Chapter Text
Something is pinching at his fingers.
There is a faint sting in his palms, there and gone in a handful of instances, spread out and apart so they beat in his head in an unsteady rhythm. Little pokes and prods here and there, small pricks on the pad of his thumb, the centre of his palm, the flesh between his thumb and pointer finger.
There is a soft haze that covers the rest of it, smoothing out the edges and dulling the colours. Making everything quieter. Gentler. There is a sort of tranquillity in this place, a peace that doesn’t dare reach out anywhere else.
But there is still the incessant feelings against his skin, sharp but not quite painful. Just enough to jolt him, annoy him, make him scowl and try to pull his hand back. His muscles don’t respond. There is another pinch.
He cannot make any sounds. His tongue refuses to work. His hand is still stubbornly being touched and moved and shifted.
He blinks sharply, some of the colour returning to his world, some coherency slipping back into him and up his throat and out of his mouth in the angry noise of protest he makes, trying to pull back again.
He’s pinched one more time, and annoyance flares so sharply he forces his head to move, to start to look up and glare and hiss at whoever is doing this-
There is a loud, sharp bang from somewhere, and he feels his blood flow cold. His hands shake.
The poking goes away.
-
“This is called bad press, Tomathy,” XD growled, throwing the paper down in front of him.
Tomathy wasn’t his name. “I’m sorry.”
There was a disconnect somewhere in his mind, something refusing to click as he sat there. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry he couldn’t go back and stop her from falling. Sorry he couldn’t play the concert at all. Sorry he ever picked up the cello in the first place.
His head snapped to the side, cheek burning.
“Don’t,” XD snarled. “I’m not dealing with your pity parties.”
He stayed quiet.
-
There was something playing in the background.
Voices talking, a quiet track behind them, swelling along with whatever part of the plot was going on. It was soft, at first, the volume of it. But it was starting to get louder, to fill his ears with the stupid talking.
It grated at his brain, scraping along the sides until he squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head, until it got louder and louder and louder and he reached his hands up to cover his ears, curling in towards whatever he was closest too, digging his nails into the sides of his head and yanking at his curls until it just stopped-
The noise clicked off.
For a moment, there was only static in his ears, hands still stuffed over them.
When he took in a breath, the shirt he was wearing moved across his skin and prickled at him. When he shifted his legs, the fabric of his jeans slipped and jolted and his fingers were still digging into his skin, still wrapped around his curls and tugging but it felt good and the fabric on his skin felt bad and-
And something soft and warm came down on one of his hands, resting gently on the back of his hand.
His breath caught in his body, the overwhelming feeling of wanting to be alone enough to make him want to throw up whatever he last put into his body. But the warmth didn’t move. It stayed there, a soft presence, until eventually, he began to untense.
His nails dislodged from his skin, fingertips smoothing over the small dents he had left behind, not enough to draw blood but enough they would surely bruise later.
The warmth- the hand kept its place, but curled a little tighter around his palm. Silently, he shifted his hand so the other touched his head, soaking up the little bit of warmth like a cat basking in the sun.
There was another noise in the background, except it wasn’t the horrid noise from before. It was a soft humming, floating over his body and settling on him like a soft blanket, the vibrations echoing into his bones.
Carefully, quietly, he moved up slightly, closer to the sound. When there was no hesitation, no halt or pause to the voice, he moved up a little more. Edging closer and closer up, once, twice more, until the top of his head bumps against something solid and human.
He should stop now, should curl back away and wrap his arms around himself and comfort himself, just as he has always done. There is no need to bother someone else, to make them have to deal with him and all his stupid, annoying little habits.
But he has always been selfish. Selfish in the way he made people stay, in the way he pulled them in closer and closer despite knowing what will happen, selfish in the way he refused to let go. Selfish in the way he pulled himself up and laid his head on someone else’s lap, just like he never should have done.
But when a hand reaches up to thread through his curls, there is nothing in him that regrets this, only the lingering, tracing, aching feeling that the guilt has left behind. And even that is easily turned aside.
-
His shoulder is being nudged, light and gentle and that is how he knows there is something wrong. This is not normal.
So he drags himself from the depths, pulls himself out of the dark comfort of sleep and struggles to lift his head, to open his eyes and try and blink the exhaustion away. “Huh?”
