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“Hello?”
“Hello, Detective Skye.”
Oh, great. The last person she ever wanted to talk to.
“I hope you know I’m off today, Gavin.”
“Yes, well… that’s why I’m calling, actually.” Ema repressed a groan. “I’m taking a temporary leave, and I know you’re off today, so…”
Ema adjusted her seating position and muted her TV. He wasn’t even trying to put on that annoying faux-German accent anymore. That meant something was up. Ema did not like the words ‘Klavier Gavin’ and ‘something was up’ in the same connotation.
“You’re not asking me to cover a concert again, are you?”
“Hah! No, that was a one-time thing, I assure you. Even if you did remarkably well. Good thing we had a detective, hm?” Ema took a little pride in that. “No, I am… Gott in Himmel, why is this so hard to put into words? Would you… care for a drink?”
Ema blinked.
“Klavier Gavin. I would rather rip out my spine and play double-dutch with it than go out with you. Goodbye.”
She found it impossible to resist a smile when he stammered. God, what she would give to have a recording of that! The great infallible Klavier Gavin, scourge of the courtroom, heartthrob to teenage girls everywhere, stumbling over his words. He sighed after a second futile attempt to string a sentence together.
“I meant as friends. Or at least coworkers. As an apology, and an olive branch.”
“An apology.”
“Yes. Because you deserve it. I have not treated you very well.”
“...You’re lucky I don’t turn down free booze, Gavin.”
“I’m sorry. Free?”
“Is that not part of your apology?” Ema was smiling more now. Opportunities to tease Prosecutor Gavin were few and far between. “I thought you’d be better at apologizing to women, given how many empty hotel rooms you leave in your wake.”
“Ach! Your words hurt.”
“But you’re not denying them.”
“Fine, I’ll pay,” Gavin said in a fit of laughter. “There’s a place downtown. I frequent it while, ah, laying low, as it were. I hope you’re a fan of beer.”
“Beer’s all I drink.”
“Ach! Wunderbar. I’ll swing by in a few, then.”
Gavin unceremoniously hung up, and it took until then for Ema to realize what she got herself into. Drinks. A night on the town. With Prosecutor Gavin. God dammit. She put one of her hands against her face, slowly dragging it down and flopping it on the couch seat. What was she thinking? Okay. She’ll just roll with it. What’s the worst that could happen?
‘A few.’ That was one of the worst things about Gavin: more than the selfishness, more than the glimmer, more than the fact that he somehow knew exactly what to say to piss her off every day. He was so vague. Ema stood up and walked to her bathroom. That meant she probably had between 5 and 15 minutes to get ready. Which meant, first off, getting out of her pajamas. At 4 PM. A search for decent clothes—a loose and flowy black top, some form-fitting jeans, her watch, a pair of boots she hadn’t worn in a while but was pretty sure still fit, and a braided bracelet—and shower later, and Ema was onto her hair. A bun with long framing tendrils (who came up with that name?), like usual. And to finish it all up…
Ema glared at her razor. Oh, well. She shook her shaving cream and applied a layer to her face. Might as well get it over with. Thankfully, thick facial hair didn’t run in her family and she shaved every day, but it was still a sensory nightmare. Once that was over with, she got to work on makeup. Her favorite part of getting ready. Primer, blush, glossy (but not too glossy) pale pink lipstick, and just enough mascara to make her eyelashes look a little longer than usual.
“Hello, Ema.” She smiled at herself. It was a stupid routine, or ritual, or whatever they called it, but it made her smile every time. She said it again, and then one more time just to drive it home.
Buzz.
“hy wuts ur apt # again”
Trust Gavin to not know how to text properly.
“402.”
“thx”
As if on cue, someone—presumably Gavin—knocked on her door. Ema checked her hair one more time before walking over and looking through the peephole just in case. Yep, Klavier Gavin, in his… less foppish glory than usual. Ema opened the door. Gavin was in surprisingly casual clothes: a dark purple hoodie, slack jeans, and white sneakers.
“Given the amount of evidence you randomly send me to examine, I’m surprised you don’t have my apartment number memorized.”
“Your cold words pierce my heart like an icicle.”
“Bummer. I was aiming lower.”
“...Now that’s just mean, Detective.”
“Please. We’re off the clock. Call me… something else.”
