Work Text:
The world moved on with remarkable efficiency after tragedy.
It had done so after every tragedy to date, and there had been many he could name, that much was clear. A famed prosecutor had been discovered to be a murderer, and the world had moved on. The previous chief of police had faced the same fate, and what was more, the previous chief prosecutor had served as an accomplice, and still, the world had moved on. A great defense attorney had been framed and disbarred — something he had first learned from the most irritating yet fascinating inmate to analyze in the entire prison — and yet again, the world had moved on. Not without changing, of course. The so-called ‘dark age of the law’ had set in, after all, and in courts and legal academia, his very own name was listed as a catalyst. Quite the reputation he had made for himself.
Yes, the world did move on efficiently. It had done so, entirely without him, on October seventh, 2020. Just around two in the afternoon.
And for seven years after that.
And it nearly would have been an eternity that the world went on without him, had things not gone the way they had in December.
He was no longer an inmate now. He tried not to think about such an immensely life-changing matter too much; thinking had become a rather hazardous thing to indulge in as of late, and so he would rather be as witless as a defense attorney than partake in the act.
Of course, he was not alone in the world now that he was free. Athena, that girl, visited often enough to keep him from vanishing entirely into himself. She would burst into the apartment the moment he begrudgingly opened the door [because she would ring the doorbell, knock, and call until he did,] like a beam of sunlight every time, loud and stubborn and so alive, carrying armfuls of groceries for him or legal files or complaints about other prosecutors who have bad hair and “totally suck, Simon!”
Sometimes she brought Apollo, who made for… decent enough company outside of court, he supposed. It was nice to have someone who would return his snark instead of scold him for it. Fun, even.
Once, disastrously, she brought Wright for a visit. The old attorney had looked around the apartment quietly, hands in his pockets, before saying, in that horribly timed and awkward way he is so unfathomably good at, “Feels weird, huh?” and Simon had nearly thrown him out the window for it.
But tonight, Athena was busy preparing for court. Apollo, according to her excited chatter over the phone earlier in the day, was busy helping Wright’s little girl at some magic show. Aura remained incarcerated, pending appeal, and visiting hours had ended already. Not that he’s too sure either of them would be up for a visit any time soon. Edgeworth, his superior, was surely buried alive beneath paperwork somewhere in the Prosecutor’s Office. He didn’t know his coworkers well enough to even think about reaching out to one of them for, what, a night at some bar or restaurant downtown? Or, gods forbid, a sleepover?
… The world, and everyone in it, moved on with remarkable efficiency after tragedy. Everyone but him, it would seem.
For seven entire years, he had carried his memories like blades in place of his ribs. Seven years of sharpening himself against hatred, against sorrow, against fear, against the certainty that if he ever relaxed for even an instant, the Phantom would slip away forever.
And now?
Now, the Phantom sat in custody somewhere beneath layers of maximum-security measures, confidential paperwork, and armed guards. Alive, regrettably, but apprehended nonetheless. Simon had imagined this ending a thousand times over inside his prison cell, on the many nights where he had nothing else to do. And yet, absolutely none of those fantasies had prepared him for the hollowness that would come afterward.
Because once again, his world had fallen apart. Like he was twenty-one again, sitting in a cold cell, bawling his gods-damned eyes out until his throat was raw and nothing was left to cry and his face hurt like nothing he had ever felt, and his heart hurt worse, and oh, gods, what about Athena, what about Aura, what about their family, what about everyone at the GYAXA Space Center, what about the Whets, and everyone else he knew and everyone else who knew him, and his career, and—
That idiot. That stupid, foolish detective.
Bobby Fulbright. Fool Bright, Simon had called him, so often that trying to say the man’s name regularly resulted in the word slurring into that familiar nickname. Wasn’t his fault that ‘fool’ and ‘ful’ came out so similar with his accent, was it? That idiot detective who saluted at crime scenes, for no apparent reason aside from ‘justice’. Who argued with broken vending machines in the courthouse lobby. Who once spent twenty entire minutes lecturing a pickpocket about civic responsibility while the pickpocket quietly snuck out through a window behind him. That man with a yell loud enough to split both courtroom walls and eardrums apart. That man who was stupid enough to make half the gallery stare when he muttered an apology for fumbling a piece of evidence, pressing his fingers together with a pout on his face and what Simon swore were little tears in his eyes.
