daron oneshots :)

victims of a down

a/n: this involves the band quite a bit more than the rest of the oneshots will likely entail but here u go!

 One of Daron's favorite places in his apartment was the window. From there, he could see everything happening on the streets below; mostly he could just see the cars passing by and hear them honking at each other (typical LA shit), but sometimes fights would break out when the clubs let out between one and four in the morning, and his sleepless ass would always run to the window to watch the whole thing go down.

Daron's apartment was his safe haven as well. He'd always dreamed of buying a house one day, especially since he was a guitarist and liked making a lot of noise which, unfortunately, didn't work out too well for him in an apartment. He had just graduated from high school a few months ago and had found a place in Los Angeles (the one he was in currently), but he was unsure of where to go from there. He worked at a small jewelry shop a few blocks away from his apartment, so there was no need for a car, and there was a grocery store a block in the other direction, so grocery shopping trips were never a hassle (unless he had a lot to carry, and if the elevator was broken, he had to walk up eighteen flights of stairs to get to his place). He was sustaining himself, and he was in a stable financial situation, but there was something... missing.

Daron turned into a creative machine when he had a lot of time on his hands; he worked during the day and had a lot of downtime in the afternoon and at night. He often felt as if he was left with too much time, but he didn't dare admit that to anyone, because he was sick of hearing suggestions he didn't need. He wrote songs, riffs, poems, and stories, recording them all and forgetting about them shortly after making them. He burned discs of songs he made, some of them long enough to be full length albums or EPs. He sat down and played guitar during the afternoons when he was allowed to make noise, and nighttime meant quiet time. He wrote a lot of poems, which he would treat the same as the songs and riffs, burying all of them in a folder after finishing them, whether he was proud or not. He would hang out with friends on the nights he was invited out, but he preferred his nights in, with a pen or guitar pick in his hand. But his creative work always remained hidden, never seeing the light of day.

That is, until he met a guy named Shavo.

Daron had begun seeing posters around LA about a band that was apparently looking for another member. The poster didn't specify what position they wanted this specific member to play, but at the bottom of it there was a phone number that any interested people were to call if they were interested in being in the band. Daron had seen the posters so many times he ended up memorizing the phone number, and the idea of calling it kept tempting him as the days went by. He often dreamed of a different reality where his life didn't consist of repeating the same cycle by himself every day, and joining a band seemed like the perfect way out.

So he called the phone number one afternoon after work, his finger hesitating over the last digit for just a second before he finished dialing and waited. He held his breath until someone on the other line picked up, answering in a smooth voice, "Hello?"

"Hi," said Daron. "According to the abundance of posters around where I live, I'm supposed to call this number if I want to be in a band?"

"Yes, you are. I take this as a sign you're interested?"

"Um, yes. I'm Daron, by the way."

"Well met. I'm Shavo. Why don't we go get lunch sometime next week so I can get to know you a little better?"

They planned to meet after Daron got off work on a Tuesday, and Shavo agreed to take him to a restaurant on the north side of Glendale, which was a little farther away from where Daron lived, so Shavo was going to drop by Daron's place to pick him up. Daron had given Shavo his apartment number, and he was in the process of getting his shoes on when he heard a knock at his door. "Come in, it's open."

The door swung open, and Daron and Shavo got their first good look at each other. Despite the warm September weather, Shavo wore a bomber jacket, a beanie, and black jeans. Daron, on the other hand, simply had on a worn down black T-shirt and ripped jeans, adorned with a silver chain around his neck and his hair tied up in a small knot. "Hey," Daron greeted him, straightening up from tying his shoes. "Welcome to my humble abode."

Shavo's lips turned up at the sides, amused. "Thank you. It's a nice place. Very well put together."

"It doesn't usually look like this," he admitted. "I usually have papers strewn everywhere, pens, pencils, guitar picks--sometimes I even have my guitar out here."

Shavo raised his eyebrows. "So you play guitar. I do too."

"You play guitar?" Daron looked at him rather blankly. "That's the only instrument I play."

"Ah, don't worry, adjustments can be made," Shavo waved him off. "I just walked through the door; we still have to get to know each other."

And that's exactly what they did. They exchanged stories, Daron detailing his current repetitive life and Shavo telling Daron about how he had been in this band for a couple of years now without a bassist. By the end of their lunch, it was pretty clear that Daron was a member of the band; he liked the same bands that Shavo did, and they had the same creative drive fueling their musical inspiration. After they were done, Daron offered to take Shavo back to his apartment to show him what he could play and what other creative things he'd done so far.

Upon seeing the number of tapes that Daron had recorded his music on, Shavo's eyes widened. "That's a lot of tapes, bro."

"Don't worry, there's more," Daron assured him, pulling out crates full of drawings, poems, and stories. "I saved nearly this entire closet for all this shit."

"Can I hear any of them?"

"No."

Shavo quirked an eyebrow. "What about your poems?"

Daron hesitated for a moment. He'd never shown anyone his art before, not even his parents or close friends. He hadn't even known Shavo a whole day, and yet...

"Oh, alright." He pulled a crate of poems close to him, noticing that Shavo hadn't started going through all the crates like some of his other friends had tried to before (and subsequently received bruises on their arms because of it). Some of the tension left his body as he pulled out one he'd written a few weeks ago, handing it to Shavo. "Here."

Shavo took it, reading the title aloud. "Victims of a Down. What's it about?"

"I don't know, I just kind of write what comes out of me," Daron answered. "Read it."

And he did. Daron fidgeted with one of the tapes until Shavo spoke again. "Can I take this back to the guys? Serj would love this."

"I... what?"

"Our lead singer," Shavo explained. "He's a total sucker for poetry, and I don't know what else you've got in those crates but I think he'd eat it right up."

"Only if I get to come with you," Daron challenged him.

Shavo nodded once. "Done."

A couple of weeks later, Daron, Shavo, Serj, and John were sitting in Shavo's living room. They had been talking about a band name for a while at that point, but despite the number of suggestions that had been thrown out there (either seriously or satirically), they hadn't come up with anything. Daron had been quiet most of the time, observing and laughing when it was necessary but not making many suggestions of his own. When they'd finally fallen quiet, he began quietly, "What about the name of my poem? Victims of a Down?"

Shavo's expression visibly brightened. "That's a good one. I like that."

Serj scowled visibly. "No, no, not quite..."

"What do you mean, 'not quite?'" John demanded, frowning. "We've been arguing about this for two hours now."

"I like it, there's just something missing," he quickly corrected himself. "A word. One word."

They all mulled over the phrase for a little bit longer when Shavo said out loud, "System. System of a Down."

Serj snapped his fingers and pointed at Shavo. "That. That's it."

"System of a Down," muttered Daron, testing the phrase out himself. "That... that could work. System of a Down."

And so they were.

System of a Down.