Chapter Text
April 26th
The days pass too quickly for Apollo's taste. There could never be enough time in the world to spend with the people he's missed so much.
He's up so late with Trucy that first night that they both fall asleep on the agency's couch and only wake when Athena comes in the next morning.
It's her rising-pitch "awww" sound that wakes Apollo, and he opens bleary eyes to find Athena clutching her hands to her chest and already tearing up a little.
"Sorry," she whispers.
"It's fine," Apollo answers, annoyed at the stiffness in his neck and limbs when he tries to sit up properly. "Ugh. Wait, what time is it?"
"Umm, 9:15?"
"In the morning?" It's a stupid question, because he can see the sunlight outside plain as… well, day. "Great. Love wasting money on a hotel room and then falling asleep in my old boss' office. Might do it more often."
"Polly, I did not just hear you say you're staying in a hotel," Trucy accuses, eyes still closed.
"I mean, what was I supposed to do? Show up here by surprise and demand to stay with one of you?"
"Yes!" three voices chorus.
Apollo shoots upright, hissing when the movement wrenches his lower back. "When did he get here?"
"He has been here since 8:00. When this office opened. For business," Mr. Wright says pointedly, stepping into the lobby and making a shooing gesture at Apollo and Trucy. "Which you two have been impeding for almost an hour and a half. I could have you prosecuted for that. I know the chief prosecutor."
"We all know the chief prosecutor. Besides, you have to be able to prove harm. How many clients have tried to come in in the past hour and a half?"
"Could have been plenty, for all you know. Maybe your snoring scared them off."
"Uh-huh." Apollo finishes the long journey of getting to his feet, sighing at the state of his clothes.
"But since nobody's here right this second, and since Athena has finally decided to come in…"
Athena has the good grace to look a little bit embarrassed even though there's no way Mr. Wright of all people actually cares about punctuality.
"Where's your hotel? I'll drive you."
"In whose car?" Athena demands to know, chagrin forgotten as she rounds on Mr. Wright.
"I think I'm safer on the bus."
"C'mon, I have a license now and everything. They don't just hand those out, you know."
Apollo, who has seen Miles Edgeworth drive on numerous occasions, is inclined to disagree.
Something intensely evil must come over Athena, because the next thing Apollo knows, she's handing over her keys. "Just… promise you'll be careful."
"I swear on my hat." It ought to be ridiculous – is ridiculous – but nobody in the room is foolish enough to question the value of that hat.
Not even Apollo, who soon finds himself settling into Athena's yellow beetle while Mr. Wright adjusts the driver's seat. He starts out tense, just like he would be with anyone else at the wheel, but it doesn't take him long to relax. Even in the heavy traffic they hit early on, Mr. Wright is patient and collected.
Klavier must be a good teacher.
The thought makes him oddly uncomfortable; it feels like something he should have known or at least been able to predict.
It occurs to Apollo suddenly that, for all that he's considered Klavier Gavin to be a known quantity, they never did actually know each other very well. They've mostly known each other at their worst, when it gets down to it: Klavier, miserable as his band and his family fell apart; Apollo, angry and lost as mentor after mentor betrayed him.
Of course they'd both been desperate for connection. Why hadn't they found it in each other years ago? What else might Klavier have been able to teach, if only Apollo had been willing to learn?
"I remember you being louder." Mr. Wright breaks the silence, startling Apollo out of his thoughts.
"Uh, sorry, just… thinking."
"A dangerous pastime, I've been told."
"Yeah, I'm sure plenty of people have told you that." Apollo rolls his eyes. "I just… a lot's changed, you know? It feels like… I'm just visiting."
"Aren't you?"
"I guess I thought… I don't know. Even though I got updates from you guys, part of me kept thinking that when I came back, it'd be like time had just… stopped. But it didn't. Athena and Trucy are both taller than me now? And you can drive, and Ema and Kay are engaged, apparently? And Trucy and Prosecutor Gavin are really actually friends and peers? He hugged me," he blurts, though he hadn't meant to add that part.
Mr. Wright's nose wrinkles. "Yeah, he does that. Here's your stop. Hey, listen, Apollo…"
"Yeah?" he asks, already halfway out of the car so he's not trapped in there trying to figure out the circumstances of Phoenix Wright and Klavier Gavin hugging each other.
