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mllelaurelFandom: Ace Attorney
Title: Way Stations of the Heart
Characters: Apollo Justice, Klavier Gavin, Kristoph Gavin, Phoenix Wright, ensemble.
Pairings: Klavier/Apollo, Phoenix/Edgeworth, past Phoenix/Kristoph and Klavier/Daryan
Rating: M
Warnings: Non-graphic sexual references, and some violence (I can't tell where the graphic vs. non-graphic violence line lies, unless, like, people's guts are falling out.) Prevalent themes of emotional abuse, gaslighting and general creepiness. Major character death, right at the start.
Summary: Klavier thought he’d grown used to dealing with the deaths of people he loved, even Kristoph’s execution, but nothing could have prepared him for his brother’s voice inside his mind, or the inexorable loss of control over his own life.
In which there is possession, journeys to the center of the mind, too many close calls, and a love confession or two.
I thought I would actually get around to reposting this behemoth to Dreamwidth, now that it's complete.
Klavier wasn’t used to finding himself on this end of the equation, trapped in the audience, waiting for the curtain to rise. His hands felt cold, without his usual rings, but the jewelry didn’t seem fitting here. Disrespectful. No jacket, either. He didn’t own a black one, unless it was leather.
A glance to the right, and Gott, but there was something chilling about Herr Wright in a black suit. He looked like a gangster, and wasn’t that fitting, for a man who badly played the piano in a mafiya bar. He was facing away from Klavier, whispering something to a stony-faced Apollo, both just a little too far-off to be overheard, the distance between them and him palpable in the quiet room.
He thought he’d gotten used to the idea of his brother’s execution, internalized it as an inevitable truth, but all that resolve fled as the curtain lifted and he saw Kristoph’s haggard face. Some part of him had carried on assuming that Kristoph would face this with the mocking sort of dignity he’d adopted in their interactions, following his trial. He couldn’t have been more wrong. Kristoph looked angry, but he looked scared as well, and there was a part of Klavier that badly wanted to jump out of his seat, make a scene, do whatever it took to stay the inevitable for another hour, another day. Just long enough that he wouldn’t have to see it.
It was a coward’s thought, and Klavier didn’t let it gain much traction, no matter how badly he wanted to vomit, right then. You think this is bad? They haven’t even started yet. Anticipation could be more torturous than the finishing blow.
He was a veteran at this, by now. He knew what was coming. At least his mind wasn’t filling in the blanks with greater horrors, the way it had with Daryan. Klavier didn’t know whether that made it better or worse.
“You okay?” He hadn’t seen Apollo come up. It was a funny sort of vantage point, having Apollo leaning over him, for a change.
“Is there a good answer for that? Do let me know if you find one.”
Apollo shrugged, sat down next to him. “Yeah, I guess that was a stupid question.”
“Ja, but it was well meant. I’ll take it in the spirit in which it was offered, how’s that?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“And yourself?”
“See the part where it’s a stupid question. You should come sit with us, though. You look like some poor relation, all the way over here.”
Klavier laughed mirthlessly. “Ah, but I am a poor relation.”
Apollo rolled his eyes. “If you’re poor, then I’m Will Powers.”
“Herr Samurai? Say it’s not so!” A guard entered, along with someone in a medical uniform, and all of Klavier’s banter froze in his mouth.
“It’s time, huh?” Apollo’s voice was crackly, like his mouth had dried out, all of a sudden.
Klavier put a hand on his head, ruffling those silly antennae of his. “You don’t have to look, you know.”
Apollo glared. “Yeah, neither do you. What of it?” He didn’t even pretend to look away, as the doctor set up the IV. Well, Klavier thought, not a doctor, per se. Performing the lethal injection went against the Hippocratic Oath. But at least the Gavin fortune had procured the most professional non-professional money could buy.
The anesthetic, first. Don’t blink now, whatever you do. This is your last chance to see him, alive and awake, as a person and not a body. Klavier watched as Kristoph’s glare smoothed out, giving in to unnatural sleep. He remembered the world whiting out, swirling him down, when he’d gone in for surgery, to get a torn ligament fixed, at twenty. That wasn’t too bad, if that’s what it was like. Kristoph wouldn’t feel the rest of it. Wouldn’t even know it was happening, except that he’d have already known, of course. He’d had over a year to prepare for his fate.
So had Klavier. He'd had the exact same amount of time. It hadn’t helped him, so why should Kristoph be any different?
Kristoph’s victims hadn’t had any time at all. No last meals, no goodbyes, nothing but the seconds and minutes of pain and fear, followed by oblivion. What happened now was fair. It would keep Kris from hurting anyone else, ever again.
Gott, but he wished he’d worn sunglasses. It was common enough, for such an occasion.
Pancuronium bromide, next. The controversial part. If the anesthetic had failed, the paralytic would cover it up. Hard to cry out, when you can’t move.
