( No Title )
Lucifer Was an Angel As Well (19271 words) by thesavagesabretooth
Additional Tags: Ambiguous Relationships, Dubious Morality, Post-Canon, Inappropriate Behavior, vera has a crush on the man who almost killed her, Extremely toxic, Vera Misham-centric, Kristoph Gavin-centric, not ship not not ship but a secret third thing, klavier gavin has cptsd, mostly everyone has cptsd
Klavier and Vongole show up in this chapter!
–
August 29, 2028– 9:45 pm
“You’re sure you want to do this, Vera?” Miles asked again as they made their way down the final security hallway toward Kristoph’s cell. It was perhaps the tenth time he’d asked since she proposed the idea the day before. “You don’t have to do it, you know.”
Vera shook her head.
“I know, Mr. Edgeworth….and if I feel too uncomfortable I promise I’ll leave.” She looked up at him as she played with the braid of her hair in a nervous habit as she walked. “…but I want to do this. I think it’s important for me to do it….especially si-since Trucy and I both gave our approval.”
“So you did.” Edgeworth’s brow furrowwed, writing his troubled thoughts on his face. “And I am a man of my word, Vera. But you’re sure? I’ll only ask one more time, after your visit.”
“I”m positive.”
Vera reached out and touched his arm with a faint smile “I’ll tell you again when this is over…but you can trust me, Mr. Edgeworth.”
He put his hand on her shoulder and gave her a squeeze. “You’ve come a long way since we met, Vera. I believe in you.”
She smiled with pride and nodded her head. “I have to if I’m going to be a detective…thank you, Mr. Edgeworth..”
A few minutes later, past a last security checkpoint where she signed her name, and wrote in the time, Vera found herself in a long, bare hallway, with cameras looming down all along the way. It was a forbidding environment– eerie and entirely unhomelike.
Vera looked up at the cameras, her thumbnail raised to her lip as they turned to follow her down the hall– into the cold and frigid abyss before her. A hell of bars and trapped souls, and herself, utterly alone.
The sound of her footsteps rang on tiles below her feet as she made her way down the nearly blank hall. Soon, concrete was replaced by bars, and she got a peek into the cell.
“Good morning Mr.– Vera?” She heard Kristoph’s voice, and the sudden confusion in it, before she could see him, and she heard him get to his feet.
As she passed properly into the view of the same little cell she’d seen in the picture, there was Kristoph, standing by the bars, surprise on his perfect, angelic features.
Vera stopped before the cell with a widening of her own eyes…her fingernail lightly pressed to her bottom lip.
“Mr. Gavin…” she murmured with a brief glance towards the cameras, before her eyes returned to him. “I’m sorry if my visit’s unexpected…”
He lingered near the bars, and carefully ran his fingers through his pale, well groomed hair. He looked thinner than the last time she had seen him– his cheekbones and his jaw written more firmly in his features, and dark circles marred his beautiful appearance.
“It’s very unexpected, I’m afraid,” he said. “When I was told I had a visitor today, I assumed that it would be Miles Edgeworth.”
Vera almost bit her nails as concern flared in her heart. He wasn’t eating– not well anyway, and he was likely not sleeping much either. Kristoph Gavin had spent years helping nudge her into a better life as he wasted away.
Her teeth grazed the edge of her nails before she forced herself to lower her hand. “He’s in the lobby…I’d asked if I could personally come to visit when he came to ask me about something important..”
“I see.” He met her gaze with his bright, clear blue eyes. Those, at least, had not changed at all since the day they’d met. The eyes of an angel– a dark angel.
He put his fingers on the bars. “Well, I’m always pleased to have visitors. An all too rare treat. There’s a chair behind you if you’d prefer to sit.”
She took a hesitant step back towards the chair. But she stopped herself and wandered closer to the bars instead as her dark eyes met his.
“I’m alright…I haven’t seen you for a long, long time Mr. Gavin.”
“Several years, as I recall. Have you been keeping well?” There was a stillness there as he lingered behind the bars. A composure that bordered on being frozen in place– as if he were being very careful of himself.