That man who earnest enough that Simon had never quite managed to silence him entirely; nor did he find himself truly wanting to, at the end of each day.
The man who had so desperately wanted to be a lifeline for him. So desperately wanted to help him. So earnestly believed in him and his innocence, that terrible, dirty secret that Simon fought tooth and nail to deny.
That man who, regrettably, Simon had looked forward to seeing every day.
But alas, the dead remained dead, no matter how much one yearned otherwise.
Sleep arrived poorly.
Simon drifted into it the way a wounded samurai bled out: gradually, reluctantly, and resisting until resistance itself became too exhausting to participate in. Then came sleep. Fitful and dreadfully uncomfortable, both despite and due to the soft mattress under him. The apartment and its furnishings had been arranged by the chief prosecutor after his release — sparse, respectable, and clean, as not to overwhelm him upon his arrival. White walls. Dark counters. A single bookshelf that was already half-filled with legal texts he had not yet opened. One narrow couch. One low table. A perch by the window for Taka. [Though the bird certainly perched wherever he so wished, and that was usually on Simon.] A comfortable bedroom, which he almost felt too small in, given his previous accommodations.
A man of his size, feeling too small in a room. A laughable concept indeed.
…
…
…
“Prosecutor Blackquill!”
Simon opened his eyes.
… Courtroom number five, falling apart just as it had been on that day, stood empty save for a figure at the witness stand.
Detective Bobby Fulbright beamed at him. Bright smile, perfectly pressed suit, one hand planted on his hip and the other held in a crooked two-fingered salute by his temple.
Simon felt his stomach drop so viscerally that, if not for the obvious indicator standing right in front of him, he wouldn’t have thought he was dreaming. He would’ve liked to pretend he wasn’t.
Fulbright laughed loudly, the sound echoing across the vacant courtroom. “What’s the matter, Prosecutor Blackquill? You look terrible, sir!”
“Hmph.” Simon’s voice emerged rough, and he had to swallow down a lump in his throat at just the sight of the man. “And you appear just fine, for a… dead man.”
“Ah-ha! Even death is only a minor setback for justice, sir!” The detective pointed dramatically upward, and the moonlight shining in from above seemed to waver. Simon stared, hard. Something was wrong. Not with ‘Fulbright’ himself. The details were perfect. The too-wide grin and impeccable presentation, of course. Justice had to look its best. The ridiculous enthusiasm behind every single movement.
That was what made it unbearable. Seeing ‘him’ again was unbearable.
And still, before he really knew it, he was crossing the courtroom to reach him. Pathetic, really.
“… You,” Simon said quietly.
Fulbright tilted his head. “Me?”
“I never…” The words caught unexpectedly, and with absolutely none of the bite that Simon wanted to speak to the man with. “I never knew… about…”
Fulbright blinked. Then he laughed again, softer this time. That gentle laugh that Simon only ever heard when they were alone; on lunch breaks, out on a stroll in the middle of an active trial, in the car on the way to-and-fro crime scenes... “Oh, Prosecutor Blackquill…” He frowned, brows knitting together and eyes growing wide and sparkly in a show of pity.
The moonlight wavered again.
And for a split second, Fulbright’s smile was back, and too wide, uncannily so. Simon froze, and got a reaction from the detective.
“Ah-hah-ha, there it is,” Fulbright said, his voice coming out as a pleased hum. The detective leaned over the witness stand, the one thing left between them, and rested his chin in one hand. “You’re at a loss for words, Prosecutor Blackquill. That’s rare!”
Simon stood at the foot of the witness stand and stared. He could feel it now, that awful wrongness. Not merely the fact that Fulbright stood before him despite being dead for a year now, but something deeper beneath the skin of the dream itself. Something disgustingly sinister and calculated. Fulbright smiled wider, no doubt picking up on Simon’s now-visible unease.
“You know,” he said conversationally, sliding one gloved finger in little circles on the stand, “I used to wonder what kind of man you were beneath all the scary prosecutor stuff.”
