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Chapter Text

The piano is old, its wood weathered. The keys are clean and cold to the touch, still gentle and giving after decades of service, and the pedals have never felt any stiffer than they felt the very first time Alec used them. It’s a quality instrument and a reliable partner; it’s here, in the small living room, when Alec closes the door behind him. Silent, inviting, it waits under a sheet during the day, fondly protected from the harsh sunlight. It was probably worth thousands and thousands once; now that time has done its work, it’s nothing more than an old piano. It still carries golden letters with pride, the way an old man would carry medals and ribbons reminding him of the feats of his younger days. Alec polishes them regularly but they’ve still lost their shine over the years, subtly. Pushed flush against a wall, the small upright piano compliments a simple room; the warm brown of its robe reveals refined nuances when rays of light hit the mahogany. Solid, unmovable, the instrument is a constant, an anchor.

Alec can’t have a dog in this tiny apartment so he loves his piano instead.

He’d like to have a ball of fur welcoming him home after work, jumping to lick his face, dancing around him in unbridled celebration. The landlord said no though, but he didn’t say anything about music. At first, Alec was worried – what if one of his neighbors complained? Not everyone likes piano music after all, even though it’s not too hard on the ears if played well. With almost two decades of practice at the tip of his fingers, Alec’s never been afraid to be mistaken for an apprentice. Still, nothing and no one can stop old ladies who’ve decided they can’t stand the melody of an intricate sonata. Luckily, after half a year of playing almost every day, Alec still hasn’t received any passive-aggressive letter, which, in itself, is a compliment.

In the heat of July, when the alarm clock rings at 7 every morning, there is little better to do after 8 pm than to put a pillow on the worn bench, sit comfortably and open the fall board to reveal the keys. Alec loves this moment, always has. He still remembers – approximately – the first time he did it with this particular piano; undressing the keyboard after all these years is still oddly exciting, as if something else than plain black and white keys could hide under the lid. He finds a note, then another, slow. They’re the same every day. Alec likes this kind of routine, it’s like self-care. A trusted pillow on the bench, a full stomach and a couple of notes to wake his piano up; now he’s ready to go.

He has tons of music sheets. The large majority of them are stored in the small cabinet next to the piano, carefully organized by author. The oldest ones come from his grandmother; some of their pages are turning yellow but the ink is still here. She had a thing for Chopin and his Nocturnes but now that Alec can play whatever he wants – and god knows it took him a long time after moving out to realize no one would be watching over his shoulder anymore, these sheets are sadly neglected. Chopin can be too depressing at times.

The pieces he plays most often accumulate on his music desk, along with the pieces he should play. He often tells himself that he should look into Vladigerov’s third concerto or re-learn how to play Godowsky’s Java Suite. He never does. It’s always the same thing. This sheet looks cool, this piece would sound nice but oh here is Bortkiewicz’s Elegie, for the hundredth time, and nothing else matters anymore.

The window on his right is slightly open to let some air in. It would be inhumane to leave everything closed, even at this time of the day. Behind the glass, New York hums gently. From here, Alec doesn’t have the best view but it’s not too bad either. Lights from other apartments blink from a distance as people come in and out. Alec watches a group rush to cross the avenue below. The crowd dances back and forth between both sides of the street, as always. It’s pretty, their waltz.

Alec plays when it’s too silent. He plays when he has a hard time putting words on something but someone has already put notes on it. He plays when it’s too loud. He plays when he’s tired, when he’s not tired, when he doesn’t know what he wants. Alec plays and the piano sings, and things are okay. He plays and thinking becomes irrelevant; there is only feeling, barely remembering. His fingers know some pieces by heart, all he has to do is sit and listen to himself. Alec likes a challenge; he tries to learn new pieces on a regular basis and he trains until late at night. It’s easier if he thinks of himself as a sponge, soaking into what someone wrote decades and decades before he was born.

He gives up at times. Some sheets are just not for him.

Satie’s Première Gymnopédie is for him. The composer himself described it as “slow and painful” but Alec doesn’t feel it that way. It is slow, but it’s also gentle and tender, softly paced and moving. It’s more of a rainy day kind of piece.

Good thing it’s raining on New York. Summer has its outburst, its short showers before midnight. Alec likes it. Satie would like it too.

It’s still raining when Alec moves on. Respighi’s P. 22.4 comes to him next; bouncy, light and happy, the tune carries him away like an overexcited pony would. Maybe with too much zeal, Alec continues with the floating pieces – Chaminade’s Themes and Variations keeps him busy for a little while longer. Every time he plays it, the tune ends up stuck in his head for the next couple of days – he never minded. It’s such a beautiful piece, different in style and tone from all others, Alec would gratefully listen to it every day.

When he pushes the last notes into the keyboard, his window is almost dry again. New York is still purring, at peace. Alec stretches his wrists out of habit and plays with his fingers for an instant, getting lost in the view of the city. Piano music fits her so well.

Someone knocks on the door, twice. Alec almost jumps out of his skin, startled; his heart bangs against his ribcage for a second. He gets out of his trance quickly, perplexed. He isn’t expecting anyone and as far as he remembers, he hasn’t ordered food. No one even asked him to open the door of the building for him, so it must be a neighbor.

Alec stands up with a sigh and walks to his front door. Here comes the old lady. Things were going too well, it was too good to be true. Someone had to complain. Fine. He’ll go and face her, and apologize like the kind neighbor he is. It’s not even 9 pm though. Why must old people be like this?