Vera Misham wandered closer to the bars, placing her hand outside them with a tentative smile
“I’ve been keeping as well as I could be. My life’s changed drastically since my coma…I’ve gotten an apartment all my own, I’ve gotten a new goal in life, and I’ve got actual friends for the first time ever.” She smiled thinly “…have you been keeping well?”
“As well as I could be,” he answered softly. He glanced up at the camera behind her for a moment, and then back to her face. “All things considered.”
“All things considered.”
She brought her hands down from in front of her face to rest before her…and quietly slipped a small pad and pen from her jean jacket pocket..
“I know you’re aware that Mr. Edgeworth asked a small collection of individuals if we’d be okay with you being allowed to practice law despite your imprisonment…”
“I am,” he nodded. He dropped his own hand from the bars as if mirroring her, and crossed his arms thoughtfully. “I heard that you’re one of those individuals, as well.”
“I am.” Vera quietly began to sketch– and within the sketch she placed words she could easily remove and turn into part of the composition with a few strokes of the pen…the same method she used to hide her signature in her forgeries. “I told him that I would allow it on one condition.”
“I won’t hide that I’m surprised,” Kristoph said. There was a slice of a smile on his face, and of course, only she knew what part he was surprised about. “May I ask?”
Vera held the rough sketch up towards him with her placid and neutral expression.
It was a rough sketch of him standing there with his arms partially crossed, and the slightly odd lettering that would be melded into the finished drawing laid bare for the moment.
“That I will be assigned to you after my graduation. Like Det. Fulbright had been for Prosecutor Blackquill.”
The text read I’ve missed you, my guardian angel. I couldn’t stop myself from visiting and seeing you face to face.
“My my, what a forward request.” Kristoph chuckled, and she saw his smile light up even further. “Well, with our history, I suppose I can hardly blame you for wanting to keep a close watch over someone like me.”
He paused and put his hand on the bars again. She watched his eyes move over the drawing, pausing to look at the words. “That’s a lovely drawing, Vera. I’m pleased that I could see it in person.”
She smiled back, confident that the angle of the camera wouldn’t catch it as she held the picture up.
“Someone has to watch you…I trust myself to do it…” She ducked her head “it’s not finished yet…but I’m pleased you like it. I may let you keep the finished sketch.”
She lowered it and began drawing and writing again.
“I’m going to be starting the academy really shortly.” she whispered. “but I fully intend to pass, and become a proper investigator.”
“It’s a ten month course as I recall? Not a very long time at all. You’re sure you’ll be ready?” There was a hint of teasing to his cool smile.
Vera looked up from her drawing with a tilt of her head. “I think I’ll surprise you. I’m not the girl I was when we last met…not quite, anyway. Thinking of giving me some trouble?”
“That would be terribly rude of me,” he said, still smiling. “But you’re speaking as if this is a ‘done deal’, as it were. Do you have confidence?”
“I do.” she murmured as she sketched out on the paper. “…I’ve been drafting the path to my future little by little…I can’t doubt myself now. So I have complete confidence in the choices I’m making.”
She showed him the picture, a little more refined, with the previous words melted into the shading and lines.
I have faith that it’ll all work out as I’m hoping.
“If you’re so confident, then I’ll have faith in what you say.” He smiled wider again, almost mirroring her thoughts. “I can’t lie, it’s a pleasure to think that I might get to argue in court again– even under the watchful eye of a guardian detective.”
He cocked his head and looked at her slyly as he implied the apparent role reversal.
She laughed into her hand, soft and whispering, as she made the words vanish into the slowly completing sketch.
“I imagine it’s exciting…even under the watchful eye of a guardian detective.” She looked up at him as her pen stalled on the paper. “Who better to make sure you become the best self you can under the circumstances? And ensure that you prosecute and investigate fairly, of course.“
"I can’t think of anyone better,” he agreed. “But of course, it isn’t up to me. Much of my fate is out of my hands.”
He leaned toward her with a smile, the bars in their way. The clear implication was of course, that his fate was in her hands. Just like her life had once been in his.
Vera’s heart skipped a beat, and she let her hand rest against the bars of the cell for a moment even in the gaze of the camera.
Her eyes met his in an unspoken acknowledgement– understanding without words– and she tore the picture from her pad and held it out towards him
“Perhaps fate will be kind, Mr. Gavin.”
