The Sibling Bond
Chapter 1
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters and cases from Ace Attorney. All credits go to Capcom, they own the rights to everything. This mini-fic is my own creation, tying in to my multi-chapter fic Love is Like Atroquinine (known as LILA by my followers and myself). Ava is my OC, created for LILA.
I've only had this idea for a week or so. I thought it would be an interesting backstory since I personally think there is more to everything in Turnabout Serenade. As much as I want to believe Daryan was being entirely selfless, I believe there is another reason that he did what he did (not saying what happens in Turnabout Serenade just to be safe, because I don't want to be getting messages from people saying I spoiled the case for them).
Reviewing is what keeps me motivated. Review if you love it, review if you hate it. If you love it, tell me what I'm doing right. If you hate it, then tell me where I can improve. Either way, I want and need to hear from people about this and/or Love is Like Atroquinine so I can keep going strong.
Ava texted her brother to find out if his return flight made it in safely. She was sitting in the passenger pick up parking lot. Daryan was due back from Europe, and his flight was landing any minute now. Five minutes later, her phone beeped with an incoming message. Daryan answered that he was in the terminal picking up his suitcase. He would be out in 10 minutes, granted that he didn't get stopped for autographs by fangirls again.
Ava emitted a chime-like laugh at the thought of her brother getting surrounded by a hoard of screaming fangirls. It was amazing the success the Gavinner's had had over the past seven years, and their status as rock icons only continued to grow.
Ava was glad her brother had managed to stay grounded throughout the whole experience. Back when Daryan and Klavier first formed the band, she would admit that he got a little full of himself, which was to be expected. She would have been surprised if he hadn't developed a cocky attitude once the band took off. But he certainly matured as he grew older, and at 25, he had a good head on his shoulders. He knew right from wrong and was passionate about his law enforcement job. Like the other members of the Gavinner's, Daryan was determined the help rid the world of crime, one wrongdoer at a time.
Ava listened to the radio while she waited for Daryan to find her car, and right then the latest Gavinner's single, Guilty Love, came on. Guilty Love was one of Ava's favorite songs. She turned the music up and listened to her brother skillfully play the guitar and sing along with Klavier Gavin, the lead vocalist. She hummed along with the melody. She rarely sang out loud, considering she was rather tone-deaf. It made the fact at how musically adept Daryan was more ironic.
People often wondered how they were even related. They looked nothing like either other, neither of them looked like either of their parents, and they were quite opposite of each other personality and goal-orientation wise.
Daryan had straight as a pin, black as night hair that he styled in a peculiar manner. Everyone who came across her brother compared him to a shark, since he wore an ocean blue jacket wherever he went. Ava had chestnut brown, almost dirty-blonde hair, that was incredibly wavy, and some days downright curly. Daryan was well over six feet tall, and Ava barely capped off at five feet eight inches. She was barely tall enough to make it in her line of work. Typically models would be over five feet ten inches, but she squeaked by as 'The Midget Model', as her friends affectionately called her. While Daryan tended to dress in a rather eccentric manner, keeping with the image of the band, Ava tended to dress rather subdued and conservatively when she wasn't working. She occasionally stepped it up a notch and went out looking stylish and put together, but most of the time she elected comfort over image. Daryan tended to be mild-mannered a lot of the time, but he was known to have a temper when something or someone angered. He even scared his sister sometimes when he got angry and went off on a rant. Ava was mild-mannered all the time. Daryan probably couldn't think of a single instance where his sister actually had an outburst. While Daryan was never an excellent student, Ava graduated from college with honors with a degree in psychology. Ava lasted a year in the profession before an agent discovered her and whisked her away to San Francisco to begin a career in modeling with the occasional acting job. Daryan, being used to performing on stage in front of thousands of fans, was very comfortable in social settings, whereas Ava preferred more quiet endeavors than over-the-top rock star parties that the Gavinner's often threw.
The siblings couldn't be more unlike each other, but they also couldn't be closer. Neither of the pair talked to their mother and father much. Both their parents were professors at Harvard, and had wanted the children to follow in their footsteps and earn college degrees from an Ivy League school. But Daryan started the band with Klavier right after he graduated high school, and never set foot at a college. Ava graduated, but was doing absolutely nothing with her degree. It was simply a wall decoration in her San Francisco apartment. Both of their parents consistently vocalized their disappointment of their children's choices in life, and were always encouraging them to 'do something better with their lives.' While they did support Daryan's ambitions with the Gavinner's and Ava's modeling career, if it had been up to Joseph and Stephanie Crescend, both of their children would be working towards their Master's degrees and becoming partners at a practice by now.