Idiot. Don’t think about that, for fuck’s sake. Apollo’s hand gripped the side of his arm. Klavier doubted the younger man even realized he was doing it, but damned if he wasn’t grateful, all the same, for the bruises and comfort both.
Then, at last, came the potassium chloride. It would stop the heart almost instantly, according to the literature. Whether it did… it wasn’t as though Klavier had ever been subjected to it, himself.
He watched his brother’s chest rise and fall. Once, twice… His eyes strained, waiting for the third breath, but it never came.
His own chest felt like it was on fire. Blood pounded in his temples, a sickening drumbeat.
Apollo was shaking his shoulder. “Prosecutor Gavin? Prosecutor Gavin?”
“Was?” He hadn’t meant to snap, blamed it on his frayed nerves and Apollo startling him.
“Hey, sorry, geez. You just looked like you were in pain is all.”
Klavier laughed. Couldn’t stop laughing, no matter how hard he tried.
“Right. You’ve finally cracked. That’s great.”
“I’m all right,” Klavier said, only to be met with Phoenix Wright’s piercing stare, of all people’s.
“Mmm-hm.” Wright didn’t look so stellar, himself. None of them did.
Klavier stood, stretching out his spine. The med specialist was reading off Kristoph’s time of death. “It’s been a hell of a day,” he said, arm around each of the other men’s shoulders. “Drinks are on me, ja?” Some part of him wanted to run, to hole up in his own apartment and… What? The rest of him screamed at the idea of being alone, right now. He was already alone, in a sense. The very last Gavin, if you didn’t count his father.
Herr Wright checked his watch, and Klavier’s eyes were drawn to the lint on his lapels. He’s always been a slob. Does this surprise you? Without thinking, he reached over, pinching the offending piece of lint between his fingers and removing it.
The look Wright gave him, in return, was unreadable. Like the man had held him up under a microscope and found him wanting. “Maybe another time,” he said. “I, uh, promised Trucy I’ll help her with her homework, tonight.”
Apollo’s eyes narrowed, as Wright extricated himself, but he didn’t say anything. “Just the two of us, huh?”
“Am I really such poor company?” Klavier’s words sounded hollow, even to himself. “Well, tonight I might well be.”
Apollo’s arms wrapped around him, like a vice, startling him again. “If you think you’ve gotta be charming or happy, or anything, tonight…” He shook his head. “What planet are you even from, Gavin?”
Klavier buried his face in Apollo’s jacket, inhaling the scent of mothballs and barely-there cologne. “The planet of too damn tired to even make a joke about Uranus.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Apollo said. Klavier didn’t remember them leaving the building, but they must have. The fresh air outside hit his face like a brick wall, making him gulp it too fast, in what sounded far too much like a sob.
“Fick alles.”
“Yeah. That’s nice.” Apollo clearly had no idea what he’d just said, but he slowed anyway, waiting until Klavier could move and catch up again, blinking owlishly in the cold sunlight, eyes feeling like they’d been scoured with sandpaper. “You said something about drinks, didn’t you?”
***
They wound up bypassing the bar in favor of Apollo’s apartment, only stopping by a liquor store long enough to pick up two bottles of whiskey. This wasn’t a beer sort of night.
Apollo’s couch looked like an old war veteran draped in a flowery shawl. “Curb find,” Apollo said, looking pointedly away,” but it was the most comfortable Klavier had ever sat on, and that included imported European furniture. Somewhere under the couch, he spied a flash of calico, as a cat stuck her head out and darted back below.
“That’s Mikeko,” Apollo told him. “So, apparently Plum Kitaki will foist a cat on you, if you stand still long enough. And you won’t get a choice in the matter.” He crouched down, trying to get Mikeko to come out, but the cat wasn’t risking it. Klavier couldn’t blame her. He wouldn’t want to meet himself tonight either.
“Ach, so that’s who I’ve heard Fraulein Cykes referring to as ‘Apollo’s girlfriend.’ So I see. I may have to remind Frau Plum that I played a hand in clearing Wocky’s name as well, in that case, if that means I gain so fine a prize. She’s lovely, what little I’ve seen of her.”
Apollo nodded, vaguely bashful. “Don’t know where Plum got her. Don’t wanna know. But she’s a good cat, I swear.”
Klavier was starting to feel almost human again, when reality reasserted itself. Kris was dead. It was too large to be dealt with. Almost too large to feel his way through. The whiskey burned its way down his throat.
“Why’d you come, tonight?” he asked Apollo.
“Because I live here, duh.”
“No, I mean… I mean to the… the…”
“Why do you think?” Apollo curled into the couch’s arm. “I miss him. Even if the him I miss is made-up, it doesn’t mean I don’t. He was my boss for two years. Taught me more about law than law school. And now this! And you ask why I was there.”
