Chapter Text
Klavier, for lack of a better word, was fine. Fine as in average, as in things could have been so very much worse and it felt wrong to describe his state as anything more severe. He was in no danger, had not been threatened with grievous bodily harm or defamation that would result in a glorious crash-and-burn spectacle. Therefore, logically, he was fine.
His only problem, really, was the dead air of his apartment.
It was quiet, quiet, quiet. It usually was, as his home wasn’t prone to housing guests, but the past month had bred a new sort of quiet that grew and morphed too quickly for him to keep up with. It hit him like humidity, stifled his breath as he stepped in and let the door click shut on its own.
Usually, his first order of business would have been to switch on some noise as fast as he could, drown out the dead air with a lively injection of music before the deadness could sneak up on him and pull him away from his work and let him get himself trapped in a thought spiral.
Now, he just let the paperwork in his hands fall onto the coffee table and himself fall sideways onto the couch, let the deadness simmer around him. Vongole, sprawled on the carpet, reached up to nose at his palm, her thumping tail a metronome that sliced through the silence. Klavier stroked her head absentmindedly, unable to focus his eyes, face blindly parallel to the ceiling.
The day’s trial had gone very well. He’d already forgotten how he’d won, or why, or against whom. He had shaken someone’s hand on his way out. Maybe she was the victim’s sister. Maybe she was a fan. He’d smiled and nodded his way through the interaction, told her whatever it was she needed to hear, probably wished her well. He couldn’t remember her name. Wouldn’t have been able to pick her out of a lineup.
It had been a very good day for him. Gun to his head, he couldn’t have described a single part of it.
But there was no gun to his head, thankfully. Just a soreness in the back of his throat. He stretched awkwardly on the couch, trying to squirm his way out of the crick in his neck and the dull ache in the base of his spine.
His phone chimed in his pocket. A now-familiar nervousness bloomed in his stomach at the sound, unstable fingers fishing the device out as he braced himself for the worst, coming up with every possible catastrophe that could be writhing behind the notification.
It turned out to be a brief email from Herr Edgeworth commending him for the day’s stellar performance. Klavier breathed a sigh of relief. He would have to thank him later.
Gratefully, he slipped the phone back into his pocket, out of sight and out of mind. He hadn’t been on it much at all lately. Before, he’d put a great deal of effort into keeping up with the Gavinners side of things, valuing his connection to their listeners in a way the other band members often teased him for. He was not a stranger in Gavinners fan spaces, and the more outlandish threads often had jokes tacked on the end that Klavier would probably see them. Those were always his favorites; he liked being in on the joke, even through the distance of his phone screen.
But then Daryan had been indicted, and things had gotten… hectic. Hard to stay on top of. But, devoted as ever, he’d tried his best to keep himself present, open, and positive. It was a massive upheaval for their fans, of course. Someone had to keep things moving forward.
Just as things began to calm down, the Misham trial came to its close, and every Gavinners space on the internet reverted to a state of complete and utter disaster in a matter of hours. It was nauseating to read through. Capslock condolences and promises of loyalty piled atop endless skepticism, conclusions being lept to, accusations and calls for retrial and staunch declarations that no one related to the Klavier Gavin could ever be guilty of something so awful.
After three hours trapped in an endless cycle of scroll and refresh, hand buzzing as countless strangers sent him reassurance after reassurance, Klavier had deleted his Twitter account entirely, unable to catch his breath or focus his vision as he threw his phone across the room and buried himself in bed.
He’d picked it back up the next morning to find a small crack in the corner of the screen and about fifty missed calls from his manager. She’d had to dust off the official Gavinners account, dormant since Daryan’s sentencing, to promise everyone that Klavier was alive and well but taking some time to himself. Every voice mail she’d left him had been panicked and full of empty threats against his life if he wasn’t alive and well and taking time to himself.
He hadn’t returned any of her calls. In fact, he hadn’t made any calls whatsoever in… he didn’t know how long. The closest he’d gotten to any real communication in the last four weeks was left in the moor of half-written and fully-crumpled pieces of paper rotting in the bottom of his wastebasket, each one headed with an overly clinical Dear Kristoph,
He was doing fine. His case had gone well. If anyone needed to reach him, they’d give him a call. No one did. No one needed him, except for work, which he’d been having no issues whatsoever with. In fact, he’d never been more productive. As it turned out, spending more than half his day at the office did yield some benefits.