Daryan knocked on the passenger window of Ava's sedan. She met his eye, then reached down on the side to pop the trunk. Daryan gave her a thumbs up and stowed his luggage before joining his older sister. She leaned over to hug her little brother and gave his an extra long squeeze. Daryan had been in Europe touring for two months now, and she hadn't seem him since before he left. They talked on the phone several times a week, but she missed her brother's company. He was one of her best friends. She had her own friends that she met from college and through modeling, but she wasn't as close to anyone as she was to her brother.
"So how was the tour? Everything went well I assume?" Daryan nodded as they pulled onto the highway, away from Los Angeles International Airport. "Yeah, it was fine. Sold out every single show. Klavier and I worked on a new single while we were over there. We'll probably start shooting the video for it soon. You want to work on another one?" Ava nodded. "Sure. Things have been pretty slow for me lately, and I could use the money. Any chance you could give me a sneak peek at the new song?" Daryan shook his head. "Sorry, Ava. Klavier swore me to secrecy about it until we get into the studio this week. But trust me, it's gonna freaking rock!" Daryan broke into an air guitar solo and Ava laughed.
A half hour later they arrived at Daryan's penthouse apartment in Beverly Hills. The parking lot attendants took Daryan's luggage up for him and the valet parked Ava's car for her. They walked up to the lobby and took the elevator to Daryan's apartment. Ava and Daryan sat down in the living room and caught each other up to what they had been up to the past two months. Daryan told her about the latest exploits him and the other rockers got up to over in Europe, and Ava told him about her latest modeling jobs and her newest relationship. She just started dating an old college friend, Alexander.
Daryan remembered him. It had been several years since he had seen the guy, and made Ava promised that she would bring him around so Daryan could give his brother seal of approval.
He was very protective of his older sister. He had watched her get her heart broken a couple times before and was cautious of who she dated. Most of the time she had decent taste in men, but would occasionally dig up someone who Daryan wasn't thrilled about, and would tell Ava when he thought that.
He even had to literally protect his sister once from a boyfriend that got violent when she tried to break up with him. The boyfriend came by her house late at night and engaged her in a screaming match about the break-up. She called Daryan when the boyfriend got there and he rushed up north to make sure his sister was alright. Ava had manged to get the guy to leave, but he came back a couple hours later for another round of shouting. The second time he came back, he was very drunk and even more violent than the first time he was there. The boyfriend actually gave Daryan a black eye from a sucker punch when Daryan tried to get the guy out of Ava's apartment. That was when she started telling him about any new relationships so he could give her his approval or disproval. She valued his opinion about everything, because if he didn't approve of someone or something, then she trusted his judgement and listened to him.
Daryan, on the other hand, being a rock icon and notorious womanizer, rarely had an actual relationship with a woman. Most of the time, he entertained himself with groupies who followed the band from show to show up and down the West Coast. Ava disproved of her brother's lack of any steady relationship, but it was his life, and also his loss. She sometimes prodded and encouraged him to try and find a reliable girlfriend, but he kept jokingly putting her off, saying "Eh, maybe once the band slows down." She would roll her eyes and counter with "At the rate you guys are going, you'll be big for another ten years, if not longer." That was one of their running jokes.
Daryan gave Ava the details of the video shoot that would be starting in several days. He told her what studio it would be at, and what time they would need her. Ava often appeared in music videos for the Gavinner's. It was actually one of her more steady modeling jobs. She would be a backup dancer in the videos, occasionally even at shows when she was free and they needed someone.
Ava was lucky that they were able to help each other out with their respective jobs more often than not. Ava wasn't a top model yet, but making appearances with the Gavinner's frequently was improving her star quality and gaining her notoriety in the acting and modeling world. On the flip side, Ava was the bands model/dancer of choice whenever they were doing music videos or promotional shoots for whatever single they were debuting at the time. So they always had an easy first pick when they were looking for actresses.
The siblings chatted for another hour before Daryan called to order take-out from their favorite restaurant. Ava more often than not avoided take-out, needing to constantly watch her figure, but whenever her and her brother got together, she would splurge and get whatever she wanted. The delivery guy on the other line said the pizza would take about 30 minutes.
Daryan and Ava's parents took them to the same pizza place every Saturday night when they were little. The parlor boasted the ability to make a wide range of custom pizzas, and it also had a play-place for kids. Daryan and Ava looked forward to playing in the ball pit and climbing through the indoor jungle gym every week, and they'd count down the days until they got to go back. They stopped going when they got too big for the play area. But once they got older and started living on their own, it became a sibling tradition to always eat from that same place.
It was one of the happier memories from their childhood.
