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Apollo can’t quite put his finger on it, but there’s something about the office today that seems...strange.
That’s right, he realizes, slowly coming out of a fog. Mr. Gavin keeps the tea set in the other cabinet, the one by the door, in case he wants to serve it to a client. Apollo closes the one over the kitchen sink and shakes his head. Stupid. You’d think he would remember, after working here for a year—
He steps high out of habit to avoid tripping over Trucy’s plate of fake spaghetti and the entire illusion comes crashing down.
He’s here. What the hell is he doing here?
Apollo turns in a slow circle, taking in his surroundings with mounting horror. No silk top hats. No fake spaghetti. No scattered cards or empty bottles of grape juice or overwatered houseplants or bloomers drying on the balcony.
This isn’t the Wright Anything Agency.
It’s Gavin Law Offices.
“Apollo?” comes a voice from the next room that makes him break into a cold sweat. “Did I hear something break?”
“N-no, Mr. Gavin,” he stammers, and his voice cracks on the last word. “Everything’s fine! I’ll be right there.”
Apollo scrambles to pick up the pieces of the shattered teacup and cram them into the garbage before Kristoph sees. He’ll have to think of a way to cover for himself later, and he’s sure it will involve trekking to three different antique stores and spending a big chunk of his next paycheck, but anything is better than Kristoph’s disappointment. He hastily grabs a replacement from the cabinet and sets it on the tray with the painted tin of sencha green tea and the stately teapot, pre-warmed exactly as Kristoph has instructed him. Not a thing out of place.
This was one of the first tasks entrusted to him as Kristoph’s intern, and he always tries his best to get it perfect. Perfection is important to Kristoph. He has an image to maintain, and he relies on Apollo to help maintain it.
And Apollo doesn’t mind, not really, because Kristoph pays well, and he’s never been shouted at here, which is more than he can say about his last job. He’s willing to put up with a lot of eccentricity in exchange. It comes with the territory, he came to realize about a month into working here. Attorneys are eccentric. And with the exception of one or two of the people he’s greeted as they walk through the office’s doors, so are their clients.
He’s going to be a real lawyer soon. He’s just going to have to get used to it.
“Apollo?” Kristoph calls again as Apollo fumbles with the doorknob one-handed. “Where’s that—tea. Thank you,” he says with a curt nod as Apollo deposits the tray on his desk. “What about the case file?”
“Right here,” Apollo says, a little too loudly, and Kristoph’s eye twitches in irritation as Apollo clumsily pulls out the binder that’s tucked under his arm and hands it over. “Listen, Mr. Gavin—I, that is, I was reading the file and I have some ideas about—”
“Thank you, Apollo,” Kristoph says coolly, waving a hand to dismiss him. “That will be all.”
“But I—”
Kristoph’s steely gaze silences him instantly.
“Yes, sir.”
Apollo sighs, shoulders sagging, and backs out of the room. The door closes behind him with a snick of finality. He can hear Kristoph on the phone on the other side of it, muttering conspiratorially, but he can’t make out the words.
This is weird, right? Apollo grimaces, looking around at the ostentatious velvet chaise and leather armchairs that adorn the reception area. At the cramped little desk he’s lucky enough to call his own. At the case files and dusty, gilt-edged volumes of philosophy on law. The antique bird cage in the corner, with the little cut-throat finch singing sweetly behind its bars.
“Sorry,” he says to it as he drops into his desk chair. “No treats for either of us today.”
For an instant, he thinks he sees a familiar movie poster on the wall. When he turns to get a better look at it, it morphs into an oil painting.
“Does...something about this place seem wrong to you?” He turns to face the finch, but it’s gone—replaced by a magician’s fake dove.
A shiver runs down Apollo’s spine. He can’t shake the feeling…
“Wasn’t it…morning, just now?” he says, brow knitting, as he looks out the window toward a city swallowed by night.
“Apollo!”
Kristoph’s voice is as sharp as his knuckles rapping against the wood of the desk. Apollo wheels around in his chair to face him.
“Y-yes, sir?”
“It’s time to close up. Are you finished with your files for the day?”
“Oh, um…” Apollo scrambles, scraping together the scattered pile of documents on his desk and praying they’re the ones Kristoph wants. “I think so.”
“Uncertainty is unbecoming of an attorney.” Apollo might be imagining it, but he thinks he sees a flicker of cold disdain cross Kristoph’s smiling face. “You are either sure or you are not.”