Simon’s throat tightened.
The detective tapped his own cheek thoughtfully. “At first I thought you were just grumpy! I mean, anyone in prison for seven years would be, right? Then I thought maybe you really, really just hated me.” A laugh. “But then, I figured out you actually liked having me around! Me!”
“Hmph. You delusional bastard.” Simon spat back, quick and defensive, as if he’d never stopped engaging in this familiar banter.
“Oh? Delusional, sir?” Fulbright leaned further over the stand. “Then why’d you always wait around nearby for me before we’d leave the detention center?” He tilts his head. “You could’ve just hopped into the car to wait for me instead. I kept the doors unlocked and the AC on in the summer just for you!”
Nothing.
“Why’d you always save me a spot next to you whenever we sat in the lobby for a snack instead of hogging the whole couch for yourself? I really would’ve been just fine standing, you know.”
Still nothing.
“And why,” Fulbright continued softly now, “did you look so relieved every single time I walked into court? Even when I’d fumbled something big?”
Simon’s jaw clenched hard enough to hurt. The man was right, and that was the unbearable truth of it all, wasn’t it?
For seven years, Simon Blackquill had lived in a world made entirely of suspicion. Prison had taught him very quickly what happened to men who forgot themselves and forgot their defenses.
… And then there had been Fulbright. Loud. Downright transparent, or so he’d thought. Earnest to the point of absurdity. A man who never seemed afraid of him, and who argued with him openly, laughed at him openly, and trusted him openly.
The humiliation curdled in his stomach, sour and heavy.
“Oh, and—”
“Enough,” Simon cut in.
Fulbright blinked.
“You have no right,” Simon continued, voice dropping into a hiss, “to wear that face before me.”
For the first time, the detective’s smile faltered. Only slightly, but Simon saw it. Fulbright’s expression changed entirely upon realizing that. No need for pleasantries now. The warmth vanished from it all at once, like a stage actor stepping out of character between scenes. Putting a mask on, then taking it off with just as much ease. His smile remained physically present, but devoid of anything behind it. Closed-mouth now, like the kind people forced for awkward family photos. “Ah,” Fulbright murmured again. “There it is.”
His voice changed with the words. Still Fulbright’s voice, but flatter now. Quieter. Stripped down to imitation and lacking the underlying warmth and energy it should have.
“You’re finally talking to me like you ought to, huh?” he asked. “I was wondering when you’d stop being so…” He tapped his cheek once, twice. “Nice to me.”
Simon wanted to step backward.
“Do you know,” Fulbright sighed, still keeping up some thin pretense of emotion, “what your problem is, Prosecutor Blackquill?”
“You still want him to be real,” he finished without waiting for Simon to answer. “You want there to have been some grand distinction. Some big tell.” Fulbright stepped down from the stand. “Some obvious divide between that detective and me. Something you could point at and say there, that was the fake part, I’ve got it now.”
Another step.
“But you still can’t do that when you look back at everything. Can you?”
Another.
“Because I did everything correctly.”
Simon flinched.
His boots suddenly felt as though they were made of lead, and despite every part of his brain screaming at him to step back, or lunge forward and choke the life out of the bastard in front of him, to do something, he didn’t.
The detective tilted his head with grotesque curiosity, in the way a curious animal would observe a human being. “I laughed when I was supposed to laugh. I encouraged people when they were sad. I spoke about justice constantly. I made friends around the precinct. I solved cases.” A pause. “I even worried about you. That was rotten work, you know. You were so ungrateful and stubborn, it was like dealing with a child every time.”
Simon remembered late nights in the prosecutor’s office with untouched paperwork and cold, watery coffee.
Fulbright rambling on about some ridiculous television special from a 40 year old sitcom while Simon half-listened.
Fulbright insisting he eat something after trials, even if it was just a little sweet treat, because crime takes no breaks and he needs the energy to keep up.
Fulbright standing beside him at crime scenes with that ridiculous unwavering loyalty, like Simon was not a condemned man in chains.
“You miserable coward,” Simon hissed, hating how weak he sounded. “I think— you’re a miserable, bloody coward.”
