BlackHeart Biohazards

Lucifer Was an Angel As Well (48204 words) by thesavagesabretooth

catch up here

Summary: A sheltered young artist with a tragic past finds herself caught in the web of dark affection by a beautiful and sinister murderer, and his carefree rockstar brother.

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September 4, 2028– 2:00 pm

Vera had been asked to meet with Simon Blackquill at the prosecutorial office, and right on time she stood outside of the door that bore his name.

She’d been dreading it. Not to insult Mr. Blackquill, but the very idea of talking about her emotional state with an expert gave her a bone-deep anxiety that pinged every nerve as she knocked at his door.

She’d heard of him– the legendary prosecutor prisoner. The man who mauled people with his hawk at the slightest provocation. Miss Cyke’s weird boyfriend. 

“Enter!” a sharp voice barked from within. She opened the door on a dimly lit chamber that looked less like a prosecutorial office, and more like the set of a movie.

There was a tatami mat rolled out over the floor, and several kimono– and several framed swords– hanging on the walls. The electric lights were low, and most of the room’s illumination came from several flickering oil lamps.

Simon Blackquill was sitting on a cushion on the floor in front of a long, low table with a steaming pot set on a hot plate, and several cups.

He was an imposing man. Obviously tall, even sitting on his knees on the floor as he was, and scarecrow thin. He wore an old japanese style coat over his dark suit, and he had a barely tamed mane of hair pulled roughly back that made him look like a player in an old kabuki show.

Vera shut the door behind herself, wearing her recently laundered frilly ‘gothic lolita’ dress and her striped stockings again. 

She felt like a woman out of time, or at the very least, half a world away during the time period Mr. Blackquill seemed to have stepped out of.

Quietly, she got out her pad from her bag at her hip, and drew a smiling face and a waving hand to hold up at him. 

Simon smiled. His smile contrasted sharply with that of her guardian angel’s beatific one. Simon Blackquill’s smile was the keen edge of a knife on a moonless night– wicked and amused.

“Misham-dono, I presume,” he purred. “Welcome to my office. Would you care to join me for coffee?”

Vera thought for a moment, hugging her pad to her chest before she nodded and inched closer while looking for a place to sit opposite him.

She thought for a moment, and started to sketch again. 

There was a large, comfortable looking cushion set in front of him on the opposite side of the table.

“I can find us some chairs if you prefer,” he offered. ||

Vera shook her head, before she knelt down on the cushion before him on her knees. She held up her drawing of a hawk with wings outstretched and a question mark. 

He touched his chin thoughtfully and grinned. “Ah, you’re wondering about Taka. He’s become more famous than me, it seems.”

Blackquill whistled sharply and a dark shape descended like an arrow from high in the room. The prosecutor raised his arm, and Vera watched an enormous hawk alight on it, like he was the branch of a tree.

Vera gasped, her fingers covering her mouth as a delighted little sound escaped her lips.

“…cute.” 

“She’s very friendly,” he said, reaching up to pet the bird’s head, much to its seeming satisfaction. “Only eats a few fingers a week.”

He smiled that wicked, mischievous smile again, and his eyes sparkled.

Vera jolted briefly, but her dark and serious eyes stared into his. She finally smiled, and started to laugh quietly behind her hand .

“I…hope he’s had his fill. I need my fingers to work..” She gave him a tentative smile “sorry for my silence.” 

“Hah! Better that you think before you speak than speak before you think like so many idiots today, eh, girl?” He held his arm out for her, and Taka the hawk with it. “He’s had his fill for now. Your poor fingers will be spared if you chance to pet him.”

Her thin fingers reached out after dropping her pen on her lap to try and pet the hawk’s head with a thoughtful tilt of her head.

The bird made a soft noise, and his feathers ruffled as he leaned into her touch.

“He’s very, very pretty.” she murmured. “Besides, I don’t recommend eating any part of me. Too much poison.” 

“I’ll keep it in mind for when either of us gets a taste for human flesh.” He nodded very seriously. 