“I—” Apollo’s voice cracks again, and he stops to clear his throat. “I’m sure. Sorry, sir.”
“Good.” Kristoph waits as Apollo carefully taps the papers against his desk so the edges are square and clips them together. “Get some sleep tonight. I expect you back early tomorrow morning.”
“Of course—” Apollo starts to say, but when he turns to hand over the papers, Kristoph is already gone. The office is dark. The only light emanates from the moon, which hangs heavy just outside the window. Close enough that it seems he could almost touch it if he tried.
He sits there for a moment, dumbfounded, unable to shake the feeling that he’s being pursued by something.
But he’s alone. He’s very sure there’s no one in the office but him.
He’s also very sure that he shouldn’t be here. The doors are locked at night, and Kristoph carries the only key. If he’s in here…
Then the frosted glass door separating him from the hallway is definitely locked. He’s effectively caged, at least until morning.
Apollo gets up to examine the fake dove more closley, but now it’s gone, too. The birdcage is empty.
The door to Kristoph’s office is ajar.
He wrestles with himself. He shouldn’t. Kristoph has to have a good reason not to let him touch this case. He’s the smartest person Apollo knows. He’s a virtuoso in the courtroom. Apollo has seen him shred through watertight testimony without so much as breaking a sweat, and always with a smile. Kristoph knows what he’s doing.
Doesn’t he?
Apollo remembers the phone call, half-overheard through a closed door. Kristoph hadn’t sounded happy.
A little peek won’t hurt anything, right?
Apollo knows better, and he knows that he knows better, and he berates himself mentally for doing it, but he still walks over to the door and pushes it open.
Kristoph’s office is spotless. The tea tray Apollo brought earlier has already been cleared away. A violin, lovingly polished, hangs on the wall behind the grand mahogany desk. Books line the walls. The overall effect is cozy and sumptuous, but Apollo just can’t feel comfortable here. He’s an intruder, standing guiltily in the middle of Kristoph’s inner sanctum. He barely spends any time in here during the day, let alone at a time like this, skulking around in the dark like the accused they work to defend during business hours.
There’s something on top of the desk. It’s difficult to make out the shape of it from a distance, but as Apollo comes closer he realizes it’s a playing card. The ace of spades.
A spot of crimson adorns its surface, bleeding into the raised lines of its embossed design.
Blood?
Apollo picks it up, turning it over in his hands. That’s right, he remembers with a jolt of adrenaline. It’s all coming back to him. The forged card has already been accepted into the court record, so this must be…
“I see you’ve seen something you shouldn’t have.”
Kristoph’s voice comes from behind him, and Apollo’s stomach drops. He wheels around to find his mentor standing there, looming over him in the darkness.
“M-Mr. Gavin, I—”
“Oh, it’s far too late for that, Apollo.” Kristoph examines his fingernails idly. “I wonder, do you know what the deadliest poison is to a court of law?”
“I, um.” Apollo scrambles. “I think I read something about it in one of the forensic books...atro...something?”
Kristoph shakes his head. “No. Not atroquinine. The deadliest poison to a court of law is an inconvenient witness.”
Apollo blanches. There’s something about Kristoph today he doesn’t like. It’s in the lines of his expression, or maybe in the way he’s standing so close. Kristoph never gets anywhere near Apollo. He never touches him, not even by accident.
But now he’s millimeters away, towering over him, close enough that Apollo can smell the sencha green on his breath. His bracelet clamps down tight on his wrist, like it's trying to issue a warning.
“I’m sorry,” he says desperately. “I shouldn’t have gone into your office. I don’t even know what case this is for. Um, here.” He tries to hand the ace back.
Kristoph doesn’t take it.
“Such a disgrace. You’re rather a heavy touch, but with some work…” Kristoph sighs, shaking his head. “More’s the pity.”
“Mr. Gavin?”
A smile is spreading across Kristoph’s lips now, one that Apollo doesn’t like at all. The animal part of his brain is screaming for him to run, but his feet won’t move. The bookshelves are bleeding down the walls like they’re melting.
The moon reflects in the surface of Kristoph's glasses. Apollo can't see his eyes behind them.
“Tell me, young Justice,” Kristoph says with a curl of the lip. “If one were to imagine our court system as a church, the scales of justice our altar, those hapless onlookers in the stands the congregation...what would we be missing?”
Apollo swallows, hard. His mouth is dry. The muscles won’t quite move right.
