Work Text:
Apollo just can’t help but look at people differently than he’s supposed to, can he?
He doesn’t know why he’s so surprised. He’s always looked at the world a few inches to the left from everyone else. He perceives the tensing of muscles, the subtle shifts of the gaze, skulls in the back of hands. He notices what no one else can. He’s always looking up close, eyes chock-full of details.
However good of a lawyer it makes him, it’s annoying when it bleeds into his personal life, this perspective of his. Who else would see the professional rival that always convinces the Judge to increase the penalty just to screw with him as the one meant to be by his side? Who else would see the magician who has threatened to chop him to pieces—for an act—more than any person ever should as the little sister he never had? And who else would have the lack of self-preservation to see his boss as the perfect person to talk to about this incessant dissonance in his head?
Mr. Wright is not who should be at the other end of this conversation when considering the big picture, but Apollo’s never been able to. He clings to the little details he’s perceived through the years he’s worked with him as he sets down the report he’s definitely going to have to re-read before court tomorrow and turns to him. They’re the only ones left in the office tonight since they’re preparing a case together—frankly, the only reason he feels comfortable enough talking to him at all. Mr. Wright feels his gaze so he turns to him with a curious hum. His boss sets his notepad aside.
“What’s on your mind, kid?” he asks, and Apollo can’t help it when he thinks, that’s his Dad Voice .
How can he explain what he sees—what he shouldn’t be seeing—to someone with a whole other worldview? His mouth opens and closes, struggling to form the words. Mr. Wright places a hand on his shoulder. “I can’t stop seeing him,” he says in one choked breath. The eyebrows of both men furrow as they try to make sense of what that means. Well, he’s getting right to the point, huh? Better double down, then. “I can’t stop seeing Kristoph in Klavier.”
Mr. Wright sighs, long and pained. It strikes Apollo, right when it’s just too late, that oh, yeah, Mr. Wright should definitely not be at the other end of this conversation. He’s been a victim of both Gavin brothers, in their own ways, and a friend to both Gavin brothers, in their own times. But to his credit, given his storied history with them, his boss only looks a bit startled by his words. “Klavier’s not his brother,” he says with a conviction he only really uses in court or when he draws lines in the sand for Trucy’s tricks. It sounds like he’s said that a hundred times. If there wasn’t a Greek chorus in his head screaming this is a bad idea , he would wonder why.
“I know he isn’t,” Apollo agrees, but his voice only sounds like a fraction of Mr. Wright’s. He’s got a lot to learn from him still. “But Mr. Wright, they have the same frown. Their bottom lips stick out and their brows crease until the tips of their eyebrows hide behind their bangs. And they both have a long, long fuse but when they get mad… Klavier sounds just like him when he’s angry. He has that gravelly, dangerous voice Kristoph used to scold me with,” he starts, unable to stop himself—has he ever been able to stop himself?—once his mind starts firing off examples. “And both their hands tense up when they lie. They have the same tell, Mr. Wright! Every time my bracelet tightens, I’m just waiting to see that demon face in the back of Klavier’s hand. It’s never there, but it almost feels wrong that it isn’t.” And I hate myself for thinking of Kristoph first , he thinks, but there is a limit, believe it or not, to how vulnerable he’s going to be with his boss. He’s got just enough self-restraint to keep that unspoken.
When he closes his eyes to take a grounding breath, Mr. Wright is gone. Apollo’s peeking out from Klavier’s kitchen and watching him as he paces the length of his couch, looking over a file. He looks up at Apollo, and the glint of glasses that shouldn’t be there shocks him into opening his eyes again. Mr. Wright is back and he looks… more startled.
“This, uh—it’s been bothering you for a while, huh?” his boss asks, the hand once on his shoulder now on the top of his back near his neck. He moved closer.
Apollo nods. However much he hates that he’s throwing all this on possibly the worst person he could have chosen to do it, he’s tired of carrying it all around, truth be told. “I could never talk to him about this, though. He would hate knowing there’s any part of his brother in him,” he explains, remembering all the ill-advised haircuts his boyfriend tried since his brother’s arrest but didn’t suit him quite as well as the twist Kristoph taught him. “Klavier would hate knowing I see him in some of the things he does.”
His boss surprises him with how deep in thought he looks as he considers his words. His hand moves up and down on his back. It’s oddly soothing. After a pause, Mr. Wright sighs and admits, “You know, Miles had those things, too.”
Only Mr. Wright could turn this around on him and reveal he was, in fact, the perfect person to be at the other end of this conversation after all. “Who does he remind you of?” he asks, trying to appreciate Mr. Wright’s engagement in this conversation that shouldn’t be happening—and roping the Chief Prosecutor into it, no less—despite how vulnerable he feels.
“Manfred von Karma,” he answers as if that name means anything to him. “He was a prosecutor back when you were in diapers, probably,” he adds, reading the blank expression on the younger lawyer’s face.
Apollo lets out an undignified sound. Mr. Wright bursts into laughter at that. “No, I’m telling you, he was old as hell when I was starting out,” he says between chuckles, “known as the ‘God of Prosecutors’ since he didn’t lose a case in forty years.”
