March 1, 11:08 PM
Prosecutor's Office
Ah, Wednesdays. How Klavier loathed them.
Work was busy, and not the sort of busy that Klavier found meaningful. He had two more trials that day, one for kidnapping and another for a car theft, but the first was over so quickly that he had time to sneak back into his office and play his guitar before the second.
There were only two bad things about having Apollo in his house. The first: Klavier's feelings for him, which were not shrinking, and were growing rather inconvenient. The second: the lack of music.
The lack of music was mostly self-inflicted, but if he was more or less forcing Apollo to stay with him, he couldn't make him listen to his music, too. Because not only did Klavier know full well that Apollo wasn't a fan of his music, he also knew that if he was playing something that Apollo didn't like, Apollo wouldn't tell him to stop.
Probably. Apollo's level of predictability was unpredictable.
But Apollo liked The Guitar's Serenade. For personal reasons, yes, but that still meant that Klavier could do something Apollo liked. And he could do that something entirely separate from the Gavinners.
In all honesty, Klavier wasn't a fan of his music from his Gavinners days, either, for reasons Apollo knew nothing about.
But Klavier was neither in the Gavinners nor the courtroom at the moment, which meant he had freedom. For approximately fifteen minutes, but he would take what he could get.
It was a bit like getting a sip of water after spending two days in the desert, though- the feeling of refreshment only lasted long enough to remind him how stressed he was when it faded.
But really, how difficult could a car theft case be? Annoying defense attorney, annoying defendant, annoying witnesses, annoying evidence,annoying detective. He found himself behaving uncharacteristically aggressively until he had the verdict he wanted.
"Are you feeling okay, pal?" Gumshoe asked him after the trial. "You seem kinda… stressed."
"You presented an autopsy report,Detective. Even though nobody died."
Usually, he would've had more sympathy for the stress of Gumshoe's caseload catching up with him, but Gumshoe wasn't the only one who was feeling stressed, dang it.
He was very glad to be out of work that day, but he had mixed feelings about picking Apollo up. On one hand, he would be the least annoying person Klavier had dealt with all day, but on the other hand, that meant that Klavier had to be nice.
Apollo seemed to be in good spirits when Klavier picked him up, so Klavier tried to relax a little. Cheerful Apollo was rare, and Klavier wasn't going to be the one to make him go away. Not over a guitar.
But traffic was terrible and every car on the road seemed as if it was being driven by a moron. Klavier pressed on his horn a little longer than he should have when a driver clearly ran a red light, and he realized his best attempt to be civil wasn't going over so well.
"Bad day?" Apollo asked with a knowing smile.
"Bad drivers," he insisted.
The moment they got home, Klavier flopped on the couch with a disgruntled expression and glared at the unlit screen of his TV.
"So I know absolutely nothing about driving… But the traffic didn't seem to be this-" Apollo waved a hand toward Klavier's face- "bad."
"I'm fine, Forehead," he said tiredly.
Apollo looked at him thoughtfully. "Something to do with your guitar?" he asked.
Klavier stared at him disbelievingly, so Apollo motioned towards Klavier's fingers, which were curled as if they were around the neck of a guitar, moving without him really thinking about it. Klavier sighed. "You're ridiculous."
"That one was kinda hard to miss. So what's going on? Was another one of your lovers burned at the stake?"
Klavier snorted in laughter, and Apollo looked pleased that he'd made him smile. That face was unreasonably cute. "Nein. I've barely been in my office the past two days, meaning I haven't been able to play much."
"Were you in court again today?" Apollo asked, shocked.
"Ja, I had two more trials."
Apollo looked concerned. "No wonder you're so irritable."
"I'm not irritable," Klavier said irritably. Apollo looked at him and crossed his arms. "Okay, I'm a little irritable. My right side brain has declared mutiny. That's essentially my entire brain."
Apollo smiled. "You can play music if you want to."
Tempting. Very tempting. "I wouldn't want to bother you."
"Klavier?"
"First name?" Klavier's eyebrow rose.
"Go play your guitar," Apollo said seriously. If the lack of blushing was any indication, the use of Klavier's first name had been entirely intentional.
"If I'm more or less making you stay here, I should at least be a good host."
"If you want to be hospitable, you need to loosen up a bit," Apollo countered.