He doesn’t even both to put his best “nice to see you, friendly person” face before opening the door – if someone bothers him in his own home, they will have to take him as he is. Part of him is glad to see that no old lady is waiting for him on the other side; most of him, however, is puzzled to see that no one is waiting. At all.

The corridor is empty. All the other doors are closed. Alec is confused.

Maybe it’s kids? There are a couple of them downstairs. But they’ve never done things like that. Maybe someone made a mistake and was looking for another apartment? But then wh –

There’s a note on the doorstep.

Alec bends over, picks it up and closes the door. It’s a thin piece of paper coming from some kind of notepad. Something is handwritten on it; the ink is a deep purple (really? who writes in purple ink?) and the words flow with grace despite having obviously been written in a rush. The letters are inclined, in cursive, elegant. Even more pleasing to the eyes, instead of a complaint, Alec reads a love letter.

“A humble request to the pianist: Liebesträume no 3 in A flat.”

A request. Someone heard him and when they could have ignored him or asked him to stop, they want more. They want more. A wild shiver runs down Alec’s back. He has an audience.

He goes back to his living room and opens his windows wide. The entirety of New York could listen to him for all he cares. There is one person out there, in his own apartment building, who wants to hear some Liszt and good god they’re about to hear some Liszt.

When Alec sits back down on his pillow, it’s with a purpose. He knows this one by heart but just in case, he puts the sheet in front of him and starts playing. First, the poetry. Second, the emotion. Then the strength, and the force, and the feathers on the keys. Alec soaks, soaks more then bursts and channels; there’s a story to be read through the notes and someone, listening out there, must be familiar with it. Turmoil drove the composer and must drown the pianist too in order to make this piece justice. Alec tries his best and hopes, as much as he can while playing such a song, that he’s doing it well enough.

The coda comes faster than he thought it would. Silence falls back on the keys; Alec can hear himself breathe. Liszt was a good one. New York is buzzing indifferently, as per usual – there is no crowd to cheer for Alec under his window.

A few stories higher, someone claps loudly. It’s clear and enthusiastic – the most honest thanks Alec has received in a while. One of his neighbors has left their window open just to listen to him play and now they’re probably leaning against their window frame, only audience member of this private concert. Alec looks through the window, basking in gratitude. It feels good to be appreciated.

The clapping stops after twenty long seconds but even by paying attention, Alec can’t hear a window closing. Whoever has this fluid handwriting and this frankly ridiculous purple ink is still listening to him. Their note is sitting on top of the piano; Alec reaches for it and reads it again. A humble request to the pianist.

If they like Liebesträume no 3, they’ll like Consolations no 2.

So Alec plays again, with heart and feeling. He plays again and the piano follows, loyal. He plays for someone other than himself for once, just for tonight, and New York lets him.

When his neighbor claps again, it’s with the same energy and love than the first time. Humbled, Alec waits patiently for the hands to still; they do, eventually. The silence has changed, now tainted with the color of Liszt’s works. It would be criminal to break its beauty, selfish to disturb the ether the small piano brought down to earth. Alec puts the fall board down, hiding the keys.

It’s enough for tonight.

Alec has too much on his mind, so he plays.

It’s 9 pm; he’s about to sit on his small bench but after a second thought, he decides to open his living room’s windows wide first. Just in case. There’s no way to know if someone is listening, but maybe there is, and maybe they’d like to hear more. If they don’t, they can still leave a note to complain after all. Alec will be waiting for it right here, next to the window. The skies are clear tonight; some stars manage to outshine the obnoxious city lights. He’s had this view for years but it’s still just as pretty.

Alec sits, opens the lid, plays one note, then another. He’s ready.

Slowly, one by one, notes unfurl from the paper and the piano sings. Debussy’s Rêverie is hazy, silk to the ears; it should be played with satin gloves, listened to while relaxing in a luxurious bubble bath or lying on expensive velvet. It transports and soothes – Alec needs it. The small piano delivers kindly, carries Alec away for four minutes, four minutes only. Then it’s over.

Alec exhales, at peace. It doesn’t last long; something rattles under his front door and his breath hiccups.

He doesn’t move, trying to understand what exactly is going on. From here, he can see a piece of paper being slipped under the door – it’s light and it flies over a meter or so. After it settles on the floor of the flat’s entrance, everything is silent once again.

Alec thinks he knows what this is.

Genuinely curious, he stands up and goes to take the thin piece of paper. The ink has barely dried but it’s not smudged; the deep purple varies in intensity along the words, it builds up in the curves and lightens in the lines, watery. Alec is no expert in deciphering people’s handwriting – his own handwriting is pretty bad – but he knows enthusiasm when he sees it. It’s there, in plain sight, badly disguised by the grace of the pen, just like it was yesterday.

“A humble request to the pianist: Vogel als Prophet.”

Ah, Schumann. A classic, truly. Alec smiles; he likes this one. Going back to the piano, he leaves the fresh note with the other one, right on top of the instrument, then sits back down.

And he plays.

From where he sits, the moon is the only obvious attendee to his modest performance. Yet, when he is done, it’s not the moon who claps for him. Warmth floods Alec’s chest at the sound of his neighbor’s thanks. It’s so nice of them.

Because he was in a mood for Debussy before the note arrived, Alec keeps his windows open and starts the Clair de Lune. It may not be what his neighbor likes the most, but he likes it himself. This one is for the both of them; Alec knows that whoever they are, they also see the moon tonight, and Debussy’s hymn to this pretty lady is most fitting. Alec takes his time, stretching the piece to extremes before its climax. Debussy’s innate talent to tie softness and magnificence together gleams from the Clair de Lune. Love is blooming somewhere on Earth.

