Being Cool Turns to a Cold
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters or cases from Ace Attorney. All credits go to Capcom, they own the rights to everything. This one-shot was written in response to a challenge on the Phoenex Wright Fanfiction Archive, which I gladly accepted. This storyline is original and was created by me, but the prompt was created by someone else. I did add one little bit to the prompt plot just so I had a bit more to go off of.
Daryan looked up at the sky above them and frowned. "K, are you sure we should do the concert? Sky's looking kinda bad, looks like a bad rainstorm."
Klavier glanced at the sky, frowned, then nodded. "Ja, it'll be fine. This is one of the biggest venue's we've ever played, we're not about to cancel it for a bit of rain.
Daryan mashed his mouth in a hard line and looked at the slowly moving dark gray clouds. "Dunno man, doesn't look like it's going to pass over us that quickly. That's the bitch of playing open air gigs, rain can ruin it. Hairspray can make my hair defy gravity, but throw water into the mix, I'll look like a moron in front of all the fans."
Klavier snorted then pulled another microphone stand out. "Oh please Daryan, I'm sure there'd still be some groupies that'd be willing to sleep with you. That's a perk of being a rockstar, they don't give a shit what you look like, just as long as they're with you."
Daryan shrugged. "Still, is it worth risking getting sick for all this? I'm sure we can reschedule the gig, and knowing the band, this won't be the biggest concert we'll ever play. There will be others."
Klavier slammed the microphone stand in his hand on the ground. "We're doing the concert Daryan! I don't care if you have the other guys back you up on this, we're playing the gig. I'll have the Fraulein Detective come Snackoo you if it'll get you off my case."
It was Daryan's turn to to snort. "Oh please Gavin, that girl wouldn't do anything you asked, even if you caught her in a good mood. She can't stand you dude."
Klavier frowned. "I don't think she hates me Daryan, she just gets herself irritated very easily, and she takes her anger out on me. I don't think she's capable of hating anyone, I don't think she has it in her."
Daryan smirked and met Klavier's eyes. "Oh God, is Gavin going soft on me? Sounds like you gotta thing for her."
Klavier shook his head, trying to convince them both otherwise. "Achtung! I am not going soft on anybody. I don't know Daryan, she's a mystery, but her constant rejection of me certainly jades a man's outlook on the prospective relationship."
Daryan rolled his eyes and pulled out his guitar. "So you do. Denial isn't healthy, K."
Klavier stopped plugging the microphone into the stand and raised his eyebrows. "Go back to tuning your guitar Crescend!" They burst into easy laughter.
Klavier wouldn't lie to himself. He did have a soft spot for Ema, something he'd yet to feel for another woman. But he didn't know what to make of these feelings he had for Ema. Her constant rejection of any kind of outing between then definitely made him doubt himself, but it also made him only try harder in his quest to get her to become more amicable toward him. To see her eyes shine with happiness like when she was doing forensics, when she was looking at him, was something that would truly warm him heart.
Klavier heaved an internal sigh and got the rest of the music equipment prepped and ready for the concert.
All the while, the sky only continued to darken and the occasional thunder rumble could be heard in the distance. Daryan grumbled a couple times about having to do the gig at all, but Klavier ignored the guitarist's protests. They would play the venue if it killed them. They'd yet to cancel a concert for anything, and he wasn't about to allow the band to start doing it now.
Despite the lousy weather, the stadium began to fill up rapidly as the time for the concert began to draw closer. Despite it being miserable outside, the fans were anxious to see the Gavinner's perform.
After hearing Daryan complain about the weather enough times, they sent for an awning to be ready to put into place over the rockers should rain start during the concert.
The concert started off as usual, the fangirls screaming their heads off and pushing each other out of the way in order to get a foot closer to their idols.
About halfway through though, the first few droplets began to pitter down and Klavier noticed when one got him right in the middle of his forehead. Right after the current song was finished, stage hands immediately went to work on setting up the awning. The Gavinners stayed backstage for the few minutes it took to get the stage covered, but it was still chilly and Klavier felt a chill travel up his spine as he walked back to the microphone and continued the concert.
The rain picked up even further after a few minutes, getting so bad that the stadium audience thinned out slightly and the awning was actually getting blown about with the wind.
Daryan was constantly glaring at Klavier, especially as they were going through the setlist and the concert was wrapping up.
The diehard fans refused to leave, not wanting to miss a single moment of their favorite rock-stars, even if the weather would probably cause them all to catch colds in the coming days.
As the Gavinners went through their final song, Daryan was positively livid that Klavier never called off the rest of the concert. The rain was coming down steadily and the wind was turning the rain in such a direction that they rockers had a thin layer of water absorbed by their clothing.
"Gavin, are you freaking mental? If I get sick, I swear I'm going to kick you ass." Daryan grumbled as they packed up all their respective instruments and equipment.
"Daryan, you know as well as I do that the Gavinner's have never cancelled a concert for anything. I wasn't about to break that now. We got through the concert, the fans enjoyed it, we'll do this again next week. And if you get sick, just call in your girlfriend or a groupie or whoever to go take care of you. Just don't come near me, I haven't gotten sick in over a year."
