Chapter Text
Having someone close to you turn out to be a murderer isn’t the vision most attorneys expect to have.
Though coincidentally enough it happened to two unsuspecting people.
One a defense attorney
Another a prosecutor
Betrayed by a mentor
Betrayed by a partner
It had only been a few months since Simon was released from prison, still learning how to readjust to normal life despite putting on that brave face of his.
Athena knew every bit of it, how he woke up in the middle of the night and clung onto the remaining pieces of Metis’ psychological report,some of which were stained with the phantom’s blood, and how he would smirk when anyone asked if he was okay knowing his eyes-hidden by his long overgrown hair-would never reveal the feelings beneath.
Apollo had the same issue, sometimes staring at the nail polish bottle he had received from his mentor, and other times wrapping himself in Clay’s coat, always avoiding Athena’s worries with a quick “I’m fine” and although Phoenix always bought the excuse Athena noticed the discord in his voice, she always did.
And always to the point where she felt helpless to assist those closest to her.
-
“You are coming whether you like it or not!” Athena huffed, dragging Apollo by the ‘horns’ into her apartment.
“A-Athena! What is this for?!” Apollo yelped as another rough tug was done to his hair.
“Neither you or Simon are telling me anything! But I can hear the sadness in your hearts, the discord, so tonight I’m not letting either of you leave until you confess! This is a full interrogation!”
“Ughhh…” Apollo groaned but allowed Athena to pull him along and force him to sit on the couch in their living room, seeing her stomp past to drag Simon to sit down as well, right next to Apollo.
Apollo shivered, not used to being in this much proximity to the prosecutor who had intimidated him in court many times before, but it seemed Athena was stern on making this happen.
“Alright… now that you both are here, I expect you to spill everything. No more smirking, no more ‘I’m fine’, and no more calling me green either!”
The silence that overcame the room was humiliating, so quiet that Apollo could hear the hum of the refrigerator and Taka ruffling his wings somewhere.
“Cmon!”
“Did you really think this was going to work, Cykes-dono?” Simon chuckled, crossing his arms over each other.
“Shush!”
“I’ve had enough of this, glad to make you guys laugh but… I’ve got work.” Apollo sighed, about to stand up when Simon withdraws his katana and without a second thought Apollo sits back down.
“Huh?” Athena’s eyes widened “I thought you weren’t fond of my idea, Simon? Why aren’t you letting him leave?”
“I’m quite interested in what you have in store so that I might have another good laugh.” He stated plainly but even Apollo could see that he perhaps had an ulterior motive.
“Well…” Athena cleared her throat and straightened her posture. “I just want to help you two, you both really matter to me and… I can’t stand your antics!”
“Antics?” Apollo raised a brow.
“Don’t question me, Justice! I see you staring at that nail polish bottle all the time! Which is weird because you’ve never even opened it… or wear nail polish at all. And you too Simon!… I just don’t get it.”
And all of the sudden Athena’s reason for bringing them together was much more clear.
“Athena…” Apollo murmured, looking away in fear.
“Everytime I ask it’s always the same thing. I know you two aren’t fine… and you can’t just use jokes to brush that worry away!… So even if you don’t want to tell me… I was hoping, with how much you share, maybe you’d tell each other.” Athena frowned.
Simon huffed.
“I-it’s not that we don’t want to tell you! It’s just… it takes a lot of vulnerability, doesn’t it?” Apollo laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s kinda like how you lied about ever coming to the space center.”
“W-well… I.. I didn’t want you to be suspicious of me.” Athena pouted.
“But it led to suspicions being cast anyway, such is the way of a phantom.” Simon grumbled, startling Apollo who wasn’t expecting what he said.
“Well… haha… my fault. I’m sorry.”
“It’s in the past!”
“Memories linger.” Simon added.
“Are you saying that’s the case for you, Simon?” Athena throws out, hoping to catch onto something.
Simon didn’t respond, turning to the side to face an empty wall instead.
“Well… the reason I still have that bottle of nail polish is because it was my mentor’s. He sent it to me from jail alongside a card, I was too scared to touch either of them though, guess you could say the two are reminiscent of a certain case.”
“A certain case?”
Simon too was intrigued, even if he didn’t show it outwardly.
“You know Klavier Gavin?”
“That rockstar prosecutor? The one we met at the academy?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Then yes I do remember him.”
“He had a brother, older, his name was Kristoph. When I first came over here I was accused of stealing a valuable item and he was the first one to come to my defense. He later took me in once I had passed the bar exam and though I didn’t get a single case for a while he taught me a majority of what I know.” Apollo sighed. “Then finally, when someone asked for me to represent them I found out that he was the true murderer.”