"Get your stuff and check out early, yeah? You know there's space at Edgeworth's for you." He sounds earnest, but then a sly grin stretches its way across his face. "Or maybe you'd rather go stay with Kl – "
"Already gone! Can't hear you!" Apollo shouts, scrambling the rest of the way out and heading back to his room. He has every intention of crawling back into bed and texting Mr. Wright to tell him to go back alone, but today the stain on the threadbare comforter and the thick, musty heat and the stubborn curtains seem a hundred times as unwelcoming as they had yesterday.
So he gathers his things, shuts off the light, argues with the front desk staff until they print him a receipt, and goes back to the car.
"Oh, hey, just so you know, I have an appointment at 11 and another at 3, so you'll be stuck at the office until closing time. Hey, you can help out! Just like old times."
On second thought, he should have taken that nap, awful room or not.
— — — —
Trucy declares on the way home that they cannot stay up late again so close to opening night, and Apollo in all his foolishness takes that to mean that they'll be having a quiet, awkward dinner with Mr. Edgeworth and an early night's rest.
He really has been gone for too long if that’s his expectation, because that is simply not the way this family behaves.
Instead, Athena and Ema and Kay and Sebastian and Klavier all show up, and Mr. Edgeworth runs a quick little oneshot campaign of Lawless Lands. It's way too many people to be manageable, much less successful, but Apollo can't remember the last time he laughed so much.
The uncomfortable, missing-out feeling comes back now and then, mostly when Ema, Seb, Trucy, and Kay keep making inside jokes and breaking off to have conversations about their ongoing adventure. It's not a bad feeling, exactly; it's hard to put his finger on how he feels finally seeing everyone together in person without him.
Except… they're not without him, he remembers, and when Edgeworth finally gives up on them all half an hour later, Apollo edges his way into their group and demands to hear the whole story. Athena and Klavier meander over, drawn in by Seb’s storytelling voice, Kay’s jokes, and Ema’s frequent interjections. There's so much going on that he almost doesn't notice the glint of silver around Klavier's neck – a delicate, familiar chain.
As Ema rambles about updates to alchemy rules, Klavier's eyes meet his. He reaches up to hold out the butterfly, showing it off for Apollo. "I've always liked red, you know," he murmurs, low enough that Apollo has to strain to hear it through Kay's laughter. "But I've rarely been brave enough to wear this shade. I've been told it's not my color, but… I think it suits me, ja?"
All Apollo can do is nod and grip the edges of the plush cushion he's sitting on. His heart's hammering. Who knew it would feel so good to see his gift accepted? And for him to prefer the red one… it must mean something. Right?
"Hey! If you two aren't gonna listen, I just won’t tell it.”
"I'm listening! You had to move the big rock but nobody had the strength for it."
Ema shoots him a withering look. "Yeah, that was like, five minutes ago. You wanna hear how it ended or not?"
“Sorry, Seb. Go on.” He does want to hear the end, and he listens better the second time, but Klavier stays on the edge of his awareness for the rest of the evening.
Apollo's the one to pull him into a hug this time, right by the door as everyone's leaving, and not even Ema comments on how long it lingers. Eventually, Klavier smacks little air kisses beside each of Apollo's cheeks, leaving them burning bright red as he steps away and vanishes down the hall.
He's up late that night, too, caught in the whirlwind of his own thoughts until they finally set him down somewhere peaceful.
— — — —
The morning and afternoon are another kind of whirlwind entirely, full of preparations for their incoming royal visitors, stern reminders from Nahyuta about Rayfa’s expectations, and a long, long time waiting for them in the airport.
That had been one of Rayfa’s parting orders: “I hear American airports are filthy and loud,” she’d said. Apollo had barely kept from rolling his eyes, knowing precisely who’d told her that. “I don’t want to spend one single second longer in one than I have to. Be prompt when you meet me. Oh, and bring balloons and a little sign, like the movies.”
Nahyuta had managed to talk her out of that last part, not wanting to draw attention to her in such a public place, but it doesn’t make the two of them any more difficult to find.
Nahyuta’s arms are laden with the sorts of souvenirs and knickknacks only found in airports, and Rayfa is beaming, carrying nothing except a particularly soft-looking neck pillow.
Athena gets there first, taking things from Nahyuta and excitedly chattering at them in Khurai’inese. She hadn’t even mentioned having practiced the language, but Apollo’s not surprised.
He busies himself with approaching Rayfa instead. “How was your flight?”
“I do not wish to speak of it.”
“She was sick,” Nahyuta says, with an air of such gloating that Apollo can’t help but want to knock them down a peg.
“Huh. Runs in the family, I guess. Ready to go get your bags?”
She frowns. “Aren’t they here?”