“Oh, so he was super corrupt, then,” the younger lawyer scoffs. Mr. Wright nods, still a little breathless. While he wipes a tear from his eye, Apollo stops to consider the comparison being made but notices a blatant detail missing. “How are he and Mr. Edgeworth connected?”
At his question, something in his boss deflates. “He took in Miles after his dad died.” He shakes his head, raising an index finger as he interjects, “well, actually, after he murdered Miles’s dad, but that’s a whole other story.” Apollo tilts his head—that came out of literally nowhere, he grumbles to himself—but accepts Mr. Wright’s dismissal of it to prevent them from getting sidetracked. “He took him under his wing as his protégé and taught him everything he knew about being a prosecutor, gave him all his bad habits.” Apollo raises a brow, pointing at the two of them. Mr. Wright smacks his back lightly with a laugh, but the smile on his face dissipates as his eyes glaze over, sunken in memories. He sighs, long and pained again. “When I first met Miles after the years we spent apart, the years he spent under von Karma’s thumb, there was a lot about him I didn’t recognize. He was all cold and bitter. He gripped his elbow when he was uncomfortable, and did this annoying little finger wag all the time in court. A few months later, I faced off against von Karma himself, and I saw him do the same things. Those same tics. All his bad habits.”
“Oh,” Apollo says, and that’s all he can muster. What were the chances that Mr. Wright saw the world a few inches askew, too?
“Yeah,” Mr. Wright agrees. Then, he straightens, rolling back his shoulders. He rubs the back of Apollo’s neck in a way that again he can’t help but think of as dad-like. “Klavier has just stepped away from his brother’s influence. Give him time. You’ll see how those little things start to feel more his own. He’ll make them his. That’s what Miles did once von Karma went away. Like, that finger wag I mentioned? He still does it, unfortunately,” he accentuates his woe with a groan that makes Apollo chuckle, “but he does it while tapping his glasses. It’s a distinctly Miles thing now.”
Mr. Wright’s hand retreats after one final tap to his back. He stands up, wincing, and rubs his lower back soothingly. After how open he was with him, Apollo holds back from teasing him about his age, but just barely. The younger lawyer reaches for the various legal papers on the coffee table and starts arranging them into one pile so he can pick them up and drop them off at Mr. Wright’s desk. He chuckles when he sees what he’s doing. “All work and no play with you,” he teases.
“We’re going to lose tomorrow if we lose track of these,” he retorts, standing up as well with all the papers pressed to his chest.
He’s about to move deeper into the office, but Mr. Wright stops him. “Look, don’t beat yourself up for seeing his ghost. It’s not your fault. The parallels are there, and I know it’s tempting to get hung up on them, to think they mean something. But Klavier’s not his brother,” he repeats. He sighs one last, long, pained sigh. He steps back. “Don’t let Kristoph ruin what you guys have, kid,” he says—pleads?—as he turns around, heading for the door. “Don’t let him win.”
Mr. Wright picks up his suit jacket, draped over the armrest of the couch, and puts it on over his shoulders, not bothering with the sleeves. Apollo stands, speechless, as his boss bids him goodbye and steps out. He places the bundle of papers on the man’s desk before locking the Wright Anything Agency up.
That was the most mortifying conversation Apollo’s ever had, and he’s already consciously trying to forget all these details about Mr. Edgeworth’s life he doesn’t need to know, but he’s glad he talked with Mr. Wright. He was looking at this all wrong.
He pulls out his phone and clicks the icon on speed dial that brings his boyfriend’s voice near. “ Hallo , schatz ,” he greets.
“Hey, Klav. Could you come pick me up at the office?”
Apollo hears shuffling in the background even as Klavier asks, “I thought you wanted to walk home today?”
With the hand not holding the phone, he scratches his neck. “Yeah, but… I want to see you,” he admits, and, God, he’s blushing. How long’s the honeymoon phase supposed to last, anyway?
Klavier audibly melts against the receiver, and Apollo has to hold back his laughter. “Well, in that case, have you had dinner yet?”
He’d stuffed himself with snacks while working—he always did—but he would go to terrifying lengths for a dinner date right now. “Not yet,” he answers.
“I’ll be right there. Hang tight.”
Apollo worries about how many traffic laws his boyfriend broke to get there as quickly as he does, but when he takes off his helmet and turns to him with a beaming smile, he forgets about that entirely. Apollo doesn’t know how Klavier does it, but when he looks at him, it’s like he moves the rest of the world those few inches to the left so it matches his skewed perspective. As he walks up to the motorcycle, he takes in the sight before him in all its little details. There’s no space for Kristoph here—not in his windswept hair, his work-weary eyes, the light pink dusting his cheeks. How did he ever see him?
Apollo leans in for a quick kiss, taking advantage of the height the sidewalk grants him. Klavier hums, pleasantly surprised. The prosecutor tries to deepen it—seriously, how long is the honeymoon phase supposed to last?—but he pulls away before he gets too caught up in it himself and goes to the back to fish out his helmet from the top case. He puts it on and hops in, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend’s waist.
Klavier revs his motorcycle and speeds off, leaving all of Apollo's worries about ghosts and those best left forgotten behind in the puffs of its exhaust.