"Oh dear. If you're telling me to loosen up, I must have died and begun rigor mortis," Klavier joked. Apollo snickered at that one. "But truly, I shouldn't be getting this frustrated over something so insignificant."
"Well, you are," Apollo retorted, blunt as ever. "And this is a really easy problem to fix. How often do you have problems that are actually easy to fix?"
He had a point there. "But…" Klavier frowned. "I know you don't like my music."
Apollo blinked. "Is that what this is about?" He smiled. "I think I'll be able to tolerate a famous musician playing the guitar in his own house."
"...Are you sure?"
Apollo smirked. "Have I ever hesitated to tell you to shut up before?"
"...You make a compelling argument," Klavier said. "Will you get me if you need me?"
"Yes. You really don't need to worry about me," Apollo said with a hint of exasperation.
"In that case… I'll be in the basement."
Apollo nodded, so Klavier stood up off of the couch. Apollo stole his spot almost immediately, and Klavier got the distinct impression that it was because it was warm.
"And here I thought you were being nice," Klavier protested. Apollo smirked.
But Klavier's right side brain was dragging him toward the door to the basement, so he let himself follow it. His basement was probably the most impressive room in his house, with black walls and hardwood floors.
The dark color gave it the illusion of having dim lighting no matter how bright you turned up the lights, which made reading music easy. Purple and silver brightened up the room a bit, enough to give it a more modern feel.
He'd always referred to it as the black box, despite it not being a real black box, because it was black, it was shaped like a box, and it was mostly there for show.
He picked up the first guitar he could get his hands on and sat down on a couch, checking the intonation absentmindedly. It was perfectly in tune.
He tried to think of what to play and ultimately settled on sorting out the melody to a song he'd started writing a few weeks ago.
His creative side liked this plan- writing and music. He briefly wondered whether or not the frequent stopping and starting would annoy Apollo, but something in him told him to stop caring about what other people thought for 30 minutes of his life.
I'm sorry for the monster that I made
The monster which you fought but eventually became
And I'm sorry that I couldn't speed up time
The hourglass of wasted thoughts that weren't ever mine.
The longer he sang, the looser the muscles in his shoulders became. He hadn't realized how much he needed this.
After what had probably been an hour, Apollo appeared at the top of the stairs and looked over the railing. Klavier stopped playing immediately. "Forehead?"
Apollo looked around the room with a sense of wonder. "Woah. Um... I was wondering if Gavinners tickets were 20% off today?"
If Apollo didn't look so sheepish, Klavier would've assumed he was joking. "I didn't realize you would listen to my music if I paid you."
"It's not all bad," he said with a smirk. Somehow, Klavier got the impression that Apollo wasn't actually there to listen to music.
"Sit down," Klavier said as more of an offer than an order. Apollo didn't hesitate to walk down the stairs and sit in a chair close to him, making a disgruntled noise when the chair wound up giving into his weight more than he anticipated.
Klavier processed that a bit too slowly to laugh, so he didn't. "...For the record, I apologize for the discounted tickets.
Apollo let out a small huff of laughter. "For only discounting them 20% or discounting them enough for me to show up?"
"The former. I'm glad you came, or that trial would have ended much differently."
Apollo seemed caught off guard by how serious Klavier's tone was. Klavier was too, honestly. "...You look guilty about something, and I get the feeling it's not the tickets," Apollo said, smile fading.
"Well… Yes. But it doesn't concern you."
"Is that an 'I don't want to talk about it' or a 'You don't have to listen?'"
"I... don't know," Klavier replied.
Apollo hesitantly touched his bracelet, and, with some effort, took it off of his wrist and placed it on the ground by his feet.
Klavier looked at the bracelet and then Apollo's eyes. "What are you…"
"You strike me as an external processor." He looked at Klavier with a small smile.
It seemed like Apollo's way of saying that he cared more about Klavier's feelings than the truth of what happened, which was heartwarming, to say the least."...You just want to listen."
Apollo nodded. "If you want to talk."
Did he want to talk? A large part of him was screaming no, absolutely not, but another part of him was really touched by what Apollo had just done, and another part was tired of hiding. He sat there for two minutes without saying a word, and Apollo let him.
Finally, Klavier set his guitar on its stand and resolved to say what he needed to as directly as possible. "I… I blame myself for what happened to Daryan."
