Chapter Text
Kristoph was dead.
That’s all that was going through Klavier’s head as he sat alone in his apartment. He’d gone down to the jail to see it through, despite everyone, everyone, telling him it wasn’t worth it. But of course he went anyway.
His first visit to Kristoph in prison, which was supposed to be the only visit, ended up being several hours of them shouting at each other. Klavier couldn’t even remember who started it, but he did remember what he said to his brother before leaving.
Rot in hell, I don’t ever want to see you again.
Kristoph’s face fell, just twitched really, but enough to know the words struck home when Klavier said that. He didn’t feel guilty right away, he rode the high of what he had said, what he had done, through the rest of the night.
Apollo was proud of him.
Phoenix took everyone out for drinks that night. Even though he never said it outright, Klavier knew it was for him, for cutting Kristoph out of his life. At the end of the night Phoenix had pulled him aside.
I want you to know that you are a strong person.
He was a strong person. He was a good person. He was worthy of admiration for putting it all behind him.
He was a fraud.
It took less than twenty four hours to regret those words. Less than seventy two for him to go back.
He wasn’t even strong enough to admit that. As far as anyone else knew, he had only visited Kristoph once before the execution.
He just couldn’t have that be the last thing he said to his brother.
So he visited Kristoph again.
The second visit only lasted fifteen minutes, he said he was sorry, and he tried to have a more dignified goodbye. The words this is the last time echoed through his brain, louder and louder until they drowned out all other thoughts. He didn’t press Kristoph on why he had killed, why he had gotten Phoenix disbarred or most importantly why he had lied to Klavier, why he had used him. At the end Klavier had gotten up from his chair, looked his brother in the eye and just said, “Goodbye, Kristoph” before walking out.
It was a better thing to say, a simple and better way to part terms with his brother.
As he laid in his bed that night, unable to sleep, he knew he had to go back. He couldn’t let his brother get away with not telling him why he had done everything. Why he had really done everything. But he wasn’t about to rush back to the prison, he left his brother alone for a full month before caving. Just long enough for Kristoph to really worry he wouldn’t come back.
When Klavier saw him again, he caught the flicker of relief in Kristoph’s eyes. There was a shameful spark of joy in his heart when Kristoph betrayed that he had been worried. Good, he’d thought, It’s the least he deserves.
He had pressed his brother on the why of everything, and (in hindsight) of course Kristoph got too upset to answer. After thirty minutes of running in circles, Klavier got up, said goodbye and left.
After two weeks of waiting and thinking, he went back. Yet another hour of verbal sparring that left him with no answers.
He realized that night that there would be far more than just two or three extra visits to his brother if he really wanted answers. He weighed the idea in his head. Did the possibility of answers really outweigh the reality that he should just leave this all in the dust?
Of course it did. A week and a half later, he was back to do the same dance again.
And again four weeks after that.
And again a week after that.
And he was back the next week. A major blow up, he kept his cool and promised himself he would not come back.
He only lasted three days before he crawled back.
And he came in again two weeks later.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Kristoph stopped giving his prodding the dignity of a verbal response. But he visited again the very next day.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And one of those visits he realized almost ten months had passed since the first visit and he had gotten nowhere. Klavier seriously considered if it was time to give up. He let the visits stop for the longest they ever would, for three months.
Then something unexpected happened.
He found out while at work that the government was putting a hold on all pending executions as the courts reexamined the need for the death penalty. He also learned that even if the courts decided to keep the death penalty, all current death row prisoners would be reevaluated to decide if they should remain on death row or if their punishment would stop at a life sentence.
When Klavier walked into the prison that evening, he felt as though he were on the precipice of something life altering. For the first time in over a year he felt actually excited to talk to his brother.
As the guards escorted Kristoph into the visiting room, Klavier found himself consciously noticing the changes in his brother’s appearance. His hair was down, it had been ever since his trial, and it had lost the luster it once held. In fact it was bordering on messy, as if his brother only bothered to comb his fingers through it. This unkemptness extended to the rest of his appearance, his nails were unmanicured with traces of grime under a few of them. His prison uniform was wrinkled. Klavier couldn’t be sure if his brother’s appearance was solely because his friends on the outside had stopped providing him with the equipment to groom himself to the extent he could before, or if his brother had just stopped caring. Maybe it was a bit of both.