Klavier shook his head. “I can ask the same question of myself, and I hardly know the answer.”
“Conclusion, we’re both idiots.” Apollo took a swig straight out of the bottle. The coughing fit that resulted got more whiskey on both their shirts than it did down his throat, but at least now they both smelled how they felt. “Fucking hell, that’s like. Pumice, mixed with that stuff Mr. Gavin would… Nail polish remover.”
Klavier took the bottle away from him. “I see you’re not a veteran drinker, Herr Forehead. We’ll train you up yet.” He wished Apollo hadn’t mentioned nail polish remover. Klavier could almost smell Ariadoney, when he closed his eyes. Alcohol, paint, a trace of something expensive, almost perfumey. It made his stomach curdle, imaginary though it was.
“I don’t want to drink any more,” Apollo said. “I already feel like everything’s upside-down.”
“Maybe that’s because it is,” Klavier said. There were plastic cups on the coffee table. He grabbed one, poured it full of whiskey and drank. “Tomorrow, we can be smart and sane and responsible again. Tonight we perform our best rendition of…” The words got muddled up. “Our best impression of two drunken hobos.”
“So, like my boss, only actually drunk?”
“Did Herr Wright…?” Guilt stirred. If the man had sunk to such lows in the seven years, it would have been Klavier’s fault, of course.
“Nah,” Apollo said. “You’d think the grape juice was a euphemism, but I’ve tried it. It’s actual, honest-to-God grape juice.”
“Wirklich?” It was a relief, truth be told.
“So, what are you like when you’re drunk? You know, so I’m prepared. And so I can call the cops, if it turns out you get violent or something.” An unpleasant image. A sleazy Russian bar. A man in a white suit, blood crusting on his temples. Cards scattered all over the floor.
Only Kristoph had been sober when he killed Shadi Enigmar, so it wasn’t a fair comparison, not really. “Or so you can run, should I get maudlin?” Klavier shot back.
Apollo reached over to poke him in the side. “If this is you maudlin…”
“It isn’t,” Klavier said. “Not yet.”
“I’ve seen worse,” Apollo said, serious.
He hadn’t even seen it yet, though he was probably right. To be honest, Klavier wished he were a teary-eyed wreck, right now. It would have been a far more natural reaction, much as he would have embarrassed himself. Instead, the grief caught in his throat, like a wishbone, blocking his airways and scraping his esophagus raw. Maybe it was Apollo’s presence. Maybe he would have been better on his own, after all.
Had he been better, after Daryan died?
No. Apollo’s presence changed nothing.
“Don’t know what the fuck’s wrong with me,” Klavier said. The plastic cup which held the alcohol was red, just like Apollo’s everyday suit. The liquid in it sloshed, side to side.
“You mean other than your music or your sense of fashion?”
“Or my taste in friends, perhaps?” Klavier added dryly. “I seem to have developed quite a palate for people who insult me endlessly.”
Apollo seemed nonplussed. “You like it when we do, and you know it. Wouldn’t keep hitting on Ema, otherwise.”
“Maybe I do.” Klavier flashed him a crooked grin. “Does that make me a masochist?”
“Sure. Whatever you say, Gavin.”
“Can you not call me that?” Klavier asked.
Apollo reached over to squeeze his shoulder. “It’s your last name, too, you know.”
“Doesn’t feel like it is,” Klavier said. “I mean, of course it does. Of course it’s mine. But it was his for eight years before I was even born. It was always more his.”
“Even when you were Klavier Gavin, world famous rock star?”
“Ja. Even then. Perhaps then, more than ever.”
“Why?”
Klavier rubbed his face. “Ask me again when I’m sober. Or possibly don’t.”
“I’ll get you some water,” Apollo said, and got up. They’d barely even touched, but Klavier felt colder without him there, the couch so much empty space.
Such a thoughtful boy. You don’t even have to ask. He’ll dance your tune, simply for your need of it. Klavier frowned. Where had that thought come from? Even everything else aside, when had he thought of Apollo, only two years his junior, as a boy. Apparently the back of his mind was a patronizing bastard.
The back of his mind sounded like Kris. Hell.
Apollo returned with a mug of water, interrupting his thoughts. Klavier drank gratefully, then passed it back over. It wasn’t as though Apollo was entirely sober, himself. They both risked a hangover, come tomorrow.
The next few minutes were quiet. In the silent space, Mikeko ventured out again, filled with a god-given mission to savage the backs of Klavier’s boots. He let her. It gave them character, and it granted him the opportunity him to scoop the indignant bundle of fluff, cradling her against his chest. “I have you now, little fraulein.” She had a funny little bobtail, like a rabbit, and she gave him the most unimpressed glare ever mustered by a cat, but the texture of his shirt must have passed muster, soft enough. She deigned to curl up against him, head on his shoulder.