As soon as Ava and Daryan began high school, their parents became relentless about pushing their studies and pushing them towards college. It became mentally exhausting because of the long hours their parents forced them to study each day. Ava didn't have many problems in school, but Daryan struggled with math, and that was where his temper started to occur more frequently, because math was the subject their parents pushed the most. He had to hide his guitar playing a lot, because their parents didn't approve of his preference to musical activities, such as practicing with Klavier at his house. By Daryan's junior year of high school, he was more focused on his guitar skills and starting a band with Klavier. He continued with his studies enough to keep his parents off his case and unsuspecting of what he was really up to most of the time. Ava was privy to her brother's true ambitions, but kept it between them. Daryan asked Ava not to rat him out to their parents, and she gave him her word.
The Crescend's forced Ava to apply to over a dozen colleges, and did the same to Daryan once he graduated. Ava got accepted to every college she applied to, and eventually selected Stanford. Daryan actually went behind his parents back, never responded to any of the acceptance letters he received, and went on a month long trip with Klavier. He told his parents that they were scouring college campuses, but were actually going across the West Coast to find a bassist, drummer, and another guitarist. When they came back, Daryan broke the news to his parents that he wasn't going to college and was going to tour with the Gavinner's instead. His parents were shocked and disgusted that their son turned his back on everything that they put toward his education to throw it away on some 'adolescent rock star fantasy'. They refused to speak to him for over a year and basically disinherited him.
Ava was his only connection to the family, and his biggest source of support. She encouraged him no matter what he did. During her summer vacations, Ava would travel around the country to see him play all kinds of venues. She was his rock during the whirlwind that was the first few years of the Gavinner's success. They relied on each other so much, it only solidified their sibling bond as they grew older and matured even more.
Once the pizza arrived, they dug into the greasy mess of cheese and dough and reminisced about all the times they had playing at the pizza place. They both laughed at remembering the fights in the ball pits, racing around the jungle gym, and playing skee-ball with tokens their parents bought. Just being young and having fun before academics became their forced number one priority.
Ava glanced at her watch and saw it was pushing three thirty in the afternoon. She had to do two miles on the treadmill and thirty minutes of yoga before she went to bed. And that was after she drove home to San Francisco, which was about five hours away. Normally Daryan would just leave a car at the airport so he could drive himself home when he returned, but since he was gone for over two months, Ava had seen him off to the airport and picked him up. Daryan told her it wasn't necessary for her to drive up all that way and get him, but she insisted. She wanted to see him. Phone calls only went so far when you were separated for a long period of time.
Daryan walked his sister down to the parking lot and motioned for the valet to retrieve her sedan. While they were waiting, Ava promised to see him later on that week for the video shoot. He gave his sister another hug before she got into her car and drove away. She promised to ring him when she made it home safely.
Daryan had missed his sister. He never really told the other Gavinner's just how close him and Ava were. He had to keep up the tough-as-nails image, and knowing how the other guys were, he'd endure constant ribbing about talking to and hanging with his sister on a regular basis.
Daryan, to this day, rarely talked to his parents, especially with the band still being popular and his focusing his sole attention the Gavinner's success . There was a period during tours that Daryan would return home, and reconcile with his parents for the little time he was there. But as soon as he would leave again to go off somewhere else with the band, his parent's stubborn attitude would return and they would basically refuse to acknowledge him.
It was rough on Daryan, seeing his older sister being the golden child with the Crescend's impossibly high standards. Ava excelled at everything she did, and although he never resented her in the least for it, it still stung that his parents never fully supported his love of music and being a part of the Gavinner's, even after seven years.
But at the same time, it was taxing on Ava to keep up with the incredibly high expectations that their parents had placed on her once Daryan started to become more rebellious. Her parents expected nothing less than perfection from her. Daryan was her refuge from the hovering eye of their mother and father. She would hide out in his room, they'd lock the door so they could get a couple hours away from their parents.
The two siblings provided each other with the escape, relief, encouragement, and company that the other so desperately needed. Even now that they were in their late twenties, they still relied on each other the same way they did when they were seventeen.
Ava didn't know what she'd do if she ever lost her brother.
Author's Notes: Like I said up at the top, please review! Well the first section of the mini-fic is complete. Took a bit of time to get this right. I felt it was important to highlight how much Ava and Daryan have relied on each other through the course of their lives. I have a feeling people will think Daryan is slightly OOC, but I believe that he'd act differently around his sister than he would if he was goofing around with Gavinner's so I felt I did alright. Anybody agree or disagree? Obviously he's going to go to the Daryan we know once we get to the time of Turnabout Serenade. I already have this planned out with how everything will play out (since it's tying in to Love is Like Atroquinine) but if something thinks I could do something to improve the future chapters, either review here or shoot me a PM. (^_^)