“Look at me when I’m speaking to you.” Kristoph says it calmly, with a smile, but his manicured hand seizes Apollo by the hair and forces him to look up. Into those blank, mirrored lenses.
The walls are closing in around them. Fear, real fear, sparks hot at the base of Apollo’s skull. Part of him wishes Kristoph would yell. The way he speaks, even and unruffled, doesn’t match the hatred in his hands.
The mask Kristoph wears slips for an instant, and Apollo can just glimpse the monster underneath. It’s worse, so much worse, than last time. There’s no bailiff here to protect him now. No judge, no jurists. It hits Apollo all at once exactly how tall Kristoph is compared to him. How cornered he is. He’s never thought of Kristoph as strong, exactly, but he knows that if Kristoph is determined to keep him here, in this rapidly-shrinking cell of an office, he has precious little chance of escape.
The bars of the cage are closed.
“I believe I asked you a question.”
Apollo tries to swallow again, but the muscles won’t cooperate. His heart is pounding so loudly in his ears he can barely hear. “I don’t...know.”
“The missing piece,” Kristoph says, ever so gently, as he leans in close enough for Apollo to count his perfect teeth, “is a sacrificial lamb.”
Apollo is still holding the bloody ace. Kristoph suddenly snatches it from his clenched fist, turns it over in the moonlight. For an instant, he looks almost amused.
An instant later, he’s cramming the card into Apollo’s protesting mouth.
Apollo coughs and sputters and tries to turn away. He can taste the blood, saline and coppery, on his tongue. The card’s edges slip between his teeth, cut the inside of his cheeks. He gags, but nothing comes up. Kristoph’s grip tightens on his hair, yanking his head backward, and when Apollo gasps involuntarily for air, he shoves the card in even deeper. It crumples in the vault of Apollo’s throat, caught between his molars and the back of his tongue.
Apollo wants to vomit, but he can’t. He can’t move an inch no matter how much he struggles. The moonlight is fading, silver swallowed into blackness, and the only things that remain as the shadows eat up the corner of the office are Kristoph’s impenetrable eyes.
“In the end,” Kristoph says dispassionately, free hand trailing down the front of Apollo’s vest with disdain, plucking a bit of lint from its lining, “I won’t have to lead you to the slaughter. You’ll arrive there of your own volition.”
His fingertips linger at the crest of Apollo’s hip. Apollo flinches away, still struggling to spit out the mangled ace, wracked by tremors and hardly able to hold himself upright.
Kristoph laughs, his hand fisted tight in Apollo’s hair, and the sound rings hollow through the darkness.
“Count yourself lucky. If you were worth anything, anything at all to me, I would have killed you myself.”
Apollo gags again, harder this time, tears stinging in his eyes.
Kristoph leans in to whisper in Apollo’s ear.
Apollo screams.
⚖
“...Schatzi? Apollo!”
Apollo sits bolt upright with a gasp, the sound of his own strangled yell still echoing in his eardrums.
It’s dark here. His heart beats erratically in his chest as he gasps for air.
He can’t see anything.
His hands fly to his mouth, but there’s nothing there. He can still feel the spots where Kristoph’s fingernails dug into his scalp, though. They ache like new bruises forming.
There’s a hand on his shoulder. Gripping him tightly. Shaking him.
He wheels around frantically, squinting in the darkness to find its owner. A fringe of platinum blond hair. A familiar pair of blue eyes.
“N-not you,” Apollo wails, scrambling backward, tangled in sweat-soaked sheets. “Don’t—no—don’t touch me!”
He reaches the edge of the mattress and falls to the floor with a thud. A light clicks on a moment later, and he throws an arm over his eyes to combat the sudden brightness.
“Apollo!”
The word comes out every bit as alarmed as Apollo feels right now, and something about the voice gives him pause. He pushes himself up onto his elbows, blinking against the light, and finally manages to calm down enough to take in his surroundings.
A fringe of platinum blond hair, disheveled. A familiar pair of blue eyes, concerned.
Not Kristoph. Klavier.
“Fuck,” Apollo mumbles, clutching at his chest as he fights to catch his breath. Black spots whirl at the edges of his vision. “I thought you were—”
Apollo might be imagining it, but Klavier looks stung, underneath the concern. Like Apollo slapped him.
