July 24, 2000
Sorry for the delay...^^;
AKL
Warnings: Angst. Stupid authors.
The first thing she did was make him take a long, hot shower. He used all the hot water and didn't feel guilty about it, to his surprise and her delight. Stepping out into a steamy bathroom, Quatre felt better than he had in days, weeks, months. It was like all the tension had been washed away as he stood under the pulsing water, letting it work the kinks out of his back.
He was still standing naked in his room, rummaging around for some clothes to wear when she walked in, surveying his body with indifference. "You don't look like his other lovers," she said after a moment, her dark eyes unreadable. "Dinner is ready, if you're hungry. No, scratch that, I'm going to make you eat whether you feel like it or not; you're much too thin. What's the matter, your new boy doesn't cook?"
He just shrugged uncomfortably until she grabbed a pair of pants from the floor. "Put these on. We're having fried chicken and corn on the cob." She paused. "By the way, my name is Lily. Thanks for asking."
The dishes, glazed warm blue over river clay, put away and the table cleared, Lily pulled out her violin. "You were his last pupil, you know," she said quietly. "Besides me. He always talked about you, always compared me to you. I never pressed down hard enough on the strings, or I never drew the bow across fast enough or smooth enough. He idolized you."
Another movement, and she pulled out his violin. When had she had time to retrieve it? "So. Let's see why Stefan died with your name on his lips."
And then he felt his chest constrict and his heart pound. It was so hard to breathe... A panic attack. He hadn't had one in years, but the mere mention of Stefan's death and playing in one passing remark made Quatre ache in a way that was too familiar for someone he'd known for only a day.
The blonde boy felt her hands, soothing, on his back, and tried to smile. "Another day," she said, backing down, and the tightness drains from his chest.
It was a long night of tossing and turning. Below, on the first floor, Quatre could hear her crying. He wasn't sure what he had done to make her cry; all he knew was that she refused to let him anywhere near her room. Something about not tainting the holiness. She was right to. He was bloody.
So ended the first day of Quatre's rediscovery.
The second day began with buttermilk pancakes and toast. "You're going to make me fat," he complained. She sent him a knowing look, one hand wielding a dangerous looking spatula.
"Then don't eat." Thus ended the complaints. After breakfast, she handed him his coat wordlessly, and led him out to the driveway, where two shiny red bicycles sat, just waiting for someone to take them out for a ride. "Let's go." He didn't ask where they were going.
They arrived in a few minutes, rushing past the prime fruit of suburbia to a small music store, aptly named, "Your Music Store". Careful not to turn an ankle on the crumbling steps, Quatre stepped through into another world.
The entire store was filled, from top to bottom, with violins. Of all sizes. Intricate wood carvings decorating the bow. Colored strings. He felt a hand tug his arm gently, and Lily smiled at him in understanding. Still feeling a bit overwhelmed, he allowed her to lead him into the back.
A small boy that looked to be about eight sat apprehensively on a stool. "Hi," he said, looking from Lily to Quatre. "Who's this?"
"He'll be giving you your lesson today, Brie." The boy
nodded, resigned, and began to play. Halfway through Quatre stopped him, his face frozen into a smile, his ears still screaming from the abuse the violin suffered under the boy's incapable hands.
"Let's try again, from the beginning..."
SQUEAK! SQUEAK!
At last, the lesson was over and Quatre patted him on the shoulder awkwardly. "You did well," he said finally, seeing no reason to crush his hopes of becoming a professional violinist like Lily. Brie beamed and ran out of the room; his mom had just pulled up in the front of the store.
"Now what," he asked, massaging his temples, "was that point of that?" Lily smirked from her spot in the corner, and put down her magazine. "To permanently deafen me?"
"To make you appreciate," she said smoothly, rising from her chair. Quatre thought that was all she was going to say. Then she added, "Some are not as gifted as you, Quatre. You use your gifts selfishly or not at all."
"That's not fair!" he exclaimed. "My fingers--"
"Are healed. All you feel is the ghost pain of your own fear." He wanted to debate further, to make her understand, he *couldn't* play, he just couldn't... She leaned down so their faces were level; Quatre squirmed on the chair.
"Make no mistake about it, young boy, before this week is out you will play as you did before. And better." Her expression abruptly turned colder; it was like a breeze of Arctic air had invaded the room. "Or else you dishonor Stefan's memory."
That night, Quatre had to make his own dinner. He laid awake in his bed, wondering what Trowa was doing, if he was happy. Groaning, he looked at the alarm clock. 7:30 in the morning. He might as well get up and start moving before Lily burst into his room--
The door flew open on cue.
"Good morning, Quatre-kun!" she said cheerily, wearing a black ensemble that suggested concert to the blonde boy. "I have a performance downstairs; you can join us if you like, or you can sit in bed and mope. Or you can make yourself some breakfast and see what I left you on the kitchen table." Her eyes twinkled, merrily or madly, he couldn't tell the difference and doubted there was any.
