn’t even kill someone in self-defense.”
He looked down. If the bracelet reacted to this statement, it would be because of those convicted thanks, in part, to his cross-examination. But none of the abovementioned had been executed yet, not even Kristoph, and Klavier carried just as much of that particular weight. He’d understand.
“Apollo, you know that’s not the problem, right? I already know you are a good man.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, not ever." The words poured out of him, unplanned but exactly what he'd wanted to say, all along. "I care about you. I want you to be happy. And yeah, I’ll probably screw up sometime, and say something I don’t mean, and we’ll probably fight. We already fight, over like everything. But I’ll never not care, and I’ll never pretend to care, when I don’t, and I’ll never tell you one thing, while thinking something else behind your back.
“I’ll never lie to you, unless it’s about something really stupid. In fact, I probably won’t ever lie to you, period. I’m not a fan of sugar coating, so there is that.”
"And if I ever act like him again... I don't know what I'll do." Another stab of fear, in his gut. "Ask you to stop me? Hope you'll do it anyway, even if I forget to ask?" Trust that Trucy, Mr. Wright or Athena would pick up the slack, if Klavier did not. Hell, he'd accept a thrashing from Prosecutor Blackquill's hawk, if that's what it would take.
Klavier looked down at his wrist. “There is that, ja.” The bracelet hadn’t so much as pulsed. “Intentions aren’t facts,” he said, pensive.
Apollo tensed.
Klavier’s knuckles brushed over his cheek. “But intentions matter. Every crime has a motive. Every criminal makes a choice, even if they are spurred by their life circumstances. We are more than simply action and evidence.”
“I didn’t trust you for the longest time, either,” Apollo admitted. “Because I knew you were his brother. Because you looked like him. Because you had tiny mannerisms in common.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“You did,” Apollo said.
"Then perhaps I owe you the chance to do likewise." Klavier’s hand, uncurled against his face, his eyes sad, determined, maybe a little hopeful. "Perhaps, we can keep Kristoph from ruining this, too.”
Notes
The full kink meme prompt:
"So K/A have been flirting since forever right? Both of them are aware that something is going on between them but the truth is Klavier is scared of getting into a relationship with Apollo because he's been betrayed by so many people he cared about and it freaked him out when he saw Apollo acting like Kristoph in court.
So it's actually Apollo who is trying to initiate things but he doesn't understand why Klavier never admits how he really feels."
Baby's first kink meme fill, how exciting! Now re-posted with proper italics, and without hideous typos. It had completely slipped my mind that you can't edit your comments while anon. I win at basic logic! Anon posting is just kind of a mystery to me.
Normally, I get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of prompts on the kink meme, and can't pick anything to fill, but this is where the brand new Court of Appeals came in handy. There are much fewer re-requests, so I just picked one I thought was the best fit for me. People should post more re-requests! And fill ones others request, of course.
Title: Complicated
Characters: Apollo Justice, Klavier Gavin
Pairings: Apollo/Klavier
Rating: T/PG-13
Warnings: None
Summary: Klavier's hesitant to get involved with Apollo, after seeing him unconsciously imitating Kristoph in court. Apollo takes measures to convince him. (Written for the Phoenix Wright Kink Meme.)
“Call me a cynic,” Klavier said, and Apollo gaped at him.
“Yeah, maybe in Bizarro Land!”
Klavier’s reflection shimmered and distorted in the greenish waters of Gourd Lake. “Herr Forehead, please, let me finish.”
It wasn’t the first time they’d met like this, on a day free of cases, restless feet carrying them across the city, till they came face to face. Total, unplanned serendipity. Two weeks ago, they’d wound up at a bar Klavier had raved about, after running into each other on the Purple Line. The week before that, Apollo had found an espresso deposited in his hand, as he zoned out in some park. “You look tired,” Klavier had said, and Apollo had rolled his eyes and muttered “gee, thanks, way to pay me a compliment, asshole,” but found himself hiding a smile, all the same.
The question of it hung in the air. Had been hanging in the air for almost as long as they’d known each other, and it’d been long enough that any variation on it would be embarrassing. Childish bullshit Apollo thought he’d grown out of. Do u like me, y/n? Hearts all over notebook optional.
For himself, Apollo had already answered that question. It wasn’t hearts and flowers. Wasn’t love at first sight. Seeing the prosecutor’s tanned form leaning into his personal space for the first time had been like a kick in the lower intestine. Gavin, he’d remembered thinking, and waiting for the other shoe to drop all the way through Wocky’s trial. Through Machi’s. Through Vera’s.
Any day now, his mentor’s ridiculous baby brother would turn out to conceal the same ice and poison, he’d thought, just under the skin-colored mask of his pretty face and cheerful smile. At best, he’d be shallow and dissolute. Selfish to a fault, the way his brother had talked of him, fond but dismissive, on the rare occasions Kristoph had brought him up at all.