“Ouch,” Fulbright said flatly, looking utterly unamused despite the venom in Simon’s voice that would surely make anyone else shut up, for fear of getting cut down. He stepped back a pace. “Okay. You know what I think? I think you miss me.”
Simon’s expression twisted violently into a scowl. “You dare—”
“Because nobody else looked at you like I did. Like he did, I suppose. You were a convict. A murderer. The Twisted Samurai of the legal system…”
Fulbright circled him slowly now, polished loafers clicking softly against courtroom tile.
“But not to me. And not to him.”
Simon’s pulse pounded unevenly in his throat.
“Even after you insulted me,” Fulbright continued lightly, “threatened me, ordered me around…” A laugh, sick and sadistic. “He still came back every morning smiling, didn’t he?”
The detective stopped directly behind him.
“And you liked that, Simon. You liked having an eager little mutt at your heels, staring at you with an inhuman amount of adoration and loyalty.”
Simon managed to spin around to face the man, and the courtroom changed as consequence. Punishment. Chains erupted upward from the floor with a deafening metallic shriek, and before Simon could react, iron snapped shut around his wrists. Cold, hard, and far too familiar.
Clearly, Simon was not the one in control of his own dream.
The chains dragged downward toward the floor from which they came, pinning his arms painfully at his sides rather than together in front of him like he was used to. A deviation from what he came to expect. It took a lot of power not to let himself be yanked to his knees, legs buckling as he held himself upright.
Across from him, Fulbright stood perfectly still, smiling again. He raised his hand, saluting, and winked beneath those glasses. “In justice we trust,” he said. “You know I can’t let you get too unruly, now, can I?”
The moonlight grew harsher, as though the thing itself was reprimanding him, too.
One by one, figures began appearing in the gallery seats. Athena. Aura. Apollo. Edgeworth. Wright. Clay, and Starbuck, and, ye gods, everyone he’s worked with this past year and everyone he’s cared about was there, watching him, like a jury ready to sentence him.
And beside them, filling in the spaces left, were… Fulbrights. Plural. Rows and rows of identical smiling detectives sitting shoulder-to-shoulder throughout the courtroom gallery, every single one staring directly at him.
Simon’s stomach lurched, and he yanked at the chains. The consequence was swift and immediate, of course. Not a shock, but something infinitely worse. They dragged him down hard, finally forcing him onto his knees with a brutality that should have broken his ribs when his chest met the floor. Sure as hell felt like it, and he let out a loud, wheezing groan as he lay defeated in the middle of the room.
“You could never tell us apart,” the detective — the Phantom — whispered, stepping closer to lean over him mockingly.
Simon lifted his head and watched as the Fulbrights smiled wider in unison. They’re mocking him. “Stop this…” he hissed, glaring defiantly.
“Could Athena?”
“Stop—”
“Could Wright?”
“Damn you, I said stop!—”
“Could you, Simon?”
…
Even after dedicating seven years of his life to hunting the Phantom, Simon Blackquill could not say he could.
The Phantom took the resulting silence as a victory.
“You know what the worst part is?” he asked quietly.
Simon said nothing. The Phantom leaned down a little more.
“The real Bobby Fulbright probably would have liked you.”
Simon couldn’t take it.
Between the leaden weight in his stomach, the utter helplessness of his position, all those eyes on him, and the mere mention of what could have been, what might have been — he cracked.
He lowered his head and squeezed his eyes shut as he choked back a sob, feeling the familiar hot trail of tears begin to roll down his cheeks.
“You should have noticed. You’re supposed to be clever. You’re supposed to read people. You’re supposed to protect them, Simon.”
Simon’s breathing turned ragged as he gritted his teeth, still trying so miserably hard to hold back an ugly, shameful sob. The Phantom stood smiling inches away. “But you were lonely,” he whispered. “You poor thing.”
Gods, it was true.
Seven years trapped behind bars, isolated from the world, surviving entirely on hatred and vengeful purpose — and then suddenly there had been someone beside him every day. Loud and aggravating and so impossible to ignore. Someone who treated him like a human being instead of a spectacle or just a headline story from seven years past.