"Bullshit," Apollo said, "But continue."
Apollo apparently wasn't wasting words, either.
But his straightforwardness was unbelievably refreshing, and the part of Klavier that was worried about his reaction backed off a bit. "I have a question for you, Apollo."
"First name?" Apollo smiled. Klavier couldn't blame him; it did sound kind of strange, coming out of his own mouth.
"What did Daryan have to gain by smuggling?"
Apollo thought for a moment. "Money, I guess."
"Ja. Something he already had in great quantities. And what did Daryan have to lose by smuggling?"
"...Pretty much everything."
"So why did he do it?" Klavier asked.
Apollo put a finger to his forehead. "...No clue. But you said it doesn't matter how much money you have if you can't spend it, so I'm guessing that applies here."
Klavier nodded, admittedly a bit surprised that Apollo had put two and two together so quickly. "And why couldn't Daryan and I spend money?"
"...I don't know." He put his finger down.
Klavier smiled bitterly. "It's because I was an idiotic 17 year old."
"I was a stupid 17 year old too," Apollo pointed out.
"True, but you were funny stupid. I wasn't." Klavier sighed. "Right after our band's first hit single came out, I was offered a contract with a TV station. They offered us a tour manager and a tour plan that allowed us to keep our jobs in law enforcement.
I showed it to the other band members, and they told me to sign it. The idea of touring the country without having to give up our day jobs was… enticing."
"A little too perfect."
Klavier nodded. "There was a catch, obviously, but it shouldn't have been a problem. Two catches, really. The first: that our manager had complete authority over anything that affected our band's image. The second: that if we broke the contract, we would have to pay the TV station however much money they would have made from our performances if we hadn't broken it.
The problem was the duration of the contract. I was absolutely positive that the contract I signed lasted for one year. But the contract with my signature on it said ten years." Klavier furrowed his eyebrows.
Apollo was silent for about twenty seconds, so Klavier looked up at him expectantly. Klavier hated how vulnerable he felt. Like the darkness inside of himself was visible, and the sun god was staring into it thoughtfully.
Finally, Apollo stood up from his chair and sat next to Klavier on the couch in a somewhat awkward attempt for proximity. He crossed his arms and stared straight ahead. "So some greedy assholes tricked you into forfeiting your creative freedom. Continue."
Klavier wanted to laugh, but he couldn't. "It's not that simple."
"It never is."
"I was... unbelievably arrogant. I'd just released a hit single at the age of 17 and taken down a legendary attorney, who I thought was a forger, in my very first trial." He looked pointedly at Apollo, who didn't seem particularly bothered by that fact. Apollo was being ridiculously patient with him today.
Klavier sighed. "I thought it was completely impossible that the prodigy prosecutor could be tripped up by a contract. So I walked into the TV station and demanded to see the producer who offered it to me. And that… didn't go over very well." He closed his eyes.
"Doesn't look like it," Apollo agreed. "You don't have to go into details."
"...Thank you. The whole thing would have been fine if our manager wasn't one of the most despicable people I've ever met." Or the producer, but that went without saying.
"You've met a lot of despicable people."
"I have. But usually, they have some sort of reason to be despicable. Some kind of soul. But this man cared about absolutely nothing except money. And if we did anything that wasn't profitable, it was… not enjoyable. The other three members of the band didn't mind him, really. They were very good at what they did, but they were also in it for the money. And the women. It was me and Daryan who hated his guts."
"Because you two were in it for the music?"
"That, and the platform we had to restore the public's faith in the legal system. So Daryan and I saved every dollar we made from our concerts so we could break the contract. Unfortunately, as our band kept getting more popular, the expected value of our concerts kept rising. Meaning we had more and more money to raise."
Klavier stared at the ground. "Daryan loved music more than anything. We would sit in my dressing room and play the songs we couldn't perform, and what he could play was unbelievable. Much better than he ever did onstage. But I suppose that after seven years, with still no end in sight, he was willing to do anything to leave. Even if it meant unraveling the faith we'd caused some people to put in the legal system."
Klavier smiled. "And, in the ultimate twist of irony, he was stopped by a band manager. It was… not difficult for me to comprehend why he did what he did. Because it was my fault."