Apollo forces himself to take a deep breath. It comes out shuddery. He reminds himself that Kristoph Gavin isn’t here. He’s miles away, locked up in a cell on death row. Kristoph can’t touch him. He can’t even make a phone call.
“What happened?” Klavier swings his legs out of bed and walks over to Apollo’s side to help untangle him from the knotted sheets.
Apollo hesitates. The ghost of Kristoph lingers, an afterimage seared into Apollo’s retinas. That humorless smile. Those cruel hands. He can see their echo in Klavier's concerned expression. In the hand he extends to help him up.
When Apollo blinks, Kristoph is there, waiting just behind his eyes.
“Doesn’t matter,” he mutters. “Just a nightmare.”
A nightmare that’s getting worse by the minute as it dawns on him suddenly that he’s hard. Painfully hard. As if anything could have made this night more humiliating. Apollo swallows uncomfortably, praying Klavier hasn't noticed, eyes darting around the room for an escape.
“I, um, need to take a shower.”
“It’s the middle of the night, Schatzi.” Klavier frowns. “Don’t worry about it. You can borrow one of my shirts.”
Apollo realizes dimly that he’s sweated through his. He shakes his head vehemently and gets to his feet, ignoring Klavier’s outstretched hand. “I won’t take long, promise.”
He doesn’t wait for an answer, just ducks out into the hall and doesn’t stop walking until the bathroom door is safely locked behind him. He leans back against it, groaning, head in his hands.
“What the hell is wrong with me?”
His cock throbs insistently between his legs. Grimacing, Apollo looks up and catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror.
He looks like shit, and that’s putting it nicely. Dark sweat stains spread from the armpits of his Steel Samurai t-shirt, and he has bags under his eyes to match. His hair is lank and damp, and the pieces he usually keeps slicked back keep falling into his eyes.
He really does need a shower, if he’s being honest with himself. A cold one. Maybe that will be enough to shock whatever the hell this is out of his system.
He turns on the water and starts undressing, leaving his clothes in a sweaty heap on the floor. He’s definitely going to have to borrow some of Klavier’s stuff when he’s done. As if he doesn’t have enough Gavinners merch in his closet already.
Apollo gasps as he steps under the showerhead, wrapping his arms around himself as the freezing water runs down his back, but the relief doesn’t last for long.
Kristoph’s touch on his hip. Kristoph’s hands in his hair. Kristoph’s breath against his skin. Apollos shivers, but not from the cold. He glances down, swearing under his breath. This isn’t going away on its own.
This is wrong. This is so wrong. What the hell is wrong with him? And Klavier is only two thin walls away…
Apollo grits his teeth and gives in. The quicker the better. He can just get this over with and go back to bed. He can worry himself to death over what it means in the morning. It’s what he’s best at.
It isn’t as easy as he hopes. Whatever the hell he’s feeling right now is complicated. It’s tangled up in Kristoph’s heartless laugh and cruel hands and the taste of blood on Apollo’s tongue. He has to fight for it, eyes squinched shut, teeth clenched, and even when he finally manages to get off through sheer force of will it’s weak and ugly and unsatisfying. He doesn’t feel any better. He just feels…
Kristoph’s fingers squeeze the life from him slowly. The crumpled playing card lodges halfway down his throat. Apollo gags, sinking to his knees, hunched over on the tile floor of Klavier’s shower as the icy water carries the evidence of his shame down the drain.
What’s wrong with him?
He heaves again, guilt washing over him in waves, but nothing comes up. He can’t find any relief here, either.
Was it always like this?
Apollo has asked himself that question a million times in the last few months, but he has never been sure of the answer until now. Was Kristoph Gavin always a monster? The man he remembers was kind and patient. Someone who would gently smile and thank Apollo as he brought in the afternoon tea. Someone he could trust. Someone he could look up to.
He reflects on the Kristoph from his nightmare. Still smiling. Still outwardly patient, until suddenly he wasn’t. There were cracks in the facade, though, and Apollo can still see them when he applies this lens to his memories. Just like the teacup he dropped in the dream, once something is shattered it can never be put back together exactly the same as it was.
He sees it. The real Kristoph Gavin. Even in his memories, Kristoph is…
How can he have been so stupid?
Not just stupid, he corrects himself. Naive. Gullible. A lamb to the slaughter, just like Kristoph said.
Apollo sits on the floor of the shower and hugs his knees to his chest. Why does this keep happening to him? When will he learn to stop putting his trust in the wrong people?
