Work Text:
A slide of glass over polished wood.
"Bourbon, scotch, or Irish?"
"Bourbon." A pause, not unpleasant. "Thank you."
A soft hum as acknowledgement. The click of glasses.
"I didn't expect your apartment to look like this."
It's late, the lights of Los Angeles blocking out any attempt of the night sky to outshine the city. The penthouse apartment came furnished in dark minimalism, functional but impersonal, even depressing. A light but almost unhappy laugh, and the younger of the two men leans on the wet bar, head tilted slightly and making overgrown blond bangs flutter over his eyes.
"Apollo hates it. But with all the estate and civil court proceedings finally finished..."
A gesture that should be broad but only moves at the wrist. He doesn't need to finish the sentence. They both understand the need for a drastic change. They raise their glasses and drink.
"What about your guitars?"
He rounds the bar, sits down on the adjacent couch and tucks a bare foot underneath his other knee. The ice rolls around in his glass.
"I have got a couple in the study. An amp. A lot of things are still in storage."
"Good planning."
A smile, brighter this time; it makes Klavier look more his age. "Danke schön."
The silence that descends is companionable. It's not often that their schedules intersect with a free night on both sides where they aren't either about to crash into bed or have already dedicated it to someone else. Sometimes they catch each other on the way to court or on the stairwell.
"Good exercise," Klavier had said, charming smile but entirely serious. "Too easy to become a blob at these desks."
"Mhm," Miles had managed, and Klavier never pressed.
The silence lingers until they finish their drinks. There are no clocks in the apartment, although there must have been at one point with the original furnishing. Klavier dislikes clocks, can't stand the ticking noises or the digital glow. He's the only prosecutor currently employed by the office who uses his phone to tell the time.
"Another?"
A small shake of the head. "It's Wednesday."
Fluid, outwardly careless shrug of the shoulders. Miles watches Klavier twist to spread out like a languid cat, arm around the back of the white couch, eyes closed. It looks like a photo shoot: artificiality intimate, ultimately sterile. He can see why Apollo hates this apartment.
"You wanted to talk?"
Miles hums. His ice is melting. Klavier opens his eyes. He looks very tired.
"Do you?"
Miles leans forward, puts his glass down on the empty coaster on the glass coffee table. Klavier watches him for a moment too long. It feels like taking a turn over the speed-limit on the Autobahn.
"Yes," Miles says, standing up. "Do you have any food?"
"Ach," Klavier sits up, reaching up and brushing his hair out of his face. "I've been rude."
Miles shakes his head and follows Klavier into the kitchen. Steel, white tile, top of the line appliances. There's a cereal bowl and a spoon on the drying rack. The coffee maker looks like it sees regular use. Klavier opens the refrigerator and there are sets of pre-packaged meals, plastic wrapped like on an airplane and labelled in a hand that isn't his breakfast, lunch, dinner. There are grapes in the crisper. He shuts it, glances over his shoulder, embarrassed.
"I can't cook."
Klavier blinks and then laughs, the shame still in his eyes but tension gone out of his shoulders. "Do you know any good delivery?"
Besides the Domino's Pizza closest to the Wright Anything Agency, "No."
A shake of the head and rueful smile. Klavier opens the cupboards. Cereal and porridge oats. Tins of tea and coffee. Spice bottles that have never been used. Miles follows behind, remembering what it was like to be twenty-six and completely adrift. He reaches out, takes one of the tea tins. Earl Grey, unopened.
"May I?"
"Ja," Klavier answers, stopping in his quest for what Miles isn't entirely sure of any more. "I have a kettle."
Miles breaks the seal. Tea bags, but he isn't going to ask if there's loose leaf nor for a teapot; he isn't sure Klavier would know where either is. He's embarrassed his host enough so far. Miles takes two mugs from the bottom shelf of the tea and coffee cabinet, sets a tea bag in each. He carries them to the island as Klavier hums a low melody to the air. It's very strange, Miles reflects, to watch Klavier bustle about at the stove.
"So," Klavier starts, turning and leaning back against the handle of the oven beneath the stove, "What did you want to talk about?"
He looks Miles in the eyes but his hands are in his pockets, demeanour artificially open. He must really not spend much time in the kitchen, maybe not even when Apollo has been here. The living room was impersonal, but the kitchen is downright alien. Miles feels bad for moving the conversation here.
"Ah, well," and it's not a voice that should ever be part of his life in court but has entirely its own life here, "it's about Phoenix."
A tilt of the head. "Oh?"
How to put it? He traces the defined edge of the counter top, looks at the kettle on the large back burner on the stove.
"It's somewhat embarrassing."
Klavier lifts a hand, threads his fingers through his hair. He looks very old and very young at the same time.
"I suggested more bourbon."
"Yes," Miles says; they are both prodigies. "It's about intimacy."
A soft noise, a dark sort of shine to blue eyes. "Herr Edgeworth, I don't think you should ask me for this kind of advice."
Raised eyebrow, but Klavier turns back to the stove, a direct evasion. He watches Klavier fuss with the kettle, turning it to the right and then back again. He repeats the unnecessary motion before turning back to Miles, hands shoving deep in his pockets. The calm, inviting smile doesn't match the skittishness in his demeanour.
"I can give you sex advice, though," he says, and it sounds like he believes himself, but Klavier is a very good actor.
"Isn't it supposed to go hand in hand?"
"Ja," Klavier starts, and Miles can see his fingers shifting in his pockets, up and down, self-soothing again. "It should." He seems to realise what he's saying, and he stares. "Aren't -"
"We haven't," Miles answers, quickly despite how embarrassing the admission is because he isn't sure what Klavier's frame of reference is any more; he clarifies, "Had sex before, I mean."
The kettle begins to whistle. Klavier turns, switches off the stove, and brings the kettle over to the counter. Miles lets him fill the mugs and return the kettle to one of the unheated burners.
"Do you mean never had sex with each other or never had sex?"
Miles watches the bag seep in the water. "The latter."
Klavier leans his elbows on the counter-top. "You needn't be embarrassed about that," he says, and it's empathic, even kind. "It's better when you have it with someone you care about."
Miles looks over. Klavier isn't looking at him; he's looking about the windows, like he can see the stars. It twists something that Miles doesn't understand very well inside of himself. Klavier closes his eyes.
"What exactly do you want to know?"
A lot more than he originally wanted at the beginning of the night, but it's not his place to ask. "I know how it works in technicalities, but -" and he falters.
Klavier opens his eyes, turns his head enough to look at Miles through his hair. "It's different for everyone," and the cliché is simple truth on his tongue. "Talking to each other, understanding exactly what boundaries are known to exist: that's the most important."
That isn't simply sex advice, Miles wants to point out, but Klavier should know that. He probably does from the dark, desperate kind of unhappiness in his eyes.
"I fully intend to discuss personal boundaries before Phoenix and I proceed," Miles says, and he aims to keep his voice calm.
Klavier nods and fiddles with his hair. The motion partly obscures his face.
"Honesty is difficult. This sort especially." A pause that hangs. "Between Apollo and I, there is a lot of baggage. We know how to explain some of it. Not all. If you understand."
The silence is heavy. The tea seeps too long. Miles watches Klavier thread his fingers through his hair and remembers being twenty-five and haunted by his own existence. They should have had more bourbon.
Miles breathes out. "I understand."
Klavier smiles, gentle and not entirely kind, but he doesn't have to be. "I know."