Two stories higher, a wine glass in hand, Magnus Bane decides he should go on his balcony more often.

In the back of a closet, Alec finds an empty plastic folder. It’s perfect. The pieces of paper that appeared on his doorstep these last couple of days will fit nicely in it. He keeps the folder next to his piano, in the cabinet holding all his music sheets. A craving in his starts to build up in his stomach; this folder would look good full of notes.

Knowing that someone could be listening to him every time he plays is quite unnerving. For all he knows, they could’ve been listening to him since he moved in. Alec liked thinking he was the only one really hearing the piano, but it’s apparently not the case. Oh, well. If it’s only one other person, it’s not that bad. Still, he gets a bit self-conscious about what he has to offer. He’s not a professional pianist, far from it, even though he has lots of experience.

Some of his keys are slightly out of tune and Alec doesn’t know what to do about it. He regularly re-tunes his little piano but the instrument is old and tired. For now, it’s not too much of a bother – and it’s not like Alec had Piano Money to replace his brave partner, but he knows that one day will come the piano won’t sound good anymore. Hopefully it won’t happen any time soon. It’d be a shame.

At 9 pm sharp, Alec opens his windows, sits down and unveils his piano. He stays there for an instant, trying to hear anything that would hint at a window being opened somewhere above his head, but nothing happens. With a light shrug, he picks a sheet he hasn’t played in a long time. It’s different than what he’s used to play, and the piece itself is prettier if cords are also part of the arrangement, but it has its charm. Eyes on the measures, Alec thoroughly starts playing Ralph Vaughan William’s Fantasia on a Theme.

The entire piece is a story, starting with slow exploration and curiosity; Alec lets the notes bubble up under his fingers, popping one after the other in quick succession. Gradually, the story builds up over several minutes – fields and oceans expand under the palms of his hands and winds from another land blows around his wrists. Up and down, up and down, the story goes. Alec slows then runs then slows again until the seventh minute, when the piece pulls him in fully once again and ascends in a perfectly crafted apotheosis. He lets it wash over him then goes down, down, gently; his hands land on the keys one last time, satisfied.

The notes don’t echo; silence reigns again.

Alec stands up and stretches his shoulders, groaning. He should practice Fantasia more often, he knows he can do better. Someone who isn’t well acquainted with the piece probably wouldn’t be able to tell though.

Maybe he’ll get another request tonight? He tries not to let it get to his head, but he still hopes he’ll find another notepad page on his doorstep. Playing for someone is refreshing for once; letting another person choose what he should play next feels risky, adventurous – as adventurous as you can get when playing the piano alone in your living room.

When he comes back from the kitchen, a glass of water in hand, the now familiar sound of a piece of paper being slipped under his front door makes him grin. Here it is. Impatiently, Alec fetches the note, pleased to see that his neighbor hasn’t run out of purple ink.

“A humble request to the pianist: Suite of Short Pieces no 6.”

Alec frowns. What? Confused, he flips the paper around, only to see the other side is naked. Which Short Pieces? This doesn’t ring a bell.

Oh nice, now he got this freaking paper he thought about all day but he has no idea what it’s supposed to mean. And it’s not like he can go knock on every door of this apartment building like “hi, yes, excuse me, are you the one who wrote this? Please explain.” He’s still halfway tempted to call for help through the window on the offhand chance that whoever wrote this would be kind enough to answer and elaborate, provided they don’t shrug it off and think of him as an idiot for not knowing.

The cabinet besides his piano is crammed with music sheets; there must be some kind of Short Piece in there; Alec almost runs to it and starts shifting through his folders. The neighbor is quite fond of Schumann but Schumann wrote five Short Pieces, not six. Edward Grieg wrote a bunch of short pieces but he never called them a Suite. Liszt? Has Liszt written a Suite of Short Pieces? Alec suddenly can’t remember. Where is this piece supposed to come from? He kneels on his carpet, pulls a good dozen folders from the cabinet and lays them out on his floor; running a hand through his hair to keep it from falling in front of his eyes, he goes over every name in hope that one of them would elicit a sudden aha moment. If he wasn’t living on the third floor, he could almost feel the weight of someone’s eyes on his back, expecting, waiting for him to deliver. Wait a minute, Alec almost calls out, wait, I need to find it first. Eager to please, he battles his frustration as he pushes his Saint-Saëns folder to the side – where in the world does the Suite of Short Pieces come from?

He’s heard it before. He’s almost sure of it. It’s somewhere in there.

For ten solid minutes, Alec rummages through sheets he hasn’t looked at in months or even years, hoping to find a rare pearl. Handel has a Suite but it’s not what he’s looking for. Bach has tons of Suite material but none of them are called Short. Debussy has a Suite but it’s not even close to having the correct title. What is it? His neighbor is going to lose their patience and close their window; he can’t let this happen! He’s going to find it, he swears, but he has to find it fast. His heart is pounding – is he sweating?

At loss, Alec pushes on his knees and stands back up to grab the sheets he left on his piano. It hits him like a punch to the throat. Ralph Vaughan Williams, who composed the Fantasia, has a Suite of Short Pieces.

Alec jumps back to his cabinet and grabs Williams’ folder. Of course! Of course! His neighbor recognized the Fantasia – by ear, from a distance? Quite impressive – and requested a piece from the same composer. Alec can’t stop himself from smiling. Here it is, the Suite of Short Pieces no 6. The paper is almost new, untouched; Alec maybe has played it a couple of times at most. Pezzo ostinato is its pretty name and it doesn’t look too long.