“Wow, she likes you,” Apollo said. “She doesn’t normally warm up to strangers this quickly.”
“Animals are silly like that. Kris had a dog, did you know? She loved him more than anything.”
Apollo frowned. “So, who’s got her now.”
“That would be me, though she’s staying with a friend, tonight.” Klavier hadn’t been sure he’d be up to dealing with a creature who was so very much Kris’s, no matter how sweet Vongole was. He wondered if she realized Kristoph was dead. He’d heard animals did, sometimes. Just like that. Just like their soul was connected to yours.
Maybe he’d been wrong to leave her alone, tonight. Not that she was alone, per se. Juniper promised she would take good care of her. Still, she was no Gavin, on a night when Vongole might well have liked to be around one.
More guilt. More whiskey.
“When’s the funeral?” Apollo asked.
“Tomorrow.” It’s supposed to be a private affair, though you’d be welcome. Assuming you’d want to go anywhere near it, of course.”
Apollo nodded. “I’ll tell Mr. Wright as well. That okay?”
Klavier snorted. “Kris would have hated knowing he’d be there. Which makes Herr Wright’s presence indis- indispensable, in my book.”
“How the hell can you still pronounce indispensable?”
“I very nearly couldn’t!” Apollo’s floor lamp was far too bright. How had he failed to notice that, before?
“We’ll be there,” Apollo said, and Klavier’s heart swelled with gratitude, terrifying, and overwhelming. Bitterly wonderful, in its own way.
“It’ll be boring,” Klavier promised him. “The priest’s guaranteed to never have met the man, but he’s being paid to say nice things about him anyway. As nice an array of things as you can say about an unrepentant murderer. Half of what he says is bound to have been made up, so that at least might be entertaining.”
“I won’t be going for him,” Apollo said. “Tonight was for him, yeah, and for me as well, I guess but…”
“But tomorrow?”
“For me, a little. But mostly cause it sucks that you might have to be alone.”
“You care that much, Herr Forehead?”
“Idiot,” Apollo said, by way of an answer. His eyes were the darkest and warmest Klavier had ever seen. When had he leaned in close enough to notice? He’d expected Apollo to pull back, or to push him away, but he didn’t.
Gravity took hold, pressing his face into Apollo’s shoulder, once again, against the crook of Apollo’s throat. The cat squirmed in his arms, wriggling free.
“Apollo, I am… I am verdrunct.”
“Is that even a word?”
Klavier shrugged, himself unsure of the answer. “Very drunk, that is to say. If I cross any boundaries, please…” Please kick me, he was going to say, but he found himself, slipping into a dream, instead, with the rhythm of Apollo’s pulse in his ear.
***
He dreamed he was standing in the doorway of a brightly-lit office. His office… no, wait, it was Kristoph’s, was it not? No guitars, posters, scattered papers everywhere. Order and light, the desks neatly organized.
Rows upon rows of white shoes, on the strip of floor before the carpet began.
Klavier walked inside, eyes glancing lazily over his domain. A powder blue suit jacket, draped neatly over one of the office chairs. He put it on. A family photo on the largest desk. His own grinning, sunburned face, and Kristoph, behind him, bemused, squinting in the sun. This was before I had glasses, of course.
Through another door, into a side-room. This is where I keep my legal library.
“You always were too prissy for WestLaw.” Who was he talking to? Where was the voice coming from?
Someone sneezed, and Klavier turned to see Apollo, up on a stepladder, reaching for a dusty tome.
“Hold on a second, Mr. Gavin. I think I know where our precedent might be.”
“Do you now, Justice?” His own voice sounded strange and familiar, all at once.
“Rutledge vs. The State of Indiana. Joseph Rutledge was found not guilty, though the actual culprit refused to testify.”
“I trust that the evidence was sufficient to convict, in that case.”
Apollo nodded, grabbing a thick volume and climbing down. “I think there’s sufficient evidence in our case, too.”
Klavier laughed, pleased, watching dust motes dance in the sunlight, forming a sort of halo around Apollo’s head, as he read off the details of the case. “Well done, Justice. You’ll be taking on cases of your own, before you know it.” The boy had promise, to be sure.
This, too, is mine. Something roiled in his head. Betrayal and possessiveness. Tendrils of despair, mixed with anger.
Was it the boy’s fault, really, that he was so easily led? I’d made him that way, after all. All too ripe, for Wright to take advantage. All too ripe for you as well, Little Brother.
***
Klavier woke in a cold sweat, whiskey churning in his stomach. He barely made it to the bathroom, before it bid him Auf Wiedersehen, like so many a drink before it.
He couldn’t remember what about the dream had disturbed him so much, only that his hands felt ice cold at the idea of going back to sleep, and he couldn’t bring himself to more than glance at Apollo’s sleeping form, still sprawled out on the couch.
