#once u get past the chart toppers this might be the best song of all time. for intellectuals such as myself

[ronsenburg]

for the drabble requests.. literally any ace attorney pairing <3

sending u strength and also a hug

The thing about being famous is that it gets pretty damn old after a while.

It feels like a bad cliche to admit something like that, even just to himself. Especially when Daryan’s the one with a multimillion dollar contract, sitting on the balcony of a house he doesn’t even own up in the Hollywood Hills, on loan to the Gavinners while they finish working out the kinks on their latest album. But all the gifts and the money and the views of the valley as the sun sets behind the hazy horizon line aren’t enough to make the thought untrue.

Being famous is getting old.

Six years, now, and Daryan’s over it. All the fans screaming in his ears anytime he steps foot in a public place, the comments from the armies of deluded kids online convinced he’s the answer to their teenage angst, getting stalked by sleazebags with cameras who’d say anything for a shot. Every day makes him a little more tired, makes it all a little less worthwhile.

It’s the same problem as drugs, Daryan thinks, though he’s never touched the stuff himself. You get a taste of it once and it seems like the best thing life has to offer, the best thing you could imagine. But then the lights go off and the high fades out and you need that next hit to feel on top again. Only problem is the tolerance, right? The bar never stops raising. You need a bit more each time to get that same feeling. And, after a while, you’re numb to anything else.

Daryan can relate. He’s been standing on the stage of a sold out stadium tour, staring out into a sea of noise that sort of resembles the lyrics to one of their songs, and he should be in awe, right? All those people, shoved together under one roof, for them. Paying stupid money to stand close enough to maybe touch Klavier’s hand as he reaches out into the crowd, to catch the pick Daryan might toss one of them after the set. But he doesn’t feel anything, not anymore. The only emotion he can really muster up is pity. For them, sure, but also for himself; there’s a limit to how far you can take something before it gets you and Daryan’s starting to understand the tragedy that walks hand in hand with people like them.

He’s not the only one feeling it, either.

When he climbs down the marble staircase and makes his way out the back door, Klavier is still floating in the middle of the pool on the back of an inflatable flamingo, staring at a notebook of staff paper in his hands.

“D’you write us a new hit yet?” Daryan asks from the edge, where the sun warmed travertine burns the skin on the bare soles of his feet.

He can’t see the look that Klavier shoots him from behind his dark sunglasses, but Daryan can guess what it looks like from the way Klavier tears the top page of paper off the pad, crumbles it into a ball, and lobs it in the direction of his feet. There’s only two lines filled in when Daryan reaches to smooth it out—the notes look suspiciously like the jingle of a car dealership that’s been running on the radio for the past six months.

Daryan snorts. “So that good, huh?”

“Ja, that good,” Klavier replies, his tone completely soaked in sarcasm. “Do you have anything better?”

It’s a slump, they both know it. All they need is for one of them to work an interesting new case and then Gavin’ll be all over it, cranking out ten new chart toppers in three days without even an hour built in there for rest. It’s how they’ve always done it before, almost like a formula at this point. But LA’s not really pulling its weight here, either. All this beautiful weather and the only homicides they’re catching are the gang hits that crop up as predictably as the tides rolling in against Santa Monica pier. No deaths under mysterious circumstances, no jealous lovers bludgeoning each other in swanky hotels, no creepy suicide pacts. Either this town is getting boring or they’re just getting old–nothing seems to surprise Daryan much anymore.

“This is bullshit,” he announces to no one in particular. From the float, however, Klavier inclines his head in silent agreement. “No, I mean it. How the hell are we supposed to come up with anything good up here? Fucking castle in the clouds.”

It’d seemed like a good idea, when they’d first got the offer. Out of their usual habitat, together all hours of the day, free of the usual distractions. Now it feels more like a goddamn prison. The other members of the band—useless until they’ve got something down on paper to workshop—have been missing for longer and longer stretches as the days wore on; Daryan doesn’t think he’s seen them since the beginning of the week. Typical, but what does it matter? They’re not the stakeholders in this operation, this gimmick of a rock band that Daryan and Klavier came up with on a whim eight years ago. Then, it seemed like a joke. But now? There’s a whole lot of money on the line, here, that Daryan would prefer not to throw into the fucking ocean if they can’t deliver on what they’ve promised. So maybe it’s only professional obligation, not actual loyalty, that’s keeping Daryan pent up here now, repeatedly banging his head against the wall in a farce of productivity. That, or the way Klavier slips silently down the hall and into his room every couple of nights, ready to drown his creative frustrations in the stupid high thread-count of Daryan’s sheets.

When Daryan looks back across the pool, Klavier’s penciled-in eyebrows are raised above the rim of his glasses. Daryan watches as he reaches up and pulls the shiny, black lenses down enough to meet his eyes. “What are you suggesting?”

It’s a gamble. It doesn’t matter that they have nothing to show for it yet, Klavier takes these workshopping days as seriously as he takes his day job back at the prosecutor’s office—which is to say, as serious as a fucking heart-attack. There’s good odds his offer will net Daryan nothing but a cold shoulder and an even colder bed for the next couple of nights. But what’s life without a little risk, anyway? God knows he could use a thrill. “Come out with me tonight, babe. Let’s fucking do something for once. Dancing, karaoke, I don’t even care. Whatever you want.”

For a long moment, Klavier says nothing. Daryan doesn’t bother trying to suss out the little clues of emotion on Klavier’s face anymore, just listens to a plane droning across the sky above them, the way the fronds on the palm trees lining the pool deck rustle together in the wake of a sudden breeze. Maybe he is a little surprised, though, when the sound of water sloshing against the side of the pool joins those other noises, when he looks up to see Klavier wading his way across the shallow end of the pool with a look of distaste coloring his features.

“I asked you not to call me that, ja?” is all he says before hoisting himself up and over the edge of the pool, all sun-soaked skin and abs dripping with chlorinated water. “Hand me that towel.”

Daryan laughs. “You can be such a bitch sometimes, you know that?”

But he holds out the towel anyway, reveling in the way Klavier’s little eye-roll response doesn’t stop his fingers from dragging deliberately along the back of Daryan’s hands when he takes it. It feels like enough of a promise that Daryan has to grin.

So maybe he can still feel something, after all.