“They’re downstairs. Come on. We’ll leave those two to deal with all your, uh, acquisitions.”
He shouldn’t be surprised by the amount of luggage they end up retrieving over the next half-hour, but somehow, he is. He is even more surprised when all of it – and all of them – manage to fit into Athena’s little car.
By the time they reach the hotel (and this one is far, far away from the Gatewater), Rayfa is asleep on Apollo’s shoulder, Apollo is pressed uncomfortably against an overpacked suitcase, and Nahyuta is snoring gently with their head lolling against the front passenger window.
It’s a good thing they arrived a day early, because they’re practically sleepwalking as Apollo gets them checked in and shepherds them to their shared suite. He wants so much to be annoyed at having to care for them, but damn it all, two days was enough to make him miss them. Besides, now he knows not to take Rayfa seriously when she threatens to have him disbarred in both countries if he forces her to carry her suitcase for one more step.
Athena, however, does not have this insight, and hurriedly adds the compact pink suitcase to her already overflowing armload.
Once they arrive, resolve the squabble over who will have which of the two identical rooms, and get all of the suitcases and bags squared away, Athena and Apollo are left alone in the living room.
“Uh, so… are we supposed to stay here until they wake up?”
Apollo hadn’t thought that far ahead. He does not for one moment trust the two of them to order room service responsibly, and Nahyuta is not friendly when they’re hungry. “Mmm, you should probably just leave me here. They’re both pretty heavy sleepers these days.” It’s a good change, honestly. When Apollo had first moved to Khura’in, Nahyuta hardly slept at all. “I’m sure they won’t mind if I hang out on the couch.”
“Are you sure? I don’t mind staying!”
Her offer is clearly genuine, but Apollo still hesitates. He’s stuck here, but she doesn’t have to be. “There’s really no telling when they’ll be ready again, but… oh! Hey, wanna break our old stalemate?” They’d had a very competitive game of Words with Friends going before Apollo had left his service area. He’d almost completely forgotten about it. He hopes he still knows how to play.
“Huh? No way. I’m in the lead, and that’s where I’ll stay,” Athena teases, but she relents in nearly the same breath, whipping out her phone. “OK, you’re on.”
Apollo keeps up with her for a solid hour and a half, but, still behind on sleep himself, he starts to nod off not long after their fifth game.
When he comes to, it’s to the sound of Nahyuta’s voice; they seem to have engaged Athena in some kind of conversation, and a tension Apollo didn’t know he was holding melts away. Everyone is going to get along, at least for the few days they have to manage it.
He continues pretending to be asleep until the subject turns to Simon, at which point he mock-yawns loudly and starts making noises about dinner until Rayfa comes out to tell him to shut up.
— — — —
April 27th
The weather is lovely on the day of the show, which makes Apollo’s task of entertaining Nahyuta and Rayfa easier. Well, easier for him. It’s more walking than either of them would typically do, but to their credit, they seem genuinely interested in the places Apollo shows them: People Park, his old apartment building, Eldoon’s, and finally the WAA, which Rayfa steadfastly refuses to enter until she sees Mikeko through the window.
They park themselves there for the couple of hours left before the show even though it’s just the three of them and the cat; Mr. Wright is assisting (worrying about) Trucy to the exclusion of all other tasks, and Athena is stuck on an actual investigation for a trial beginning the next day.
Rayfa seems grateful for it, though, unused to the heat and bustle of such a big city. She’s perfectly content to coo over Mikeko for as long as he’ll let her – which is to say, neither of them will be going anywhere for quite a while.
“I assume the details of our meet and greet are… hammered out?” Nahyuta asks, the phrase awkward on their tongue like so many other colloquialisms they try.
Apollo snorts. “Please. Edgeworth already has a whole party room booked at a really good restaurant for all of us.”
One elegant eyebrow goes up in a way Apollo himself has never been able to emulate. “How many, precisely, is ‘all of us’?”
“Uh… good question.” Mr. Wright and Mr. Edgeworth, Trucy and Klavier, Athena, Kay, Sebastian, Ema, himself, Nahyuta, Rayfa, and probably some of the troupe. “At least a dozen, maybe twenty? But then we’ll get to hang out here with everyone as much as you want over the next couple of days. After opening night, even Trucy and Klavier should have a little downtime.”
“And what about – “
“Yes, Athena will probably drag Blackquill.”
“That is not what I was going to ask.”
“Oh. Uh, what were you going to ask?”
“Whether you will still be returning with us on the 30th.”