Hoping his neighbor hasn’t given up on him yet, Alec makes sure the windows are still open wide, puts the sheet in place on his piano and sits back down. Exhaling deeply, he plays the first ten notes or so to get a feeling of the piece; he stops then and turns the pages to read through the music before playing it fully. It doesn’t look like it’s going to be a piece of cake but what’s the worst that could happen?

Alec’s heart is still thrumming; he rubs his hands against his thighs to dry them. And he plays.

His hands hesitate, stutter at times, but he doesn’t let go. The rhythm accelerates pretty early in the piece but there is a clear pattern Alec can fall back on. Music jumps up and down the way a nursery rhyme would and draws waves on the sheets, swift and graceful like a river. Alec misses a note from time to time and picks back up where he can; he knows it’s okay, he’s not familiar with this piece anyway. Eventually the song slows down, almost stops, then kicks up last time with this colorful pattern. Alec follows it until the final note, then breathes out and stops.

He would have anxiously waited for feedback but not two seconds after he stopped playing, someone starts clapping reverently from upstairs. Relief floods Alec; he looks up and lets out a huge breath. It may not be much after all, it’s only a small piece played for a neighbor, but he did well and that’s enough. He can’t bow in front of his public but he wants to show his gratitude anyway.

Magnus wasn’t expecting to hear anything else tonight yet he can’t help but smile when a simple, stripped down version of ABBA’s Thank you for the Music starts playing on the piano of the third floor.

It becomes routine, a habit of the best kind. Pieces of paper, all ripped from the same notepad, start piling up in Alec’s plastic folder. The dark purple ink is always the same, always used with a fountain pen. The first few words, a humble request to the pianist, make Alec giddy. It’s Pavlovian at this point, he can’t help it. Every night at 9, Alec opens his windows no matter the weather and plays something he likes. Minutes later, someone will come down and slip a paper under his door. He thought, once or twice, about opening the door right there and then and see their face, maybe invite them in for coffee; he never does. What they have going on, it’s too precious, it’s too pretty. He doesn’t want to break it in any way, to ruin the spell.

At least twice a day, Alec wonders who this neighbor could be. He doesn’t have a clue. Maybe it’s the middle aged lady living above him, she looks like the type to like piano music. Maybe it’s the trio of friends renting an apartment on the 6^th floor; no, no one in their group would have this handwriting. Plus the clapping sounds like it comes from pretty close, maybe from the fifth floor. Is there an old person living on the fifth? Alec would have to look into it. Still, even if he knew which apartment this neighbor lives in, he wouldn’t have a complete name – only last names are written on the mailboxes of the ground floor. It doesn’t really matter anyway.

As the days go by, the neighbor starts requesting obscure pieces. The paper often carries the name of a composer along with a title and more than once, it’s unpronounceable. Alec has to find the music sheet on the internet and print it before playing. He experiments, slowly tries things out, hiccups but always finishes the piece; the neighbor always claps in return.

Alec starts listening to classical music during his commute. He finds podcasts and radio stations that talk about pieces he’s never heard of before. He plays on a ghost piano in the bus, subtly pushing the keys in his thighs. For each new composer the neighbor mentions, Alec downloads as much sheets as possible. He reads them during dinner, sorts them before going to bed and tries a few measures when the windows are closed. On the weekend, he plays in the mornings; New York is still drowsy with sleep when he stops.

Over time, it becomes clearer and clearer that Alec’s neighbor knows what they’re talking about. Their knowledge of piano music is just as impressive as their passion for Alec’s abilities. Every night, without failing, they come down to share something with Alec and he learns from it. Alec can’t see them but he knows how patient they must be to listen to him stumble over the notes. Sometimes, a piece Alec knows by heart comes up; overjoyed, Alec plays it eagerly, pouring everything he has into his instrument. Infallible, the neighbor claps. Always.

Day after day, Alec understands: they’re communicating. At 9 pm, he starts playing and the neighbor replies. There are no words involved other than the ones written in purple ink, a humble request to the pianist, yet they talk just as much as they would face to face. Alec opens his windows and lays his heart out on his keyboard; one night, the notes are heavy and wet, salty even. He has called friends, he has hugged family, but ultimately, it’s his piano that bears his burden. When a piece of paper slips under his door, Alec doesn’t immediately stand to catch it. It’s probably a stupid piece, something too complicated, something meant to distract him or make him feel better. He would understand, he would know where his neighbor would be coming from. God, he must be looking pathetic right now, he must be sounding like a mess. Nothing he plays comes together in the right way, nothing resonates as properly as pure silence. He’s not in the mood. Playing happy gigs for someone is not what he needs right now.

He stills takes the piece of paper from the floor, just in case.

He’s always avoided playing Chopin but tonight, the apocalypse couldn’t stop him from ripping his heart out and playing with his lungs exposed. The paper who carries the name of the Nocturne no 19 has fallen back on the floor by the time he reaches his bench; the letters are round, deliberate, careful. There’s tenderness, empathy even, in the beauty of their curves. He hates that he knows the sheet without looking at it; he’s angry at everything, scared of everything, and centuries ago, Chopin knew it was going to happen. Alec will never tell anyone if he cried or not, he will never tell anyone about any of this anyway; he knows he doesn’t need to, for fate found him and gave him someone to talk to in the most ancient of languages.

Way later that night, Magnus will hear Bach’s Ave Maria being played from a couple of stories below. The wind itself will carry its heartbreaking echo to his balcony and hug him like a thankful friend.