And Simon, starved enough for companionship, had let himself become fond of a monster. Dependent on him, even, in the way a stray animal would become dependent on the first hand to feed it and show it even a sliver of kindness.
The Phantom crouched in front of him.
He put his hands on Simon’s shoulders, grip firm and warm and deceptively real, and hauled him upright. The chains gave just enough slack, and by some horrible, unwanted grace, Simon managed to stay kneeling upright after the Phantom let go.
Then he placed a hand against Simon’s chest. Directly over his heart. He kept it there for a moment, like he was checking whether Simon’s heart was still beating, [or maybe just to feel for the sake of it,] and then smiled. Leaned in a little, conspiratorially.
“I could’ve taken you away from all of this, you know.”
Simon felt sick.
“I had access to everything. Evidence lockers. Transport schedules. Police routes. Security records.” The Phantom spoke almost conversationally now, like they were just discussing yearly vacation plans. “It wouldn’t have been difficult. Risky, yes, for both of us… but I’ve gotten away with worse. You know the details.”
His hand remained over Simon’s heart.
“We could’ve disappeared, Simon—“
“—you sick liar—”
“—and it would have been nice. You, finally free from your little cage. Me, free from mine. A fresh start for us both. I think you would’ve followed me just fine, really,” the Phantom continued. “A real person might disappoint you. They might leave. They might misunderstand you.” The phantom’s expression softened into something hideously pitying. “But me?” He grabbed Simon’s dominant hand, the chains once again betraying the prosecutor by giving for the action, and lifted it up to his own chest, and Simon was almost horrified to feel a steady beating there, much calmer and flatter than his own heart.
“I am exactly what you want, Simon.”
“No,” Simon muttered, pathetic and angry and so full of denial.
“No?” the phantom echoed pleasantly. “Tell me I’m wrong, then. The real Bobby Fulbright would’ve been inconveniently human for you. He would’ve had boundaries. Bad moods. Doubts. Wants of his own.” A pause. “You don’t want that. I never asked you for anything, did I? I could have been your perfect little dog forever. Your lapdog.”
“No, you were after—“
“You miserable piece of shit,” the Phantom whispered, and Simon flinched, because he had never heard those words in Bobby’s voice, much less directed at him, “You don’t want love. You want loyalty that cannot say no to you.” Simon made a wounded sound somewhere deep in his throat. “And I would’ve given it to you.” The Phantom smiled. “Gladly.”
The chains dug harder into Simon’s wrists as he began to struggle, panic and grief and revulsion tangling together until he could scarcely breathe, and gods, why wasn’t he waking up, all he wanted was to wake up and—
“Can you honestly tell me,” the man asked softly, “that some part of you still wouldn’t choose me?”
Simon opened his mouth.
Yes, I can.
Silence.
I would never choose you.
Silence.
I would never want something like that.
Nothing.
I don’t want anything.
Nothing came out.
The phantom’s expression brightened in immediate delight.
“Ah,” he breathed. “Ah-ha-ha-ha!”
“There it is.”
Prosecutor Simon Blackquill did not fall back asleep that night, nor did he remember when exactly he woke up. That nightmare could’ve stretched on forever, or lasted thirty minutes, and he would not have known the difference.
Instead, he spent the early morning hours sobbing, half-slumped on his apartment’s couch, half on the floor, and clutching a pair of golden brown aviators and a Metropolitan Police Department badge holder tightly against his chest — right where that hand had been. Pretending it was a hand, a real hand, belonging to the real, long-dead detective Bobby Fulbright. The real one that he tells himself he would have run away with, if the man ever asked. The one he tries so hard to tell himself he needs more. A real person, because that is what Simon Blackquill wants, and what Simon Blackquill needs, and what Simon Blackquill wants and needs so bad but can’t have because he doesn’t exist and draw breath anymore, and so what is the point of anything at all now?
Athena would come to see him tomorrow, and she would see the redness in his eyes, and the set of his shoulders, and the waves of sorrow rolling off of him that would undoubtedly make her want to bawl her eyes out, too.
And he would tell her nothing of the reason for it, for fear of what she might think of him after.