"Still bullshit," Apollo said.
"You have quite the mouth," Klavier teased, voice weaker than he would have liked.
"Well, you aren't going to curse. And the situation demands it, I think."
"Perhaps." He sighed. "But after Daryan murdered a band manager, the TV station shredded our contract immediately. I was surprised they didn't demand the money that they'd lost, but I suppose that would've ruined their reputation with the public… And exposed the blood on their hands.
"We were all shaken by Daryan's arrest, but we were free. And we tried to act like it for a few months, but I felt so guilty that we ended it. Because the shredded contract, the money I suddenly had a lot of, the creative freedom… I only have those because Daryan murdered someone."
"I wouldn't say that. The contract was only destroyed because the truth behind Daryan's murder was exposed, right? Threatening to bring the truth about his motive to the surface, too… That's why the contract ended, and you did that."
"If anyone was a threat to the TV station, it was you," Klavier said. "They had no control over you."
If he had a bit more experience, they might have, because a symbiotic relationship with Bluecorps meant that any skeletons in a person's closet would be found, and for those without any, the TV station had a remarkable video editing team.
But even if Apollo did know what they were capable of, Klavier got the feeling he would try to defy them anyway.
"I don't think they would've shredded a multimillion dollar contract because they were scared of a rookie lawyer accidentally revealing their secrets. And if they were, I'm sure they would've done something to silence me. It's you who they were afraid of."
Klavier supposed that he had a point. "Perhaps. But none of that would've happened without the murder."
"So you're going to pretend like the contract never ended?" Apollo asked, crossing his arms.
Klavier had the sinking feeling that Apollo wouldn't understand. "I wouldn't call it 'pretending.' It's more of a refusal to enjoy the benefits of the murder. If I don't profit off of it, I can sort of convince myself that he did what he did for himself and himself alone."
"I can see that… But you can't keep doing this forever, can you?"
"I don't have to. June 13, 2029 is the day the contract would've ended. Once the contract is truly dead, so is my obligation."
"So this is a way to reduce your own guilt, huh…?" Apollo seemed to have a better grasp on the situation than Klavier anticipated, which comforted him a bit. Klavier had almost expected to be shamed for his admittedly unhealthy coping mechanisms, but he supposed Apollo was no stranger to those, either.
"Exactly."
"That makes sense… But personally, I think you have now what you deserved to have in the first place."
"Maybe. But the ends don't justify the means."
"They weren't your means," Apollo pointed out.
"Nein, but my negligence certainly helped." Klavier stared at the ground and swallowed. "It seems that my entire life, I've just been who people wanted me to be. And when people wanted me to help them destroy someone else, I became a murder weapon... A pretty commemorative stamp for other people's poison to travel through."
"What are you talking about?!" Apollo asked, taken aback.
"It was me who signed the Gavinners contract, me who transported cocoons out of Borginia, and me who exposed your boss as a forger. I did everything they wanted me to. And people died because of it."
"You chose to pursue a career in music, take a gift home with you, and stop a wrongful conviction. They didn't manipulate you into doing anything. You just acted like you normally do, and they manipulated the consequences."
"'Like I normally do?' You mean, exactly as I'm told?"
Apollo stood up from the couch, possibly because he needed more space to make his wild hand gestures with. "When have you everlistened to what others told you to do?!"
"When have I ever stopped listening?"
"Prosec... Klavier. In the two years I've known you, I've never seen you back down to anyone. Not when it counts. If you actually did what people told you to, Daryan never would've taken the witness stand, you never would've testified about your brother, and... I can't tell you how sick I would be right now."
Now that was a confession. A hard one too, if Apollo's face was any indication.
But Klavier didn't feel as if he'd done those things by his own accord, either- his brother and Daryan had been brought to the stand because of Apollo and the Judge's actions, and he'd followed suit. And he probably wouldn't have taken care of Apollo if Athena hadn't asked him for help.
"But you can't see that, can you?" Apollo asked, meeting Klavier's eyes with a force of empathy behind them. "It's like you've been used so many times that you've begun to see yourself as more of an item than a person."
There was a moment of silence as both of them processed what he'd said.
"I… I seem to have more value as an item. Nobody cares about who I am as a person, so long as I look and sound good," Klavier said slowly.
"I really hope you can see the contradiction there."