“Whatever you say, Frau… Snackoo.”
“What, no ‘Fräulein’ today?”
“No. I’ve been… trying to stop saying that.”
“Good. Took you long enough.”
“I know, I know.” Ema closed the door behind her. “In full honesty, I expected you to say no to beer. I took you as a wine person.”
“Why? Just because I spent a couple years in France?”
“...Well, yes, honestly. It’s refreshing to have somebody here that enjoys the simple things.” She didn’t even notice that they were walking downstairs now: instinct kicked in faster than Ema expected. “Ah, a good smoked beer…”
“Especially when it’s not as warm as piss. Or smells like piss. Or tastes like piss.”
“I would rather not know how you know what piss tastes like.”
“It gets boring in the forensics lab sometimes.”
“Oh, Gott–” Gavin chuckled, holding onto the railing. “Thank you, Frau Snackoo, for giving me that image.”
“Hey, don’t knock it ‘till you try it.”
“Thank you, Detective, that will be enough. Or I will keep calling you Detective all night.”
“Fine, fine.” Ema looked out behind the staircase: they were still two flights up, but she could just barely see the parking lot. In the middle, parked a bit haphazardly, was a dark burgundy muscle car. “Well, I see which car we’re taking.”
“It was hard to choose.” Gavin kept walking.
“You got a favorite?”
“A favorite car. Pssh. That’s like saying ‘do you have a favorite child’! Or ‘do you have a favorite band’! You can’t just pick one!”
“...I like Death Grips.”
“Of course she likes Death Grips,” Gavin muttered under his breath. Ema sped up: she definitely wasn’t letting him get downstairs first. Maybe it was a little childish to feel pride when she got to the bottom before he did. She didn’t care. Every win over Gavin was worth it.
That being said, Gavin got the next win. Or, perhaps, his being rich did. His car seats were soft. Ema damn near sunk into the leather. She heard Gavin chuckle, and the engine being turned over turned the soft leather into a far more expensive back massage. He flicked on a pair of aviators, and Ema had to admit defeat.
“If I ever make it big, I’m buying one of your seats.”
“Please. You’d have to make Chief Detective at least. And even he can’t afford them.”
“Yeah. Edgeworth cut his pay so many times when he was still a case detective.”
“Aren’t you grateful I’m not in charge of your salary, Frau Snackoo?”
“Yes. Very much so, yes.” Ema leaned back a bit more. “I wonder if they changed that rule because of Gumshoe.”
Gavin chuckled again and the engine roared to life: in full honesty, Ema thought it almost a waste that a car so expensive was being used to follow the law. Even if—Ema closed her eyes. Maybe it’s better they weren’t tearing down the street.
“So, uh, what’s this bar of yours like?”
“It’s quiet. For a bar, that is. It’s a small place, not a lot of traffic.”
“I thought a big shot like you would find somewhere more expensive to drink.”
“Ach, only if I’m overseas.” Gavin rapped his fingers on the steering wheel, staring at the stoplight. “There was one place I used to go to around here, but—not anymore.”
“...Yeah.” Ema sighed and looked out the window. “It’s like that sometimes.”
“Well.” Gavin put the car in park after carefully maneuvering it between two others. Maybe she should learn how to parallel park. Just to do it better than him, of course. “We’re here.”
“We could’ve walked.” Even if she quickly learned she would rather sit in these seats all day. Which she would never say to Gavin’s face. Ema looked up at the bar. ‘Joes’. “They’re missing an apostrophe.”
“No, they’re not.” Gavin chuckled, opening the door. “Trust me. They’re not.”
“What, does more than one Joe work here?” Ema walked out of the car and shut the door behind her. If the seats were nice, then the ‘kler-chunk’ of the door closing and automatically locking was even better. She ran a hand against her hip.
Gavin didn’t answer her question. Instead, he opened the door—holding open the door for her, which he usually didn’t do—and Ema took a deep whiff. It smelled like beer. She should’ve expected that. But also… popcorn? Yeah, popcorn and beer. That was a combination for Saturday nights and a brownie if she had nothing else to do.
“Hello, Joe.”
“Hey, Klavier!” Three people called out. A fourth simply looked over in their direction. Ema looked at Gavin. He shrugged, as if to say ‘hey, don’t ask me’.
“Who’s yer new lady-friend?”