“Oh,” Apollo says again. He hadn’t realized that there was any doubt. He’d already agreed to it, and planned it, and there’s still so much work to do back in Khura’in, and – “Yeah, of course I am.”
Nahyuta relaxes, and Apollo does the same. “Good. She will be pleased to hear that.”
He scoffs. “Like you weren’t. Listen, I… there might be a time when I come back here for good. I don’t know. I definitely want to come back to visit more often. But it’s important to me to finish what I started.”
Nahyuta is quiet for a moment, and then they decide to break Apollo’s heart for no reason. “He would be proud to hear you say that.” It’s still too much for either of them to say his name, usually, but Nahyuta doesn’t need to.
And Apollo does not start crying. He just gets some cat hair in his eye.
— — — —
April 27th, evening
“You are elbowing me.”
“I am not! That’s the armrest.”
“Well, put it away. Fold it up like Braid Head has done. At least they know how to sit in chairs.”
“It’s an armrest! I’m using it!”
“Then move and let someone else sit there,” Rayfa demands, elbowing Apollo with far more force than he thinks he’s earned.
“Fine, I’ll –”
“No!” several voices tell him, and he thunks heavily back into his seat from the awkward crouching half-stand he’d risen to.
“Why?”
“It took us this long to get the arrangements all figured out,” Athena whispers loudly. If her tone hadn’t been enough to communicate her exasperation, Widget flashing red certainly finished the job. The rapid cycle through the other colors is a bit less clear.
Apollo sits back down, suspicious. “If you guys are trapping me in an audience participation spot, I’m never speaking to any of you again.”
His bracelet tightens in time with everyone on his left side going silent in tandem.
Great. “I hate all of you.”
“Shhhhh,” says some do-gooder from the row behind them, and Apollo slumps down into his seat, scowling and crossing his arms so he can’t be accused of elbowing the princess.
— —
The stage lights come up around the time Apollo's flipped through his showbill for the eighth time. He knows now that the show is broken into three themed acts, separated with brief intermissions and opened and closed by Klavier performing songs. None of the titles seem familiar. In fact, nearly all of them break the theme he's come to expect from Klavier's music. Apollo wonders if they were written for the show or if the show was written around them. He’ll have to ask Trucy later.
As the crowd grows quiet, a member of Trucy's troupe emerges from behind the curtain. "Hello! A few housekeeping notes before we begin. Firstly, we ask that you please stay in your seats except during the intermissions if at all possible. Performers may be moving around the theater, including the seating areas, and we need your help to make sure they're not interrupted! That said, you can find emergency exits here and here," she says in tandem with a spotlight indicating the doors.
Apollo slumps further. He's definitely going to be stuck with audience participation crap. If Trucy wanted him to assist that badly, they could have just asked.
"Secondly," the speaker continues, "We ask that you hold your applause for the intermissions as well. Magic can be tricky, you know, and we need all our senses to make sure you get what you came for.
"Finally, a few items seem to have gone missing from our inventory." She looks put out, and Apollo's heart sinks. If Trucy's "second debut" – which Mr. Edgeworth insists is a paradox – is sabotaged too, Apollo will personally arrest everyone in this theater. Somehow.
"So if you'll all kindly do us a favor and check under your seats, you might find something we need! I'm certain our troupe leader will want to thank you personally for returning any items you find."
There's a mad scramble as people set aside showbills and shift to reach under their seats. Apollo plans to ignore it completely – he's grateful that things aren't really missing, but he's definitely going to tell Trucy to pick a better way of making the announcement next time.
Except, well, a huge, scattered exclamation has him turning in his seat to see that every single person has come up with a red rose. So that's what Mr. Wright was up to all day, judging by the proud aura coming off him when Apollo peers around Athena to check.
There are some additional, slightly more excitable shrieks; some actual props do seem to have been placed around the seating. He suspects Trucy will sign them and hand them over at the end of the show. It's a pretty cute way to run a meet-and-greet lottery, he thinks, but also susceptible to fighting amongst neighbors, if the squabble in the back is anything to go by.
"Hey, front row, don't think we forgot you! Come on, come on!"
Like all the others in the front row, the rose taped to the bottom of Apollo's seat turns out to be blue. But – there's something else there.
When he pries it free, he finds that it's a smooth, flat box.
He feels sick, certain that Klavier has changed his mind and decided to return the gift after all. The feeling swells when he realizes that Athena and Mr. Wright are very pointedly not looking in his direction. With shaking hands, he lifts a corner of the box, mindful of the fact that the lights will soon dim and he'll have to spend the whole first act wondering if he doesn’t look now. Rayfa's curious gaze keeps him moving; she might not know what's going on, but she knows chickening out when she sees it, and she'll never let him live it down.
