Chapter Text
“Klav,” Daryan said, crossing his arms and leaning back dangerously far in his seat. “Dude. Enough. No more acts.”
“Yes more acts,” Klavier said, scribbling down notes on the Fearsome Firebreathers. True, they’d set some things on fire during their act (including the Gavinners’ banner and one of their own performers), but there was merit to the audition. The Gavinners were a true rock band, and Klavier liked the idea of fireworks. Maybe more contained. Especially indoors. “We haven’t found the right collaborators yet.”
Music could stand alone, absolutely. Klavier believed it, lived and breathed the power of rock. But when it came to performing in front of a crowd, spectacle had to be part of it. Enter: the collaboration. Fraulein Andrews, the Gavinners’ manager, liked the idea and helped Klavier to rent out this auditorium and round up some acts who could accompany the band on its North American Prosecution’s Witness tour.
Daryan groaned long and loud, kicking the leg of the folding table they’d set up in front of the stage. “It’s been three friggin’ hours, you psychotic perfectionist. Just pick the aerial silk dancers and let’s go get dinner.”
“They were good,” Klavier agreed, “but more for a ballad. I’ve got their contact information. Next time we do an acoustic set, then for sure.”
“When have the Gavinners ever done an acoustic set?”
“It’s something we need to invest in more.” Klavier flipped his notebook over to a clean page and set down his pen, glaring at Daryan over his shades. “I’ve been working on some new stuff.”
“Auuuughhhhhh,” Daryan all but shouted, throwing himself forward and face-down onto the table. “Not ‘The Guitar’s Serenade’ again, man, it’s not happening.”
Klavier pursed his lips. The Gavinners were on their third tour in just over as many years, and every album had been a bigger smash hit than the one before. On long nights as the bus moved from city to city, Klavier had experimented. Lyrics, chords, sounds , something unlike any of the Gavinners’ previous work. Something that was going to blow every one of their fans away.
Daryan wasn’t into the idea of a totally stripped-down ballad, though. That’s the kind of things has-beens do when they realize they’re has-beens, he was always saying. They change their sound from what’s worked to what the radio has no interest in playing. Daryan didn’t like any of Klavier’s ideas, really. Including this one.
“If we’re going to keep going the route of high-energy mainstream rock, then we need to turn up the volume on it, ja?” Klavier stretched his arms up over his head. “Let’s get something exciting going on stage.”
“Just let the special effects people do their thing. Or at least let the manager sit through all the reject acts you found us.” Daryan unfolded his arms to run his hands down his pompadour, a slash of a smile finding its way to his face. “Quit wasting the talent’s time.”
“I’m not wasting my time,” Klavier said coolly. Daryan’s smirk was gone in an instant, and he turned on Klavier with a scowl. “If I have to stay here all night, I will.”
“Wanna bet?” Daryan growled. “We’re a group. That means one person doesn’t get to make all the decisions.”
“The others are happy to leave this decision to me.”
“Bullshit!” Daryan jumped to his feet, fists balled up. “They just don’t want to deal with your prima donna nonsense. You want to pick some lame sideshow for our concert? Then the least I can do is veto and stupid ideas you try to pass through.”
“Which is it, Daryan? Do you want me to just pick something already so you can eat, or do you want to stay until we’ve found an act that suits your tastes?”
“I don’t—” Daryan let out a growl of frustration and dragged his hands down his face. “Why you gotta be like this, Klav? Why is this a fight? I’m tired and hungry, and I’m sick of sitting down. We need to take a break.”
Klavier’s annoyance ebbed. When Daryan started rambling like this, he was halfway to blubbering. It was his way of backtracking when his temper got the better of him. Which was too often for a detective, honestly. “It is getting late,” he conceded.
Daryan’s lips twisted back into a wry smile. “You want to stay and screen acts all night anyway, don’t you, asshole?” There was no fire behind it, though. Klavier rolled his eyes.
“One more act and then we’ll break for dinner,” he said. “If this performance isn’t it, we’ll come back later.”
Daryan kicked his chair back and slumped into it. “This act better be it,” he groused.
Klavier ran his finger down the list Fraulein Andrews had printed out for him. “Apollo Justice,” he read.
After a pause, Daryan glanced over. “What?”
“That’s all it says. Apollo Justice.” Klavier blinked. “I…don’t know if that’s a person or an act. It doesn’t say what they do.”
At least acts like The Fearsome Firebreathers were pretty easy to figure out from the name. Other auditions only offered descriptions, no names (“Juggling Clowns”...Klavier let them finish and had to shush Daryan’s guffawing, but they were in agreement that this act was not the pick as soon as the two were off the stage).
