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Klavier Gavin is an actor.
Or he was, once, in one of those made-for-TV teen movies, as the seemingly out-of-your league high school pretty boy with a smile as bright as the sun and a secret heart of gold. The kind of boyfriend that only exists in day dreams; perfect, and ready to give his all for whatever shy heroine has the chance of “winning” him. His personality is as deep as a kiddie pool, but that doesn’t matter. As long as teenage girls imagine themselves in his arms, the movie sells. Klavier sells.
Only now he’s washed up. A puddle of tears, self-loathing, and smeared eyeliner, occupying his hands and heavy mind with the idle strumming of an acoustic guitar he rarely uses and thus, can’t associate with memories he’d rather forget: like late night practice sessions with Daryan, or being interrupted by Kristoph the night before his first trial. He strings somber poetry between the chords, lyrics that never rise above a whisper to keep his voice from cracking.
It wouldn’t actually matter if it did. Nobody’s here to listen. The city outside, bright, bustling, and immune to this pitiful display of grief is the antithesis of the prosecutor’s office: occupied only by a sparse night staff and Klavier, drowned in darkness and hollow impressions of his own music. It’s lonely, but only in solitude is he allowed the chance to be bad, a shadow of all he seems to be.
Outside, the spotlight stays focused on him. He burns under its gaze, an insect writhing under a microscopic lens as every facet of his life is carelessly cut into and picked clean. A murder victim witnessing his own autopsy, and helpless to do anything but let the masses of people who feel owed a glimpse of his life take whatever they want.
Everything except this. Nobody gets to see this, when Klavier finally falls apart and lets every constrained emotion bleed out of him in this ritual of melancholic songwriting where, for once, he’s driven by himself, and not the person the world’s convinced he should be.
The person he convinced himself he should be.
The person who returns as soon as he hears a knock at his door, wiping away the shame that stains his face to make room for his signature manufactured smile. It’s a pathetic attempt at pretending he possesses at least an ounce of decency, of worth .
“Come in,” he strains, trying to sound as normal as he can. He comes up short.
“Prosecutor Gavin?”
On a scale of those he feels ready to see–from no one to Kristoph–Apollo’s somewhere in the middle. Nothing about him is directly unwelcome; he’s polite, and about as trustworthy an opponent as Klavier could hope for, but he’s pit against the most difficult competition: the loneliness of his empty office and the peace it grants him.
Silence grows between them when Klavier fails to respond, as encompassing as the darkness curled in every crevice of the office, and as unwelcome as the light pouring in from the open door. They could drift in it forever, or at least until Apollo does the right thing and gives up on his visit, leaving him alone to rot in the one place he’ll never be found.
But he doesn’t. He takes one cautious step through the doorway, his brows knit together not in his usual anger, but concern. “Are you alright?” he asks, somber, quiet, and barely breaking through the discordant harmony of silent tension and Klavier’s unsteady breaths.
“Yes.”
Klavier’s sure the bracelet around his wrist must be tightening now, alerting him to one of the many impulsive behaviors he’s trying to keep hidden. The idle twisting of his ring. Flinching every time Apollo makes even a subtle movement. His breathing, staggered and untameable. His gaze is on the ground now, but he can feel Apollo’s eyes boring into him, piercing red and cutting into the deepest, most private parts of his life just like everyone else.
When he looks up, however, Apollo’s eyes are everywhere but him. They linger in the shadows, the band around his wrist, the hall behind him. He twists his bracelet uncomfortably, but refuses to act on it.
That might be the nicest thing anyone’s done for him in a while.
“Can I come in?” Apollo asks, still barely through the door frame, and any gratitude Klavier had is dashed, broken on the floor alongside his shattered spirit.
He should say no, turn him away before his office ceases to be the fortress of solitude he cherishes and needs, and instead becomes just another part of the glaring display his life has become. But there’s an earnestness to Apollo’s request, some genuinity hidden in those four words that makes Klavier question his immediate instinct to refuse and shut this visit down.
So he nods, and with another cautious step, Apollo comes all the way in.
The hesitant breaking of this sacred privacy Klavier’s created doesn’t dock Apollo on his pretend scale of pretend visitors, but the casual flipping of the lightswitch does. The room’s freed from darkness and Klavier’s granted with the thing he wants least: a view of himself.
“Do you want a tissue?” Apollo asks innocently, though it’s easy to imagine a deeper judgment in his tone.
He nods, though he’d rather pretend he looks normal, and not like what he sees in the reflection of the glass guitar case, with the remnants of his eyeliner and mascara dripping down his cheeks and mocking him.
Apollo crosses the room, takes a seat across from him, and hands over a small package of tissues from his pocket, an act that reestablishes him in Klavier’s good graces solely because it’s not paired with an unwarranted comment on how awful he looks.
He’s sure Apollo’s disgusted by him, because even when he wipes his tears away, nobody wants to see this. The downward spiral of the beloved facade, from the lovely fake to the grotesque real. A Klavier born of flesh and blood, hardly the clay the adoring public loves to mold into their own view: hollow and smiling.
This version of him should be shunned, he thinks, left behind in the fading golden glow of the spotlight he no longer deserves. Everyone turns away, eyes cast everywhere but him not out of care, but because they can’t stand to see what he’s become.
