Chapter Text
“Hey, Apollo, read this!”
Much to his dismay, Apollo found that Trucy was shoving a crumpled magazine onto his desk, sending his actual work sliding out of order. He groaned in irritation, reading the headline. ‘WHERE ARE THEY NOW: ROCKSTAR EDITION. YOU WON’T BELIEVE NUMBER 9!’
“Trucy, you know I don’t care about this stuff,” he said dismissively.
“Apollo, just look at number 9! For once, they were right! I couldn’t believe it!”
Apollo rolled his eyes. Anything to get her to let him work. He flipped open the brilliantly colored teen magazine to the inside pages, seeing the numbered list with pictures of nigh-identical ridiculous looking rockstars and skimmed down to number nine. To his surprise, he didn’t believe it. NUMBER 9 - KLAVIER GAVIN - DEAD IN ISOLATION?
“Gavin’s dead?!” Apollo exclaimed loudly.
A cry came from the other room as Phoenix Wright looked through from the doorway to the living room. “What?! Which one?!”
“He isn’t dead!” cried Trucy, “That’s just dramatic tabloid talk. Read the blurb, though, Apollo!”
Phoenix Wright, clad in his usual hoodie and hat, wandered into the room as Apollo lifted the magazine and read the blurb aloud.
“‘Klavier Gavin, lead singer of the Gavineers, has officially broken up the band after lead guitarist Daryan Crescend was charged guilty of murder. Since then, he’s put both the rock world and the legal world on hold and has gone into total isolation. As of now, his whereabouts are unknown, but the revered rock star has gone silent on social media, and has refused to communicate with the public. Devoted fans think this has something to do with the imprisonment of his older brother, Kristoph Gavin, after he was charged with murder as well. Will Klavier Gavin be back for another encore, or will the stink of death keep him off the charts forever?’”
Apollo stopped reading the brilliant yellow text, setting the magazine down on the counter and evaluating the picture just beside it. On the right was a handsome picture of Gavin in concert, grinning just beside the camera with his spiky purple electric guitar in his hands. On the left was a much blurrier, much less impressive picture which, at first, didn’t even look like Gavin. He had cut his hair, leaving it only an inch or two long, and he was without makeup or jewelry for the first time Apollo had ever seen. He was in a hoodie with his hood up, looking irritable with whoever was taking the picture of him. He was turned away, appearing to be at a grocery store of sorts. Granted, these pictures were designed to make the rock stars look as ‘outrageously out of control’ as possible, and Apollo was well aware there was nothing odd about anyone putting on a hoodie to run out and buy groceries. Even still, for some reason, seeing him like this was beyond bizarre.
“Man…” Wright said, sympathy in his voice, “Can’t say I blame him. He’s been through a lot.”
“Yeah…” Trucy agreed sadly.
“It’s weird, though,” said Apollo, an intensity in his voice. “Wasn’t he the one to send Kristoph to prison? Why would he be torn up about it?”
Wright shrugged. “These things are complicated, Apollo. I don’t really know anything about the two of them. Either way, you have to have a pretty twisted life to not be upset by sending your own brother to jail.”
“Mm. Guess I wouldn’t know. Only child,” Apollo said distractedly. Wright smiled to himself.
“Right.”
“Apollo, you should go visit him!” asserted Trucy.
Apollo spun around in his chair, creasing his eyebrows. “What?! Weren’t you listening, no one knows where he is!”
“This is a tabloid, not a newspaper,” said Wright, tucking his hands into his pockets, “I may have been away for a while, but I still have ties to the legal world. If he quit being a prosecutor, I’d hear about it. Heck, you probably would too. These things get around, chances are he hasn’t quit law, he’s just being picky about cases. You should check his office.”
“His office? Seriously?”
Wright shrugged. “Paparazzi who know him for his rockstar career wouldn’t know the details of his work. They probably didn’t even check there, and if they did, Gavin probably asked some co-workers to lead them in the wrong direction before they reached him.”
Apollo sputtered at that for a moment, visibly displeased by the answer. “Okay, well, even if I did go see him, what exactly would I say? We’re not exactly friends, we just worked… not even together! Against each other! Why would he want to hear from me?”
“Because you know what he went through, Apollo,” said Trucy, “‘There’s no connection like that between an attorney and his prosecutor.’ Isn’t that right, daddy?”
Wright smiled warmly, eyes fazing out as he stared at the ground. “Sure is,” he said.
“Wh- m- my prosecutor? You mean a prosecutor.”
“No, I mean
your
prosecutor,” Wright said. He sat down on the couch, and Trucy joined him, sitting just beside him. He raised his eyebrows, and pointed a finger as he spoke, “And don’t you try to deny it. I watched you two play ball in court. He’s yours, alright. Always a chance you’ll strike a vein with another one but, you know, no way to be sure of that. If you can stand opposite a man in court and cooperate with him - and play that… beautiful little game of competition mixed with trust mixed with the thrill of finding out the truth together - that’s how you know you’ve found him. In some ways, you know more about him than anyone.”