Most beneficial of all, people let him be. It was clear that he was focused, throwing himself into his prosecutorial duties, and none of his coworkers were eager to distract him from that rhythm. Herr Edgeworth had tried, shortly after Kristoph had been formally charged (again), to encourage him to take some personal time, but Klavier’s refusal had been quick and staunch enough that he hadn’t pushed the issue any further. Klavier hoped that the grin he’d come up with to soothe the concerned lines etched in the chief prosecutor’s face had been at least half-convincing.
He didn’t have time for this— for wallowing in every little thing that had gone wrong in the last month. Because, really, nothing had gone too terribly wrong. So he’d cut himself off from the community he’d spent seven years trying his hardest to stay connected to. So his apartment felt so quiet that it looped right back around to being deafening. So his neck hurt, so his back hurt, so his throat was sore. He had another trial in two days, his first against Herr Justice since October, and he needed to bring his A-game. Ignoring the ache of his spine, he forced himself to sit up and cracked the file on the coffee table open to begin reading.
~
His first case back against Herr Forehead was by far the most open-and-shut they’d ever had, wrapped up neatly in just over three hours. Between his own intense preparation and Apollo’s pinpoint perception, they’d managed to wade their way through the mire of perjury spewed before them and unmask the culprit in record time.
Klavier took his time gathering his things after the verdict, preparing himself to leave through the rear exit in order to avoid the paparazzi that he could already hear chattering in the lobby. He’d just slipped into the back hallway, bag slung over his shoulder, when he heard hurried footsteps advancing towards him.
“Working with you is hell,” Apollo hissed as he approached, clearly having just escaped from the flooded lobby. He was disheveled, his shirt sleeves badly wrinkled and his horns drooping with his mood. Klavier almost laughed, but then remembered it was his fault Herr Forehead had ended up in such a state and swallowed his amusement. He forced himself to stand a little straighter, allowing himself a plastered smile as he fell into step with Apollo.
“They really gave you the once-over, hmm?” Klavier asked, flicking one of Apollo’s horns playfully as they walked together towards the rear exit. Apollo slapped his hand away.
“That’s one way of putting it. One of them grabbed me, spun me around and shoved a microphone in my face like that’s a completely normal thing to do to someone. I mean, seriously! How do you deal with this all the time? That was my first real paparazzi ambush and I already never wanna leave the house again.”
“Ach, it’s not so bad,” Klavier said, as if that wasn’t half the reason he’d been minimizing his time out of his apartment over the last month. “Once you get used to it, anyway.”
“Hm.”
They took the few turns that led the way to the exit in silence, except for the echoey clicks of Klavier’s boot heels on the linoleum. Awful sound treatment in this place. It was an old building, though, so that wasn’t much of a surprise.
“We did a good job today,” Apollo said suddenly, just as they were approaching the door.
“Ah- yes, we did,” Klavier nodded, allowing himself a light smile. “I’d give you a much wider share of the credit for that, however. You’ve certainly got some handy tricks up those wrinkled sleeves.”
“Not my fault they’re wrinkled,” Apollo muttered, trying in vain to smooth them out. He pushed his way through door, held it open with his heel for Klavier to step through after him.
“Danke, Herr Forehead. I need to get going-”
“I like your hair, by the way. It looks good shorter.”
Klavier paused, biting absentmindedly at the inside of his mouth. He’d almost forgotten.
“...Thank you.”
“It’s a little uneven on that side, though,” Apollo pointed out. “Not that that’s bad— it’s not. I mean, I just, uh. Didn’t know if you knew. When did you-?”
“Last week,” Klavier said quickly, words clipped as he rubbed the back of his neck, the uneven ends of his hair scraping against his knuckles.
“Well. Don’t get a big head about it, but it looks nice. Makes you look, uh. Different from… y’know.”
“Thank you,” Klavier repeated, his mouth pulled into a taut smile. He didn’t waste time in wondering what, exactly, he looked different from.
There was an awkward pause, Apollo fiddling with his bracelet as he stood in the doorway as Klavier agonized over how to excuse himself.
“You said you had to go,” Apollo finally piped up, taking a few steps forward and letting the door slide shut behind him. “I probably should, too. Got a verdict to celebrate. Trucy’s orders.”
“Wouldn’t want you to miss that, you’ve certainly earned it. Take care, Herr Forehead. And say hallo to the little magician for me!” He shot the defense attorney a two-fingered salute before turning on his heel and strutting off.
It wasn’t a long walk from the rear exit to the parking garage, but he felt like he couldn’t get through it fast enough. Every corner turned was just another opportunity for someone to jump at him with a paper and pencil, or worse, a camera crew.