On a Saturday, Alec comes back home late. Very late. His eyes don’t really want to stay open, his hair is greasy and there’s a drip of vodka – gin? Rum? He doesn’t remember – down his shirt. It’s not his doing, Simon lost all fine motor skills sometimes during the night and spilled his shots everywhere. Alec sighs. Simon.

The mirror in the hallway makes Alec look exhausted – which he totally is. He decides it’s not time for bed yet though. Today is the first day he missed his daily 9 pm meeting with the neighbor from upstairs and just for fun, he’d like to see if said neighbor is still up. What will most likely happen is that he will attract an old lady’s rage onto him for playing the piano this late; if it’s the case, he can always play the “I didn’t see the time” card. It’d be a lie, but it would work.

Without ceremony, Alec opens a window, takes the cover off his piano and sits down. How many glasses did he have tonight? Not many, right? He can’t tell. It doesn’t matter. Not many. He can’t have had many. He doesn’t like to drink. Jace may like to watch him drink, Raphael may like to make fun of him when he drinks, but he can’t have had more than two. Or maybe three. Four? He doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter. Not that many anyway.

He should play for the neighbor. Are they awake? Maybe. Does it matter? No. He’s going to play. Mmmh what does the neighbor like? Oh, Liszt. They like Liszt, right? They asked for something from him, the very first time. Yes, Alec remembers now, the Liebesträume no 3. Alec knows the Liebesträume no 3. He can play that.

Turns out, he can’t. Or maybe he can but then it sounds incredibly different from what he remembers. Whatever. Alec plays for half a minute anyway then stops, unable to remember what comes next. Where is the sheet? Not here. Oh, it’s back in the cabinet. Oh no. The cabinet is far away. Well, it’s right there but it’s still far away. So far away. Alec doesn’t want to try, he giggles instead.

Someone else starts playing.

It takes a while for Alec to identify where it comes from, and what it is. It’s not piano, it’s a lot lighter. It enters the room through the open window. Guitar? No. Ukulele? Ukulele. The song is familiar but Alec can’t tell what it is. He leans towards the window, almost falling from his seat, as if it was going to help him hear better. It comes from upstairs.

Oh. The neighbor is awake.

They start playing the song again, from the very beginning. Alec stays there, mouth gaping, trying to remember where he heard this. It has the tone of a carefree afternoon, like good memories. After a few instants, the distance voice of a man joins the ukulele. He sounds happy. Alec likes it. He still needs a moment to recognize the lyrics and of course, he knows! He knows, and to make his neighbor understand, he slaps his keyboard the way he would tap someone’s shoulder to attract their attention. It’s Dream a Little Dream of Me and he could play it with his eyes shut.

The neighbor stops singing but keeps playing, more slowly, from the start of the song. Alec straightens up. His turn.

He starts playing from the beginning and listens to the neighbor carefully align his notes to his tempo. It’s pretty. It’s really pretty, Alec could fall asleep right there and then.

He almost does and loses their pace; the ukulele stops playing. Alec can’t see him but he knows, he knows the neighbor is laughing. He better not be.

They start all over, the neighbor guiding their rhythm this time. He’s not singing. Why is he not singing? Alec liked it when he was singing, he had a pretty voice. Now, Alec can’t sign to save his life but it’s not going to stop him. When they reach the first refrain, Alec breaks into an enthusiastic rendition of Ella Fitzgerald’s song. He’s out of breath after the first line but it doesn’t matter because now the neighbor is singing from his apartment, far away above him. Alec can only hear him badly; it’s okay, it’s perfect like this. To protect his already-busted vocal cords, Alec tones it down and continues singing with less fire. He really has to anyway, he’s going to lose track of his fingers if he doesn’t calm down, and he doesn’t want that. No one wants that.

They both slow down in the second half of the song. Alec doesn’t want it to stop. It’s so nice, like a musical embrace. If the neighbor was here, playing the ukulele by his side, Alec would feel like burying his face in the stranger’s neck and wrapping himself around him. Swaying gently from left to right as he’s playing, he wonders if the neighbor is doing the same.

They’re suddenly interrupted by the grumpy man who lives on the 4^th floor, banging against his floor and ceiling with his adored broom. Alec stops and hears the neighbor play the last five notes delicately, subtly inviting the man to fuck off. The neighbor then turns silent, his voice gone, his ukulele mute and the old man stops thumping after a moment. Alec looks through the window, almost expecting a face to appear on the other side. Of course, nothing is here, but it barely matters. He laughs to himself. They should do this more often.

Magnus will fall asleep on his couch, his ukulele resting on his chest, the door to his balcony open on New York snoring in the middle of summer.

Alec doesn’t have to work this Thursday, so he takes the time he has to play for a little while. There is an old friend he hasn’t looked at in a while; Respighi’s Sei pezzi 44: Valse Caressante, of breathtaking beauty, deserves more attention.

In the middle of the piece, as he lets himself be carried away by the poetry written between the lines, a piece of paper slips under his door. Puzzled, Alec stops. It’s 10 am, and his neighbor never writes him notes this early, even when he plays in the morning. Last night, he requested one of Ravel’s pieces of work – a challenging one that Alec had to sweat for. That note is sitting on top of a couple dozens of others in the plastic binder; he’s proud of his performance.

Without a word, Alec gets up to grab the new note. It’s different. The handwriting is sloppy and doesn’t follow the lines on the paper; most importantly, the neighbor used a black ball pen instead of pulling his trusted purple fountain pen from wherever he puts it.

“A vital request to the pianist: 4’33”

Alec’s eyes widen, his mouth torn in incredulity.