“Thank you, Mr. Blackquill.” She chuckled softly as she opened her pad on her lap again. “I hope this visit isn’t too much trouble for you..” 

“Not more trouble than the endless paperwork my slacking detective leaves on my desk,” Blackquill said wryly. He set Taka down on the table, and picked up the steaming kettle instead, pouring dark liquid into the two teacups beside it. “I’ll consider it a break– unless you really try my patience.”

Was he teasing her, or serious? It was impossible to tell.

“I used to be told that I could be a little…” she trailed off “…trying. So I’ll try to behave, sir.” 

He waved his hand. “Just be yourself. That’ll do the job.”

Blackquill pushed one of the cups of coffee toward her.

Eagerly, she took one of them and raised it with a quiet ‘thank you’. 

The dark, rich flavor of the coffee washed over her tongue without any sweeteners or embellishments. It was nutty, and fragrant, and Vera’s discerning nose and tongue picked up floral elements. A complex cup of coffee.

He raised his glass to her and sipped as well.

She made a quietly satisfied hum. 

“…this is quality coffee, Mr. Blackquill…” she tilted her head “floral…It doesn’t taste like something just picked up off the shelf.” 

“One of my fellow prosecutor’s special blends, in fact,” he nodded. “A man of discerning taste as much as I am. I’m quite impressed that you would notice.”

Vera flushed with a duck of her head. 

“My senses are pretty honed, sir. Thank you. I can pick up small details easy…it’s kind of why I was good at my ‘job’ .” 

“Ahh, so it’s not only your vision that’s so acute,” he nodded. “How do you feel about that, if I might ask?”

“It’s every sense..” she murmured. “a perfect forgery cannot be created if you just make it look the same. It has to feel the same– smell the same, sound the same– have all the right little flourishes…”

Her eyes grew distant, and Taka and Simon became a blur in her vision as her attention twisted back into the past.

“The smallest detail being left behind makes the work useless. Useless work doesn’t get us paid…and means bad men will come for me.” She tightened her fingers around the cup “…huh? About my senses? They’re…fine. Natural.”

“Ah,” Simon nodded. “So you say, but it sounds as though there’s something more complicated at work. Would it be right to say that you’ve been used, in the past, as a tool more than a person, Misham-dono?”

Vera frowned slightly and began to draw again with a thoughtful hum. 

“You are correct, yes. My father saw my talent for art and …” She frowned and fell silent for a long moment as she sketched furiously. 

He politely waited as she sketched, watching her quietly and sipping his coffee. Taka curiously clipped his way over the table to peer at what she was doing.

Vera smiled, charmed, at the bird before petting the top of his head and giving him a sneak preview, before she got back to it. 

“Tool. Tool is a good word for it. Machine, perhaps. A forgery with the veneer of a person.”

She held up the picture with a smile. It was a picture of her, younger, bent over the work table and a partially completed forgery with strings connecting her to a system of pulleys cranked by the paint speckled hand of Drew Misham.

“Machine.” 

Blackquill nodded solemnly. “When I was in prison, I came to know a man I later discovered had been treated very similarly. It did deep and lasting damage to his very soul.”

Vera’s eyes widened very slightly. 

“…to his soul?” she asked quietly, leaning forward. “…how did he heal from it?” 

“With great difficulty,” he said seriously. “And with help from those who cared for him. Who understood him and treated him as a person, rather than a tool. I hope that you have people in your life who treat you as a person, and not a tool, Misham-dono.”

Vera bit her lip. 

“I do. I have more than I had back then. Mr. Edgeworth treats me as a person…and Pearl is perhaps my best friend…and Trucy. Mr. Wright even if I don’t see him often…” Her voice dropped low “and ..and, well…”

Simon cocked his head. “Do tell. What you share with me won’t go beyond this room.”

She smiled weakly. 

“…the secret’s already out…but Kristoph and Klavier Gavin. I’ve been writing with Kristoph for two years now, and he’s only ever treated me like a person. Even when I was younger…he spoke to me about one of my few interests…and since my coma has been teaching me a lot about facing the world after what my father did.”