"It's staring me right in the face, isn't it?" Klavier asked, meeting Apollo's eyes.
Apollo's gaze softened. "Yeah."
"You tend to be the exception to most of my rules." Klavier smiled, but there wasn't much behind it. "But I do wonder why."
"Why what?"
"Why anyone- you especially- would care about who I am as a person."
Apollo's face turned serious. "Because you're a person worth caring about."
"Why?"
Apollo opened his mouth like he had something to say, but stared off to the side like he had no idea how to say it. "You've… You've been through some pretty terrible things. As in, when Daryan went through the same things, it drove him to murder. And Daryan didn't have to deal with, um... a lot of the other things you've had to."
When Apollo's eyes finally met his, his gaze was even more intense than usual. "I think you have every right to be bitter and angry after everything that's happened to you. But that's not who you are. Instead, I think your pain has made you more empathetic. And that's… really incredible."
"...I can't tell you how much I want to believe that," Klavier said.
"Believe what?"
"That resilience and empathy make a person worth something." The most manipulative people on earth had those two qualities in abundance. Klavier knew that from personal experience.
"On their own, I guess they don't. But what do you think does make a person worth something?" Apollo asked.
Every quality Apollo possessed, an annoying part of him answered.
"When they make the lives of those around them better," he replied instead.
"Isn't that exactly what you do, though?"
Klavier laughed bitterly. "Why don't you ask Herr Wright that question? Or Fraulein Skye? Or the people I've gotten incarcerated for crimes they didn't commit?"
"What happened to those people wasn't your fault."
"Nein, but I certainly didn't help."
Apollo stared at his feet, apparently lost for words. "I don't know if this means anything, but…" He looked back up at Klavier. "You definitely helped me."
"I think anyone in my position would've offered you their home," Klavier replied. Continuing to argue with Apollo like this seemed futile, but that was probably why Klavier was still arguing- everything within him wanted to lose.
Apollo shook his head. "I wasn't talking about your house."
"Then what areyou talking about?"
"I mean… I haven't been feeling well recently. You… You know that." Apollo suddenly looked incredibly vulnerable.
"I assume you aren't talking about the bronchitis."
"...Yeah."
From what Klavier had seen in the past week, Apollo didn't exactly seem like the pinnacle of mental health. He was blaming himself for things that weren't his fault, being overly self-critical for things that were, and acting on the belief that he didn't deserve to fulfill his basic human needs.
"I… It's been a really bad few months." Apollo closed his eyes, and Klavier realized how difficult this must be for him- this was the same guy who told Klavier, "I just want to sort this out on my own," in regards to his physical health not even a week earlier.
So when Apollo smiled, it caught him off guard. "But you know what I realized today?"
"...What?"
"I… I like myself. For the first time in months, I... like myself." Apollo looked stunned, like he couldn't quite believe what he was saying. "And the only thing that's changed is me being here with you."
"Apollo…"
"So dammit, Klavier," Apollo said, gently placing his hands on Klavier's shoulders, "If you can help me believe in myself after everything that's happened… I want you to believe in yourself, too."
Klavier stared into Apollo's wide brown eyes for a few seconds, which glimmered like they were holding back tears.
Without thinking, Klavier stood up, face-to-face with Apollo. Apollo took his hands off of Klavier's shoulders and hesitated, only to wrap his arms around Klavier's back. Klavier hugged him back tightly, and they stood that way for what was both an incredibly long and incredibly short amount of time.
When they did pull apart, it was only halfway, and Apollo was looking at him closely. Klavier had never wanted to kiss a person so much in his entire life, and it took everything he had to smile instead. "Thank you."
Apollo seemed absolutely lost in his own thoughts. "O-oh. You're welcome." He blushed out of what Klavier assumed was embarrassment and tried to duck his head downward, only to let out a strangled noise and step backward.
"Your necklace is going to slit my jugular," he muttered, grabbing his neck and coughing. "I understand why you're still following the contract, but isn't keeping the Gavinners chain a little much?"
Klavier grinned. "It's a metaphor of my suffering."
"...I don't know how you manage to seem melodramatic when the situation's already dramatic, but you do."
"I should get to act like a diva sometimes."