“Phoenix told me something like this before…” Athena thought out loud. “Something about being accused for a murder committed by a defense attorney.”
“Haha… well that’s surely the case.”
“W-wait wait wait! So you… defended Mr. Wright in court?!”
Apollo nodded stiffly before returning to the story.
“Then he was convicted again, though this time the victim was killed by poison placed on a stamp and later attempted to murder another with the same poison incorporated into nail polish to cover up the tracks of his forged evidence.”
“He forged evidence…?”
“The same evidence that got Mr. Wright disbarred.”
“That’s… wow… what a coincidence that you received-“
“Why do you think I’ve never opened them?” Apollo laughed, a little too harsh for his liking.
“Wise decision, Justice-dono, even if such judgement is rare for you.” Simon retorted.
Apollo glared at him for a few seconds before shrugging. “I guess… a small part of me wishes things could be… different.” He frowned. “Even now, I miss him, he wasn’t the greatest but… he was the only person I knew at the time. Even if he was mean he encouraged me… and… I don’t want to believe it was all just… another white lie.”
Simon twitched imperceptibly, as if having a sense of familiarity in those words… even through the hurt of ‘Bobby’s’ betrayal he wished that it wasn’t all manipulation, that somehow the emotionless phantom could find it in himself to have the same joy that Blackquill had in their time together.
“But yeah… that’s all.” Apollo tapped his fingers on the arm of the couch impatiently, as if the silence itself was suffocating for him… that’s why he joked all the time, at least then there wasn’t the confrontation of his true emotions.
Athena was sniffling, tearing up from the pure emotion of his words, the sadness and longing etched on to each word. “Ohh, Apollo! I didn’t know you were holding all that in!” Athena wiped at her tears.
“Athena don’t… don’t cry.” He laughed softly.
She composed herself before nodding, “perhaps you’re right. How come you’ve never told me?”
“It’s in the past, really. I have a new mentor now, more people in my life, you, Phoenix, Trucy… the list goes on.”
A lightbulb went off in Athena’s mind. “That’s it!”
“H-huh?” Apollo hummed.
“Simon!”
“Hrm?”
“You need more people in your life!”
“W-what?” Simon grumbled
“You heard me! Here, Apollo why don’t you two stay here while I go to the store to get supplies to make ramen.”
“A-Athena wa- she left.” Apollo sighed, turning back towards Simon on the couch. “So…?”
“Hmph.” Simon huffed.
“Uhm…”
“You and I are eerily similar in our experiences.”
“I… I suppose so?”
“Kristoph Gavin… I must admit that name sounds familiar.” Blackquill hummed.
“I wouldn’t be all too surprised if you met him in prison.”
“True.” Simon hummed, resting his head on his hand.
“How have you been? Athena tells me you’re… having a rough time.”
“That’d better be the extent of which she tells you.”
“O-of course! She’s not one to… yknow.”
“I know.” Simon says before pausing, “It’s pathetic but… I miss him, I do.”
“Fulbright?”
“Yes… he… he was a guiding light, I suppose. I was ready to accept the fate that had long awaited me. But then, in the last year of my sentence before death, he came to me, wanting to rehabilitate me for the sake of what? He didn’t have any benefit from it. Other than to mock me… or find the reports.”
“Sounds like he had plenty to benefit from then.” Apollo joked and was actually surprised when Simon let out a small chuckle in return.
“Perhaps so… but even then I can’t help but admit, a part of it felt real in its own way. Late night talks while cuddling does that to someone really does things to someone.”
“C-cuddling? Sounds like the two of you were close then.”
Simon hummed in response, shaking his head and brushing the topic away. “It’s in the past now.”
“Only by a few months.”
“The past is the past no matter the time passed.”
“You don’t have to hide your feelings. Athena… she… she really worries for you.”
“I wish she didn’t. I don’t need her to look after me.” Simon grumbled but Apollo could feel his bracelet tighten nonetheless.
“That’s a lie and you know it I can see your jaw twitching.”
“No you don’t.”
“Yes… I do.”
“Well then stop… doing whatever you’re doing.”
“Perceiving you?”
“Is that what you call your foolish methods?”
“Not like court manipulation is much better, is it?”
“Hrmph… maybe… maybe I do need company. I’m scared to be alone after so long of feeling the same way.”
“Thats not a bad thing, Blackquill, to need someone I mean.”
“No, of course not, just difficult to accept.”
“I understand.”
“You do?”