He took the picture from her, and for a single moment his fingers brushed her own. It sent a feeling of electricity through her body.
“Perhaps it will. I look forward to seeing what it has in store for us, future detective.”
Her fingers curled, and she stifled a quiet gasp at the contact as she ducked her head to hide the barest flush from the camera. With a firm nod, she returned her hand to her side.
“The very same interest will be on my mind as well…future prosecutor.”
August 29, 2028– 10:20 pm
“Are you alright, Vera?” Edgeworth asked when she returned past the security checkpoint to where he was waiting for her, a styrofoam cup of coffee in hand.
No matter how long she might have wanted to stay and visit, the longer she stayed the more suspicious Mr. Edgeworth would have surely become. She hadn’t lingered.
Vera nodded with a faint smile as she tucked her pad back away in her jean jacket pocket.
“He was very cordial, Mr. Edgeworth…I told him about my agreement to the plan to let him prosecute and my own intention of becoming a detective. ” She bit the edge of her nail before she stopped herself and pulled it away. “He looks like he’s wasting away . He’s thinner than I remember.”
Edgeworth pursed his lips and gave a resigned shrug. “Admittedly, Vera, not many people gain weight in prison. Well, some of the body builders, I think.”
He turned and beckoned for her to follow him.
Vera followed along with her arms wrapped around herself. “I suppose that’s true…I imagine if I were in here, I’d have wasted away to nothing by now…”
He paused until she reached him, and put his hand on her shoulder as he resumed walking.
“That reminds me– you’re much healthier looking now then when we met, Vera,” he said, comfortingly. “If you’re worried about the prisoners here, I promise there’s a doctor on staff looking after them. A lot of them simply don’t have much of an appetite.”
Vera smiled up at him. “thank you, Mr. Edgeworth…I’ve been trying to make sure I eat enough, making notes and schedules and the like.”
Between that and the freedom to experience the world , and see the sunlight…I’ve almost become a person.
She put her finger to her lips again in thought. “…makes sense when you put it that way.”
Edgeworth nodded. “Prisoners often experience a lot of anxiety and agitation. It’s expected. Some people– people I don’t necessarily agree with– would consider it part of their punishment. It’s part of why the animal companion program was instituted. To help ease the anxiety of prisoners and focus them into a productive relationship. Does that make sense, Vera?”
Animal companions. She knew about the program– but Kristoph didn’t seem to have one. He’d never mentioned one, and she hadn’t noticed any evidence of an animal in his cell.
Vera put her fingers to her chin thoughtfully.
“That makes sense…yes. The presence of a pet can provide companionship and allow them to concentrate on things other than just their own anxiety and negativity…which feeds, p-perhaps, into more productive thinking.”
She tilted her head towards him “Mr. Gavin didn’t have an animal companion though.”
Miles sighed as they walked past the security guard and were buzzed out the visitor exit of the prison.
“Mr. Gavin has refused an animal companion. Repeatedly. Apparently he has a beloved pet dog whom he does not want to ‘replace’. An offer was made to bring the dog to prison, which was also refused. He claimed that he didn’t want to take her away from his brother.”
Mr. Gavin’s brother. He’d mentioned him, just before she’d left.
If we’re going to be working together in the future, maybe you should go and see my brother.
She’d met him a few times, not long after she’d woken up from her coma. He was nice, but they’d fallen out of contact.“I remember him…mr. Klavier…” she bit her lip thoughtfully “I guess that makes sense, but…it’ll have an impact on him, for certain.”
She closed her eyes “…Mr. Edgeworth?”
“Yes, Vera?” He cocked his head as he escorted her to his car.
“Do you think you can tell Mr. Klavier Gavin that I’d like to talk to him more? It’s…been a while…and I don’t have much of a way to contact him.”
“Certainly,” he nodded. “I can give you his phone number if you want. Or just ask him for you, as you said.”
“Dangerous giving me his number.” Vera said as she approached his car with a small but teasing smile. “…if I feel I made a friend I may never leave him alone.”
Edgeworth laughed. "I’ll give you his number then. It may surprise you, given his position of fame, but I think Klavier could use a few more friends.”