“Are you hungry?” a soft voice asks, gentle and kind.
He tries to blink again, doesn’t even manage to get his eyes open. He hums back in a way he hopes is affirmative, enough sound to signal yes .
“Okay,” the voice responds.
He is trying to wake up, to regain consciousness and move back up but there is something pulling him back down, a hand in his hair lightly pushing at his head and his cheek falling back down onto someone’s lap and him curling his face into the fabric of a sweater and sighing contentedly, relaxing. The fingers in his hair press lightly into his scalp, digging nails in slightly at the corners.
He is a mushy puddle of nothing, pliable and pliant in someone else’s hands. A hum escapes his throat, as if he is a cat and this is his way of purring. He can hear a chuckle.
He falls back into the haze of sleep, lets it whisk him away once again.
Too soon, there is another hand nudging his shoulder, poking at him until he curls in further, making an angry, blurry sound. He is poked again, and he buries his face in fabric and reaches his hands up to cover his ears, as if blocking his hearing will block the contact.
“Sunshine,” someone whispers. He tries to hiss, but the noise that comes out sounds more like an undignified gurgle. “Up, up, up.”
The fabric begins to shift under him.
He snaps out his hands, catching onto the edges of the fabric, twisting his fists into it and letting a quiet sound escape him, heart beating through his cold veins. His shirt feels like a pathetic excuse, an attempt at warmth. His face heats up, though, eyes burning wet at the edges. He is so cold.
He is pathetic.
Hands come up gently over his, starting to rest on his, and he suddenly feels foolish .
A child. Holding someone in place just so he can lay on them. Ungrateful. Trying to keep someone, to hold them back all because he doesn’t want to be alone. Spoiled. He’s already gotten so much, why does he need any more? Why does he keep asking and asking and asking and taking and taking and taking and never giving? Why is he never worth it?
Questions beat and batter at his brain until he loosens his grip, until he pulls his hands back to himself and he shoves himself backwards and away from the warmth and twists and curls to hug himself, to wrap his arms around himself and poke his thumbs into his skin, to keep himself warm because he’s so sick and tired of being selfish. He’s so sick and tired of taking. He swallows noises before they can fall from his throat, keeps them locked inside and swept away, out of the sunlight and back into the shadows. He can pull himself together. He can be acceptable. Likable.
Lo-
He shifts so his curls obscure his face and eyes.
“Oh, sunshine,” he hears someone whisper, as if they are a billionaire and he is the world’s saddest puppy.
He swallows the lump in his throat and tells himself to stay there and be quiet.
Fingers poke at the edges of his curls, and he flinches away, a quiet tremor to his bones. Tucks himself back away to be as small as possible. The sleep is leaving, vanishing from his system, removing some of the fog that seems to be ever present these days. There is a sense of patheticness in the way he curls, the way he bends to be quiet and quiet and invisible.
There is nothing from above him, nothing from when he flinched away from any touch, as if it would burn him, as if he were ungrateful-
Apologies slip from his lips and fall to the ground behind him. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Once they come, they do not stop, and he uses them. Uses them to ground himself, to give himself something else to focus on, to try and pull himself closer again at the edges. He is not broken, he is not split at the seams. He is just tired, that’s all. His nap didn’t do him much good. Just tired, he repeats in his mind. Tired.
“Darling,” the billionaire whispers again, and a hand rests gently on his shoulder, warmth bleeding at the touch. The puppy whimpers, recoils, tries to hide away from the touch.
But the other tries again, reaching out to thread his hands through his hair and press his fingertips into his scalp.
He freezes, tenses, some strange feeling sitting heavy in the pit of his stomach. He’s given the wrong signals, when the hand begins to draw back, to take away the comfort. He cannot stop himself from moving to chase it, to try and bring it back. There is a sadness, aching in him, an emptiness lurking in his chest that he cannot figure out how to fill.
His hands close on empty air, and he snatches them back to himself. He can feel heat begin to burn at his cheeks, to spread to his ears and nose.
“Toms-”
There is the sound of someone entering the room, of a plate being set down quietly. His heart leaps into his mouth, rests on his tongue until the vibrations, the beating moving through his bones, putting a quiet tremor in his muscles.
