Too Little, Too Late
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters or cases from Ace Attorney. All credits go to Capcom, they own the rights to everything. This one-shot was written in response to a challenge posted on the Phoenix Wright FanFiction archive, that I accepted.
Daryan stirred from his state of sleep and opened his eyes, realizing he was awake.
"Ah, son of a bitch.." Daryan rolled over and cussed that he was awake yet again. He'd been suffering from insomnia the past few months, and nowadays he'd take any rest he could get. But whenever he could sleep, he was often cursed with waking up frequently and having an ever wandering mind.
It had been a year since Daryan had been incarcerated after the trial of Machi Tobaye, and it had been a lonely year. Though Daryan wasn't in solitary confinement, he still had a cell to himself. He guessed the warden thought he wouldn't want a cellmate, being who he was.
Daryan Cresend. Former Interpol agent. Former member of the Gavinners. And now he was Daryan Crescend, inmate #46712, incarcerated on the charges of murder in the first degree and international smuggling of a Borginian cocoon. Sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Daryan was 26 now, and it was going to be a long life. Fifty plus years was a long time to spend on the bleak inside of the state penitentiary, seeing nothing but the inside of a prison yard and the gray walls of his cell.
Gray. Nothing but gray wherever he went.
It wasn't supposed to go like this. LeTouse wasn't supposed to die. No one was to be suspected of anything. But LeTouse did die, and Machi was the prime suspect in what was a nationwide coverage trial. And when Lamiroir pointed an accusatory finger at Daryan, the case exploded. A member of the Gavinners, a new suspect in the trial.
Daryan remembered the day the singer accused him of being the last person she heard speaking to her manager during the ill-fated concert. His heart had started pounding and he'd had to consciously work to keep a straight face, even though he'd wanted to storm from the witness bench to scream and curse in fear.
And the following day, when Klavier ordered him to lay low and leave the case alone, Daryan had a feeling something bad was going to happen. He'd had a feeling he hadn't hidden that evidence well enough. That just pushing it under the sofa wasn't good enough. Not being able to supervise the crime scene himself was one thing that didn't help. But him not disposing of the firecrackers was his own fault.
That was just stupidity on his part. That one piece of evidence is what gave Apollo Justice the evidence and the conviction to prove that Daryan was in fact the murderer of Romain LeTouse. He knew that detective of Klavier's wasn't stupid enough to not check every nook and cranny of the dressing room, looking for any shred of evidence. It was just him thinking he had invincibility, thinking his last minute changes to the plan would go through without a hitch and nothing else would go wrong.
He hadn't wanted to make Machi the number one suspect in the murder trial. Machi was simply his connection to acquire the Borginian cocoon and help him smuggle it out of the country. With Daryan's connections to Klavier, he used his status as a prosecutor to get the cocoon safely across the ocean without anyone knowing it was even there.
Daryan had also never wanted to burn the cocoon. That was an absolute last resort action for him. But when LeTouse approached Daryan during the concert, he knew that he wouldn't be able to talk his way out of the situation, and ordered Machi to throw the switch and light Klavier's guitar on fire. When Daryan heard the live feed give them audio of fans shrieking from shock over Klavier's flaming guitar, his heart sank to his feet knowing that everything had now been in vain. All his efforts had gone up in smoke, literally.
The original plan was for no one to get killed at all. But LeTouse was smarter and craftier than Daryan had thought, and when his fellow Interpol agent confronted him, he knew he'd been found out.
Using the pistol on the other agent was a last minute decision. He'd been determined to keep any blood from being shed, but LeTouse had become confrontational and physical, so Daryan needed to defend himself. Daryan had trained to use a firearm of such a large caliber, but had never shot it for anything other than target practice. But when the two shots rang out and Daryan's shoulder got tweaked from the backlash, he knew that was going to be a problem.
But of course, Klavier being the damn perfectionist that he is, noticed the smallest missed cue from Daryan during the one set, which was the first clue for Apollo that something was off about Daryan. He used that missed cue against Daryan later in court to support his theory that Daryan had been the one to shoot the forty five caliber pistol, and had been injured as a result.
Apollo Justice. That lawyer was too smart for his own good. If it had been anyone else on that side of the courtroom, Daryan might have gotten away with everything. And if he had, he would have gone back to living a life on the straight and narrow path, performing with the Gavinner's and keeping his status as one of Interpol's best agents.
He'd never even considered using his connections to the black market until the Chief Justice had approached him, begging Daryan to pull strings and acquire a cocoon for his son.
The Chief Justice's son. That is the only reason Daryan agreed to the dangerous scheme in the first place. The desperation of the Chief Justice to do whatever it took to save his son's life was what convinced Daryan to agree. Because he would never have wished what he'd gone through during his childhood on anyone else. And if he held the power to keep a family intact and happy, to preserve its status for years to come, he'd do it.
Daryan was never on good terms with his father, mostly because he refused to conform to his father's wishes of becoming a university scholar. Daryan's father had pushed the importance of education on Daryan since he'd started elementary school. And for awhile, he complied with his father's ridiculously high standards and actually been a good student. But then Daryan discovered his passion for music.
At Daryan's high school, a graduation requirement was taking at least two music classes sometime during your four years. The guitar was his first choice instrument, and after one class, he was hooked. He started practicing in all of his free time, even to the point where it interfered with his studies. His father noticed the change in his son's interests, and was immediately worried. They started butting heads about how Daryan started spending more time practicing than studying, and the rift began to grow.
Daryan became more rebellious of his father's reign and eventually they stopped speaking altogether. When Daryan graduated from high school and refused to attend college in favor of touring with the Gavinners, his father basically disowned him. They only spoke since then because Daryan had been on speaking terms with his mother.
An unhappy family is not something Daryan would want anyone to deal with, so he told the Chief Justice he'd help him and immediately went to work. Anything to keep the family together.
It was sheer luck that he had gone to Borginia with Klavier the following week, because that was when he met Machi, and convinced Machi to help Daryan.
Machi was hesitant to agree to such a risky plan, but needed the money so he could help Lamiroir get her eye correction surgery. Lamiroir was the reason that Machi agreed to be Daryan's accomplice. They concocted their plan in several days and put it into action two days before Klavier and Daryan returned to America.
Then they came home and things started to unravel. They came home a day before the concert that set everything in motion.
Then his world was turned upside down, and he was where he is today.
If Daryan could rewind the past year and do everything differently, he would in a heartbeat.
Though at the time the Chief Justice's son had been on a downward trend with the Incuritis, the doctor had said he'd had several more months to live.
Daryan wish he'd put more time into his plan. He'd wish he'd had more time to implement the plan. Had more time in Borginia to work things out with Machi.
Maybe things would have gone differently. Maybe things wouldn't have turned out for the worse like they had. Maybe he wouldn't be spending the rest of his days in a prison, looking at nothing but endless nights in the musky and miserable cell he now called home.
But it was too late. Too late for regrets. Obviously too late for a do-over.
Too little, too late.
Daryan rolled over in bed again and wished sleep would come. Regret wasn't going to help him now.
Author's Notes: Short and simple, but still interesting in my opinion. We don't get to see Daryan after Turnabout Serenade, so we're left to speculate what he thinks about while he's in jail. Just a lot of questions regarding him that we'll probably never get answered, so we're left to speculate. I personally think that Daryan's motives were pure in smuggling the cocoon, I don't think he had ulterior motives for it. But that's just me.
Anyways, I know it's incredibly short, but an R&R would still be lovely. Hope everyone enjoyed this!