“I guess we’ll find out,” Klavier said. With a noncommittal grunt, Daryan shrugged. “Apollo Justice?” Klavier called out. Fraulein Andrews, frantic as always with her clipboard, ducked behind the curtain of the stage, no doubt echoing his call. Klavier made a quick note on the page in front of him to treat her to some kind of bonus. No group’s manager worked harder than theirs, and more of their success than Daryan would ever admit was thanks to her stellar work behind the scenes.
“Got him, Klav!” Fraulein Andrews chirped, reappearing on stage and skipping down the little staircase to the floor. He blew her a kiss and she laughed as she took her seat in the front row of the auditorium, behind Klavier and Daryan’s table.
Him. So Apollo Justice was a one-man act, was he? “I dig the musical connection,” Klavier whispered to Daryan. At the dull expression he received in return, he added, “Apollo, like the god of music, and Justice, like Jove Justice. Damn, I’d give anything to tour with that legend.” Sit at his feet, study his ways, bow down before his godly guitar skills. You know, normal stuff.
“Who?” Daryan asked.
Klavier didn’t get a chance to respond, Apollo Justice having finally made his way to the stage. The man in question wasn’t very tall, with deeply tanned skin and uneven brown hair, two tufts jutting up over his forehead. It wasn’t really a big forehead, but with that hair, Klavier’s eyes went right to it, before dropping to the man’s brown eyes. He jolted. Apollo Justice had an incredibly serious expression on his face, but…he was young. Seventeen or eighteen, probably, with that round face of his. He had on a white tee shirt and unflattering blue jeans, a gaudy golden bangle wrapped around one wrist. As he made his way onto the stage, he dragged a red roller suitcase behind him.
In spite of the grumpy street urchin vibe this guy had going on, there was something about him that Klavier liked. He carried himself with affected bravado, like he knew all the moves but was counting steps in his head and desperately concentrating on not tripping over his own feet. Whatever this kid was going to do, there was no way it would have the finesse the Gavinners needed, but at least they’d leave for dinner on good, earnest energy.
When Apollo reached the mic they’d set up at center stage, Klavier leaned forward. “Hey,” he said. Apollo startled, like he wasn’t expecting to be addressed, but his raised eyebrows and wide eyes quickly narrowed into something…judgemental. Sweat beaded at the name of Klavier’s neck, and he fought down a shudder. Why had that look made him feel like he’d just been rejected inviting his crush to the prom?
“Hey,” Apollo said roughly. A long silence stretched between them.
“What…is your act?” Klavier asked. He felt Daryan’s eyes on him in a second at that blunder, a flustered pause that only an age-old friend would recognize, and ignored it pointedly.
“Oh. Um.” Apollo rubbed his wrist under the gold bangle. “I’m a magician.”
Daryan groaned, a little too loudly based on the way Apollo’s eyes cut to him. Klavier jabbed his elbow into Daryan’s side, earning a much-needed grunt of pain.
“Sorry,” Klavier said. “We’ve seen a few magicians tonight, and I’m afraid even amateurs like us could see through their tricks.”
A shadow of confidence fell over Apollo, his eyes glittering with challenge. “That won’t be the case with me.”
As a kid, Klavier had always sort of rolled his eyes over the cartoons and comics where a lovestruck character had the ba-dump sound effect, but he swore in that moment, his heart ba-dumped. Like, in stereo. For the entire auditorium to hear. “Whenever you’re ready,” he croaked.
Apollo gave a short nod and left his suitcase while he dragged the microphone away from center stage. He went back to his suitcase and opened it up so that the lid faced Klavier and Daryan, obscuring him from view. When Apollo shut the lid, he had what looked like—
“Is that a boom box?” Daryan whispered to Klavier. “What year is it?”
Klavier shushed him. Apollo set the boom box down on the floor next to him. His finger hovered over the buttons for a second, and then he stood sharply.
“My dad is a musician,” he said. Klavier sat up straighter with renewed interest. It couldn’t be, could it…? “I’ve choreographed some magic to an old song of his. To give you an idea. Um. Of what I could do for your show.”
“Okay,” Klavier said. Apollo cast him a doubtful look anyway, but he crouched back down and put on his music. When he stood and took a step back from his boom box, Apollo closed his eyes and took a slow breath.