There is only one pendant in the box, silver and amethyst with the tiniest flecks of garnet. There's also a note, which he just barely manages to read before the speaker calls the audience's attention back to her announcements.
The note is simple, but hardly plain. I've always thought of butterflies as symbols of beginning. Shall we start something new? -KG
He's glad he doesn't have to speak, because his tongue feels thick, useless, glued to the roof of his mouth. He hardly processes the next announcement in his haste to say yes in the only way he can. The clasp slips a few times under his clumsy fingers, but he soon has it settled where he likes it.
Scowl and slumped posture are gone; all his focus now is on staring perfectly straight ahead so he won't have to see Athena looking at him.
On his right, Rayfa sniffs and says, "Well, that's boring. We have those at home." He decides to leave it alone. It's really none of her business anyway.
When he looks around for the announcer, he finds that she's vanished and that the lights are, in fact, beginning to dim, and he tries to shake the feeling that the entire theater was waiting on him.
The next voice he hears is Trucy's, coming from… somewhere. Maybe everywhere? "Without further ado, Troupe Gramarye is thrilled to welcome you to Changing Patterns: magic and music in three acts."
The curtain draws back amidst cheers from the crowd, revealing a simple set and –
If Apollo thought Klavier was dazzling back at the end of Kristoph's trial – and he did, in his heart of hearts – it's absolutely nothing compared to when he's thriving. That seems to be exactly what he's doing; he's glowing under the spotlights, having bloomed under the praise of friends and fans. His overwhelming charm is clearer than ever in the way he sparkles at them from the stage, points of light scattered along his body and shining in his eyes. He's captivating in the same way he's always been, but there's something more impactful about it tonight. Maybe it's the little smile he sends Apollo from the stage or the memory of those strong arms wrapped around him or the glimmer of the red butterfly at the center of his chest, or maybe it's just all of it, all the years, the little gestures, the mistakes, the hurt, the triumphs, all of it leading up to this.
The start of something new.
He smiles back, the faint weight of his own necklace shifting against his chest as he leans closer. He's not worried about whether Klavier can see. He's certain, without any evidence at all, that Klavier already knows Apollo's answer.
He doesn't even wonder how. The only question Apollo has left is how long have I loved him?
— —
He'll never admit to anyone that he's disappointed when Klavier's first song has no vocals. It's beautiful, still, reminiscent of his work with La – with Thalassa, but Apollo feels starved for his voice the way he still feels starved of everything he'd missed.
Like his earlier grumpy mood, the disappointment vanishes when Trucy's first act begins. They're dressed in a costume identical to Klavier's, and the resemblance is so uncanny that Apollo suspects that people further back, people who don't know them, will think they're the same person.
(There's a small alarm going off in his head, worried about the implications of that if something happens, if someone gets hurt, if someone's found dead again –)
On the stage, "Klavier" and a companion find a large mirror, but only Klavier's image is reflected back. It happens again and again in various ways; the two characters complete obstacles and perform some of Trucy's usual warm-up tricks side-by-side, but something always comes up short until finally, in front of the tallest ladder they've yet to climb, "Klavier" turns to his companion for support and finds him gone entirely.
Wearily, Trucy-as-Klavier makes the climb alone, finding nothing at the top but another mirror. This time, the reflection shows only the companion, though that person is nowhere to be seen. "Klavier" shatters the mirror with a fist, destroying it and sending silver glitter and courtroom confetti cascading down to the stage floor.
He'd done that in real life, Apollo knows, after everything. He'd felt like he would never be able to escape seeing his brother in his own reflection, and he'd smashed a mirror on a particularly bad night in an attempt to chase away the illusion. He'd come to court with his hand all wrapped up and his feelings on even brighter display than usual.
Apollo had stayed out of it, then, under the assumption that Klavier still had good friends who would be better able to help him.
The act ends to roaring applause; Apollo supposes that for those who hadn't gotten caught up in their heads, the story had been one of triumph, filled with elaborate illusions and daring feats.
And maybe that's all it is, because Klavier's closing song is an upbeat number about moving on from a home that was never really a home. He looks different somehow, nearly identical to his everyday presentation rather than the glitzed-up makeup he'd worn before. When he beams for his own round of applause, he turns that smile in Apollo's direction before leaving the stage.
— —
Intermission is hell.
For one, he has to pee, but it’s obvious that there’s no way he’s going to get through the crowd right away.