In the end, he chose all three. Quatre remained in bed for another twenty minutes, giving a little sigh as sleep refused to steal over his eyes again. Done moping, he padded down the stairs, smiling as he saw another strip of duct tape added to the slowly growing band, and grabbed some Froot Loops in a bowl. His eyes fell over a pair of tickets to the Sanc Kingdom Opera House and frowned. Anya Kafelnikov? The last he'd heard of her, she'd been in a car accident-induced coma...
Lily was on her third piece when Quatre slipped in, hopefully unnoticed, and watched as she rocked back and forth, eyes always shut, her body jerking with the force of her movements. Every part of her being sang with the music, the melody flowing from her fingers, her hair casting a strange waterfall over her face.
Quatre found it hard to keep still. His body wanted to move, to dance or to sway gently, to praise someone, anyone. The other members of the small audience seemed unaffected.
At last, an hour later, the concert was over. Lily stood, panting, sweat dripping down her face, and smiled at Quatre. It sent a pang through him, to see her like that, in the stance of her father, with his face and furious passion.
When the rest had filed out of the room silently, murmuring their approval, she approached Quatre cautiously, clutching her violin like a shield. "Well?"
"You're as good as your father." She beamed at the praise.
"Why thank you! And now, if you don't mind, we'd better get going to the concert. Anya is an old friend of mine...I really think you should meet him..." She blushed. "Oops."
"Him?!"
"Up until a few years ago, do you know how hard it was for a male violinist to be respected? It was his only choice, really. You're lucky you're so young, in a way." She chuckled. "But then, youth always has its downfalls."
And she refused to elaborate from there.
The concert was magnificent. Every note was perfectly pitched, every line of music a melodic parry and retreat. He hadn't heard such playing since Stefan; he doubted even he would have been able to keep up with him. The audience was enraptured, even nonchalant Lily.
Anya turned out to be a delightful old man, with long blonde hair and brilliant green eyes that made him shiver whenever their gaze turned on him. "Nice to meet you, Quatre," he said pleasantly, nodding to Lily, who seemed quite bored. "The children are bouncing off the walls waiting for you," added the old violinist gently. She started, then grinned and ran inside the practice rooms where his seven grand-children burst into cheers as she entered the room.
"Walk with me, son. Humor an old man; I don't fancy breaking a hip anymore than you do." The blonde boy found himself chuckling in spite of himself. "Lily told me what happened." Quatre smiled painfully.
"I know that most violinists never play again when their fingers are broken."
"It is hard to reteach the fingers what the mind already knows. It is like forcing yourself to relearn how to walk, when all your life you have been a champion sprinter. It is *hard*, damn it, and that is why most violinists drop into obscurity after an accident." He nodded towards a male couple walking out of the bathroom, holding hands. Quatre blushed--there was no mistaking exactly what they'd been up to. "My son and my son-in-law, Greg. Greg is a lovely boy, has two lovely brothers..." Anya looked speculatively at him.
Quatre smiled. "I have someone," he said quietly, hoping his words would not turn out to be false. They hadn't spoken in days...
Anya sighed. "It was worth a try, no?" He laughed brokenly and began again, opening a door with a swift kick of his stick-thin legs. "It's a trick doorknob," he explained, and flicked on the lights. The room was completely empty.
"Sit," he commanded, and Quatre obeyed, sitting on his knees anxiously, body folded like a Buddha. "I want you to play something for me." The Arabian looked at him as if he were completely insane.
"Sir, I have no violin."
"You have one up here." He tapped his forehead. "The one Stefan taught you to play. The one that is giving you so much trouble. Holding a real violin and playing is impossible now, yes?" He had to concede that. "Then there is no harm in trying it. No one will be able to see but you and I and these walls."
Feeling more than a bit foolish, Quatre raised his hands, one poised with an invisible bow, the other resting gingerly on air strings. "You are only holding your hands there. Feel the strings under your fingers." Quatre frowned as he slid his hand down the violin. With a sudden jerk, his hand slid through the violin and he made a clicking noise of frustration.
"You aren't trying to see them, boy. You're supposed to be playing them. Close your eyes if it helps." Blowing a stray piece of blonde hair from his eyes, he blinked them rapidly, then squeezed them shut.
If he were holding his own violin...
If he were holding his violin, the strings would be this far apart, and this tight, and there would be a little ridge here...and here...and here... And a mark where he had tried to burn his initials into the wood, a little tail of a Q, petulant, angry. As he had been, angry that his father had died and left him all alone to suffer in a cold world.
And here...the slightly oily feel of the wood, where he rested his forehead after playing, exultant, glorified, his chest heaving and his heart racing in a fast-paced steeplechase towards some unnamed finish line. His sweat and his heart and his blood. It was coming back in the most vivid detail...
Here, where the first time Quatre had laid his fingers on the violin he'd dropped it onto the floor, feeling a tingling sensation shoot up his arm. Here, where he'd tried to play for Trowa and could not, and nearly broken his violin over the kitchen table. Only his lover's timely intervention had saved it from a splintered death. Yet it bore the mark where he'd tried.
And in some terrible way, he was like the violin.
He lifted the imaginary bow and began to play.
End Part Two
Ariana
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