Luckily, he managed to make it without any surprises. He slid into the driver’s seat of his plum-colored Camaro with a heavy sigh, eyes immediately drifting to his reflection in the rear view mirror. It was awfully nice of Herr Forehead not to point out how absolutely shit he looked, dark circles peering out from behind the concealer he’d lathered on and strands of hair sticking to his forehead.
Klavier’s fingers lingered in his hair, combing from the root to where it now ended just past his shoulders.
He’d fallen victim to the ultimate rock star cliché. Had stared in the mirror a bit too long, forgotten who he was supposed to be looking at, couldn’t see anyone but him and had wrenched the strands out of their twist and attacked their ends with a pair of fabric scissors until the weight in his ribs siphoned away enough to allow a shallow breath. Thankfully, he’d been able to even the ends once he’d stopped shaking, and the jagged ends weren’t too noticeable if he tied it back.
That was six nights ago. His hair was still lying in the bathroom sink.
Predictable. That’s what the tabloids would’ve said. Played-out, done to death, where’s the excitement in a celebrity venting their breakdown through a shoddy haircut? It was basically a rite of passage for any kid with a half-teaspoon of talent that had gotten too rich too fast. Just another washed-up rockstar vying for attention.
Gott, he hoped no one was paying attention.
Apollo was not stupid, and he didn’t need his bracelet to know that something was terribly, horribly wrong with Prosecutor Gavin.
It had been a month since the Misham trial, and Apollo had hardly seen Klavier at all. Not at crime scenes, not in the courtroom, not even a chance run-in at the detention center or the park.
That on its own hadn’t really been cause for concern. Klavier was probably painfully busy, between keeping up with work and having to live with his brother’s mess, so it only made sense that Apollo would be seeing less of him.
But then he’d seen him again for the first time, flipping through a file on the opposite side of the courtroom, and fuck, something was wrong. Apollo stared hard, trying to deduce exactly what it was about Prosecutor Gavin that felt so off-kilter.
His hair was shorter, for one- the last few inches chopped off, clearly an at-home job and probably not done with haircutting scissors. Apollo had cut his own hair hundreds of times, and he knew a first-attempt haircut when he saw one. It didn’t look bad, though. He’d always thought the twist looked silly. So that couldn’t have been it.
He was dressed the same— same purple jacket, same leather pants (decidedly unprofessional, but apparently no one had the balls to remind him of the dress code), every ring in place, a chain around his hips. No gaudy necklace this time, which, again, made sense, with the band having disbanded. So that wasn’t what was throwing him off, either.
Gavin caught his eye, and Apollo, not being one to back down from a staring contest, kept steady eye contact while giving Gavin a small smile. He shot one back, and Apollo’s bracelet seized so suddenly that he almost yelped.
Trucy must have felt him jolt and tugged on his sleeve. “Polly? You okay?”
“Fine,” Apollo muttered back, not taking his eyes off of Gavin, who had gone back to thumbing through the same file over and over again, his fingers trembling slightly.
“Is something wrong with Mr. Gavin?”
“I’m not sure,” Apollo answered, absentmindedly rubbing the skin of his wrist. His bracelet had let up some, now that Gavin’s face had relaxed, but he had a feeling it was only a matter of time before it was set off again.
And, of course, he was right. Every time Gavin opened his mouth, Apollo felt a new twinge of pressure around his wrist. It almost screwed over the entire trial, Apollo being unable to tell whether the witness had worried his lip at the mention of the time of death or if it had just been reacting to Prosecutor Gavin’s review of the autopsy report.
They weren’t exactly friends- barely acquaintances, if he wanted to get technical about it- but something about Gavin’s behavior elicited a feeling Apollo could only describe as vertigo, perplexing in a way he’d never felt before. Between the psychosomatic dizziness and the interference with his perception, he needed to figure out what was going on, and soon.
And maybe he was a little concerned about Gavin’s wellbeing, too. He was a good guy. It wasn’t fair to let him work through all that shit on his own, especially when a lot of the shit was kind of Apollo’s fault in the first place. It was only right to at least try to talk to him.
Talking in the courtroom was no good; too many people still filing out, and he wasn’t exactly eager to give the judge an opportunity to butt in on their private conversation. He figured he could just stop Gavin on his way out of the lobby, but it was only when Apollo tried to leave that he remembered this had been the first high-stakes case the two of them had taken together since the Misham trial, and the press was very eager to hear how it had gone.