Her fingers brushed the edge of her mug as she took a sip. “and Klavier…we’ve only just started spending more time together after our…our occasional meetups had lapsed. But he treats me like a sist…he treats me well.” 

The edge of Simon’s lips quirked. “It sounds like you’re building quite the firm support network for yourself then. That’s good. Kristoph Gavin– I met him while I was in prison. His brother, of course, is my noisy neighbor now.”

Simon jerked his thumb in the direction of the other offices.

Vera laughed into her hand. 

“He is pretty loud huh? And he likes loud places…not my usual sort of thing, but he makes it fun.” She nibbled on the edge of her thumb “…you met Kristoph in prison? W-what did you think of him?” 

“I found him a very interesting man. An excellent conversationalist. A very different sort of character than the typical ruffians and louts with whom I was housed. A man of impeccable form,” Simon chuckled. “And to think, he had more homicides on his sheet than I. And how do you find him, Misham-dono?”

Vera brushed her hair over her ear with a quiet laugh. She looked down.

“I care about him very much, Simon. I won’t lie to you. He’s polite and kind as an angel. Intelligent and well spoken. He has a charisma I can’t shake. Yet when I was younger and even now, he’s happy to talk about things I loved without judgment. He’s– he’s impressive. And he’s taught me how to care for myself, how to assert what I want, and suggested becoming a detective, which I’m eager to do.”

She wound her fingers through her hair, twisting it around her fingertip, as she continued. but he’s also the devil. He has…he has a way with people. He’s done terrible things in the name of his personal sins, yet I can’t hate him for any of them. …after all, he killed my father, but it saved my soul.” 

She glanced up at Simon, whose dark eyes seemed to glint in the firelight.

“He killed your father, but it saved your soul,” he repeated. “A fascinating kind of devil’s bargain, as you describe him. Do you believe that some people deserve to die, Misham-dono?”

“Deserve is a strange word…” Vera murmured, looking down into her coffee “who am I to deem what’s deserved and what isn’t? I’m not Justitia.”

She set the coffee aside and began to draw again “…but some people, people like my father– like the people who hurt your friend– like the people Edgeworth shivers when he mentions the names of…”

She looked up at him mid stroke of her pen– “their lives come at the cost of someone else’s soul. As long as my papa lived free, I wouldn’t be anything but an automaton. And they, the rest, likely all had someone or someones of their own who’s souls are wounded like mine.”

She held up her drawing– a set of Justitia’s scales tipping very slightly. One one dish, the rough image of her father looming over herself as she hunkered over the table in chains. On the other, a figure meant to be her and Pearl under the LAPD Detective Division’s badge, with Vera smiling in the light. .

Drops fell from above from sketched fingers tilting a crystal bottle and weighed the scales in the favor of the latter.

“I can’t say who deserves to die, Prosecutor Blackquill. I can only say I won’t cry for my father’s death…and that sometimes when a person is taken through death or Justitia’s gavel…another life is saved.” 

Simon had listened quietly and attentively as she spoke and drew, his expression placid aside from his obvious, keen interest.

“That’s quite the nuanced answer, Misham-dono,” he nodded. “I applaud your consideration and self-reflection. The great state of California, of course, believes that some people do deserve to die, and that it is the court’s job to determine who those people are.”

The death penalty. That was what Simon Blackquill was speaking of. And she knew from her research that he had been subject to it– and very nearly had been executed by it.

“It’s not an easy thing.” Vera murmured as she looked down at her picture. “Everyone is human. Judges, Prosecutors, Defense. I was nearly executed for a crime I had no part in…the death of a man who destroyed me. I never even got to hear my verdict when the poison took me.”

Her hands shook on her lap. 

“I wish…” She cut herself off and laughed. “I…wow, I sounded cruel. Sor–”

She picked up her pad again, and sketched out on a new page a simple frowning face with a tear that she held up instead of finishing verbally. 

“Sometimes a cruel remark can be valuable, Misham-dono. What were you going to say?”