“Anything else?” the voice is soft spoken, gentle and familiar in some way he can’t quite press.
A negative hum. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” they responded, and there was the sound of footsteps retreating, the sound fading with assumed distance. His face is hidden by his hair and arms and the way he’s curled into himself.
“Toms,” Wilbur calls. “Toms, do you think you can sit up for me?”
No. He nods silently, shifting long limbs to the side and bending and shoving until he is positioned properly on what he can now tell is a couch, socked feet hanging off the side and brushing against soft carpet.
“Do you think you can eat a little bit? It’s some soup, made by someone who actually knows how to cook.”
It’s supposed to be comforting, a little joke, inside, something the two of them share between them. But all it does is make him cold. He forces a small, stiff nod. A bowl is held out to him, and he takes it in lightly trembling hands, reaching for the spoon. It’s warm, but it’s not enough to fill the space that’s missing inside of him.
He doesn’t remember much of it, not until his bowl is empty and being taken gently from his hands. He finally looks up, startled by the absence of warmth. Wilbur is setting his bowl on the table and leaning back into the couch, moving the TV remote from beside him.
It is quiet for a minute, a silence settling over them until Wilbur breaks it. “What’s the last thing that you remember?”
He mulls over the question in his head, scouring his brain for the latest events. His memories are foggy grey things with no discernible specifics, just little events that he knows happened but can’t quite remember.
He’s down a job. It was raining, and he was sitting at home in his apartment and the delivery man had gotten the wrong apartment again but it wasn’t him it was a teenager and it was an instrument and it was yelling screaming red red red red red red-
There is a band around his chest, restricting his lungs, tightening and tightening until they are surely about to pop, until he can’t expand them or breathe, until he curls in on himself because it hurts, it burns and smarts and it’s pressure and it’s pain and-
“Hey, hey, try and copy my breathing,” Wilbur says softly, and then there is a heartbeat under his hand.
It startles him enough he freezes completely, panic paused, thoughts on hold. There is a- a heartbeat underneath his palm, steady and gentle and alive. There is a heartbeat, there is a sign he’s alive he’s alive he’s alive there is a heartbeat-
Quietly, mesmerized, fear quelled, he leans forward, slumps bonelessly. He’s caught with a surprised noise, one of worry, in warm, soft arms. He doesn’t pay any mind to the shifting around him, how he’s tugged forward and around and how he rests his head.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Fingers run through his curls, mussing them and twirling them but he keeps laying there, listening for the heartbeat. Thump. Thump. Thump. He is glued to that spot, kept right there by the sign of life. Thump. Thump. Thump.
His eyelids are heavy, a gentle haze covering the rest of the world as he listened in.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
He does not notice when they slip closed, or when his breathing is even and soft again. He lays there, and at some point, he is asleep.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
-
Tommy throws himself into the run, fingers flying across the keyboard without a care for any wrong notes or keys awkwardly hit. Not that there are any of those. He slams the chords and lets himself fall into the music, throwing himself bodily over the eighths and launching off the backs of the sixteenths in the brief rests coming his way.
The violin accompanies him with a cheer, strings singing excitement and acting as the second part to their duo. The double stops bling, bling, shriek , but none of it is ugly or bad. It is high up, near the bridge, hairs of the bow digging bodily into the instrument to pull a sound from the old, semi-shining, not so recently polished wood. It reverberates, rings out in the room but doesn’t get a chance to settle before it’s being pushed out by new notes, by new sounds.
The movement only continues, driving itself upwards and upwards, pushing until it encounters the ceiling and then breaking through that. They are a rush of fingers and metaphors and notes and tones and indicators and bars. They are mezzo piano, mezzo forte, fortissimo, piano. They are the ritardando, the coda, the repeats at the end of the lines.
Maybe, somewhere, Beethoven is listening.
He doubts it though, even as he pours every ounce of himself into the notes and hits every chord, every sharp and flat like string in the needles that are his hands. That sounded a bit weird, though.
It’s not a performance, but it’s the last rehearsal they have together before one.
There is anxiousness sitting heavy in his stomach, twisting and roiling unhappily whenever he thinks about it for too long. The feeling of eyes traveling over him, locked onto his body is something he can never forget. He doesn’t know if he wants to.