Title: Way Stations of the Heart
Characters: Apollo Justice, Klavier Gavin, Kristoph Gavin, Phoenix Wright, ensemble.
Pairings: Klavier/Apollo, Phoenix/Edgeworth, past Phoenix/Kristoph and Klavier/Daryan
Rating: M
Warnings: Non-graphic sexual references, and some violence (I can't tell where the graphic vs. non-graphic violence line lies, unless, like, people's guts are falling out.) Prevalent themes of emotional abuse, gaslighting and general creepiness. Major character death, right at the start.
Summary: Klavier thought he’d grown used to dealing with the deaths of people he loved, even Kristoph’s execution, but nothing could have prepared him for his brother’s voice inside his mind, or the inexorable loss of control over his own life.
In which there is possession, journeys to the center of the mind, too many close calls, and a love confession or two.
I thought I would actually get around to reposting this behemoth to Dreamwidth, now that it's complete.
Klavier wasn’t used to finding himself on this end of the equation, trapped in the audience, waiting for the curtain to rise. His hands felt cold, without his usual rings, but the jewelry didn’t seem fitting here. Disrespectful. No jacket, either. He didn’t own a black one, unless it was leather.
A glance to the right, and Gott, but there was something chilling about Herr Wright in a black suit. He looked like a gangster, and wasn’t that fitting, for a man who badly played the piano in a mafiya bar. He was facing away from Klavier, whispering something to a stony-faced Apollo, both just a little too far-off to be overheard, the distance between them and him palpable in the quiet room.
He thought he’d gotten used to the idea of his brother’s execution, internalized it as an inevitable truth, but all that resolve fled as the curtain lifted and he saw Kristoph’s haggard face. Some part of him had carried on assuming that Kristoph would face this with the mocking sort of dignity he’d adopted in their interactions, following his trial. He couldn’t have been more wrong. Kristoph looked angry, but he looked scared as well, and there was a part of Klavier that badly wanted to jump out of his seat, make a scene, do whatever it took to stay the inevitable for another hour, another day. Just long enough that he wouldn’t have to see it.
It was a coward’s thought, and Klavier didn’t let it gain much traction, no matter how badly he wanted to vomit, right then. You think this is bad? They haven’t even started yet. Anticipation could be more torturous than the finishing blow.
He was a veteran at this, by now. He knew what was coming. At least his mind wasn’t filling in the blanks with greater horrors, the way it had with Daryan. Klavier didn’t know whether that made it better or worse.
“You okay?” He hadn’t seen Apollo come up. It was a funny sort of vantage point, having Apollo leaning over him, for a change.
“Is there a good answer for that? Do let me know if you find one.”
Apollo shrugged, sat down next to him. “Yeah, I guess that was a stupid question.”
“Ja, but it was well meant. I’ll take it in the spirit in which it was offered, how’s that?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“And yourself?”
“See the part where it’s a stupid question. You should come sit with us, though. You look like some poor relation, all the way over here.”
Klavier laughed mirthlessly. “Ah, but I am a poor relation.”
Apollo rolled his eyes. “If you’re poor, then I’m Will Powers.”
“Herr Samurai? Say it’s not so!” A guard entered, along with someone in a medical uniform, and all of Klavier’s banter froze in his mouth.
“It’s time, huh?” Apollo’s voice was crackly, like his mouth had dried out, all of a sudden.
Klavier put a hand on his head, ruffling those silly antennae of his. “You don’t have to look, you know.”
Apollo glared. “Yeah, neither do you. What of it?” He didn’t even pretend to look away, as the doctor set up the IV. Well, Klavier thought, not a doctor, per se. Performing the lethal injection went against the Hippocratic Oath. But at least the Gavin fortune had procured the most professional non-professional money could buy.
The anesthetic, first. Don’t blink now, whatever you do. This is your last chance to see him, alive and awake, as a person and not a body. Klavier watched as Kristoph’s glare smoothed out, giving in to unnatural sleep. He remembered the world whiting out, swirling him down, when he’d gone in for surgery, to get a torn ligament fixed, at twenty. That wasn’t too bad, if that’s what it was like. Kristoph wouldn’t feel the rest of it. Wouldn’t even know it was happening, except that he’d have already known, of course. He’d had over a year to prepare for his fate.
So had Klavier. He'd had the exact same amount of time. It hadn’t helped him, so why should Kristoph be any different?
Kristoph’s victims hadn’t had any time at all. No last meals, no goodbyes, nothing but the seconds and minutes of pain and fear, followed by oblivion. What happened now was fair. It would keep Kris from hurting anyone else, ever again.
Gott, but he wished he’d worn sunglasses. It was common enough, for such an occasion.
Pancuronium bromide, next. The controversial part. If the anesthetic had failed, the paralytic would cover it up. Hard to cry out, when you can’t move.