Daryan smirked. "Hell, that means you're due to, K. Just watch, you'll probably get a full blown flu. Don't come crying to me."
Klavier rolled his eyes. "Sure sure Daryan. I'll talk to you in a couple days. We got another big gig next week."
Two days later...
Klavier woke up with his head feeling like it was made of led. He couldn't breathe out of his nose and his throat was as dry as a desert. He rubbed his eyes with his palms and swallowed to try and moisten his aching throat.
"Mein Gott, I feel horrible. Daryan is never going to let me live this down. I wonder if he got sick as well."
Ever since the concert with the miserable weather, Klavier's heath had been steadily declining, like Daryan had predicted. He was indeed sick.
Klavier sat up for a moment, then flopped back onto the pillows when a dizzying sensation plagued his mind. He clapped his hand to his forehead and massaged his temple. His eyes squeezed shut as the wave passed. Without meaning to, he fell back asleep and was only awakened when his cell phone continued to ring and ring with an incoming call.
He groaned and groped nightstand blindly, righting his grip on the phone and flipping it open before he missed the call.
"Hello?" He mumbled. He was feeling too sick to even bother with answering the call in German like he usually did.
"Fop! You finally picked up your stupid phone, I've been calling you on and off for an hour now."
Klavier moved the phone an inch away from his ear as Ema's shout irritated his pounding headache.
"Fraulein, please don't shout in my ear. It is only succeeding in making me feel worse."
He heard her voice soften a bit. "What's wrong? Chief has been trying to track you down all day, and told me to go find you since you didn't come into work yesterday or today."
Klavier opened his eyes all the way and glazed over the ceiling fan. "What time is it now?"
He heard her jiggle the watch she always wore. "It's quarter after three in the afternoon." She told him.
Klavier shot up in shock, then fell back down as his wave of nausea returned.
"Three in the afternoon? I must have fallen back asleep..." Klavier mumbled.
He heard Ema 'harumph' on the other end. "You mean you never got up this morning? What the hell have you been doing over there? Massive hangover from the weekend or something?" She snorted in disgust.
Even though she couldn't see him do it, he shook his head. "Nein, I am sick Fraulein. I'm beginning to suspect I had a cold bordering on the flu."
Ema's eyebrows shot up. "Oh, I didn't know. Are you alright?"
"No, I haven't been in to work all weekend, and I don't think I'll be in for several more days."
He heard Ema mumble something to herself. "Okay. Have you taken anything?"
"No."
Ema hung up without another word, and for a moment Klavier wondered if she was simply not saying anything. But once he heard the dial tone, he knew the call had been disconnected. He raised his eyebrows but didn't dwell on it anymore. His head was heavy and stuffy enough without him trying to think about anything else.
Thirty minutes later, Ema was knocking on Klavier's apartment door. "Fop! It's Ema, come to the door!"
Ema heard a faint groan from somewhere inside the house and she could practically hear how bad he felt.
She heard slow footsteps that finally got louder and louder until they were in front of the door. The lock clicked and Klavier opened the door a couple feet. He was clad in just pajama pants and his hair was no where near as perfectly styled as Ema usually saw it.
She raised her eyebrows as she took in Klavier's appearance. He wasn't kidding when he said he was sick. She eyed his bare chest, but said nothing.
"Fraulein, what are you doing here?" Klavier said stuffily. To Ema, it sounded more like "Fraylen, what err jou doig her?"
"I came to see how you were feeling. Scientifically, you sounded terrible over the phone, so I knew you must have been feeling bad. Can I come in?"
Klavier's brow furrowed. "Should you even want to be coming in? One, I'm sick as a dog. And two, I think you'd be happy that I'm out of work for a couple days so you don't have to deal with 'the fop'." Klavier cracked a smile as he poked fun at Ema's constant bemoaning about him.
Ema gave a smirk of her own. At least he was feeling well enough to crack jokes, but he still looked like death warmed up.
"I brought over some remedies I've made. They'll make you feel better. When I heard you on the phone, I scientifically deduced what what wrong with you."
Klavier gave a small smile, but shook his head. "Fraulein, I thank you, but I would not feel totally comfortable allowing you to be near me, I could get you sick as well."
Ema rolled her eyes. "Fop, there's no point in arguing. I'm here now." She pushed past him in her usual take-control manner and set her messenger bag down in the kitchen.
Klavier walked over to where Ema was rummaging in her bag. "Why are you really here, Ema? I highly doubt it was due to your overt concern over the well being of the 'glimmerous fop'. Not that I wouldn't mind that being the case." Klavier attempted to laugh, but the actions made his throat constrict with pain and caused him to cough roughly.
Ema looked at him over her shoulder and pointed to the direction of his bedroom. "Get back into bed before I kick your foppish butt into it. You need rest so you can come back to work."
A lightbulb went off in Klavier's head. "Ahh so you want me back so you can see me around the office, ja?" A smirk crept across his lips and Ema pouted.