“I wish… I wish someone had taken me away when I was younger. I wish there was another way…I wish Mr. Gavin did anything except kill papa. But not for my father’s life– for Mr. Gavin. He threw away everything in that moment. If there was another way to save me, he wouldn’t be in this situation! Maybe he could have saved Trucy from her– her abandonment– without blood too and could be here now.”

Her fingers tensed against her pad as tears welled in her eyes “…I don’t know if I believe some people deserve to die. But…” She bit her lip. “I don’t want to go back to the darkness again. I want to be a person like you, like everyone else. My father’s death was a blessing. Don’t you think that’s cruel?” 

Simon pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, and he passed it to her. “I think that we can accept blessings, even if they’re cruel, perhaps. I understand your earnest wish.”

Vera took it from him with a pensive frown. “…..I suppose we can.”

She sighed and started to wipe at her eyes. 

“All I know is papa’s death allowed me to try and become a person. I’m not good at it…but his killer has always smiled at me and offered to help me find my way.” The paper crunched under her fingertips “is it wrong to love him for that? Or want to…I don’t know…repay him?” 

"Those of us whose lives are marked by death respond to it in sometimes strange ways,” Blackquill shrugged. “I can’t tell you what’s right or wrong. You say you love this man– your father’s killer. Is that right– yes or no?”

Vera twitched, but looked up at him with a firm conviction written on her face that matched the emotion burning inside her.

“Yes, Prosecutor Blackquill…t-though I ask if maybe you don’t tell anyone outside this room.” 

“You have my word,” he nodded. “How do you feel about those feelings? Do they make you perhaps confused? Ashamed? Proud? Defiant? Something else?”

Vera brushed her hair over her ear. 

““Warm…like they’re drawing me in. But I also– I also know that others won’t quite understand it, so I know I need to stay quiet. The less you say, the less they can use ag–” She grimaced, dismissing the old lie her father told her to isolate her further from the world. She took a deep breath. “I’m not ashamed, but I know some people may see it as some elaborate manipulation.” 

“You hesitate to be open with your feelings because you’re worried that people will question their validity. As if they would expect to know your own emotions better than you, yes?”

Vera grimaced. 

“Yes.” She wrung her hands together. “…I know how people can be. And I know to some, I hardly come across as a ‘whole person’.” 

“You’re worried they’ll see your feelings as a tool being manipulated, rather than a person experiencing and expressing their own desires. So you hold those feelings back.”

Vera sank a little lower. Simon Blackquill really was an expert. His analysis was like a knife she kept trying to dodge, failing each and every time.

“Yes sir.” 

“Do you think that doing so will make you less of a tool, and more of a person? If you hide your true feelings, and perform the role that you think others will expect?”

Vera looked up at him with a puzzled frown. 

“I don’t know, Mr. Blackquill.” she tore at the edge of her pad. “Pro..probably not…it’d just keep me as a tool.” 

“Then perhaps if what you want to be is a person, doing so isn’t the best course in the long term.” He smiled at her from across the table and sipped his coffee. “Misham-dono, I sense that you come from an environment where any disapproval had to be avoided at all costs, or suffer the consequences.”

Vera twitched again, and for a moment her father flashed through her mind once more. The criminal in meek clothing. The threats of the ‘outside world’ and kidnappers– the physical reprimands and nights without food or the few comforts that shack allowed.

“Hh…” she whispered softly, “huh-uh…y-yes.” 

Simon reached out and stroked Taka’s head. 

“Indeed. But you must become comfortable with the disapproval of others, Vera. It is absolutely vital to becoming a person, rather than a tool who shapeshifts into whatever is the safest identity in which to hide. In the world you came from, disapproval was anathema. But here, in this world, the world of people– if someone disapproves of you, you can simply separate yourself from them and live your life. And if someone harms you due to their disapproval– that is a crime. ”

Vera tightened around herself. 

“Oh.” She took several deep, nervous breaths as the advice sunk in “you..you sound like you’re speaking from e-experience. Or someone’s e-experience at least.”