“Of course… I… during the investigation on Clay’s murder I isolated myself from the rest of the office. I didn’t trust anyone, I didn’t think I needed anyone either. That somehow by closing my eyes to the truth and looking for the perfect piece of evidence that everything would be… well… fine.” Apollo sighed. “But then the complete opposite happened. Instead of the perfect evidence I had been searching for… Athena’s prints were fabricated onto the lighter… and without anyone there to support me I fell apart.” Apollo’s voice strained, as if he were on the verge of crying. “But Phoenix still accepted me back with open arms. No one can truly exist on their own I guess is what I’m trying to say. Neither can you, Simon.”
“I don’t, I have Taka.” Simon retorted, a habit that slipped when things got tense, but inside he knew Apollo was right.
“Well… I meant human connection but hey… that’s a start.”
Simon rolled his eyes.
“Perhaps you can start talking to other prosecutors at the office?”
“…Klavier is too much for my liking.”
“Well… haha..” Apollo laughed, rubbing the back of his neck nervously, knowing how he was during their… interesting relationship before mutually realizing they were better as friends, “I suppose that’s expected of him.”
“And Mr. Edgeworth is far too busy to be indulging in company.”
“That’s not what he tells Mr. Wright.” Apollo mumbles but thankfully the statement goes over Simon’s head.
“And I am certainly not going to interact with the fools known as the Paynes.”
“Guess you could say they’re a ‘pain’ even at the prosecutors office.” Apollo jokes.
“That was an utterly ridiculous joke. Not funny in the slightest.”
“Yknow I think I felt my bracelet tighten again.”
“It’s broken.”
“No you’re just a bad liar. That’s ok- AHH!” Before Apollo knew it Taka was lunging at his head while Simon laid back against the couch and smirked.
“As you were saying, Justice-dono?”
“My hair is ruined.” He groans, head hanging dramatically.
“I think the less gel the better.”
“So it can look as messy as yours?”
“I’ll tell you my hair is actually very taken care of.” Simon huffs, taking his hairtie off with a swift motion and letting the silky hair pour down onto his shoulders and back, shining in the soft light of the apartment.
Apollo’s heart stuttered but he refused to give acknowledgment to it, instead reaching out to touch the soft threads of hair. “Certainly not what I expected.”
“Small minds don’t expect a lot, do they?”
“S-shut up…”
“Make me.” Simon whispered back, the words barely registering in Apollo’s mind as he froze, stuttering for a few moments and looking up into Simon’s eyes, as if searching for something.
Just then Athena walked back into the apartment with bags full of stuff, already throwing them onto the kitchen counter and causing a ruckus in the room.
Simon and Apollo had been caught up in their own tension to properly react but were relieved to see that Athena hadn’t seemed to notice. Realizing that, Simon stood up, tying his hair back into its ponytail and helping Athena in the kitchen while Apollo sat frozen solid, his skin buzzing with excitement.
“Justice-dono is even more annoying outside of the courthouse.” Simon said to Athena, laying out the items that needed to be chopped and meticulously slicing them.
“Hey!” Apollo exclaimed, wishing his bracelet had reacted to that statement.
Athena just laughed, “don’t be mean, Simon.”
“Old habits die hard, as they say.” He mumbles as he passes over the items back to Athena, chopped perfectly.
Athena could only roll her eyes, turning to Apollo and saying “don’t let him get to your head. He’s soft… somewhere deep in his heart.”
And for a second Apollo couldn’t even fathom such a thing.
As soon as the ramen was ready they all sat down at the table and started slurping up their meal, all quiet with delight.
“Yknow, I think they might be better than Eldoon’s” Athena murmurs between bites.
“No chance. The amount of salt gets your blood pumping.” Apollo huffs.
“Well, doesn't the homemade flavor want to make you burst?” She asks in return, determined to find something that would make her ramen special.
“Well… I can suppose they both have unique flavors that make them special.”
“You two bicker like cat and dog. I can barely imagine how the two of you work together.” Simon smirks.
Athena laughs, “That’s just a part of our charm.”
“Sure putting the ‘harm’ in charm, are we?”
“Shhh… he doesn’t need to know that.” Athena whispers.
“So… did you two share anything while I was gone?”
”Uhm… somewhat, I guess.” Apollo shrugged, feeling his face heat up for some reason.
”Bravo! That’s… something! Which is way better than nothing!” Athena smiles.
Simon nods his head in amusement, going back to silently observing the two as they talk endlessly, like a puzzle piece fitting just right with the others, not being able to resist the feeling of jealousy that courses through him.
He needs a friend.
Fast.