Idiot. Don’t think about that, for fuck’s sake. Apollo’s hand gripped the side of his arm. Klavier doubted the younger man even realized he was doing it, but damned if he wasn’t grateful, all the same, for the bruises and comfort both.
Then, at last, came the potassium chloride. It would stop the heart almost instantly, according to the literature. Whether it did… it wasn’t as though Klavier had ever been subjected to it, himself.
He watched his brother’s chest rise and fall. Once, twice… His eyes strained, waiting for the third breath, but it never came.
His own chest felt like it was on fire. Blood pounded in his temples, a sickening drumbeat.
Apollo was shaking his shoulder. “Prosecutor Gavin? Prosecutor Gavin?”
“Was?” He hadn’t meant to snap, blamed it on his frayed nerves and Apollo startling him.
“Hey, sorry, geez. You just looked like you were in pain is all.”
Klavier laughed. Couldn’t stop laughing, no matter how hard he tried.
“Right. You’ve finally cracked. That’s great.”
“I’m all right,” Klavier said, only to be met with Phoenix Wright’s piercing stare, of all people’s.
“Mmm-hm.” Wright didn’t look so stellar, himself. None of them did.
Klavier stood, stretching out his spine. The med specialist was reading off Kristoph’s time of death. “It’s been a hell of a day,” he said, arm around each of the other men’s shoulders. “Drinks are on me, ja?” Some part of him wanted to run, to hole up in his own apartment and… What? The rest of him screamed at the idea of being alone, right now. He was already alone, in a sense. The very last Gavin, if you didn’t count his father.
Herr Wright checked his watch, and Klavier’s eyes were drawn to the lint on his lapels. He’s always been a slob. Does this surprise you? Without thinking, he reached over, pinching the offending piece of lint between his fingers and removing it.
The look Wright gave him, in return, was unreadable. Like the man had held him up under a microscope and found him wanting. “Maybe another time,” he said. “I, uh, promised Trucy I’ll help her with her homework, tonight.”
Apollo’s eyes narrowed, as Wright extricated himself, but he didn’t say anything. “Just the two of us, huh?”
“Am I really such poor company?” Klavier’s words sounded hollow, even to himself. “Well, tonight I might well be.”
Apollo’s arms wrapped around him, like a vice, startling him again. “If you think you’ve gotta be charming or happy, or anything, tonight…” He shook his head. “What planet are you even from, Gavin?”
Klavier buried his face in Apollo’s jacket, inhaling the scent of mothballs and barely-there cologne. “The planet of too damn tired to even make a joke about Uranus.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Apollo said. Klavier didn’t remember them leaving the building, but they must have. The fresh air outside hit his face like a brick wall, making him gulp it too fast, in what sounded far too much like a sob.
“Fick alles.”
“Yeah. That’s nice.” Apollo clearly had no idea what he’d just said, but he slowed anyway, waiting until Klavier could move and catch up again, blinking owlishly in the cold sunlight, eyes feeling like they’d been scoured with sandpaper. “You said something about drinks, didn’t you?”
***
They wound up bypassing the bar in favor of Apollo’s apartment, only stopping by a liquor store long enough to pick up two bottles of whiskey. This wasn’t a beer sort of night.
Apollo’s couch looked like an old war veteran draped in a flowery shawl. “Curb find,” Apollo said, looking pointedly away,” but it was the most comfortable Klavier had ever sat on, and that included imported European furniture. Somewhere under the couch, he spied a flash of calico, as a cat stuck her head out and darted back below.
“That’s Mikeko,” Apollo told him. “So, apparently Plum Kitaki will foist a cat on you, if you stand still long enough. And you won’t get a choice in the matter.” He crouched down, trying to get Mikeko to come out, but the cat wasn’t risking it. Klavier couldn’t blame her. He wouldn’t want to meet himself tonight either.
“Ach, so that’s who I’ve heard Fraulein Cykes referring to as ‘Apollo’s girlfriend.’ So I see. I may have to remind Frau Plum that I played a hand in clearing Wocky’s name as well, in that case, if that means I gain so fine a prize. She’s lovely, what little I’ve seen of her.”
Apollo nodded, vaguely bashful. “Don’t know where Plum got her. Don’t wanna know. But she’s a good cat, I swear.”
Klavier was starting to feel almost human again, when reality reasserted itself. Kris was dead. It was too large to be dealt with. Almost too large to feel his way through. The whiskey burned its way down his throat.
“Why’d you come, tonight?” he asked Apollo.
“Because I live here, duh.”
“No, I mean… I mean to the… the…”
“Why do you think?” Apollo curled into the couch’s arm. “I miss him. Even if the him I miss is made-up, it doesn’t mean I don’t. He was my boss for two years. Taught me more about law than law school. And now this! And you ask why I was there.”