Unbelievable.

What an ungrateful man, Alec mutters to himself, after everything I’ve done for him, this is how he thanks me? Cage’s Four Minutes and Thirty-Three Seconds of Silence. This man, this all-knowing, ukulele-playing, mess of a man, requesting four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence at 10 in the morning? What is he, hungover? Did he get out of his bed, scribble the plea on a piece of paper and crawl down all the way to Alec’s doorstep just to let him know that he wasn’t doing justice to Respighi’s composition?

On his way out of the apartment building, the bags under his eyes as dark as his mood, Magnus will find his own note sitting on the entrance mat of his third floor neighbor. His brain drowning in coconut-flavored fog will still recognize a Mozart sonata being played from the other side of the door. He’ll pick up the note from the floor and flip it over only to read a word harshly written with a bright green highlighter.

“no”

“A humble request to the pianist: Liebesträume no 3 in A flat”

Alec smiles to himself. His neighbor must have a personal history with this piece to request it more than once. How has he fallen in love with Liszt’s work like this?

Gracefully, Alec obliges. It’s nice to play, if nothing else, and it’s perfect at night. This single piece of music is so important to his neighbor; what is it? Is it the longing in the pattern, the elegance in the melody? Is it the cadence, the back-and-forth, like a conversation, as if two lovers were sharing everything they had with each other? O Lieb, the original poem was called; the third Liebesträume was the composer’s homage to pure, unconditional love. The feeling is here, it’s everywhere, in every accord, taking its strength from raw poetry. His piano glows when Alec plays and he knows he’s glowing too; each measure a symphony, each pause an applause, the piece is getting to him.

Relationships he never had catch Alec by the throat, heat blooms in his veins. Liszt is talking, his neighbor is feeling, his piano is singing and Alec lets himself unravel, one minute after the other. He understands now, he sees the genius of the composer. He’s always known but now it’s different. From performance to experience, there is only one step and Alec can already see himself take it.

His hands run over the keyboard without him having to think about any of it; maybe he has closed his eyes, he can’t tell. It doesn’t matter. His fingers know the keys, his heart knows the song. If his neighbor was here, Alec would have his own hands over his, would guide him through the bars, the highs and the lows of this masterpiece. Everything is sugar, sunsets and pain under Liszt’s pen; his piece bursts into Alec’s chest, torrents down his back and Alec shivers when he hits the last measure. With a few quiet notes as a goodbye, the piano is silent.

Alec is out of breath.

Leaning against the balcony’s balustrade, sipping on a cocktail, Magnus hasn’t felt this way in a long time.

For a full week at the end of summer, the notes stop coming. At first, it’s worrying. Is the neighbor bored? After all they’ve been sharing music for more than a month now, maybe he’s had enough. Maybe he’s only been humoring Alec all this time. Then Alec remembers his neighbor is probably just on holidays. On top of that, there is no way this classical music enthusiast would pass up free private performances every night.

It’s almost lonely.

By the time Friday comes, Alec already can’t wait for his neighbor to come back. He hasn’t really thought of it before – at least not this much. This routine they have, this daily meeting, it’s the best thing that happened to him these last couple of months. Alec still hasn’t talked about it with any of his friends or colleagues; what would he say? He’s never been good with words and somehow, he’d manage to make this story sound creepy.

He’s still unsure as to who exactly this neighbor might be. Alec knows he’s a man, judging by the sound of his voice, who most likely lives on the fifth floor of the apartment building, plays the ukulele and doesn’t wait for the weekend to get drunk. Alec hasn’t personally met anyone who lives on the fifth. There’s a couple of young adults, he believes, and that’s all he knows.

It’s almost a date, he realizes on Saturday morning. It’s almost a date he looks forward to every day.

He doesn’t mind.

Eventually, Monday comes. At 9 pm, Alec opens his windows, sits down on his small bench, opens the lid protecting his keyboard and plays one note, then another. He’s ready.

Or so he thought. Inspiration doesn’t strike him.

Staring off into the distance, eyes unfocused, Alec tries to think of something he’d like to play. Given his collection, he’d be damned if he can’t find something. With heavy hands, Alec goes through some of the sheets that have accumulated on his piano and none of them really calls his name. This one is too slow, this one is too hard, this one? He played it a couple of days ago. He’s not in the mood for a complex piece. He doesn’t want to play this, or that. He sighs.

Without conviction, he settles for Bach’s Ave Maria. Back when he was a kid, it was his go-to piece when the living room was too silent; his fingers are on autopilot. Methodical, meticulous, Alec aligns each note after the other. He can’t focus on his hands; he’s too busy nervously glancing at his hallway, just in case. It’s Monday after all. If the neighbor truly was on vacation for just a week, like most people do this time of year, then he’d be back by now.

Twice, Alec stops, thinking he heard the characteristic sound of a note passing under his door. His pulse races for an instant until he sees that his floor is naked, that no piece of paper has appeared in his hallway. Disappointment sinks to the bottom of his stomach. Displeased, he starts playing again, slowly and without much emotion. What was he expecting anyway? Chances are his neighbor never left for a week under the tropics and is just tired of hearing him play.

Why is he making such a fuss about it? He shouldn’t expect his poor neighbor to fuel him like this, he should play for himself above all else, it’s not like –

Someone knocks on his door.

Alec turns his head so fast he almost hurts his neck. A mess of notes die on his keyboard without any style. Even from here, he can hear light steps becoming more and more distant; someone is walking away from his apartment. It’s back.