No, what he’s always been.
Apollo turns away with the rest of the horde and breathes a heavy sigh–disillusionment or regret, Klavier guesses. Some level of disappointment he knows he should apologize for, but can’t find the strength to.
“I trusted your brother too,” Apollo says, shattering his conclusion in an instant. His disappointment doesn’t lie in Klavier, but in the revelation of their shared mentor and friend’s betrayal instead. “I can only begin to imagine how it feels for you. You shouldn’t have to be alone for this.”
Jealousy fills him, for how easy it is for Apollo. He didn’t have to live with Kristoph, or embrace a lie every time they spoke. Their acquaintanceship was short lived, while Klavier knows the ghost of his brother will lurk in the abyss of his mind for the rest of time, never leaving him alone.
“You cared about him?” is all Klavier can ask, and he regrets even that much, because his voice is completely overtaken by grief.
“Yeah, I think so.” His brow furrows again; worry. He mindlessly tugs at the bracelet around his wrist, and turns to study Klavier with a surprising lack of criticism or pity. In his stare, Klavier sees something kinder. Understanding. “In the way that he was my mentor, and I don’t think I would have gotten this far without him.”
“He was arrested during your first case. I don’t think he did that much.”
But can Klavier say the same? His first win was built on his brother’s deception, and multitudes of others could be attributed to his involvement as well. Klavier weighs the truth above all else, but that makes him a hypocrite, because he let Kristoph guide his hand and make him into this lie.
Until today, his behavior had been controlled, with heavy strings tied to his wrists. Outside of the courtroom, he’d been in the care of whoever would have him. Inside, he was under the carefully-constructed demands of his brother. The strings were pulled taut and yanked, but his numb hands and button eyes blinded him to the way he was treated: as a puppet, not a brother.
“I shouldn’t have listened to him that night,” Klavier mourns. “I knew it was suspicious, but I still believed him.”
It’s a painful realization, that he was so deeply hidden in his shell that he failed to realize he was always acting, no matter whose company he’s in. Even now, when Apollo’s sitting mere feet away, he plays down his own despair because he knows it’s disgusting and unbearable. He criticizes himself for lacking foresight no person is capable of, because isn’t that what Apollo wants to hear? That Klavier knows nothing but regret?
“Klavier.” Apollo drops any pretense of modesty and restraint, suddenly so personal that they feel entwined, their lives tangled in such a way that they may as well be inches apart. “It was Kristoph’s fault. Not yours.”
“But I could have stopped–”
“No, you couldn’t have.” It sounds so real, the way the pain breathes through his voice without the constraint of pretending. Maybe that’s what he’s been jealous of all along, not Apollo’s less-dominating relationship with Kristoph, but how he’s not held back by it. Manipulated, but never a performance. Always Apollo, even when it might be easier not to be. Klavier wishes he had that luxury. “You know that, so why are you still saying it?”
“What else am I supposed to say?”
“Whatever you want.” Apollo smiles weakly, but still so inviting and real. “Anything you say, I’ll listen.”
It’s an invitation, even without saying it. A petition to the whole and genuine, a request to slowly peel away the cracking veneer Klavier’s put up to protect what nobody wants to see.
Nobody but Apollo.
Silence fills the room again, but it’s not unpleasant. He’s searching for the words and Apollo’s waiting, eyes on him and full of a kind of care and longing that Klavier can’t recall ever receiving without strings attached. There are no expectations and no demands. Just someone who will listen to the reality of his heart without an ounce of greed or selfishness.
The spotlight burns to black, the crowd turns away, and Apollo stays. He smiles, he watches, and he makes Klavier feel like he doesn’t need to be alone to grieve. He cuts down the silver screen, and in the ruins of vinyl and film, they’re all that remains.
“I–” Klavier’s shaking, but Apollo doesn’t flinch or move away. He reaches out a hand, resting it on his shoulder. “I hate what he did, but I know I’ll miss him.”
“There’s nothing bad about that. He’s your brother.” There’s no judgment in his tone or gaze, and now that Klavier has let himself be open, there’s no fiddling with his bracelet or looking away. Apollo grants him his complete attention, unbroken and unwavering.
“I just worry that maybe… I’ll be just like him one day.” Because Kristoph was a fake too, a shield designed not for the sake of others, but his own self-interest. Like Klavier, there’s no sign of where it ends or begins; it just is.
“No. You won’t be.” Apollo reassures him with such stubborn certainty that it feels wrong to doubt him. “You’re already the opposite of him, you’re–” He cuts himself off, and for what feels like an eternity, they wait there silently, with Apollo finding the words and their closeness growing by the second. “You’re Klavier,” he says, gentle and honest. It’s simple, but somehow, exactly what Klavier needed to hear.
Klavier leans forward in his seat to hug Apollo, who reacts with an awkward, but not uncomfortable “Oh, um, thanks?” He doesn’t make any attempt to pull away, even with his arms pinned to his side. He’s content to let Klavier have this for as long as he likes, because they both know how badly he needs this; to feel whole and express himself in a way he never allowed before.
Klavier Gavin is an actor.
Or he was, once, shallow and pitiful; a sculpture in the shape of himself.
Now, he doesn’t have to be, because there’s at least one person willing to see what’s behind the curtain.