Klavier shook his head. “I can ask the same question of myself, and I hardly know the answer.”
“Conclusion, we’re both idiots.” Apollo took a swig straight out of the bottle. The coughing fit that resulted got more whiskey on both their shirts than it did down his throat, but at least now they both smelled how they felt. “Fucking hell, that’s like. Pumice, mixed with that stuff Mr. Gavin would… Nail polish remover.”
Klavier took the bottle away from him. “I see you’re not a veteran drinker, Herr Forehead. We’ll train you up yet.” He wished Apollo hadn’t mentioned nail polish remover. Klavier could almost smell Ariadoney, when he closed his eyes. Alcohol, paint, a trace of something expensive, almost perfumey. It made his stomach curdle, imaginary though it was.
“I don’t want to drink any more,” Apollo said. “I already feel like everything’s upside-down.”
“Maybe that’s because it is,” Klavier said. There were plastic cups on the coffee table. He grabbed one, poured it full of whiskey and drank. “Tomorrow, we can be smart and sane and responsible again. Tonight we perform our best rendition of…” The words got muddled up. “Our best impression of two drunken hobos.”
“So, like my boss, only actually drunk?”
“Did Herr Wright…?” Guilt stirred. If the man had sunk to such lows in the seven years, it would have been Klavier’s fault, of course.
“Nah,” Apollo said. “You’d think the grape juice was a euphemism, but I’ve tried it. It’s actual, honest-to-God grape juice.”
“Wirklich?” It was a relief, truth be told.
“So, what are you like when you’re drunk? You know, so I’m prepared. And so I can call the cops, if it turns out you get violent or something.” An unpleasant image. A sleazy Russian bar. A man in a white suit, blood crusting on his temples. Cards scattered all over the floor.
Only Kristoph had been sober when he killed Shadi Enigmar, so it wasn’t a fair comparison, not really. “Or so you can run, should I get maudlin?” Klavier shot back.
Apollo reached over to poke him in the side. “If this is you maudlin…”
“It isn’t,” Klavier said. “Not yet.”
“I’ve seen worse,” Apollo said, serious.
He hadn’t even seen it yet, though he was probably right. To be honest, Klavier wished he were a teary-eyed wreck, right now. It would have been a far more natural reaction, much as he would have embarrassed himself. Instead, the grief caught in his throat, like a wishbone, blocking his airways and scraping his esophagus raw. Maybe it was Apollo’s presence. Maybe he would have been better on his own, after all.
Had he been better, after Daryan died?
No. Apollo’s presence changed nothing.
“Don’t know what the fuck’s wrong with me,” Klavier said. The plastic cup which held the alcohol was red, just like Apollo’s everyday suit. The liquid in it sloshed, side to side.
“You mean other than your music or your sense of fashion?”
“Or my taste in friends, perhaps?” Klavier added dryly. “I seem to have developed quite a palate for people who insult me endlessly.”
Apollo seemed nonplussed. “You like it when we do, and you know it. Wouldn’t keep hitting on Ema, otherwise.”
“Maybe I do.” Klavier flashed him a crooked grin. “Does that make me a masochist?”
“Sure. Whatever you say, Gavin.”
“Can you not call me that?” Klavier asked.
Apollo reached over to squeeze his shoulder. “It’s your last name, too, you know.”
“Doesn’t feel like it is,” Klavier said. “I mean, of course it does. Of course it’s mine. But it was his for eight years before I was even born. It was always more his.”
“Even when you were Klavier Gavin, world famous rock star?”
“Ja. Even then. Perhaps then, more than ever.”
“Why?”
Klavier rubbed his face. “Ask me again when I’m sober. Or possibly don’t.”
“I’ll get you some water,” Apollo said, and got up. They’d barely even touched, but Klavier felt colder without him there, the couch so much empty space.
Such a thoughtful boy. You don’t even have to ask. He’ll dance your tune, simply for your need of it. Klavier frowned. Where had that thought come from? Even everything else aside, when had he thought of Apollo, only two years his junior, as a boy. Apparently the back of his mind was a patronizing bastard.
The back of his mind sounded like Kris. Hell.
Apollo returned with a mug of water, interrupting his thoughts. Klavier drank gratefully, then passed it back over. It wasn’t as though Apollo was entirely sober, himself. They both risked a hangover, come tomorrow.
The next few minutes were quiet. In the silent space, Mikeko ventured out again, filled with a god-given mission to savage the backs of Klavier’s boots. He let her. It gave them character, and it granted him the opportunity him to scoop the indignant bundle of fluff, cradling her against his chest. “I have you now, little fraulein.” She had a funny little bobtail, like a rabbit, and she gave him the most unimpressed glare ever mustered by a cat, but the texture of his shirt must have passed muster, soft enough. She deigned to curl up against him, head on his shoulder.