The shoe never dropped. Apollo found himself looking across the courtroom and seeing a brilliant, determined, hard-working young man. Someone as invested in helping people as Apollo himself. Idealistic to a fault in his personal standards, but clear-eyed and practical in how he looked at the world and the legal system.
It would have been so much easier if only Klavier Gavin wasn’t someone worth liking. Wasn’t funny and warm. Didn’t make Apollo’s feet tap to the beat of his godawful songs, however grudgingly.
Maybe it was a good thing Klavier was the master of annoying as fuck mixed signals, because if Apollo started thinking of him as perfect, that was a yellow brick road straight to ‘too good to be true.’ Better to have those little annoying things than to start wondering again. Even if mixed signals, in this case, likely meant a decided lack of interest in his courtroom rival.
And if so? Apollo was fine with that, damn it. Mr. Wright hadn’t raised him to be a Nice Guy (trademark pending.) Actually, Mr. Wright hadn’t raised him at all, but that was beside the point. If Klavier’s flirting, his arms flung across Apollo’s shoulders, the soft glints in his eyes, which seemed like they were aimed at Apollo alone, were just for show, just the way the rock star said ‘hi,’ that was fine, too. He just wished it was an unequivocal ‘no,’ if that were the case, instead of an everlasting ‘maybe.’
Finally, Apollo had realized that if he wanted a straight answer, perhaps he should, oh, say, ask the damned question, straight up. No mincing words. Preferably with a minimum of junior high-style thumb twiddling.
“Are you flirting with me?” he’d asked, and Klavier had answered the question with a question, like a total tool.
“Would you like me to?”
It was a good thing Apollo considered him a friend, and it was a very good thing Apollo had resolved to be the one of the two of them who didn’t suck at basic communication, because an answer like that made him want to throw up his hands and storm off. Which, granted, would have made him look like a bigger diva than Klavier himself.
“I- Oh, hell.” He raked both hands through his hair. “You know, every way of saying this is cheesy or stupid, or insincere-sounding.” Except for the big one, and that would have been insincere, saying ‘I love you,’ like that, without any preamble. Love took time and growing closeness. They could get there, maybe, he thought, then tried to stamp the thought from his mind. “I hate the English language, I don’t speak German, and you don’t speak Spanish.”
“Try Latin, perhaps?” Klavier had suggested, smile playing across his face.
Apollo swatted at him. “Would you be serious, for half a second?” Breathing in, breathing out. “Yes, okay, I’m attracted to you. I like you. You don’t have to do anything about it. We don’t even have to mention it again, if you don’t want to, and if you think I’ll be awkward about it in court, so help me, I will punch you. I just wanted to get it out in the open, because another year of this not-sure-if-flirting, and I may go legitimately nuts.”
Klavier dropped down, so that he was sitting right at the lake’s edge, long legs dangling almost all the way into the water. A stray burst of hot Santa Ana wind batted a Samurai Dog wrapper into his face. “What if it’s complicated?” he asked. Another question. Eighteen more, and he’d have a good game of it going.
Well, two could play at that game. “What if it is?” Apollo shot back. “Tell me how, and we can figure it out. Or is ‘complicated’ a code word for ‘I’m too nice to just turn you down?’ And if so fuck that!”
Klavier’s eyes went hard for a moment. “What sort of pushover do you take me for, Herr Forehead?”
Apollo sat next to him. “Fair enough. So it’s. Complicated. So tell me?”
“You remind me of Kris, sometimes,” Klavier said, and the bottom of Apollo’s stomach dropped out.
“The hell?”
“Call me a cynic,” Klavier said, and here they were again.
“Ja, I am drawn to you. Ja, I would very much like to kiss you, to whisper perfectly harmless things in your ear and watch you turn funny colors from the feel of my breath on your skin.” Funny colors, like the ones Apollo was turning right the fuck now. “But call me crazy, Apollo. I get invested. And I refuse to get invested in someone else who might turn out nothing like I’d imagined.”
“You think I’m like Kristoph?” Stay calm, Justice, stay calm. This is not the time to explode, even if- argh!
“Recall fraulein Cykes’ trial,” Klavier said, his tone of voice familiar, like he was directing the judge to a particularly damning exhibit of evidence. All the anger drained out of Apollo, just like that.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” he said. “It had to be evidence, because if I let emotions get involved…” If Athena, of all people, had been the one who killed Clay... Bright, clever, kind Athena, who’d earned Apollo’s trust and affection so quickly, and suddenly Apollo understood exactly what Klavier must have been feeling.
Better to don the bandages than to face the possibility of her being a lying murderer.
Better for Klavier to keep Apollo at an arm’s length, then to let him in and watch him turn against him. Like Kristoph had. Like Daryan Crescend had, and hadn’t they been close friends?