August 29, 2028– 4:20 pm
“It was a nice surprise to get a call from you, fraulein! Nicer still to see you in person.” Rockstar prosecutor Klavier Gavin smiled at her as she stepped out of the taxi into the driveway of the Beverly Hills mansion.
Vera ducked her head in a little bow as the taxi pulled away and left her standing before the biggest house she’d ever seen outside from far on the skyline or in a magazine.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” She brushed her dark hair from her face with a shy smile, and fished into her pocket for her pad, where she drew a quick little smiling face to hold up to him. “For old times sake. I had been wondering how you were.”
“For old times’ sake?” he chuckled and tossed his hair, almost mirroring her gesture. “Fraulein, I promise, we are still young, we don’t have old times yet. Come on, let me be a good host instead of keeping us outside.”
Vera had seen Klavier a few times in the past after the trial. She’d never been to the house before though. The year after it all happened, Klavier had taken her to lunch a few times, seemingly mostly to check on her, see how she was doing.
He never said it outright, but she suspected it was Klavier who had asked Edgeworth to help her with her finances and educational arrangements.
Vera laughed.
“Sometimes I forget.” she joked softly before she followed him close behind “pl-please. You really live here?”
“Ja, all my life, I’m afraid.” He sighed and spread his hands in a ‘what can you do’ gesture as they walked through the carefully trimmed garden. “I have an apartment elsewhere in the city but it is more of a little get away. This place, I’ve never been quite able to escape.”
He chuckled, but even Vera could tell that there was some dark element of truth in what he said.
“I know a little of what you mean.” She mused softly before she gave him a gentle smile.
She followed close behind, remembering all too well the written discussions with Klavier’s brother over fathers and homes.
“But I’m sorry I’ve been a little distant lately…I’ve been studying to pass my GED and get into the police academy.”
“Ja,” he agreed. “We have both been busy, I am afraid. I’ve been taking more cases lately, so while I’m in LA more often, I haven’t had such a moment to breathe lately.”
He pushed the front door open, letting her into the large foyer. The house was tastefully and expensively appointed from what she could see– if a couple of decades out of date. Likely it had been a custom build, long before Klavier was born. A chandelier hung in the foyer, and shelves held tasteful knicknacks.
Someone– Klavier– had put up a couple of out of place guitars, and a large framed poster of an old singer.
Vera pointed quietly at the hanging guitars with a tilt of her head.
“Are those all guitars you’ve played?”
She shifted nervously from foot to foot as she listened for his answer. This was her first time here, and the first time seeing him in a while. Her life had been changing, ever faster , since she’d woken up from her coma.
Everyone’s lives had. She couldn’t help the old familiar nerves rear up as she raised her thumb to her lips.
“Hmm? Oh, oh, ja, I think so,” he nodded. “I mostly play a lot of guitars, but I don’t usually buy guitars I don’t play…”
He looked back over his shoulder and gave her a smile. “Come on, the kitchen is this way. We’re alone in the house, just so you know. No maid jumpscares, I promise, fraulein.”
“Oh!” She blinked and shook out of her own head enough to follow him “oh that’s good. I was going to ask if you lived here with anyone…staff…or a butler, like in an old show.”
“I’m enough of a mess for one, I admit,” he laughed, shaking his head. “But Jeeves has never come to offer his services I’m afraid. I’d be very picky if he did, too.”
He led her into the bright, spacious kitchen. This room, unlike the foyer, looked like it had been updated sometime in the last decade, with shiny chrome, and polished dark wood, and a lot of very technical looking gadgets.
Vera fell into step right beside him, looking between each of the machines with a confused tilt of her head.
“This looks more like a forgery lab than a kitchen…I don’t even know what half these things do.”
“I will tell you a secret, fraulein– there are some that even I do not know the meaning of.” he chuckled and strode over to the refrigerator. “What kind of refreshment can I get you?”
Vera laughed at that, covering her mouth to stifle the quiet giggles.
“Like the artifacts of an alien civilization in your kitchen…” She tilted her head. “What are you having?”