Alec rushes to his front door. Part of him screams, begs for him to open the door right there and then, to catch a glimpse of this stranger who’s been distracting him every night. He doesn’t – oh he doesn’t, but god knows how much he wants it.

When he’s sure no one is in the corridor anymore, Alec opens the door. On his doormat waits a tiny package as well as a note.

A package?

Alec picks everything up and comes back inside, closing the door behind him. A package? They’ve never exchanged gifts before. This one is small and light, perfectly wrapped in some shiny cream-colored paper. Two bows, of different shades of brown, sit on top. The note is, as usual, a thin notepad page. Alec had missed this deep purple. He might buy a fountain pen for himself soon.

“A humble request to the pianist: your favorite.”

Standing in the middle of his living room, Alec wishes he had someone to thank. A name, a face, anything. This guy doesn’t even know him yet here he comes to the door of his apartment, gifts him something and asks him to play his favorite piece. What is it, his birthday? It’s far from being Christmas anyway.

Alec puts the note in his plastic folder (which is starting to feel full by the way), sits at his piano and proceeds to delicately unwraps the box. The paper itself feels expensive so he tries not to tear it. Bit by bit, Alec reveals a white box beautifully decorated with royal blue and rich gold details. In gorgeous letters, a name sits on top; Alec can’t pronounce it but he understands it’s... chocolate? His neighbor got him chocolate? Pushed by curiosity (and it’s his gift after all), Alec opens the box. Inside lay an assortment of sophisticated chocolates, all shaped and decorated in different ways. Some have ribbons, some are covered in a deep color, some look like they’re hiding something inside– and is this actual gold on this one oh my god? The whole thing smells exquisite. Overwhelmed, Alec picks one at random and bites in it. Expecting raw chocolate, Alec receives more than he bargained for; it’s like he bit in a flower made of cacao and praline, delicate and intense at once. It’s probably one of the best chocolates Alec’s ever had, and there are least a couple dozen others in this box.

He definitely doesn’t want to know how much his neighbor paid for this.

More important, he doesn’t want to think of how he’s going to repay him.

“your favorite”

Alec bites his lip and puts the chocolate box aside. His favorite. Does he have a favorite? There are pieces he has grown up and lived years with, but it’s less because they were his favorite and more because they used to fit in his life at the time.

The taste of chocolate lingers in his mouth; he licks his bottom lip to get some more. His favorite? He likes Tchaikovsky a lot but these pieces are not easy to play. Debussy is nice but Alec can’t say he’s his favorite.

Oh, he knows. How could he not think of it?

It’s maybe a temporary favorite, but Bortkiewicz’s Elegie is the piece Alec likes to play the most lately. Without fail, it always carries Alec from one side of the emotional spectrum to another; with force, accuracy, the piece portrays what long-distance love feels like, at least to his ears. Playing it is as good as just listening to it – it’s like flying high up. Icarus of black and white, the pianist must cautiously draw the line between the vitality of passion and the reality of resignation. It’s perfect.

Alec is not scared, he won’t screw this one up; it’s easy to play tonight. Two stories of difference could be considered long-distance after all.

For six minutes, Magnus savors the splendor his neighbor’s controlled fingers bring to life for him. Sitting on his balcony at the end of August, rarely has he felt this lucky.  It’s not the champagne, it’s not the gold; it’s the breathtaking grace of the man living on the third floor, embodiment of a muse dead poets have chased for centuries. It’s the innocence in his confidence, it’s the purity in the palm of his hands, it’s the feathers on the wings he carries, on the talent he doesn’t hide. Magnus could listen to him bring poetry to flesh for a lifetime or two.

On Tuesday, his neighbor sounds tired, so Magnus requests a simple Goldberg Variation.

On Wednesday, his neighbor plays for a full hour without stopping so Magnus requests the short and jumpy Maple Leaf Rag, hoping to tire him out and allow him to sleep.

On Thursday, Magnus finds a large plate full of muffins of all sorts on his neighbor’s doormat; chocolate, caramel, blueberry, vanilla – only good stuff. They all look homemade too, all soft and perfectly baked. Still warm for some, they smell absolutely delicious. Magnus can’t believe it. It’s for him. His neighbor made all of this for him. He leaves his note and carefully takes the plate as if he had just found a pirate’s treasure. Of all things he owns, of all the silks and cashmeres he’s touched, nothing is quite as precious as a plate of baked goods prepared with love. Later this night, biting into the muffin version of an apple crumble as Alec delights him with Saint-Saëns’ Swan, Magnus wonders what he did to deserve this seat in heaven.

The small piano is tired. Alec’s ear never fools him. Some keys simply don’t answer the way they should. He sighs; he’s retuned his piano not long ago already. Paying a professional to do this isn’t cheap but he doesn’t have enough time to do it himself. He’d be patient enough, especially when it comes to take care of his beloved instrument. Still, it’s better if he asks someone else to do it for him.

Alec hates this. Seeing this piano decay like this. To be fair, the instrument is an old one, so it has to happen at some point.

He dusts the wood quietly, cleans the keys one by one and polishes the golden letters on the front of the piano. Hopefully he will be able to keep it for a little while longer. He can still play it and an untrained ear would tolerate it; Alec doesn’t. He knows his neighbor wouldn’t.

When night falls on New York, Alec opens his window on the pouring rain. After second thought, he closes it halfway to avoid being flooded. Luckily for him, the wind is blowing the other way, pushing the rain away from his windows. It comes in waves, strong ones, and makes the water crash against the walls of the apartment building. From here, if he closes his eyes, Alec can hear the tide.

