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Out of absolutely nowhere in March of 2028, Apollo announces, "My brother's gonna come crash on our couch."
Clay, who'd been standing in front of the fridge with the door open, shuts the door. He blinks. He opens it again like he might find explanations amongst their menagerie of leftovers. He doesn't, of course. He can't even find anything he wants to eat, let alone a cipher to decode Apollo's nonsense.
"Your what is doing what?" he calls, hoping that a second take will be clearer.
"Shut the door. You're letting all the cold out," Apollo complains. If nothing else, that confirms that Apollo hasn't been replaced by aliens or something. He wanders into the kitchen, pulling off clothes.
"Whoa, buddy, buy me a drink first."
"Shut up," Apollo grouses, balling up his vest and overshirt and dropping them on the table. Shortly after, he drops his head onto the table, too, looking just like he used to back in school when he hadn't slept the night before.
Clay turns to face him, crossing his arms – which still kinda hurts when he does it too fast, good to know – and kicks the refrigerator door shut behind him. "Door's shut. Now, Pollo, you wanna run that by me one more time? I think there was some interference." He sticks a finger into one ear, pretending to fish out earwax.
"God, you're so gross. Ugh. I ran into him at the courthouse today. I didn't know he was in town."
Clay blinks. "Uh, if this is the brother I'm thinking of, isn't it more like 'I didn't even know if he was still alive and had no clue he'd ever left his hometown'?"
"Yeah, but the relevant part is that he's here. And stuck in a really cheap hotel. Literally as soon as he acknowledged me he asked if I knew a better place to stay. Like, before even asking how I'm doing. So I just – I said he could stay here. Sorry."
"No, no, this is great!" Clay cannot wait to use this as a counterargument next time Apollo complains about Clay bringing an online date to their place. "Honestly, it's gonna be fascinating."
"No, it's not. There is no way you two are gonna get along."
"Famous last words, Pollo."
— — — —
And the thing is, at first, Apollo's right. Nahyuta Sahdmadhi is everything Clay has always avoided in a date: prissy, critical, religious, long-haired, anti-hedonistic.
He complains about everything (including Clay's presence), but only to Apollo (because if he's not actively complaining, he's pretending Clay doesn't exist). He monopolizes Apollo's time. He eats their food. He prosecutes Trucy, for crying out loud, and still has the nerve to come back to their apartment every night.
The other thing, though – the most important thing – is that Nahyuta also has the most important quality, something a lot of Clay's previous dates have lacked: knowing and loving Apollo Justice. That much is clear even when he's being rude. If he didn't respect Apollo, he wouldn't bother complaining to him.
It becomes even clearer when, some two weeks into Nahyuta's indefinite stay with them (which is actually not happening on the couch; it's happening in Apollo's room, and Pollo is getting the luxury of couch sleep instead), Nahyuta sits delicately at the table and stares hard at Clay.
"What?" Clay asks around his mouthful of a-little-bit-of-everything sandwich. Losing a piece of lettuce out of the corner of his mouth is totally worth it for the expression of absolute disgust he earns.
He doesn't get an answer that particular time, but when Nahyuta approaches him again the next evening, he decides to play nice.
"Hey. What's up?"
"What is up," Nahyuta responds, deadpan.
It's technically an acceptable response, so Clay doesn't make fun of him. "What brings you to this corner of the, uh, kitchen?"
There's a long silence, but finally: "Thank you. For being a friend to him. As children, we only had each other. I worried that here, without anyone…"
"He had it rough," Clay answers with a shrug. "We're both lucky we found each other when we did."
Nahyuta inclines his head, muttering something far too low for Clay to hear. From what he can tell, it sounds like some of the prayers he's heard Nahyuta practicing, rhythmic and memorized. "Gratitude," he explains when he catches Clay's quizzical look. "Thanks to the Holy Mother for guiding you together."
Clay gives a lopsided smile. "I always just thanked the stars."
For better or worse, that's all it takes. Clay feels his heart melt at the sincerity on Nahyuta's face – something brand new to their limited interactions. Nobody else, maybe not even Trucy, has ever valued Apollo just for being who he is. He was always just a little too loud, a little too pedantic, a little too righteous in his easily awoken anger. Clay loves all of those things about him, all those little bits that their classmates rejected over the years. They make him a lot of fun to argue with and, incidentally, also make him an excellent lawyer.
Nahyuta, it seems, is pretty fond of Apollo's supposed flaws as well, if the childhood stories he tentatively starts telling are any indication.
Right in the middle of a tale about Apollo catching his first big fish and tripping over himself to show it off to any willing adult, Apollo gets home. He takes one step into the kitchen, narrows his eyes at them, and vanishes into the depths of the hallway with a stern, "I don't even wanna know!" called over his shoulder.
— — — —
He says the same thing again, louder and more annoyed, when Clay greets him at the door a few weeks later by declaring, "Hey, so your brother's pretty cute actually and –"
Clay still catches him smiling the first time he sees them holding hands, though, so all in all, it feels like a win.