“Just like that, and just as foreign,” he murmured, staring into the light of the fridge. He seemed to phase out for a moment– something she recognized mostly from her own experience. Then he shook his head. “I’m having ahh…… ….. ginger ale?”
It seemed more like a guess than a firm answer.
“I’ll have the same, Mr. Gavin.” Vera walked over and leaned on the counter, laying on her folded arms as she looked up at him “I’m not the only one who does that…huh?”
“Does what?” he asked, pulling a couple of bottles of soda out of the fridge and closing it with his elbow. He smiled a wide, winning smile at her. “Drinks ginger ale?”
As he stood there, almost– or perhaps more than almost– posed like a magazine model against the edge of the refrigerator, Vera couldn’t help but notice the similarities, and differences, between Klavier and his brother. And how most of the major differences were superficial, and artful.
Where she had only ever seen her guardian angel in crisp suits, clean cut and carefully groomed, Klavier had a deliberately thrown together appearance. He was in a black skull logo half t-shirt cropped to show his belly when he raised his arms, as he was now, and a pair of tight fitting jeans that rode low on his hips, crisscrossed with a pair of belts that weren’t attached to anything.
His hair, which Vera knew from court he had once worn like his brother, had been cropped around his chin and was cut close on the sides. He had a pair of sunglasses in his hair, and was wearing a number of rings.
His skin was artificially tanned, and his hair might even have been bleached even lighter than its natural shade. There was dark makeup around his eyes.
But beyond all that– below it– his face looked very much like Kristoph’s. Even the questioning little smile he flashed her reminded her of his brother.
Vera’s eyes flicked down as her face heated , and she burrowed herself just a little more into her arms. The thoughts of Klavier and his brother danced in her head as she shook it.
“No. Lots of people drink ginger ale…they wouldn’t sell it if it were just us…I meant…” The word didn’t come to mind, the word for the phenomenon that she was so very used to “the urge to stare into nothing for a little bit.”
“Oh.” Klavier’s charming little smile left his face for a moment, and he looked embarrassed– before the smile came back twice as bright and he shook his head. He swaggered over to her and offered her a bottle of soda. “Ja, I guess I do. Something we have in common, then.”
She took the bottle from him with a quiet smile.
“Something we have in common… that’s not a bad thing, right?” She opened it, only jumping a little at the hiss.
“Not bad at all, fraulein,” he said, shaking his head. He twisted the cap off his own soda, and played with the cap between his fingers as vapor rose off the top of the bottle. “I am always happy to have something in common with a charming young lady.”
Vera flushed, brushing her hair over her ear.
“Charming? Me?” She quietly took a sip of her drink. “going to make me blush.”
“That would certainly not be a shame,” he teased, “but I don’t want to truly embarrass you, so tell me if I’m too much. People often say I’m too much.”
He’d said it before, back when they’d used to have lunch. Tell me if I’m too much. Tell me if I’m too loud.
Vera tilted her drink back and forth thoughtfully.
“Don’t worry about embarrassing me, or being too much.” She shifted to look up at him “You’ve never been too loud , or too much to me, Mr. Gavin. I like getting to know you.”
He held his hands up with a grin, one of them holding his soda, “Ach, fraulein, please, no Mr. Gavin, I’ve said it again and again. Klavier. Please, always Klavier. Mr. Gavin is someone else. I’ll tolerate prosecutor Gavin if you must, liebchen. But thank you.”
Vera flushed and bowed her head twice before she took another sip of her drink “Okay, Klavier…”
She looked up at him with a tilt of her head, curiosity writing it’s way into her expression as she took another sip of her soda.
My guardian angel doesn’t use any german like Mr. Klavier does…but Klavier uses it all the time.
“Much better,” Klavier nodded. “Now, to what do I owe the pleasure of–”
He was cut off by a whining, keening sound and a sudden clacking and scratching noise from something like a room away.
Vera sat bolt upright, nearly spilling her soda as she oriented on the sound like a startled cat. “…huh?”
“Scheisse!” he hissed, bolting upright and setting down his soda before hurrying across the room. “It’s Frau Von at the door– I forgot I’d let her out.”
Klavier hurried to a door so far away in the huge kitchen that Vera hadn’t even noticed it, and opened it up. Vera heard panting and huffing, and more clacking on the tile floor– and then a woof.