“I was scared,” Apollo said. “I. I’m not proud of anything I did then, okay? But even then, even during that trial, I wanted to be wrong. I wanted her to be innocent, even if I was a douche to her, all the while. And then she was, and it was the best feeling in the world, because I had my friend back. I’d never lost her at all.”
“Scared.” Klavier smiled ruefully. “You know, you’re never supposed to admit such things. Saying them makes it real.”
Apollo shrugged. “If it’s real, you can fight it.”
“Should I put you on trial, then, Apollo? For crimes you have never committed. Crimes you might not commit at all. You seemed so like him, that day. The look in your eyes. The way your hands gestured.”
“Did I?” Apollo winced inwardly. “I didn’t know what else to do. I wasn’t strong enough, so I had to reach for someone who might be.”
Klavier’s eyes narrowed and he laughed. “Strong? Him?” His mouth twisted. “I’d thought so, too, but in the end, he was nothing but a pathetic wreck, desperate not to get caught. Desperate for the world not to know he would cheat and even kill, would carelessly destroy good men, and for what? Is that what you think strength is?”
“No! Look, I wasn’t thinking about it rationally, or doing it on purpose. I just knew I wasn’t good enough.” Hadn’t been good enough to save Clay from dying, not that he could have known, or been there when the Phantom struck. “I reached for the first things I’d been taught.”
“And what else has he taught you, hm?”
Apollo stared up at the sky. “I don’t know. Hopefully nothing I can’t unlearn." Just the basic tenets of law. A passion for the facts of the case. A desire to do well, to live up to some unseen standards. "I don’t want to become him, either. I think I’d rather die than become someone like him.”
They were close enough, side by side, that Apollo could feel Klavier freeze, every muscle going stiff. “Don’t you dare,” he said. “Think of fraulein Trucy’s feelings, if nothing else. I’d like to think she would miss you, if you were gone.”
“And you?”
Klavier turned toward him, face a desperate roil of emotions. “You’d ask such questions. Ja, I would miss you. Do you think you didn’t give me a scare, after the courtroom bombing? What other defense attorney would make such great faces at me, if you were to fall?”
“Mr. Wright, probably.” Better to keep it light. This conversation was already spiraling faster than Apollo could have anticipated.
“Ah, but Herr Wright keeps his very best faces for Herr Edgeworth, and thus I’d remain bereft. Besides, I’d just as soon not lose any more people I value, either.” Apollo remembered the look on his face, when he’d learned of Constance Courte’s death. Almost like the world had decided that Klavier Gavin just wasn’t allowed to have nice things.
“I don’t want to die, either,” he said. “Not if I can help it. At least not until I get my first decent paycheck, like a real lawyer.”
Klavier’s smile lit up his face. “So you’re aiming for immortality then, are you? I can live with that.”
“No way. If I was immortal, I might start sparkling, and no one wants that.”
Klavier looked him over, pseudo-thoughtful. “I’d like to think you’d be the sort of vampire who travels the world, helping people and being practical, rather than stalking underaged, codependent girls.”
“Do vampires like that even exist?”
Klavier shrugged. “They should. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re not wrong. Hey, Klavier, can I ask you something?”
Klavier stretched out his arms, shoulder joint popping. “Let the cross-examination continue, Herr Justice.”
“Why haven’t you cut your hair, or at least re-styled it? Doesn’t that remind you of him, too?”
Klavier’s hands hovered over his twist, protectively. “Ah-ah, leave my hair alone, Justice. I happen to like that style, and I’ll be damned if I let him ruin it for me.” A pause. “Ach, I see what you’re getting at.”
“A person’s not hair, though,” Apollo admitted. “Hair can’t turn on you. Can’t turn around and start killing people.”
“I don’t know, there was one particularly gruesome story, all over the tabloids.”
“The jury can take it as granted that hair. Is. Not. A. Person. Shut up, Gavin.”
“Ja, and I am not very good at dealing with doubt. Where there is doubt, darkness can always sneak in.”
“Do you trust me?” Apollo found himself asking.
“I’d like to,” Klavier replied. “I’d like to, very much.”
“Even if I’m about to tell you something that’s going to sound like more tabloids?”
“So you are a vampire? Fascinating. I’ve heard having someone's teeth at your throat can be very sensual.”
“Still not a vampire, and you’re still a lunatic.” A smile threatened to escape.
He rolled up his sleeve, tugged the bracelet free from his arm. “Here, put this on.”
Klavier grinned. “Are you proposing to me, Herr Forehead? I don’t know what to say! This is all so very sudden.”
“Does that look like a ring, to you?”
A playful smirk. “Not unless it’s the kind supposed to go around your-”
“If you say what I think you’re about to say, I’m shoving you in the lake, Gavin!”
“Arm! I was going to say ‘arm.’ What did you think I was going to say, Herr Sittenstrolch?”