And there is always the chance someone recognizes him.
He’s a far cry from his last performances.
He’s lost about a meter of his hair, and though the streak remains, he can hide it in the mess of blonde curls. He plans for a medical mask to cover his face, to keep himself tilted away from the audience as he plays.
He plans and plans and plans, but he’s lived a life that is defined by plans going wrong.
He has learned to think on his feet from years of experience of everything twisting in the wrong direction, or everything going the wrong way and refusing to go back. Performances starting late, his car being late, thick traffic clogging up freeways in San Francisco, tunnels blocked by accidents in Beijing.
There is a certain chaos that comes with being a musician, that comes with dedicating your life to something so fickle and opinionated. A certain uncertainty that follows you around like your second shadow, even when you step into the sun.
He’s not ready to go back.
He’s not ready to return to the scrutiny of the public eye, to the hundreds of fan accounts filled with photos of him, to the constantly blocked instagram messages filled to the bursting brim with messages from people he doesn’t know. It’s overwhelming, the thought of it twisting his stomach.
He can’t.
Not now. At least not now.
This should be safe. Relatively low risk. It’s just a small Kreutzer performance for a local musician, and he’s playing the piano.
Maybe it’s a start.
He hits the chords again, drags his fingers nimbly across the board and continues to play. The movement is not yet over.
-
He stands in front of the door.
It looms in front of him, pale white wood mocking him. He can imagine the inside without even having to look; the long claw marks sinking into the surface, the chips scattered across the floor in front of it. The scratches and divots surrounding the door knob, within the surface of the thing itself. The gashes in the doorframe, the splinters lining the edge of every unnatural thing.
The key remains in the door. It glints in the light of the sun behind him.
His heart is in his throat, resting on his tongue and pulsing in time with the rhythm of panic. His limbs are lead; weighed down, heavy, unable to move from where they sink into the floors, up to his ankles, to his knees, to his waist and elbows and collarbone and chin and eyes until he can no longer see the room-
His hand is resting on the knob. The surface is cool beneath his fingertips.
He wrenches himself back and flees the room. The key remains in the door.
-
“Are you ready?” Wilbur asks, lowering his violin to tilt his head curiously.
For some reason, it is at this moment that Tommy blinks and realizes what he is about to do. What he is about to- to perform. But before the panic can crawl up his throat, before it can carve out another home for itself around his spine, he gathers himself.
He has had many a performance; the skin is easy to slip into. A suit he has not worn for a long time, yet one that is familiar and comforting and easy. Broken in long before this, jitters and panic worked out already. Everything else falls away, locked in a small closet with a white door and a key in the knob- gone. Saved. Tucked away for later. Later. Not now.
“Yes,” Tommy says, looking at him and believing it. He would be ready, he would appear on stage and play his part and maybe even enjoy it and then he would move on. He would fall back into obscurity. There was no need to make this a bigger deal than it was.
He had to dig this button up out of his closet, look in the back where he shoved the things he didn’t like to look at. He had ironed it and paired it with a set of black pants and dark shoes and he was put together enough for a performance. His hands itched to pull his hair back in the intricate styles he had learned long ago. He had mussed his hair, mixing blonde with the strands of white until it was almost entirely gone.
He had bought the plain black medical masks from a convenience store on his way over. He had one in his back pocket, ready for when they stepped out onto the stage.
They were performing in one of the auditoriums of the Zephyrus Foundation -because it had more than one, apparently. A small event, Wilbur had told him. Our group is sponsored by the Foundation, which means the board and its affiliations like to observe. Open to the public, but no one really comes.
“What is the playing order?” Tommy asks, checking the battery of his ipad and the pedal. Fully charged and ready to play. He swiped up and down on the menu continuously to occupy his hands.
Wilbur hummed. “I believe we’re the finale. There’s uh, four or five performances before us, I believe. At the beginning everyone plays a short piece together as a little intro before we split off into the chamber groups. I think. Don’t quote me on it. All I know is that we’re last, and I know who goes before us.”
Tommy nodded, glancing up at the clock on the wall. “Do we head down now?”
Wilbur looked up. “Oh. Yeah, we probably should. You ready?”