Klavier would recognize those first sweet chords anywhere: Jove Justice’s “Woman of Illusion,” off of his One Night in Borginia EP. Absolutely. Legendary. It was a short set of unplugged solo work, just Justice, his guitar, and the mic, and all slow-to-mid-tempo pieces that were way ahead of their time.
Apollo swept one arm out in front of himself, and before Klavier’s eyes, a silver hoop appeared in his hand in time with the first lyrics. Opening his eyes, Apollo transferred the hoop from one hand to another, curving his wrists delicately, fingers strumming the air like guitar strings. Cards appeared and disappeared in his hands, glittering along the curve of the hoop. Sparks shimmered at his fingers. Klavier couldn’t look away. Modest as the magic was, it was captivating. Apollo’s body was always in motion, and every gesture, every trick, was in perfect sync with his father’s signature rasp and the cool score of acoustic guitar chords.
His hands were a magician’s and a musician’s all at once. Klavier’s eyes traced his square palms, imagined callouses on his fingers from strings and fire. At every flick of his wrist, that gold bangle caught the light and dazzled.
Apollo moved the hoop over his head in an arc that matched the crescendo of his father’s guitar solo, and as he brought it down, finger skimming over the curve, the hoop burst into flame at his touch. It extinguished just as quickly with another sweep of his hand, going dark with Jove Justice’s final verse.
The silence in the auditorium following his act was almost deafening. Apollo crouched down to turn off his boom box and packed that and the hoop up into his suitcase. When he straightened again, he slapped his palms back against his hips as if wiping off dirt. Or maybe sweat? Had he been nervous? He hadn’t looked it once in the whole performance. That won’t be the case with me, he’d said.
Mouth dry, heart racing, eyes committed to the man on stage, Klavier couldn’t disagree.
“Uh.” Apollo curved a hand around the back of his neck. “Thank you for your time.”
He reached for his suitcase, snapping Klavier out of his stupor. “W—Wait!”
Apollo startled on stage, as did Daryan in the seat next to Klavier. He’d almost forgotten he was there.
“That was wonderful,” Klavier said. Apollo stared back at him like a deer in the headlights. “How long did it take you to choreograph that?”
“Umm…” Apollo put his free hand on his hip. “Kind of hard to say. I had ideas for a long time, but…I guess I didn’t start putting the act together until a year or so ago. Maybe three or four days?”
“Three or four days?” Klavier echoed. “To come up with all that magic?”
Smugness settled into Apollo’s expression then. “Yep.”
Klavier’s heart fluttered.
“We—” he managed. “We should talk about what you have in mind for the Gavinners.”
“Klav.” Daryan elbowed him. “What did we just say about this being a band decision?”
“Wh…” Apollo blinked. “You mean you…?”
“Have to have you,” Klavier finished. Then, hurriedly, he added, “ We have to have you.” Beside him, Daryan huffed loudly and threw up his hands.
“You feel like asking the band before saying things like that, Klav?”
“Don’t you agree?” Klavier turned to him and spread his arms, a grin already splashed across his face. “That was awesome. And choreographed to Jove Justice! That unplugged set is something else, ja?”
“You know my dad’s music?” Apollo looked as shocked as he sounded.
Klavier nodded. “Ja, of course, he was a huge influence!”
“But your music sounds nothing like his.” The comment itself would have done damage to Klavier’s heart, but the condescension in Apollo’s voice was really what had him holding back the urge to double over. So this extraordinary magician-musician had listened to the Gavinners’ music…and wasn't impressed, from the sound of it.
“J-Ja, that’s true…” Klavier said weakly.
“No shit,” Daryan said at the same time, weakness nowhere to be found in his voice. “Klav, come on, are we done yet? This guy isn’t a fit for our vibe.”
On stage, Apollo clenched and unclenched his fists. “Sorry to have wasted your time,” he spat. Klavier whirled around, eyes frantically seeking out Fraulein Andrews, fairy godmother of fixing things Daryan broke.
“No, no, don’t go!” he insisted. “That magic was amazing, it’s just what I had in mind for this show!” But Apollo was already rolling his suitcase away. “Herr Justice!”
“Why don’t you talk it over with your band,” Apollo suggested, sparing Klavier a glare over his shoulder, “and then forget to call tomorrow. That’s more your vibe, right?”
“You got something to say, punk?” Daryan barked, and Klavier actually appreciated the outburst because it moved Apollo’s attention away from him as he wilted. What had just happened? What impression had he given that Apollo thought he would…?
Apollo was gone, Fraulein Andrews chasing him frantically backstage, before Klavier could find the words to ask.