He remembers punching Phoenix Wright, all those months ago, and almost laughs. It’s his own fault, really. Presenting unverified evidence. The exact scenario that got Phoenix disbarred in the first place.
It’s lucky that he wasn’t up against Klavier that day.
The thought is sobering, as is the thought of Klavier waiting for him in the bedroom. Apollo reluctantly reaches up and turns off the water.
There’s a shirt hanging from the other side of the doorknob when he finishes drying off—Gavinners: Guilty as Charged—and Apollo takes it gratefully. It smells like Klavier, cologne and relentless enthusiasm, and even though Apollo still feels guilty as hell and more than a little sick with himself, he needs this right now. It’s so not Kristoph. Klavier is so not Kristoph. He’s wild and charming and passionate, and he always says exactly what he’s thinking.
Apollo envies him that, sometimes. He trips over his own tongue more often than not. He doesn’t understand what Klavier sees in him.
He checks his reflection in the mirror again. He still looks like shit, but at least he’s clean. He wishes he could scrub the residue of the nightmare off somehow, but it’s like it stained him. There’s something insidious and oily that remains despite the shower, clinging to his skin.
A creak comes from just outside the door, and Apollo nearly jumps out of his skin. He holds his breath, waiting for Klavier to knock, but the footsteps fade as they continue down the hallway.
With an exhausted sigh, Apollo slicks his wet hair back from his face and steels himself. He’s walked into murder trials more willingly than this.
He finds Klavier in the kitchen, sitting at the island, determinedly chewing his way through a bag of Ema’s favorite chocolate Snackoos.
Apollo winces. Klavier doesn’t even like these—he only keeps them around because Apollo ended up acquiring a taste for them over the course of too many crime scene investigations. If he’s eating them at a time like this, it’s only to keep himself from grinding his teeth.
“...hey,” Apollo says, sitting on the stool next to Klavier’s.
Klavier pushes the bag of Snackoos his way. Apollo takes one and chews it slowly, waiting to see if his stomach is going to like it or not. He doesn’t feel like throwing up again tonight.
“Are you alright?” Klavier asks after he finally swallows.
Apollo shrugs. “I’m fine, I guess? I’m...sorry, about earlier. I must have freaked you out.”
“That would be an understatement.” Klavier sighs, running a stressed hand through his disheveled hair. It’s loose, spilling down his shoulders in white-gold ribbons. “You said it was a nightmare, ja?”
Apollo nods.
“What was it about?”
“...Kristoph.”
Apollo doesn’t elaborate. He knows he doesn’t need to. Even saying the name, here in the safety of Klavier’s kitchen, feels wrong. Like he’s opening the door for Kristoph to walk in and poison all of it.
He watches Klavier’s expression anxiously. He only worked for Kristoph Gavin for a year, after all. Klavier’s been living in his shadow for twenty-five. Apollo can only imagine the things he must dream about.
On second thought, maybe he doesn’t want to.
Klavier frowns, studying the countertop grimly. “I thought as much.”
Apollo’s stomach twists, and he thinks better of the handful of Snackoos he’s about to eat. He dumps them back into the bag and pushes it away, out of reach.
“Klavier?”
“You thought I was him, didn’t you?”
Apollo swallows hard, remembering the expression on Klavier’s face. Shocked. Hurt. Angry.
“Yeah,” he admits after a moment, because it would have been pointless to deny it. “It was dark, and I was panicking, and, well…”
“I know,” Klavier says with a heavy sigh. “I know. I don’t need reminding.”
Apollo squirms uncomfortably for a moment, trying to wrap his rational brain around the anxious, uncomfortable shape of his thoughts.
“Um, can I ask—I mean, I get that you probably don’t want me to, but…”
Klavier raises an eyebrow.
“I was going to ask why you wear your hair that way. If you don’t like being told you look like him, I mean. I—sorry.”
“It’s fine, Shatzi.” Klavier sounds tired. More tired than Apollo has heard him in a long time. Maybe not since the day the real Kristoph finally revealed himself. Apollo remembers the look on his face in the aftermath of that trial: hollow, defeated.
Klavier scowls. “It’s because I got so tired of him always winning.”
“What do you mean?”