His brother sat across from him with a mostly bored expression, although he couldn’t hide the glint of satisfaction in his eyes that he always had when Klavier visited. As always, he waited for Klavier to make the first move. Never play an offensive game when defense is an option. Unfortunately, Klavier never had the luxury.
“Hello Kristoph,” he kept his voice even, no need to show his hand early, let Kristoph think this is just another visit.
“Klavier, always a pleasure,” there was just a hint of mocking in that voice. Klavier pushed down thoughts of pummeling Kristoph right then and there.
“I hope you’re doing well,” Kristoph actually chuckled when he heard that.
“Given the circumstances, I could be far worse.” He twirled a limp piece of hair between his fingers. Klavier let out a half hearted laugh.
“And you still have your good humor.” Kristoph smiled a thin lipped grin and shrugged.
“And how are you? I hope the public has been treating you well.” Liar.
“Ja, it’s treating me fine.” Liar, the public was incapable of just being fine, he’d gotten several letters from fans and critics alike prying into his relationship with Kristoph, some going so far as to insinuate that he knew what Kristoph was up to. One straight up accused him of actively being an accomplice to Kristoph’s crimes. He’d stopped reading fan mail after that.
And they’d come to the wall, the end of civility and the usual beginning of their outwardly
aggressive back and forth. But not today.
“I heard something at the prosecutors offices today.” he kept his voice as flat as possible.
“What? A new addition to the staff? No no, you wouldn’t bother with that. Did our dear Chief Prosecutor finally propose? I’d send my love, but I don’t think Wright would accept it.” Kristoph answered sardonically.
“If only,” Klavier sighed. “It’s something you’ll actually care about.”
“Oh, did someone die? Ah, no, it’d be on the news instead of around the water cooler if I was that lucky,” Klavier could never tell if Kristoph was joking when death was involved. He used to be able to laugh a comment like that off, but that was before he knew his brother was a murderer, even willing to kill a little girl.
“In your dreams, it actually has to do with you.” Kristoph’s eyes darkened when he heard that.
“Why would they be talking about me? Don’t tease me, I know I’m not getting acquitted.” His voice was low, devoid of the previous teasing humor.
“Almost, and it didn’t just have to do with you. Your new roommates were also involved.” Klavier teased, his heart hammering in his chest.
“That could mean almost anything and you know it, are we going to dance around the answer until I guess it at random, or are you willing to spare us the tedium and just spit it out?” Kristoph sneered.
“You mean spare you, I’m having a great time.” Klavier mocked.
“Klavier…” Another low growl, not that Klavier cared.
“Oh alright, just because it’s you.” Klavier teased, then leaned back in his chair so he had a better view of the clock. Kristoph fumed.
“Well? Are you going to tell me?”
“In five minutes.”
“Why?!” Kristoph looked as though he might burst a blood vessel.
“Consider it payback for not answering any of my questions on these visits.” Kristoph sighed, his face returning to its normal color.
They sat in silence for a minute.
“Would you like to play cards when I visit you again?” Klavier asked, already bored of his own waiting game.
“If it prevents this nonsense from happening again, what game?” Kristoph relented.
“Poker?” Klavier smirked over the table. Kristoph wrinkled his nose.
“Anything but that.” Klavier grinned.
“UNO it is.”
“Not that.” Kristoph protested.
“You said anything.” It was like they were kids again, bickering like this, it felt almost normal, almost.
“It’s a horrible game in general, especially for two people.”
“Well you’ll just have to live with it, no take backsies.” Kristoph scoffed.
“Take backsies? What are you nine?”
“I’m the keeper of the cards and what I say goes.”
“Ugh, you’re impossible.”
“Hey Kristoph.” Klavier whispered, as though sharing a secret.
“What?” Kristoph muttered back, humoring him.
“You wanna hear something that’ll make you cheer up?”
“What now?”
“Your five minutes are up.” Kristoph raised an eyebrow.
“That was three minutes max.”
“Oh, do you want to sit in silence for another two minutes?”
“No, no, I’ll bite, what did you hear at work today?”
“They’re reconsidering the death penalty.”
Kristoph didn’t answer for a long time, he was frozen in place, as though the idea was so alien he could no longer function in a world where it was true.
“Of course they are,” he shook his head as he broke the silence. “After they started letting peasants in, more asinine changes were sure to follow.”
“This asinine change could let you live,” Klavier insisted.