“Wow, she likes you,” Apollo said. “She doesn’t normally warm up to strangers this quickly.”
“Animals are silly like that. Kris had a dog, did you know? She loved him more than anything.”
Apollo frowned. “So, who’s got her now.”
“That would be me, though she’s staying with a friend, tonight.” Klavier hadn’t been sure he’d be up to dealing with a creature who was so very much Kris’s, no matter how sweet Vongole was. He wondered if she realized Kristoph was dead. He’d heard animals did, sometimes. Just like that. Just like their soul was connected to yours.
Maybe he’d been wrong to leave her alone, tonight. Not that she was alone, per se. Juniper promised she would take good care of her. Still, she was no Gavin, on a night when Vongole might well have liked to be around one.
More guilt. More whiskey.
“When’s the funeral?” Apollo asked.
“Tomorrow.” It’s supposed to be a private affair, though you’d be welcome. Assuming you’d want to go anywhere near it, of course.”
Apollo nodded. “I’ll tell Mr. Wright as well. That okay?”
Klavier snorted. “Kris would have hated knowing he’d be there. Which makes Herr Wright’s presence indis- indispensable, in my book.”
“How the hell can you still pronounce indispensable?”
“I very nearly couldn’t!” Apollo’s floor lamp was far too bright. How had he failed to notice that, before?
“We’ll be there,” Apollo said, and Klavier’s heart swelled with gratitude, terrifying, and overwhelming. Bitterly wonderful, in its own way.
“It’ll be boring,” Klavier promised him. “The priest’s guaranteed to never have met the man, but he’s being paid to say nice things about him anyway. As nice an array of things as you can say about an unrepentant murderer. Half of what he says is bound to have been made up, so that at least might be entertaining.”
“I won’t be going for him,” Apollo said. “Tonight was for him, yeah, and for me as well, I guess but…”
“But tomorrow?”
“For me, a little. But mostly cause it sucks that you might have to be alone.”
“You care that much, Herr Forehead?”
“Idiot,” Apollo said, by way of an answer. His eyes were the darkest and warmest Klavier had ever seen. When had he leaned in close enough to notice? He’d expected Apollo to pull back, or to push him away, but he didn’t.
Gravity took hold, pressing his face into Apollo’s shoulder, once again, against the crook of Apollo’s throat. The cat squirmed in his arms, wriggling free.
“Apollo, I am… I am verdrunct.”
“Is that even a word?”
Klavier shrugged, himself unsure of the answer. “Very drunk, that is to say. If I cross any boundaries, please…” Please kick me, he was going to say, but he found himself, slipping into a dream, instead, with the rhythm of Apollo’s pulse in his ear.
***
He dreamed he was standing in the doorway of a brightly-lit office. His office… no, wait, it was Kristoph’s, was it not? No guitars, posters, scattered papers everywhere. Order and light, the desks neatly organized.
Rows upon rows of white shoes, on the strip of floor before the carpet began.
Klavier walked inside, eyes glancing lazily over his domain. A powder blue suit jacket, draped neatly over one of the office chairs. He put it on. A family photo on the largest desk. His own grinning, sunburned face, and Kristoph, behind him, bemused, squinting in the sun. This was before I had glasses, of course.
Through another door, into a side-room. This is where I keep my legal library.
“You always were too prissy for WestLaw.” Who was he talking to? Where was the voice coming from?
Someone sneezed, and Klavier turned to see Apollo, up on a stepladder, reaching for a dusty tome.
“Hold on a second, Mr. Gavin. I think I know where our precedent might be.”
“Do you now, Justice?” His own voice sounded strange and familiar, all at once.
“Rutledge vs. The State of Indiana. Joseph Rutledge was found not guilty, though the actual culprit refused to testify.”
“I trust that the evidence was sufficient to convict, in that case.”
Apollo nodded, grabbing a thick volume and climbing down. “I think there’s sufficient evidence in our case, too.”
Klavier laughed, pleased, watching dust motes dance in the sunlight, forming a sort of halo around Apollo’s head, as he read off the details of the case. “Well done, Justice. You’ll be taking on cases of your own, before you know it.” The boy had promise, to be sure.
This, too, is mine. Something roiled in his head. Betrayal and possessiveness. Tendrils of despair, mixed with anger.
Was it the boy’s fault, really, that he was so easily led? I’d made him that way, after all. All too ripe, for Wright to take advantage. All too ripe for you as well, Little Brother.
***
Klavier woke in a cold sweat, whiskey churning in his stomach. He barely made it to the bathroom, before it bid him Auf Wiedersehen, like so many a drink before it.
He couldn’t remember what about the dream had disturbed him so much, only that his hands felt ice cold at the idea of going back to sleep, and he couldn’t bring himself to more than glance at Apollo’s sleeping form, still sprawled out on the couch.
