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“You’re leaving?” he repeats dumbly. “For Germany?”
Klavier tilts his head, raises his eyebrows. “Ja, Herr Forehead. That is what I said.”
Apollo swallows, feels the dryness in his throat. “Why?” He knows why, of course, has seen how Klavier’s gaze has gone solemn, more distant; how every time Klavier smiles for the mob of carrion reporters always camped outside the courthouse, Apollo recognizes him less and less; how Klavier’s face looks more skeletal every day, bruised around his eyes and sharpening along his cheekbones.
Apollo knows, and wonders if Klavier knows he knows.
“It is just for a little bit,” Klavier replies, his fingers running absently through his hair, tremors visible only under Apollo's hypersensitive gaze. “It has been many years and I have been meaning to catch up with some of my old friends.” He winks at Apollo then, quirks a smile that fades too quickly. “Don’t miss me too much, ja?”
And Apollo’s seized with a sudden feeling that if Klavier goes now, this will be the last time Apollo ever sees him, ever hears him, and the bracelet constricting painfully around his wrist only confirms his fears.
Don’t go, he wants to shout, but how can he when he barely sees Klavier eat anything anymore? When he’s well aware of the predatory eyes of the press following Klavier’s every move?
How can he, when he knows how much Klavier’s getting poisoned staying here?
“Snapchat,” Apollo blurts, thinking fast. Klavier’s eyebrows go up again, but Apollo barrels on before he can get a word in. “I’ve never been to Germany, you have to send me a Snap a day. So I can. Travel vicariously.” He pauses, then rushes to address all the holes in his plan. “Of course I’ll send Snaps back. Uh, if you want them. Not of confidential documents or inappropriate stuff though! I mean yeah Snapchat’s security features aren’t great so that’s a given. Duh. And you’ll have to give me your German number, don’t you have to do the SIM card switching thing—“
Apollo starts from the sound of Klavier laughing. The laugh is thin and quiet and little more than a shadow of Klavier’s former cheer, but it is genuine laughter nonetheless and Apollo would be hard-pressed to place the last time he’d heard Klavier laugh.
“Ja, ja, of course we can do Snapchat. I wonder if there are international fees, though?” Klavier sobers down into a gentle smile. “And anyway, I said it would only be for a little bit, you know? And I will probably only go to boring places. But for you, I think I can fit in a few more tourist-y places, but not too many." He flourishes vaguely with his hands, the tremors still present but only just. "You will have to come in-person to experience the true glory of them, of course, and I would not want to spoil your appetite with poorly-composed Snaps.”
Apollo rolls his eyes, but feels himself smiling in kind. “Yeah, yeah, of course.”
It takes Apollo many hours wrangling with his smartphone to figure out how to use Snapchat; he is only mostly successful thanks to Trucy's help, when she finally deigns to refrain from laughing long enough to help him in his struggles. She’s the one who ends up sending half of his unofficial quota of Snaps to Klavier, so Apollo feels a little indignant about this, and they both learn the hard way that not using wi-fi to send Snaps costs A Lot of Money So Don’t Do That.
Klavier returns from Germany in a month's time (“See? Just like I told you, Herr Forehead”) having lost the tightness around his eyes somewhere in between Snaps of cozy coffeeshops and dreary castles. And if Apollo still sees Klavier's expressions taking up a brittle edge whenever an old Gavinner song plays or a case investigation involves siblings, well, one step at a time. There is time aplenty to heal.
Maybe training his furious glare at any reporters who dared swing their cameras Klavier’s way helped, too.