For another, Athena has moved from the “pointedly not looking at him” stage to the “even more pointedly leaning over him and going ‘sooooo?’” stage.
He ignores it the first three times, but she doesn’t relent, and her smile just keeps growing. “So what?” he grumbles finally.
“What did the note say!?”
“None of your business. Is that why everyone made me take this seat? How many of you did he get in on this?”
“None of your business,” Athena parrots, but judging by the way Mr. Wright and Edgeworth both stiffen their shoulders, the answer is at least three.
“Fine. I’ll just find out later anyway. H-hey, uh… thanks.” He takes off to wait in line at the bathroom before she can respond, and he does his very best not to come back until the absolute last moment.
— —
The opening song this time is a complex ballad that weaves from stability to change to loss. Apollo doesn’t know much about music, but even he can hear the themes in Klavier’s playing as well as his lyrics. The final part reminds him hauntingly of Machi Tobaye’s one-handed performance – there’s something in the chords that’s just missing that had been there in the song’s beginning.
Klavier’s makeup is streaking a little around the eyes, and Apollo is sure that that, too, is intentional, no matter how much it gives the impression that he’s crying as he sings. Something about the performance gives away the second act – this is going to be about Daryan, and Apollo is not going to like it.
He’s right, as it turns out. This act has “Klavier” and two other performers, one tall and dressed in blue so dark it’s nearly black and the other short, dressed in red.
Athena makes a little sound beside him and reaches for his arm, grabbing on tightly. He’s not sure if she’s the one who needs support or if she thinks he does, but he’s grateful either way.
Throughout this act, each trick begins with two branching paths, and the companions each try to convince “Klavier” to walk one of them. Each time, the red-clad individual suggests a path that looks far more treacherous – and in the audience, every time, Apollo’s entire body tenses up at the mere thought of Trucy leaping such a wide gap or breaking out restraints in time to save themself.
“Klavier” walks the safer-looking path every time, and every time, something goes wrong: a wire snaps, sending Trucy plunging down into a net or a timer counts down faster than promised, making their escape narrow, miserable, and harrowing.
At the final branch, “Klavier” finally takes the advice of the companion he’d been ignoring. He crosses unharmed across a narrow bridge with swinging obstacles, avoids a wall of spikes, and leaps gracefully to safety until he’s standing far above the person who’d spent so long trying to misguide him.
Apollo’s shaking when the curtain closes, and even though it’s breaking the rules, he springs out of his seat and makes a break for the bathroom again, missing the closing song entirely. When he returns, Athena does him the favor of pretending not to have noticed.
Rayfa, on the other hand, does not. “Horn-head, I don’t why, but I think that song might have been about you.”
“Uh. Great, I guess.” At least he’d missed it. Klavier probably wouldn’t have liked watching Apollo disintegrate entirely right before his eyes. It would have put kind of a damper on the rest of the show.
“But why would –”
“Shhh, the third act’s starting.”
— —
The third act has “Apollo” in it again, and “Athena” as well, and it tells a confusing tale that seems to weave in and out of perspective, with Trucy doing multiple quickchanges that the show hasn’t so far called for.
Apollo doesn’t put together until the end that this is a story that’s shared between Klavier and Trucy. Each of them lost mentors in different ways: Valant’s betrayal and Constance’s death were both irrevocable, both paradigm-shifting.
Trucy and Klavier must know each other so well by now. Probably even better than Apollo knows either of them, if they talked about all these things. The thought hurts; he should have been there for both of them. At the same time, he’s glad they had each other for that. There are parts of both of their stories Apollo knows he would never have understood.
The show ends with a duet that seems to surprise even Mr. Wright, if the exclamation of “Is that Trucy?” from off to Apollo’s left is any indication.
As their music begins to wind down, Apollo finds himself wondering if the show was successful for those members of the audience unfamiliar with the source material. He doesn’t wonder for long, because there’s a wild amount of cheering and applause right behind his thought, drowning out his internal queries about whether people understood the story or just enjoyed the performance.
— —
He asks Athena on the way out, and she just grins. “Isn’t that what high art is all about? Pretending you understand it so you look intelligent for your friends? It’s gonna be a big hit. Kind of a shame they only want to do a limited run. I think they could do a tour!”
Apollo shudders. He’s had quite enough of watching Trucy do dangerous things for one lifetime. He doesn’t want to think about them doing it while far from home to boot.