Thankful he came up with an alternative excuse, she lied and nodded. "Sure. I'm actually bored at work. You're my boss, so if you're not there, then scientifically I have nothing to do. They can't assign me to another prosecutor, and I can't go over to the Forensics department to work. The past two days have been very boring."
"Or you are just missing my charming remarks and miss hearing my voice."
Ema pouted more and growled lightly. "GO YOU FOP!"
Klavier instead moved a little closer, but breathed through his nose as best he could so as not to risk infecting her. "What is it that you brought?"
Ema pulled out a couple vials of liquids. "Just some scientific home remedies I've perfected. Living on your own and not being able to afford many medications will cause one to look for alternative remedies. I'm fortunate that I have a small lab at my apartment and can experiment with such things."
Klavier raised an eyebrow, but lowered it when it hurt his aching head. "Should I be worried, Fraulein? How do I know that there isn't something...unpleasant mixed in there?"
Ema huffed and turned to look him in the eye. "I'm not going to poison you, or whatever you think it is I had in mind." Ema reached her hand up like she was going to cup his cheek, but stopped herself and shoved her hand in her pocket. "Go lie down or sit on the couch or something. Scientifically you're not going to get well if you're on your feet."
Klavier figured there was no arguing against what Ema said, and shuffled over to the couch in the living room. He heard the opening and closing of cabinet doors, then the clinking of utensils on glassware. She came out a couple minutes later and offered him a glass of some liquid. It looked like watered down orange juice.
"What is it, Ema? I had orange juice in the refrigerator, but this looks like it's mixed with something else."
Ema tapped her pointer finger to her chin for a second. "It's not much. Orange juice was the base, but it has supplements and some compounds that are supposed to boost the immune system and unclog your airways. When one has the cold, your levels of Vitamin C become low, making it difficult to fight off viruses such as the common cold, and having difficulty breathing makes it difficult to clear out the airways, prolonging the time one stays ill."
Klavier smirked. "You know you are cute when you talk scientifically."
Ema pouted and narrowed her eyes at him. "Drink, you idiot." She pointed at the glass in his hand.
Klavier tilted the glass to his lips and drank half the liquid in one chug. He wiped his mouth and looked at Ema. "Now what?"
Ema rolled her eyes. "Nothing yet, fop. You just drank it, give it some time to be absorbed into the body. It's not magic, just science."
Klavier raised his eyebrow for a second. "What, are you going to stay here until I get better? Scientifically that could take days, Fraulein."
She shook her head and threw her hands up. "God, even when you're sick you still find it in yourself to flirt with me! You are incorrigible, you know that?"
A couple days later...
Klavier unlocked his office door for the first time in five days. He'd been out of work ever since the disastrous concert, and it was good to be back. Being cooped up in his apartment by himself very boring, and being alone for most of it made it that much worse. Ema came by at least once a day to check on him, and after two days Klavier was beginning to suspect she did have ulterior motives besides the proclaimed 'boredom at work' she told him at the beginning of the week.
But whatever scientific concoction she had created had worked its magic, and Klavier had been feeling better after just four days. It was either something Ema put in the drinks or he wasn't actually as sick as he'd thought. Although he was pretty confident it was the former.
He had been sitting at his desk for all of a minute before a knock sounded on the door. He called for the person to enter and Ema poked her head in the room.
"Good, you're finally back." She came in all the way and shut the door behind her.
Klavier looked at Ema questioningly. "What are you talking about Fraulein? I told you yesterday I would be back in to work. You were a little more excited than I thought you'd be."
Ema frowned and averted her gaze to the stack of paperwork that was in Klavier's mailbox. "Is any of that for me? I need something to do, having my boss out for almost a week gives me nothing to spend the workday on."
Klavier gave a half-smirk at Ema's attempt to change the subject. "No, I have not yet had a chance to go through all my work. Scientifically, I got in here two minutes ago before a certain detective of mine was coming up to see me."
Ema's cheeks tinged a tiny bit, but she continued to frown. "Oh. Well, just call me back up when you have something."
Klavier nodded. "I will."
Ema started to walk back out the door, but Klavier called out to stop her for a moment.
"Fraulein?"
Ema swiveled her torso around. "Yeah?"
"Thank you for taking care of me while I was sick. I don't know how long I would have been out of commission for if you hadn't worked your scientific magic on me."
Ema nodded. "No problem."
"So did you really do all that because you were bored, or for another reason behind your actions?" Klavier chuckled as Ema's face flamed up at his question.
"I-that is-you-ARGH! You're a fop!" Ema stuck her tongue out at Klavier and pulled the door shut behind her.
Author's Notes: God I am such a sucker for writing a Klema story. I seriously need to get back into some more serious work, the fluff is catching up with me lol. Anyway, I added to the prompt that gave me the baseline for this story, just so I had somewhere to go after the ill-fated concert, and I'm very happy with how the story turned out. I suppose I could have added more to when Ema was actually taking care of Klavier, but then it would have become too long for a one-shot and I need to get back to focusing on the finale of Love is Like Atroquinine D8 zomg only 2 chapters left of that! Then The Next Verse ^_^
Any thoughts or reviews on the story would be wonderful, as usual. Hope y'all enjoyed it!