Apollo scoffed. “No I don’t!” he objected, “I don’t know anything about the guy!”
“Oh really?” Wright asked, “You didn’t… know what he was gonna say in court before he said it and get excited for it like a TV reveal? You didn’t finish his sentences or-or start to feel the seesaw tipping minutes before it did - not even once?”
The scowl on Apollo’s face remained, but the focus of his eyes drifted from his mentor down to the floor as he contemplated what he said. He supposed there had been a certain… thrill to it. Well, a really good thrill. And he did know what he would say before he said it, and he did work with him and against him all at once. But that was just being a lawyer, wasn’t it? It had nothing to do with Gavin. He was a stranger.
By then, Apollo’s silence had said enough, and Wright was laughing to himself. Apollo, hearing this, went pink. “Alright, well, you’re the one making being a lawyer sound like… dating someone!” he said sharply, “ My prosecutor… We’re just co-workers who happen to work well together! What’s so ‘intimate’ about that?!”
Trucy leaned forward and grinned, “Sorry, Apollo,” he said, “Daddy’s just biased because his ‘prosecutor’ is also his
boyfriend.”
Embarrassment flashed over Wright’s face as he leaned forward. “Uh - Trucy!” he objected, raising a hand, “Okay, well, he is a dear friend, of mine, but-but that’s not the point, the point is… you’re in a rare position here.” Wright sat with his elbows on his knees, and his eyes took on a strange, empathetic intensity. Apollo felt himself shrink under it. “I don’t know a lot about Klavier Gavin’s social life - but I can tell you he just lost his band, and he just lost his brother. Who he has besides that I don’t know, but even rock stars can only be close to so many people. For all you know, he’s got no one. But you know him - you understand him. Down to the way he moves, he thinks.” At Apollo’s attempt to object, Wright raised a hand. “I know, it’s just for work, I get that. My point is, it doesn’t matter. You know him. You knew what it looked like when he wasn’t okay in the courtroom. You knew what to do about it - how to maintain the balance of his feelings and the truth. That balance doesn’t go away when the trial ends, you know.” He left a pause for a moment, eyes digging straight into Apollo’s soul. His eyebrows creased, and he looked almost sad, his eyes half-hazy from a memory. “You might not know what to say when it starts, but you’ll always find the words when you need them. When you trust someone, you’ll find the truth together, and leave the room as two people with respect for each other, if nothing else.”
Apollo creased his eyebrows. “Are you… talking about… seeing if Mr. Gavin is alright, or going to court with him?” he asked softly.
Wright grinned. “What’s the difference?” he asked. Then, he nodded, stood up and strolled back to the living room, setting down and turning his TV show back on without another word.
For another few moments, Apollo stared after him, processing what he said. Without looking away from the spot of wall that now hid him, he asked the smiling Trucy, in a soft voice, “Is he really in love with a prosecutor?”
“Oh, yeah,” she sighed, “If you want to see true love, watch the court tape of the Shelley de Killer murder trial. It’s wonderfully romantic…”
“How can a court case be romantic?”
Trucy squinted, then admitted, “I guess I don’t know. They just… trusted each other so much. It’s like they could read each other’s minds.”
Apollo looked at her for another moment, and then turned back to where Wright had been. The more time he spent around Phoenix Wright, the more questions he had about him. This all seemed a bit sentimental for his tastes - after all, it wasn’t as though he knew him. Well, he did know him. But the way Wright said it made it sound like something intimate, something profound. They were just co-workers. That was what co-workers did - they learned about each other in order to compete. It was the dance of defense attorneys and prosecutors. Nothing strange about it.
Nevertheless, he wasn’t heartless. He couldn’t stop thinking about that second picture. Why, he didn’t know. He probably wore casual clothes to get groceries before, he told himself. Just because he always saw him dressed up didn’t mean he was like that all the time - even Apollo wore casual-wear. How would a publicity photo of him look if they’d caught him the night he went back out to get something he’d left at the agency while already in his pajamas? But oddly enough, there was something in his eyes. He looked… tired. Gavin had never looked tired before. So maybe he was worried about him - a polite, co-worker level of worry, and nothing beyond it.
His office, he thought. It wasn’t far - it would just be a quick visit. Mr. Wright had made a big deal out of it, but there would be no intimacy, no ‘knowing’ him. Just a simple ‘Are you alright, Mr. Gavin?’ met with a casual ‘I’m just fine, Herr Forehead. But it’s very good of you to stop by!’
The false exchange made Apollo sick to his stomach. It wasn’t until a few seconds later that he understood why - The truth was, he already knew that something along those lines was coming, and, to his own amazement, he already knew it was a lie.