“Just put it on.”
Klavier did. “Now what?”
“Now I tell you how it works. When someone’s lying in front of me - direct lies, where they know they’re lying - that bracelet tightens around my wrist. It can work for evasions as well. Here, let me show you.” Apollo closed his eyes, and prayed that it would, actually, work. Maybe the bracelet would remain dormant on Klavier’s wrist. Maybe the prosecutor would be left thinking Apollo had gone round the bend, or was condescending to him. Maybe he’d wonder what Apollo was hiding, with such a flashy, improbable misdirect.
He reached over, touching his fingers to the edge of the bracelet. Just this once, he thought. Please. He’s not me, obviously, but he’s someone important to me. I need this to work.
“My name is Apollo Justice.”
“I should hope so,” Klavier said.
“My name is Phoenix Wright.” Klavier’s eyes widened.
“All right, you pushed some sort of hidden button, just now, didn’t you?”
Apollo took his hand away. Please, keep working. “I’m wearing a blue suit.”
“Remote control?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, do you want me to strip, to prove there’s nothing up my sleeve?”
“You’d do that for me? In public?”
Apollo buried his face in his hands. “Look, Doubting Thomas, just run with the unlikely, for a moment.” He sighed. “Not that I can blame you. Sounds crazy, right?”
Klavier studied his face, for a moment. “It does. Then again, you've never struck me as a prankster. Go on.”
“I owe Trucy five bucks.” Nothing. “Trucy owes me five bucks.”
“She does not seem to be in your debt,” Klavier confirmed.
Deep breath, getting serious now.
“I’ve killed someone, before.”
Klavier clutched his wrist, wincing in pain.
“Sorry. I’ve wanted to kill someone before, for real, not just saying it facetiously.”
Another pulse from the bracelet.
“I’ve never killed anyone, through action or inaction, directly or otherwise. If I’ve ever caused anyone’s death, it was a complete accident and I don’t know about it, and if I learned… Fuck. I don’t know what I’d do. I probably couldn’t even kill someone in self-defense.”
He looked down. If the bracelet reacted to this statement, it would be because of those convicted thanks, in part, to his cross-examination. But none of the abovementioned had been executed yet, not even Kristoph, and Klavier carried just as much of that particular weight. He’d understand.
“Apollo, you know that’s not the problem, right? I already know you are a good man.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, not ever." The words poured out of him, unplanned but exactly what he'd wanted to say, all along. "I care about you. I want you to be happy. And yeah, I’ll probably screw up sometime, and say something I don’t mean, and we’ll probably fight. We already fight, over like everything. But I’ll never not care, and I’ll never pretend to care, when I don’t, and I’ll never tell you one thing, while thinking something else behind your back.
“I’ll never lie to you, unless it’s about something really stupid. In fact, I probably won’t ever lie to you, period. I’m not a fan of sugar coating, so there is that.”
"And if I ever act like him again... I don't know what I'll do." Another stab of fear, in his gut. "Ask you to stop me? Hope you'll do it anyway, even if I forget to ask?" Trust that Trucy, Mr. Wright or Athena would pick up the slack, if Klavier did not. Hell, he'd accept a thrashing from Prosecutor Blackquill's hawk, if that's what it would take.
Klavier looked down at his wrist. “There is that, ja.” The bracelet hadn’t so much as pulsed. “Intentions aren’t facts,” he said, pensive.
Apollo tensed.
Klavier’s knuckles brushed over his cheek. “But intentions matter. Every crime has a motive. Every criminal makes a choice, even if they are spurred by their life circumstances. We are more than simply action and evidence.”
“I didn’t trust you for the longest time, either,” Apollo admitted. “Because I knew you were his brother. Because you looked like him. Because you had tiny mannerisms in common.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“You did,” Apollo said.
"Then perhaps I owe you the chance to do likewise." Klavier’s hand, uncurled against his face, his eyes sad, determined, maybe a little hopeful. "Perhaps, we can keep Kristoph from ruining this, too.”
Notes
The full kink meme prompt:
"So K/A have been flirting since forever right? Both of them are aware that something is going on between them but the truth is Klavier is scared of getting into a relationship with Apollo because he's been betrayed by so many people he cared about and it freaked him out when he saw Apollo acting like Kristoph in court.
So it's actually Apollo who is trying to initiate things but he doesn't understand why Klavier never admits how he really feels."
Baby's first kink meme fill, how exciting! Now re-posted with proper italics, and without hideous typos. It had completely slipped my mind that you can't edit your comments while anon. I win at basic logic! Anon posting is just kind of a mystery to me.
Normally, I get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of prompts on the kink meme, and can't pick anything to fill, but this is where the brand new Court of Appeals came in handy. There are much fewer re-requests, so I just picked one I thought was the best fit for me. People should post more re-requests! And fill ones others request, of course.