“Klavier, I wouldn’t call this,” Kristoph gestured around at the prison. “Living.”
“It could be,” Klavier said. Kristoph let out an uncharacteristic snort.
“You cannot be serious,” he said. “And why would this be good news for you?”
“Because I love you Kris,” it had been so long since he’d last said that, Kristoph actually looked shocked at his answer.
Klavier didn’t give him a chance to respond, and walked out of the visiting room.
He let the tension sit for a week before going back, an Uno deck in his pocket. They didn’t play during that visit. They barely even spoke. Kristoph made the first move, and it was the only move. He laid his head down on the table, took Klavier’s hands in his and said, softly yet clearly, “I love you too Klavi,” Klavier rested his head on the table next to his brother and they stayed like that for nearly an hour, before Klavier had to leave.
He visited again the next week, and kicked Kristoph’s ass at Uno, winning twenty of the twenty two games they played.
They fell into a weekly routine, they played Uno and talked. Kristoph gradually got better at the game. Klavier didn’t push too hard on any of the sore spots, he didn’t feel any urgency in uncovering Kristoph’s hidden depths. They had the world for the eight months the upper courts were debating the death penalty, and for a while it looked like they were going to do away with it.
Then the flow of the debate shifted. A horrible crime was committed, a bus driver who had snapped and killed twenty people on his route. The bus driver came up again and again in conversation. The public didn’t think just a life sentence was justice. As much as they denied it the upper courts were capable of being swayed by public opinion. It was decided that the death penalty was still necessary.
There was still hope. Klavier talked to a few members of the upper court about his brother, how a life sentence was enough punishment, how Kristoph had not acted out since his imprisonment. They promised that they would take his concerns into consideration
It was a brutal last two months of the eight month debates before the upper courts came out with their final decision on which death sentences would be upheld. The bus driver was of course included. Klavier waited, listening in on the sentencing as it happened.
The one who read the sentences off to the court was one of the people he had spoken to. For a death penalty to remain, it would need a unanimous vote from the upper court, which included the speaker. Klavier could have strangled him when he read out Kristoph’s name and his upheld death sentence. In that instant, he understood the impulse that drove men to kill. He seethed as he looked at that traitor who had looked at him with such pity as he explained his brother’s situation only to cast him into the flames when it was most important. He wanted the fear in his eyes, the gasping, the blood.
He walked out of the courthouse in tears. Visited Kristoph that night, sobbed as his brother stroked his hair and said this was the only way that the whole affair was ever going to end. Klavier didn’t mention how Kristoph had started putting more effort into caring for himself as they waited for the doomed case to be decided. It didn’t really matter.
And he realized that night that he only had three months left with his brother alive.
All of his reluctance was gone after that night.
The jail had three visiting days a week. Klavier went to every single one.
It didn’t matter what was offered, on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays he was with Kristoph while he still could be.
Too quickly, it was the Monday before Kristoph’s execution, his last visiting hour before he was moved to the death house.
Klavier’s friends had been gingerly bringing up Kristoph’s reinstated death sentence, trying to steer him away from visiting. Apollo said, You don’t owe him your presence, you haven’t visited him in almost two years, he won’t be expecting you. Klavier almost confessed, he could have laughed. Of course he was spending Kristoph’s last day with him. He’d filed the paperwork months ago.
They were playing Uno, and Kristoph had actually beaten him twelve to ten. As the clock ticked closer to lights out, Klavier’s heart was growing faster and faster. Kristoph broke the tension.
“It’s a big day on Thursday,” he said as if it were a joke. “Are you coming?” Klavier remembered, way back when he had his first live show asking almost the same thing to Kristoph. The ‘I’m scared’ had lingered unspoken in the air then and now.
He answered, just as Kristoph had. “Of course I’ll be there.”
He left work early on Wednesday. Having pulled a few strings, he was allowed to stay in the death house overnight. As he walked to his brother’s cell, it was almost as if he were the one walking to his grave.
A guard watched from the corner of the room.
Kristoph looked half alive and Klavier wanted to bash in the head of every guard in that prison as he looked into those hollow gray eyes. His head was shaved, glasses crooked on his nose and Klavier noticed how thin prison had made him. The nonchalance his brother had kept up all his time in prison was gone, maybe it had just been another one of his brother’s lies. Maybe everything became real when he stepped into the death house. Maybe Kristoph didn’t see much of a point in lying at this point. And he had let down his walls and let the world see how small he had become.