“Yes,” he answered simply, turning to leave the room. He could hear Wilbur trailing after him, violin and music in hand. The hall leading out to the staircase was long, stretching out and branching off into a few other sections at times. Tommy halted once he stood at the top of the main staircase though, looking back for Wilbur. His palms were slightly sweaty.
Wilbur joined with him and smiled, making his way down the staircase and taking the lead to the auditorium. Tommy could already see the people filling in, dressed in dak suits and finely pressed dresses. He swallowed hard and kept his chin up, gaze facing forward. His hands itched to reach into his back pocket for the plain black mask.
They didn’t enter through the front doors to the auditorium; instead, making their way to a smaller entrance in the back, hidden along a short hallway. It opened directly into the backstage, though at certain points you could see between the curtains to where the stage was. Tommy spotted the piano sitting near the edge, waiting to be wheeled on when the proper time arrived.
“Dream,” Wilbur said, pulling Tommy’s attention over.
Dream stood there, his own instrument in hand, dressed in roughly the same attire. His shirt was tighter, though, the sleeves pinned up at the elbows with cufflinks that shone gold when the light caught the right angle. The corners of his eyes crinkled up in a small when he caught sight of them, his mask already up.
“Are you ready?” Dream asked the both of them, though his gaze lingered more heavily on Tommy.
A slight ping of annoyance sparked in his chest, but he stamped it down harshly and forced himself to nod coolly. “Yes.”
“We’ll head onto stage for the group piece, and then when we exit there’ll be a few opening remarks before the chamber pieces start,” Dream said, checking the watch on his wrist.
“How many chamber groups are there?” Wilbur questioned.
Dream hummed. “Five? I don’t remember right now. But they want us to go over to center backstage right now for a brief corporate pep talk, so we should head over.”
Tommy was examining some of the equipment on the walls when Dream called his name. He looked over and raised an eyebrow.
“You’re a musician with us as well,” Dream said with a faint smile. “You’re not immune to corporate.”
Tommy blinked at him, then followed after silently. There was a bunch of musicians already gathered when they arrived, and a man standing in a light grey suit standing at the front of the crowd. He wasn’t speaking though, rather typing on his phone, and so the group chattered quietly. Tommy did reach into his back pocket now, hooking the mask around his ears but letting it stay below his chin.
Wilbur raised a brow at him, but didn’t comment on it. He instead surveyed the group quietly, fingers tapping on his bow lightly. When Tommy glanced at a clock on the wall, the red numbers read five minutes until the start.
“Attention,” the man in the front called, and the group fell silent and looked. “First off, I want to wish all of you good luck for your performance tonight. You’re a group of phenomenal musicians, and I know you’ll do excellently. However, that also means addressing all of the people in the audience.”
Tommy mentally tuned out at this point, looking down to examine his shoes with a sigh. He had heard these before. You’re fantastic, and you’ll stay that way if you want the money to keep coming in. It was always the same with these people. However, it was a necessary evil. They did want to put food on their table, after all.
While the man drawled in the background, he checked the battery percentage on his ipad again for something to do. His hair fell in his eyes, obscuring his face from anyone coming over to him. He was about to unlock the ipad and play solitaire when he felt someone tap his shoulder.
“Hey, I don’t recognize y-”
He looked up, and fell completely still. Across from him, Tubbo stared back.
-
“You’re being ridiculous,” Tubbo scoffed.
It burned at something in Tommy, to be ridiculed and pushed aside so quickly, so easily. “I’m being replaced and I’m sick of it.”
Tubbo rolled his eyes. “You’re not being fucking replaced, you’re so dramatic, Tom.”
“You ignore me now,” Tommy growled, taking a step forward to gesture angrily. “You leave me on read, you don’t respond to me, and when you do it’s to tell me that you’ve already got plans with someone else!”
“It’s called having a life,” Tubbo responded flatly. “You should try it sometime.”
Tommy blinked at him, silent for a second because he hadn’t been expecting that, not from Tubbo. His best friend. “The only time you hang around me now you’re bitchy and mean.”
“Oh, I’m the one being bitchy and mean?” Tubbo laughed with no humour. “That’s so fucking precious coming from you. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I’m done putting up with your shit?”