Klavier gestures vaguely. “Ach. You know how he is. If I had a toy I liked, he’d break it. If I had a hobby, he’d take it up too, to prove he was better than me. It made him happy to see me miserable. I started wearing my hair like this first, when I got into law school. People said it looked good on me. I loved it.” His expression darkens. “Kristoph didn’t like that. He tried to talk me into cutting it, but I wouldn’t, so he grew his out to match. Eventually people started mistaking us for twins. I...didn’t like that. I cut it all off when it was time for me to make my courtroom debut. I didn’t want people to look at me and see Kristoph.”
“But you wear it long now.” Apollo cocks his head.
Klavier shrugs. “It took a few years, but I realized that I was just letting him win again. I ended up growing it back out. The Fräuleins love it.” He glances sideways at Apollo and winks. “Not to mention certain defense attorneys.”
“Yeah,” Apollo admits. “I do.”
“You’ve never seen it short, have you?”
Apollo shakes his head.
“Achtung, baby.” A smile plays across Klavier’s lips as he pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Let me find a picture…”
He hands the phone to Apollo, who frowns at the glowing screen. The Klavier in the photo is young, at least five younger than Apollo is now. His hair, cropped short, looks wrong and ragged. Klavier is smiling in the picture, but he doesn’t look happy.
He doesn’t look like Kristoph.
He doesn’t look like himself, either.
Apollo hands the phone back. “Yeah, you’re right.” He reaches out, hesitantly at first, and tucks a loose strand of Klavier’s hair behind his ear. “You look better like this.”
Klavier smiles softly and leans in to kiss him on the forehead. “I guess there are some things I can thank him for,” he muses. “You, for instance.”
Apollo’s heart flutters in his chest. It’s always like this with Klavier. He says the damnedest things, and suddenly Apollo is a gangly teenager again. “What else?”
Pointing through the doorway into the living room, which is littered with musical detritus, Klavier laughs. “I started playing guitar because of him, you know. It was the only one of my interests he never tried to steal. He couldn’t take the noise.”
“Is that why all your songs are so loud?”
“Hey,” Klavier says, feigning offense. “I always loved rock. Pissing off Kristoph was just a bonus.”
Apollo bites his lip. “Do you miss it? Touring with the band, I mean.”
“Not as much as I thought I would.” Klavier grins. “I’ve got you, don’t I?”
Somewhere deep inside Apollo, a knot is unraveling. There’s something about Klavier that always puts him at ease, even at a time like this. He almost feels like he could try sleeping again.
Crap. What time is it, even? Klavier has court in the morning. Apollo is between cases right now, but knowing Phoenix there’ll be some inane request scribbled across two dozen mismatched sticky notes waiting for him when he gets to the office tomorrow.
He cranes his neck to check the clock on the stove and groans. It’s well past four already.
“Don’t worry about it, Schatzi,” Klavier says, yawning. “My case got bumped. We don’t start until ten.”
Still not much sleep. Apollo feels guilty, even though he knows Klavier couldn’t have just gone back to bed after what happened.
“Sorry,” he says anyway, rubbing his eyes. “I’ll make stir-fry tonight, okay?”
“Wunderbar.” Klavier kisses him on the forehead and gets to his feet. “I’m going back to bed. Care to join me?”
Apollo shakes his head. “I’m going to...I don’t know, answer some emails. I’ll be there in a bit.”
“Träum süss, Forehead. Wake me if you need me.”
“Yeah.” Apollo nods. “ ‘Night.”
He’s on page thirteen of his overstuffed inbox when the exhaustion finally starts to overwhelm his anxiety. Apollo yawns, clicking unsubscribe on yet another junk newsletter, and closes his laptop.
In the bedroom down the hall, Klavier is sprawled out under the covers. He’s stolen Apollo’s pillow in his sleep, and from the look of things, he’s been drooling on it. His platinum-blond hair fans out behind him, tangled in loose curls.
Finding himself feeling strangely more affectionate than annoyed, Apollo takes Klavier’s side of the bed and yanks the other pillow out from under his shoulder. He has to fight for the precious foot of space he needs to get comfortable on the mattress.
Klavier is a heavy sleeper. Apollo’s pointed nudges do nothing to budge him.
He can’t bring himself to feel annoyed about that, either, as he settles in with his head resting in the crook of Klavier’s shoulder. Klavier is warm, and his deep, even breathing is comforting. The scent of his fabric softener on the sheets. The scent of his cologne on the shirt Apollo is wearing.
It takes Apollo a long time to finally fall asleep, but he does so knowing that, even if Kristoph is still waiting for him in his dreams, he isn’t alone.
With Klavier’s arms around him, he’s safe.