She pulled her notepad to her chest with a bite of her lip “How do you get comfortable with their disapproval? I ..I mean, hiding it’s gone well until now, until they found the letters…” 

"The only way that you become comfortable with anything,” Blackquill smiled again, and toyed with a lock of his long hair. “You have to practice. There is actually a developmental stage that most people go through where they start to practice this that you have unfortunately missed, and must catch up on. The so-called ‘teenage rebellion’ phase. You must do small things that you know people will disapprove of– in order to test boundaries and learn to draw boundaries of your own.”

“Oh.” Vera chewed on her lip. 

“…alright uh..” Her brow furrowed in thought. “Uhhh…will I get in actual trouble if I send a slightly more ah…romantic? Letter to Mr. Gavin? Will the prison withhold it?” 

“Speaking as a former resident of the same fine clink in which Kristoph Gavin now sits, I can assure you in good faith that you will not get in trouble, and the prison will not withhold it. I often conversed with a number of prisoners who were quite proud of forcing the staff to read through lurid and graphic fantasies which they shared with their partners outside.” Simon’s sword-curve grin reappeared, nasty and amused. “So long as you suggest nothing that is illegal– they’ll pass it right along.”

Vera turned a vivid red. 

“Alright. I…ah.” she cleared her throat “that’ll be one of my first acts of ‘rebellion’. I’m certain it’ll surprise him…” She put her hand to her chin in thought “…and maybe I’ll dress a little less…less plainly too? This is my most ‘exciting’ outfit but most of the rest is…is what I was told was ‘popular and average’ “ 

“An expressive method of dress is often considered a good method of rebellion,” Simon nodded in approval. “As you can see, I never quite removed myself from that phase.”

Vera put her hand on her cheek with an amused smile “I think it looks good on you…why should you bother not looking the way you w-want, right?” 

“Indeed. I’m lucky in a way. I cared little about the disapproval of others before my imprisonment– and I care even less now. I am perhaps a good example for you, and others like you.” He chuckled, as if in a private joke. “You asked me, when we began this part of our conversation– if the feelings you have for Gavin-dono are ‘wrong’. This I tell you in all honesty, Vera– no feeling you have is ever wrong, as long as it is true and honest. You can take the wrong action in response to a feeling. But the feeling itself is never wrong.”

She placed her hand to her chest thoughtfully, feeling the beat of her heart. 

“I see… You’re a very smart man, Mr. Blackquill…I..” she bit her lip. “I promise my feelings are genuine and honest…so knowing it’s not wrong helps a lot.”

She looked up at him with a smile “..I’ll be around the prosecutor’s office a lot more in a few months. So maybe you’ll see me looking up to your example.” 

“I’ll be pleased to see you flourish, Misham-dono.” He drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the table. “You’re becoming a detective, isn’t that right? And hoping to be the loyal watchdog of your imprisoned darling.”

Vera flushed, brushing her hair over her ear with a timid nod.

“Yes.” she whispered with a happy smile as she finally picked up her coffee again “…I’m entering the academy tomorrow. At…at first it was so I could be in a position to do some good with my talents on the other side of the law…and to establish a life where I could feel confident in myself.”

She tilted her head to the side “…while looking for any evidence that could stay the executioner if they ever finalized his death date– but hearing this, getting the chance to be by his side helping him directly when he prosecutes…” 

Simon leaned his chin on his hands and looked at her mischievously. “When you put it like that, it sounds quite romantic.”

She sipped her coffee with one eye open and a note of the impishness she felt with Klavier leaking into her expression.

“I think that’s what was worrying poor Mr. Edgeworth at first…because I…I think it’s very romantic.” 

“Well, if, in a few months time, you achieve your goal, and find that you need to manufacture some, shall we say, private moment with your charge– I may have a few tips for you." 

Simon;s grin was wide, and mischievous. Vera had to wonder if Mr. Edgeworth would have sent her to talk to him if he had known thai would be his advice.

Vera turned a deep red, her hand over her mouth as her joy practically sparkled behind her dark eyes. 

“…in a few months time, I may take you up on that, Mr. Blackquill…I’ve never been one to say no to a little extra wisdom.”