“Coworkers, not friends. And I’d hardly call her a lady.”
Ema smacked the back of Gavin’s head, and he chuckled. The Joe who asked them guffawed, another Joe wheezed, and the fourth Joe—washing a glass and looking decidedly uninterested—merely looked over. The Joe that was talking to them was a large and portly fellow, with a big white mustache mixing with some hefty sideburns to create the image of a Southern, beardless Santa Claus. Definitely not a sentence Ema expected to ever say in her life.
“Hah! Nah, I wouldn’t say so, neither. C’mon in, lemme getcha what we have on tap.”
“Danke, Herr Joe.”
“I hope you’ll pay your tab this time.” The Joe cleaning their glass was the exact opposite: eyes in hefty bags, voice nasally yet deep at the same time, and long black hair going down to his waist. It was a look straight out of 2002; before Ema’s time. She fucked with it.
“Pfft. He hardly foots my paycheck.”
Emo Joe (EmJoe?) did not laugh. Ema didn’t either. She sat down next to Gavin, who was already nursing a frothy beer, and she soon got her own. It was delightfully… beery. It was thick, but soft and fruity: surprisingly similar in texture to a flat soda. Not in taste, thankfully. It was sour, reminding her of wine for some reason, an army of fruit all trying to overpower each other.
She wondered what was in it. Scientifically, of course. Was there a machine in the forensics lab for analyzing alcohol? Probably. She’d have to find it and… borrow it. Or, if push came to shove (as it often did), formally commandeer it with the approval of the Prosecutor’s Office. In other words? Have no fun. Ema didn’t even mean to pout, but she did, her next sip clashing against her suddenly bitter mood.
“Red ale today, Joe? Don’t you usually serve smoked beer on Wednesday?”
“Our usual supplier ran out.” A third Joe—an unassuming, darker-skinned man with a shaved head, carefully groomed goatee, and a rather pretty crucifix hanging from his neck—looked over. “Apparently they exploded overnight! Got way more orders than they could fill.”
“Ach, that’s a shame.”
“This is still really good.” Ema took another sip. “Like, this isn’t what I expected when you said ‘beer’.”
“What did you expect? Guinness? Please. I am cultured, Frau Snackoo.”
“Yeah. You’re the cultured one. Please.”
“Hah-hah.” Gavin’s laugh was short and sarcastic. It reminded her of a certain defense attorney. “Joe! Get me another, bitte.”
That was fast.
“...You alright?”
“Oh, ja, ja. Never better.” Gavin took a deep sip of his beer. “Never better.”
“Have you talked to your brother at all?”
“Tsk, tsk. Frau Snackoo… why darken the evening with such subject matter, hmm? Let us just enjoy our alcohol.” Hey, no need to tell her twice. Ema took a swig of ale. Gavin’s swig was uncharacteristically much larger than hers, which is saying something given that she had a stein in her hand. He damn near slammed it on the table. “How do you deal with it?”
“Excuse me?”
“Having a sibling in prison.” His smile had faded away, replaced by a glum frown. “When we first met, I re-read the file on SL-9. I recognized your name from it. How… is Lana?”
“She’s fine. She’s out next year, actually.”
“That’s… good to hear.” Gavin looked down at his drink, tapping his nails against the glass.
“The first couple of years without her were some of the loneliest in my life.” Gavin looked over at her. Why the hell was Ema telling this to him? She wasn’t already getting drunk, was she? “It wasn’t just that she was in prison. It was that she forged evidence, maybe even helped get innocent people convicted—she was my hero, Gavin. It felt like–”
“The universe was playing some sort of joke on you?”
“...Yeah. Something like that.”
Ema took another sip of ale. The two sat in silence for a while, the only real background noise coming from an old jukebox playing a homely, classical tune she couldn’t quite put her finger on. After a moment, Gavin sighed, swirling his ale around and occasionally taking a sip. Ema raised her hand, and Joe came over with another for her.
“For a long time, I thought Kristoph was mine.”
“Your what?”
“My hero.” Gavin’s voice was deeper than usual. “After our parents died, he raised me. I became a prosecutor because I wanted to make him proud—I wanted to face him in court one day. I guess I did, but…”
He turned around to face Ema.