A dog. Vera realized that it must be the dog that Kristoph had– very occasionally– mentioned in his letters.
Her eyes widened, and a patter of excitement beat in her chest. Even in the days since she’d left her house…she rarely ever got to enjoy the company of animals. And everything she’d heard about the dog had made her seem like the sweetest thing.
Klavier came back into view holding the collar of a very pretty, blocky shaped golden retriever with big, doe-like brown eyes and mud on her paws.
“Sorry about this, fraulein. I can put her in her crate for a bit if you’re not comfortable.”
“N-no!” Vera said with a shaky smile. “No, please…can I pet her? I’ve heard so much ab—” she cut herself off from blurting the rest, looking down before she hugged her soda to her chest “about dogs.”
Klavier gave her a slightly odd look, but it only lasted a flash before he grinned.
“Of course you can! She’s very sweet but she’s absolutely spoiled. watch out she will try to knock you over.”
He let go of her collar and the big retriever shook herself off and carefully plodded her way over to Vera, sniffing and snuffling at her shoes and pants, making her way up her.
Vera bent slowly down and offered her hand to her with a timid smile, “I won’t bite…hello friend..”
The dog immediately started sniffing– and then licking– Vera’s hands quite enthusiastically.
Klavier smiled. “She really likes you. I’m not surprised.”
“I wonder why..” Vera chuckled, petting the top of the dog’s head affectionately. “Good girl…good Vongole”
Vongole’s tail happily thumped the kitchen floor as she leaned all her weight against Vera’s leg, leaning into the pets.
Klavier, on the other hand, was taken aback. She noticed him stop mid sip of his soda and then shook his head, as if dismissing a thought.
Vera suddenly realized he hadn’t referred to the dog by her full name, and Klavier was probably trying to remember if he had too– or if he’d mentioned her on some prior occasion.
“You have a good memory for names, fraulein,” he chuckled.
Vera went pale, her fingers brushing through Vongole’s fur a little more nervously now as she realized her blunder.
“I…” She tilted her head with a quiet smile “I have perfect recall…it’s what made me so talented at…at, you know.”
“Useful talent, if not an enviable one,” he chuckled. “I’d hate to remember so much. It would take away so much of my charming uselessness, ja?”
“It’s not always nice,” Vera agreed. Perfect recall had allowed her to mimic any style– any writing down to the word choice and the curve of the angle of the pen. Any artwork, any evidence. It also meant she remembered vividly the details of even the worst days of her life.
“But…” She scratched under Vongole’s chin. “charming uselessness, huh?”
“Oh yes,” he chuckled. “Useless, but very charming. That’s what I always used to hear. But forget about that, fraulein. I was asking what this humble rock prosecutor did to merit the pleasure of your company today.”
Vongole layed her whole weight against Vera’s legs and then promptly collapsed into a happy ball of fur on top of her feet, laying her head on her paws.
Vera laughed a little bit at the dog’s antics, before looking up at Klavier with a shy smile.
“…I’m about to enter the police academy, Klavier…which means that someday soon I’ll be following in Miss Skye’s footsteps to becoming a forensic investigator.”
“Police academy? I never would have guessed when we met, fraulein! Perhaps we’ll work together, ja?” he grinned. “Is that why you came to see me? To get some tips perhaps?”
Vera smiled widely.
“Uh huh… I–I want to do something new. And I’ve always been impressed by people like Miss Skye…”
She scratched Vongole’s belly and tilted her head up at him. “Maybe we will…would you like that? I…I mostly wanted to come see you because…”
It was both that she’d missed Klavier Gavin, and regretted not speaking with him as much as she could have during the time she finished her GED…and also the recommendation to do so by his prison-bound brother.
“Because I missed you, and I was reminded that I could visit you any time.”
Klavier smiled brightly. “I’d like that very much, fraulein. I’m glad that you were reminded. I’ve been a little lonely lately, ja? Many of my friends are away, or busy.”
Her hand went to her lips. “Oh….they have been? I guess I came at the right time..”
She wondered if that was part of the reason Kristoph had sent her to him.
Discussion ¬