The rest of the evening passes him by with little more than a buzz in his ears and a constant sense of being slightly too warm – he’s overwhelmed. The show is partially to blame, but Klavier’s note, the persistent press of the crowd, and Rayfa’s high-key excitement all play into it.
Dinner is a loud, stressful event. Between trying to facilitate conversation between Rayfa and some of the performers, navigating food preferences for both Rayfa and Nahyuta, and attempting to eat something himself, he barely even gets to tell Trucy they did a good job before everyone starts to head out, bound for the next destination.
For Apollo, that’s the office. It’s the only place he can think of that he wants to be, and he has a feeling that the people he most wants to see will also make their way there. They usually do. Athena, Rayfa, and Nahyuta are easy enough to convince, and though Apollo hopes for a quiet ride, it’s filled instead with Athena and Rayfa attempting to replicate the duet from the finale even though they’re missing more than half the lyrics and Athena can’t stick to tempo to save her life.
The good news is that the two of them are practically old friends by the time they arrive, so Apollo is left in relative solitude when Athena takes it upon herself to give Rayfa a tour of the space. Nahyuta tags along, apparently sensing Apollo’s need for just a little break in the activity.
Alone in the lobby, he sinks onto the floor in front of the couch and leans his head back, turning it slightly so he can nuzzle his way into Mikeko’s fur and listen to him purr at the contact. He can hear the building’s other three occupants somewhere in the back, but their laughter is soft and pleasant now that he’s relaxed.
He must doze off for a while, because he’s soon jolted awake by Mikeko’s sudden departure. He looks around only to find that he’s entirely missed Klavier’s arrival; he’s sitting beside Apollo on the floor, speaking quietly… but not to Apollo.
“Hallo, Mikki. It’s been a busy week, ja? It’s good to see you too.”
Mikeko chirps back at him, and the sound startles an instinctive, “Awww,” out of Apollo, breaking his cover.
“Ah, you’re awake.” Klavier’s voice is warm, amused, open – things Kristoph never was. How could Klavier ever look into a mirror and see his brother?
“Well, my pillow left.”
“Ach, my apologies. I’ve grown accustomed to having your pillow as a blanket.” Sure enough, Mikeko is curled up in his lap, purring away under precise, rhythmic petting. “I hope… I hope I haven’t overstepped.” Tension here, finally; either he’s got a warped understanding of how possessive Apollo feels toward Mikeko or he’s not just talking about Mikeko.
“No, not at all,” he hurries to say, hoping he communicates his honesty as well as Klavier always does.”I mean, at first, I… yeah, I worried that… you know. There’d be no reason for me to come back, if you were here, doing everything I used to do and more. But when I really thought about it, it put me at ease that you were all looking out for each other. I mean, I know none of it was about me, but – what? Why are you laughing?"
Klavier recovers, shaking his head and biting his lip over a crooked grin. "The thing is, Forehead, it actually was, at first."
"It was… what? About me? That doesn't even make any sense."
"It did to me, at the time. What better way to find the answers to my questions than to seek out the people who know you best?"
Put like that, Apollo understands the thought process. It's impossible to be near the Wright Anything family without getting sucked into its orbit. Klavier, in his search for answers, must have wandered too close. There are worse places to end up and worse people to be there with. "Did you get your answers?"
Klavier hums. "Some of them. And sometimes I found that my questions weren't the ones I really wanted to ask."
It doesn't seem like he's going to get much more than that out of him, and Apollo feels weirdly at peace about that. A lot of things have happened for both of them over the past year. Maybe it ought to take at least that long to catch up on the details. Maybe some of those details will never come to light, and that's fine, too. It's hard to feel too worked up about anything right now, sitting on the lobby floor shoulder-to-shoulder with the guy his cat has decided to nap on. "Any I can answer for you now that I'm here?" he asks, leaning over carefully to pet Mikeko where he's curled up in Klavier's lap.
Klavier's left hand goes to the pendant resting against his chest. "Nein. You've given me plenty of answers already. More questions, too, but I suspect it's not the right time to ask them."
"Well, when it is," Apollo says, swallowing hard at the reminder of this shared token of affection they both carry now, "come and find me, OK? I'll… I'll be glad to see you."
Klavier catches him as he moves to sit back against the couch again, cupping his face in one warm hand. He holds eye contact as he eases forward, calloused thumb swiping over Apollo's cheekbone, and then his lips are on Apollo's, soft and sweet and all too brief before he sits back. "I promise. Now, I was supposed to send you to see Trucy once you finished your nap, but I wanted you to myself for a little while first."