Apollo laughed, making eye contact for about half a second before breaking it again, and Klavier wondered why Apollo was suddenly having a hard time looking at him. He was obviously distracted by something, but Klavier couldn't imagine what.
"Oh… Speaking of being a diva… Were you going to play your guitar anymore?"
Klavier shrugged. "I figured you didn't actually come down here for the music."
"Well… I was mostly looking for something more entertaining than the Food Network."
Klavier laughed. "Why were you watching the Food Network?"
"Nobody lies about food," Apollo reasoned.
"Couldn't you take your bracelet off if it bothered you?"
"Well… I only take it off if it's really important."
Klavier felt his cheeks heat up once he realized the implications of that, looking away from Apollo's small, absurdly cute smile and willing himself with everything in his being to get his emotions under control.
"...Are you blushing?" Apollo asked, smirking.
Six different alarms went off in Klavier's head, screaming and wailing as the more coherent side of his thoughts shared encouragements like "Heknows," "You're screwed," and "Well, this is problematic."
Since his entire brain was steeped in panic and regret, it was unsurprising that all he could really manage was an, "Am I?"
Apollo laughed. "Nice to know I'm not the only one who can't take a compliment. I'd expect you to be used to it, though."
The chaos in Klavier's brain paused for a moment, because that sounded oddly flirtatious. There was no way a person as perceptive as Apollo could be that oblivious… right?
But if Apollo really was flirting, he would definitely not be that suave about it. He'd be stuttering and blushing and Klavier needed to stop thinking about this. He was probably just projecting his own feelings onto Apollo.
Unless Apollo was subconsciously flirting, but Klavier definitely wasn't going to entertain that thought.
"Well… I'm glad I proved to be more entertaining than the Food Network," Klavier said, somewhat blatantly veering back to the original subject.
"Heh. There are probably better ways to relieve boredom," Apollo said, seeming to have moved on entirely from what had just transpired.
"Like listening to music you despise?" Klavier asked, one eyebrow raised.
"...I wasn't lying about wanting to hear you play."
"Why do I have a hard time believing that?"
"I may have said a few things to warrant that." Apollo grinned sheepishly. "I'm not a fan of rock music."
"Really? I couldn't tell."
"Heh heh. It's not that it's inherently bad, it's just that when I listen to music, it's to lower my blood pressure, not raise it."
Only Apollo could be so practical. "Music is about emotion, not your cardiovascular functioning," Klavier retorted.
"Maybe I just want to feel calm. Why does the opinion of me and my amateur ears matter to you, anyway?" He smirked.
"You're the one who wanted me to play music."
"And you're the one who wanted to know how I could hate some of your songs and like other ones." Apollo leaned down to pick his bracelet up off of the ground, and Klavier took that as an indication that they had returned to their typical state of bickering and teasing.
"Ach, that was harsh. What happened to the Forehead who had to be guilted into politely asking for a glass of water?" Klavier asked, grinning.
"You encouraged him too much. He won't be considerate ever again," Apollo joked, fiddling with his bracelet to try and get it back onto his wrist.
"Does this mean he'll tell me to be quiet if he doesn't like what I'm playing?"
"With pleasure." Given the glint in Apollo's eye, Klavier actually didn't doubt that.
"All right, but any suffering you endure from this point forward was at your own request," Klavier said, pulling his guitar off the stand and sitting down.
Apollo sat down about a foot away from him, and Klavier took a while to decide which songs in his arsenal he could play. "Are actually you going to play something?" Apollo asked after a while.
"Give me a second. My song choices are limited."
"A second? One sixtieth of a minute? That's barely enough time to take a breath, let alone-"
"Will you shut up?" Klavier interrupted, Apollo's reference to Wesley Stickler not going unnoticed. Apollo smirked, and Klavier suppressed a grin himself.
Truth be told, Klavier had plenty of songs to choose from, but it seemed like all of the "calm" ones were about love, and Klavier was having enough trouble handling his feelings without singing Apollo love songs.
There was one, though, that he'd written with Daryan when one of their concerts was postponed because of a power-out. It was about how life never seemed to go according to plan, which seemed to fit perfectly now.
When Klavier began to play it, it took a while for him to work up the courage to see Apollo's reaction. By the time he reached the chorus, Klavier flickered his gaze over to him, hoping for some sort of validation.
Apollo was smiling.