“So you decided to give me yours?” Tommy demanded angrily. “You’re avoiding me and I don’t know why and now when I try to talk to you about it you- you- you just act like I’m overreacting!”
“That’s-” Tubbo started.
“You’re acting like your fucking father right now, I hope you know,” Tommy snarled.
Tubbo froze for a moment this time, an open expression on his face. The words hung in between them, thick and weighted. He didn’t regret them, not now, not in the heat of the moment when his face was red with heat and fury and his tongues were sharp with hurt and insecurity.
“I’m done with your shit,” Tubbo snapped suddenly, turning to grab his things. He had only brought his phone.
“Tubbo, what the fuck?” Tommy asked, more to fill the space as he went to follow after Tubbo. “You’re just going to fucking walk away?”
“Yes,” Tubbo said tightly. “I’m being responsible.”
“You’re so full of shit-”
Tubbo whirled on him, cheeks flushed and eyebrows drawn low and furious. “You’re full of shit, Tom! You never fucking tell me anything! You’ll disappear for weeks on end and don’t even read my texts, but you never tell me what happened when you come back! You say mean shit and don’t apologise, like you forget it ever happened. You’re weird and inconsistent and flighty and I’m so fucking sick of dealing with it! You’re just upset I’ve found someone who actually cares about me and wants to spend time with me, instead of acting like it’s their last resort when they’ve run out of fucking options!”
Tommy spluttered. “I- what- no-”
“I’m sick of it,” Tubbo turned back around on his heel, walking right for the door and slamming it shut behind him, loud enough to rattle one of the hanging lights on the ceiling.
-
“Tommy?” Wilbur asked, turning his head.
Whoever it was from corporate had stopped speaking, had released the gathering of musicians to disperse and prepare for the show. The others were already spreading out, cellos reaching for instruments-
“I’ll-” he swallowed, his throat dry. “I’ll see you later.”
He was gone in the next second, away from prying eyes, away from Wilbur and the past he had been running so quickly from. His breath stuttered in his chest as he stumbled into a heavy curtain, pushing himself forward until there was no one else around him, until he had found some dark section of the backstage that could be wholly his.
He could still hear light chatter, could still hear shuffling, but he could not see anyone. He backed up, reaching one hand to touch his forehead, slick with sweat. He collided into something sharp behind him and flinched full bodied, throwing himself back from it. It was just a rack of chairs.
He kept walking, moving further into the backstage, walking and walking until he found a small space in the back; a little spot between the curtain and the wall that he could tuck himself into, still close enough he could hear the instruments but too far to see them or be seen.
Threading his hands into his hair, he stepped into the spot and leaned against the wall, sliding down until he was tucked into himself, resting his forehead on his knees and attempting to breathe.
In his ears, he could hear nails scraping at a closet door.
-
“Concerts are special, because it’s something you only do once,” she said to him as he chewed at his lip. “Because you only do them once. Even on tour, you perform once a night and that’s it. You’ll never get this again.”
He looked up at her, furrowing his brow with a frown. “Is this supposed to make me feel better?”
She laughed lightly. “It’s a different perspective to it. You only have one chance to do this, so do it with pride. Would you rather look back on a night of failure and shame, or a night of failure and fun? Hold your head high and push everything but the music out of your head. This is your night, and nobody is going to take that away from you.”
-
The other numbers seemed to go by far too quickly. The opening chamber piece ended up being the first movement from the Elgar Serenade for Strings. The remarks turned to mush in his heads, nothing he could form into exact words in his memory. The other pieces whirl by. Mozart’s Dissonance, what he presumed to be the Hoffmeister, a Pleyel of some sort, something from Saint-Saëns, and they were halfway through Schubert’s Death and the Maiden. Which meant he had to unfold himself from his corner, grab his things, and find his way back to the stage.
Wilbur was waiting anxiously at the edge of the stage, twirling his bow anxiously and flexing his fingers where they held his violin and music. He caught sight of Tommy walking over and his shoulders dropped slightly.
“Tommy,” he whispered, walking over and bumping his shoulder lightly. “Are you alright?”
He nodded, the nerves already fading from his blood. This was a performance, this is what he was built for. “Yes.”