Stunned, Apollo scrambles to his feet and begins to wander toward Trucy's room. He makes it about three steps before processing what's just happened, and it stops him in his tracks. He turns around. Klavier's not watching him, at least not directly, but he looks up when Apollo crouches next to him.
Apollo isn’t quite as graceful when he tilts Klavier's face upward and returns the kiss – he loses balance a little and has to brace himself against the seat cushion of the couch, and even still there's a little bit of clacking of teeth – but Klavier steadies him, and his eyes are shining when Apollo pulls away. "I promise too," Apollo says. "That I won't disappear."
"At this point, darling, I don't think any of us will let you. Now, off you go before the boss takes it out on me later, ja?"
"Y- yeah, OK. Um, hey, Klavier? Why do you taste like… waffles?"
"Ask Trucy!"
Baffled, Apollo hurries down the hall to greet the other star of the evening.
— — — —
Epilogue
May 18th
“ – and Herr Chief is actually going to allow it! Can you imagine? Poor Ema, stuck traveling with Simon.” Klavier laughs, removing Mikeko from the keyboard for the fourth time.
“Poor Ema?” Apollo’s loud, crackly voice responds. His video is frozen in place once again, giving Klavier a grainy, static view of his neck and chest. Appealing in its own way, but not nearly the same as seeing his face. “Poor Ema?” he repeats. “Poor me. I’m gonna have to deal with Nahyuta fretting for days ahead of time and days after. Seriously, whatever else is going on with them, they have some serious concerns about Simon’s professional opinion of them.”
Humming, Klavier muses, “Perhaps prosecutorial prowess is their primary love language.” He leans in, grinning and fluttering his lashes although he’s sure Apollo won’t be able to see. “Mine, if you care to know, is –”
“Is that Apollo!?” Trucy calls, slamming their way in through the front door. “I heard yelling from the sidewalk, so it has to be. Hey Polly! Uh, Polly’s neck. Is this something weird?”
“It’s not something weird!” Apollo yells. “What about my neck?”
Klavier shrugs. “Your video’s stuck again.”
“You didn’t think to mention that?”
“It’s not like there’s anything you can do about it. Besides, I found it rather –”
Wincing, Trucy butts in. “Please don’t finish that unless you’re gonna say it was funny.”
He thinks for a moment, and the moment is long enough for both Apollo and Trucy to groan in annoyance. He can’t even feel ashamed. He can’t feel much of anything these days beyond ongoing gratitude for being part of their family. “Yes, well, all that aside… before we got sidetracked, we were discussing the possibility of my visit to Khura’in this summer.”
“Oh, no fair! I wanna go too.”
“Who says you can’t?” Nick adds. He must have slipped into the building at a much more sedate pace. “I’d like to go back for an actual vacation sometime, y’know?”
There’s additional noise from Apollo’s side of the call, and a new voice joins in. “Hey, AJ! Everything all right? Got a young lady here who –”
“I can speak for myself,” Rayfa insists, cutting off Datz mid-sentence. “You were supposed to join me for lunch twenty minutes ago, Horn Head. What are you still doing lounging around this place?”
How fortunate Apollo is, Klavier thinks, to have family and friends who want his attention no matter where he is. How fortunate Klavier is to be allowed to share it. “Hallo, Princess. Your favorite celebrities are considering the possibility of paying you a visit. What would you say to a personalized show, hm?”
Nahyuta’s voice is his answer, surprisingly, though Klavier can’t quite make out what they say.
“Gah! What are you even doing here? When did you get here? Learn to make some noise when you walk, seriously.”
“I thought it would be funny to hear Her Majesty eviscerate you.” A pause. “I was right. More importantly… it would be our pleasure to see you all again.”
“I can speak for myself!” Rayfa says once again. “But Braid Head is correct. Please come soon.”
The office door opens, admitting Athena. “Oh, what movie are we watching? Wait, whose neck is that? Is this something weird?”
“It is not – why are you all there so late?” Apollo grouses.
“Loooong day of investigation. Hi Polly!” Athena jumps in surprise when many more voices greet her. “Nobody told me we were having a group call!”
“We aren’t,” Apollo says firmly. “Seriously, a guy tries to get ten minutes with his – uh. I mean. I have to go to lunch. I’m late.”
The call ends abruptly against a tapestry of annoyed protests on both sides, but Klavier just laughs. As the others wander away and gather up the things they’d left in the office hours ago, before their apparently chaotic investigation, he sends one last message through the chat program before packing up his own things as well.
Goodnight, Forehead. I’ll see you soon xoxo