Apollo was immediately swept up by a gaggle of reporters, cameras and microphones shoved in his face and twenty questions a second being lobbed his way, almost none of them related to the trial that had just wrapped up. He heard Kristoph’s name no less than fifty times in the thirty seconds it took him to wrench himself out of one reporter’s very enthusiastic grip and shoulder his way out of the lobby and into the hall, only able to lose them as the bailiffs blocked off the entrance to the hallway.
He spotted Klavier on the far end of the hall, leaving through a back exit no one had bothered to tell him existed, and Apollo almost forgot the reason he’d wanted to talk to Gavin in the first place as he immediately reprimanded him for being famous enough to draw such a stifling crowd.
Trying to find a way to start any conversation with Prosecutor Gavin was unusually difficult. Normally, Gavin could be relied on to break any silence longer than a half-second, but he was uncharacteristically silent as the two made their way towards the building’s rear exit. Just another bullet point to add to his ever-growing list of things that were decidedly not right with the prosecutor. The best Apollo could muster was complimenting his haircut, although he wasn’t able to do it without also managing to throw in some criticism regarding its unevenness and almost bringing up his brother.
So maybe Apollo wasn’t so good at starting serious conversations, sue him. That was exactly why he did his best to avoid them. But he couldn’t stop the nagging, gnawing feeling at the base of his skull that he needed to do something . It was only responsible to try to help Gavin sweep up the pieces of the mess he’d gotten caught in the middle of. He’d have to try again. He needed to get through to him.
Cutting through an alley, Apollo circled around to the front of the court building, keeping a sharp eye out for Trucy. She’d left before him, so hopefully she’d been able to slip out without getting hounded by the press.
“There you are!” Trucy popped out of a bush just as Apollo had reached the end of the alleyway, causing him to let out an extremely undignified yelp and almost slam his briefcase into her head.
“Don’t do that!” Apollo scolded, holding a hand out to help Trucy clamber onto the sidewalk. “Why are you in a bush?”
“Had to pull a quick disappearing act to get away from all those reporters,” Trucy scowled, brushing leaves off her cape, “and then I had to make sure they didn’t try to track me out here. The bush was a safe bet.”
“Well, good job not getting caught, I guess. They ask you a lot about the Misham case?”
“Yep,” Trucy sighed as they began walking in the direction of the Agency. “Speaking of which, didja get to talk to Mr. Gavin?”
“Ah. Yeah, not for long, though. He seemed in a hurry to get home. Can’t blame him, I guess.”
“Well, what’d he say?! Is he okay?”
Apollo thought for a moment. He hadn’t really gathered much information during their brief interaction, other than confirmation that something was, indeed, off , which he already knew.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so? He’s hard to read, even for me. I’d need to spend more time with him to really get an idea of what’s going on, but who knows when I’ll be able to.”
“You don’t have to wait until you have a case together to talk to him, y’know.” Trucy blew a stray strand of hair out of her face, staring at Apollo with her brows furrowed. “You can always visit him at his office or give him a call. You’re allowed to hang out with prosecutors, daddy used to do it all the time when he was an attorney.”
“I don’t have his number.”
“You have his email!”
“His business email.”
“I’m starting to think you don’t want to hang out with Mr. Gavin, Polly,” Trucy’s brows furrowed further, her cheeks puffing out in annoyance.
“I don’t want to ‘hang out,’ I just want to figure out why he’s being so weird and how to fix it. I can’t have him messing up my perception like that, it could really throw future trials out of whack.” Apollo ran a thumb along the engravings on his bracelet, mulling over the best course of action. “I haven’t seen him much at all lately, work-related or otherwise. And I really don’t feel like having that conversation alone in the prosecutors’ office.” Apollo would never admit it, but that building gave him the creeps. Prosecutors were downright scary. Most of them, anyway.
“I can come with you!”
“Yeah, that’ll be real subtle. He’ll think we’re cross-examining him.”
“I mean… that is kind of what you want to do, Polly.”
“That doesn’t mean we have to make it obvious.”
“Hmmm…”
“Look, I just need to get him alone somewhere in a neutral space. Not somewhere either of us works, that way things won’t feel stilted one way or another. The problem is that I don’t know why he’d ever be willing to-“
“Oh!” Trucy exclaimed, grabbing Apollo’s shoulder excitedly. “I’ve got it!”
“Got what?”
“An ideeeeaaaa,” Trucy grinned, twirling in place before rushing ahead of Apollo to throw open the doors of the building where the Agency resided.
Apollo sighed. Knowing Trucy, this was going to be needlessly complicated. Or frustratingly simple. Or, most likely, somehow both.