Klavier couldn’t find the words. Neither could Kristoph.
Night came quickly and Klavier dozed off.
He woke from a whisper across the room.
“Klavi,” he opened his eyes and saw Kristoph, on his knees, face bathed in moonlight. Klavier rubbed his eyes, the guard in the corner had dozed off as well. He walked over to his brother.
“What Krissi?” he whispered back, and it felt like he was a little kid crawling into his big brother’s room.
“I’ve been thinking,” those eyes had a bit of life in them. “About what you asked me the first time you visited.”
“Why you did it?” Klavier asked, glancing at the still sleeping guard. Kristoph nodded.
“I never told you because I couldn’t tell myself,” Klavier scanned his brother’s face for any sign of insincerity, but he found none. And that was almost worse. “I kept telling myself that I was just an evil thing after they caught me, and before they caught me, I told myself that it was a necessary sacrifice. I realized my own envy after the Misham trial, my shame, my want to cover my trail, but I just didn’t want to say it out loud.”
“Why?” Klavier leaned against the bars.
“It just felt so childish, for that to be the reason, and to tell anyone, you most of all would’ve just been humiliating, I’ve rather been a demon than a child,” Kristoph admitted.
“And the other question?” Klavier asked. Kristoph raised his eyebrows in question. “Why did you use me to do your dirty work? Why did you forge evidence when you were going up against me?” Kristoph looked forlorn.
“I forged the diary page as an insurance, just in case I didn’t have enough to beat you fairly, and I used you to hurt Wright because it was the easiest way, you were the only person in the world who wouldn’t have questioned my knowledge.”
“Why did you need to win?” Kristoph grimaced.
“Such a childish reason,” he looked as though he were in pain. “I thought that if you won you wouldn’t have needed me anymore and you would have left.”
“I didn’t stay because I needed you,” Klavier insisted. “I stayed because I loved you.” Kristoph laughed.
“I know that now, now that you’ve come back again and again when I have nothing to give,” He frowned. “Nothing except information, I realized everything months ago, but I didn’t tell you, because I needed you to stay with me, I needed you to be here,” he looked at Klavier with an intensity that did not suit his weakened form. “You can leave now, if you want to, now that you have what you’re after.” Klavier laughed bitterly.
“You are a horrible child,” he said with too little bite. “I love you, you idiot, and I’m not leaving you now.” Kristoph smiled a small hopeless smile.
They sat in silence for a long while.
“You know,” Kristoph whispered. “I don’t think I ever told you what I thought when I first saw you.”
“What?” Klavier asked, he knew that Kristoph had no reason to lie at this point.
“Mother and father brought you home late,” Kristoph began wistfully. “I was supposed to be asleep, but I just couldn’t get myself to close my eyes.” Klavier leaned his head against the bars. “I waited until they were asleep before crawling out of my room,” Klavier chuckled, he remembered having to crawl on hand and knees to avoid waking their parents. “I saw you in your crib, your eyes were open, and for that one night, they were as dark as the midnight sky, and I loved you all at once, for the first time it I felt like I loved someone,” Kristoph pushed off of the bars and looked up at Klavier. “The first time I saw you was through the bars of your crib, and it just seems funny now, seeing you for the last time.” Klavier looked into his eyes and saw the tears building at the corners. Kristoph reached out his hand. “I remember reaching through the bars that night and you-” Klavier got the idea and entwined his fingers with Kristoph’s. “You were just so tiny, and I knew you loved me back, just from that,” The tears flowed down his cheeks. “To think I ruined the only good thing the world ever gave me.”
Klavier pressed his face between the bars. “I’m still here,” Kristoph laughed through the tears.
“I wish I had been better now,” he choked out. “I wish I had loved life half this much ten years ago, I wish it hadn’t taken death to make me want to live, I wish I had been better to you.” Kristoph swallowed. “There’s only one thing I need to say.”
“And what is that?”
Kristoph kissed his forehead. “I love you Klavier, despite everything I am I never stopped loving you.”
“I never stopped loving you either.”
And it was time.
Kristoph just shook his head when asked for last words.
And it was over.
Klavier lay in his dark apartment, and he cried, and ignored the calls to his phone. He just couldn’t, he just couldn’t right now.