“Do you know what the worst part of that trial was, Frau Snackoo? It wasn’t the fact that my brother became a serial killer. It was the fact that my brother never wanted me to succeed. The first trial I ever had against him— my first trial—he planned to forge evidence to win. For a second, when Herr Wright presented that page, I felt it in my gut. Fear. Like he’d just decisively won. I knew the page was a fake, I knew how to discredit him, but for those few seconds I felt exactly what Kristoph would’ve made me feel.” Gavin laughed. It was bitter, forced. “Like he always loved to make me feel. He had a knack for putting me in my place. Even when I talk–”
Ema cleared her throat. Gavin turned back around to his drink.
“...Sorry. This must be stronger than I thought.”
“He paid for your treatment.”
“...Yes. He did.” Gavin rubbed his throat: she didn’t need Apollo’s eyes to see that. “And every time I talk, I hear it. His voice. It’s like he’ll always be here. I can’t do anything to escape him.”
“...The first person that ever accepted me besides Lana was…” Ema took a sip. “...Gant. Damon Gant.”
That piqued Gavin’s interest. He looked back over to her. Ema slid her fingers down the stein’s handle, rubbing them against a little bump that presumably came from where the glass met during its creation.
“He bought things for me, even. You know he loved swimming? When Lana couldn’t afford it one summer, he chipped in to get me a one-piece suit. He was the first person besides Lana to ever call me ‘Ema’, and…” Ema cleared her throat. “Sometimes, it’s his voice I hear when I say my name. Not Lana’s. Not mine. The man who ruined my sister’s life.”
“...Have you talked to Gant at all?”
“Fuck no.” Ema laughed. “I saw him once. That was enough. I told him what I wanted to tell him and left.”
“...What did you say to him?”
“I told him that we were all better off now that he was in there. That he’d never come out, that he’d rot and wither and be forgotten, and that nobody would remember his name in 20 years. And do you know what he said? You know what’s fucked up?” Ema cleared her throat again. “He said ‘I know.’ That’s what he said! It pisses me off.”
“Kristoph would never say that.” Klavier took another hefty sip. “I wonder if he’s saying anything at all anymore.”
The air was heavy. Toxic, almost. If Ema breathed a bit too hard it felt like her lungs would catch on fire. Was that because she talked about Gant? To Klavier Gavin, no less? Or was it something else? Ema took a sip. She didn’t really know.
“He’ll never get my name, though.”
“Kristoph?”
“Yep. He tried to talk me out of changing my name. Said it was just fine as it was, perfectly androgynous either way, no need to be flamboyant.” Klavier laughed—genuinely laughed this time. “I remember it quite clearly. I said ‘fuck that, I want a cool name’.”
“So you chose ‘piano’.”
“I was 13, Frau Snackoo. Cut me some slack.”
“I was 12. I just decided on Emma one day. But, y’know, cut out an M. Make it mine.”
“...I think it’s a good name.”
“Yeah. For what it’s worth, Klavier’s pretty nice, too.”
“I believe that is the first compliment you’ve ever given me, Frau Snackoo.”
“Call me Ema.”
“Well. I believe that is the first compliment you’ve ever given me, Ema.”
Ema took a sip of her drink.
“I used to hate you. I think I still kinda do. I hate things about you, anyways.” Klavier raised his hand and got a third drink. “I hate your motorcycle. I hate how glimmery and loud you are. Everything’s a show to you.”
“Well, everything is a show when all the world’s a stage.”
That was clever.
“I blamed you for a while. I was so sure that you had given the fake evidence to Mr. Wright. To learn it was… somebody else was a shock.”
“I hated you too.” Klavier looked up to the ceiling. “I thought you were woefully incompetent for the job. Getting on tangents, cooperating with the defense, easily bribed with a bag of sweets and lacking in investigative skill.”
“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence,” Ema pouted.
“But as we worked more, I realized something else. You’ve got passion, Ema. When you want something done, you put everything you have into it. Heart and soul. You put the pedal to the medal, as it were. How many times have you failed the forensics exam?”
“Six.”
“And that’s six times you never gave up. You’re stubborn.” Ema glared at him. “But in a good way. That's what this is an apology for. Doubting you."
Klavier raised his glass.
“Truce?”
Ema tinked hers against his.
“Truce.” They both took a sip. “But don’t think I’m letting you get off the hook that easily.”
Klavier chuckled.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”