Wilbur nodded, stepping so their shoulders pressed together and warmth bled into his side. He could see the quartet on the stage finishing up, racing off towards the end, but he paid them no strong heed.
“Pride,” he said to Wilbur as the group stood and someone dressed in black wheeled in the piano from behind a curtain. “A performance is only once.”
Wilbur looked at him strangely, but nodded nonetheless. The quartet was retreating from the stage, and the techs were finishing coordinating everything else. Tommy took in a deep breath, held it, then let it out. A performance. He knew this. This was something uniquely his.
“Pride,” he repeated and stepped out into the spotlight. Wilbur followed behind them as they stepped out, Wilbur placing down his music and Tommy situating his ipad and pedal. Once he was sure, he stood and faced the audience.
For a brief, heart stopping second, he realised he forgot to put on the mask he had brought into his back pocket. He smothered it quickly, shoving the feeling deep down and replacing it with the sereness he always adopted for a performance.
After a moment, Tommy sat, and he pressed the A. Wilbur tuned quickly, looking over to nod in his direction. Tommy nodded back, double checked his ipad, and readied his hands over the keyboard. Wilbur took in a breath, hovering his bow over the string, fingers in place.
Silence rung out in the auditorium.
Then, Wilbur played the first chord, lowering down, placing gentle vibrato at the edges of it. While the echoes of his last note hung in the air, Tommy pressed his chords, let the sound ring out, and continued on. Wilbur begun again on Tommy’s last note, and he gave him a moment to play another chord. Then, Tommy returned in and they played at the same time. A gentle, curious set of notes pressing forward, a collaboration, a partnership between the piano and violin.
Softly, they ended the beginning, and then started the presto with something sharp and bright. Tommy’s fingers raced over the keyboard as he ran over the arpeggios stretching up and down across the keys, spanning multiple octaves. They took turns, trading off quarter notes in rapid, succinct succession. The chords after were clean, sharp, loud. The trills were easy and flavorful, the pattern of the next notes taking them to rehearsal letter C. A moment of easy legato, growing in noise before descending again. Wilbur stretched up, playing the harmonic and coming back down, back to tempo I as they sped, coordinating eighth notes and racing forward.
Then came one of Tommy’s favourite parts: Wilbur’s plucked chords accompanying his. They worked like a well oiled machine, slowing and speeding and increasing in sound and decreasing right when appropriate. Quieting abruptly, they reached the first repeat and pushed on. He had a moment to himself, right before Wilbur joined it, stretching up sing his higher notes, before reaching his notes with the odd bowing pattern. Tommy kept on his eighth notes, never stopping. Wilbur carried the melody of it, him more accompanying in these sections. A quick volume drop, before the notes became sharper; more of an edge to them.
They grew together, rising up the middle of the phrase before dropping back down, slowing with a ritardando until they reached letter K, back to the original tempo with a loudness slowly falling back down. Then, a thick section of chords, followed by the two of them carrying the melody of it together. Another section of chords, Wilbur carrying the melody while he harmonised. The chords were his favourite part of the piece. They traded off eighths again, Wilbur stretching from high to low rapidly. P held the melody, carried heavily by Wilbur, another section where he stretched up to hit his harmonic before coming back down to play the same note an octave below. Q saw another section as the beginning, reaching up together with fast notes, ever raising.
Another section of the plucked chords; still one of his favourites. This was near identical to the one in the beginning. They raced forward, eighth notes flying beneath WIlbur’s fingers before passing to Tommy as Wilbur held long whole notes across multiple measures. Then, a collision together where they hit the same sharp staccatos, addressing the melody harshly. A section with his chords and Wilbur bringing the melody forward in a different key with double stops, his absolute favourite part of the piece hands down.
It slowed and quieted after that, before suddenly breaking out into another vicious section of eighth notes, racing down and down and down until Tommy continued and Wilbur broke off to three chords, punctuating the eighths, and the piece ended with two joint chords with the violin and piano, settling heavy over the heads of the audience.
Something warm ran through him, putting energy into his movements where there hadn’t been before. Wilbur looked over to him, and they locked gazes. With a faint smile, Tommy nodded. It was electric, it was beautiful, it was living. It was an adrenaline rush, and he would chase it until the night was long after over.
With another breath, they began the second movement, quiet and gentle.
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