He stretches his forearms with a groan then sits down, reveals his keyboard and presses a key, then another.

The second one is off. He winces.

Tentatively, Alec starts playing a Nocturne. It just sounds sad, so he stops.

He should have gotten his piano retuned earlier, he wouldn’t have to feel this bad about it. It’s almost like hurting a pet.

His hands slip off the keyboard. He won’t be playing tonight. Oh well, it’s not too bad, he thinks, rubbing the back of his neck. He can always watch a movie or call Clary so they can hang out at her place.

Barely piercing through the rain, muted by a curtain of wind and water, the heartwarming song of a distant ukulele makes its way to Alec. He squints, as if it was going to help him hear better. No, it’s clearly real. He’s not imagining it. His neighbor is playing the ukulele for him. Has he heard how badly tuned the piano is? Could he recognize a wrong note through the rain? Alec prefers to think it’s only a coincidence but over the course of the last two months, he’s learned to question coincidences.

He stands up to step closer to the window. He can’t tell what the man upstairs is playing, but it’s pretty. The wind steals notes from time to time, leaving him unable to fully hear the whole melody; Alec doesn’t mind. It only gives more depth to the gift he receives, more authenticity to the atmosphere. It has a good rhythm that Alec should be able to recognize if it wasn’t for the weather. For a minute, he stays there, head leaning against the window frame, taking everything in. There is man playing for him. A man who probably knows his piano is out of tune. A man with whom he’s shared everything that went through his heart and soul since mid-July. There is man, up there, he’d be glad to buy a coffee to. He owes him a lot, so much in fact he doesn’t know where to begin. Alec never had to repay people for how they make him feel.

His neighbor makes him feel.

He’ll probably never know if it’s intentional or not, if the man upstairs choses his requests depending on what he hears in Alec’s first piece. Alec’s never met him but everything, in what he does, in what he chooses, shows his thoughtfulness. This neighbor is kind, observant, patient. To Alec, he’s given plenty times and times again. His grace is in the way he writes, in the way he walks; Alec has never had the chance to watch him but he can already guess the perfection of his posture, the feline aura of the man standing. He’s rich for sure, probably decadent and colorful. He likes expensive chocolates, can recognize a piece by ear and writes with purple ink.

Alec wants to know him. He wants to take him out and listen to him talk – such a pretty voice he has! He wants to learn from him and teach him, teach him everything he knows. He wants to sit here, on this couch, so they can play the piano and the ukulele together. He wants to observe, to scan the man who’s been reading through the movements of his hands for months.

The ukulele slows down. Alec can feel himself slowly get out of his trance; without waiting, another song starts.

Alec has an idea.

He puts some shoes on, grabs the key to his flat, and then he’s gone. He knows where to go.

Well, he knows where to start.

Climbing the stairs two steps at a time, he reaches the fifth floor in no time. It’s identical to his floor, with the exception of the numbers on the door. From here, he can hear it better than before.

The ukulele is still singing. Without the rain to muffle it, Alec recognizes Hallelujah. There are no vocals on top, the neighbor is simply playing. It’s enough to guide him. Alec walks down the corridor, passing one door after the other, then stops in front of 5.03. Without a doubt, this is where his neighbor lives. There is no name on the door, nothing special on the doorstep. Only a black doormat with a cat drawn on it. Does he have cats?

Alec doesn’t know what to do. For a second, he thinks of knocking, but quickly decides against it. He doesn’t want to perturb his neighbor when he plays. This version of Hallelujah is something he had never heard before (to be fair, he doesn’t listen to ukulele much) and it’d be a shame to stop it now.

The most important reason why he’d rather just stand there and listen instead of knocking is that he doesn’t know what to say. Their relationship – relationship – is so fragile, so fleeting and rare. He’s never had anything like it and can’t risk to lose it. If the door opens, if they see each other, the spell will be broken. It’s terrifying.

So he stays there.

He stays there; the music is so much prettier from a shorter distance. He didn’t know there could be so many nuances in an ukulele. For once, he’s not the one undressing before the other, he’s not the one having to show his interpretation. There’s joy in this Hallelujah, where Alec wouldn’t expect to find it. From the other side of the door he can almost see able fingers dance over the strings, painting a masterpiece over the wood. Alec has heard this song too many times to count but this time is special because this time it’s for him.  

Halfway through the last part of the song, Alec goes back up to his apartment, leaving the ukulele behind him. He finds the tune again, at his window. It was better from up close but it stills sounds good with the rain.

When his neighbor stops playing, Alec is the one to clap from his window. He knows what to do to pay his neighbor back.

The first time it happens, it’s a Tuesday. Magnus goes through some of his old pieces, looking for something he could give to his neighbor later. As usual, around 9 pm, said neighbor starts playing for himself. Magnus smiles; it never gets old. His piano must have been retuned during the day; its sound is clearer, more accurate.

After what sounded like a measure, the neighbor stops. Magnus doesn’t think much of it; he’s apparently starting to play a new piece that even Magnus isn’t familiar with – at least he couldn’t recognize it straight away, so it must be hard. Without losing time, the neighbor starts the same measure again. Up, up, up he goes, then soft. It’s a bit longer than his first try, but he only added two notes. Magnus frowns. Come on, you can do better.

Once again, the music starts from the beginning; up, up, up then soft and flying, elongated. Quickly, the neighbor replays the last five notes or so in quick succession. And it stops. Magnus turns his head to his window. What is happening? Maybe he’s just testing the piano’s tuning. Yeah, it must be it.

Up, up, up then soft and flying, elongated then graceful. What is this piece? Magnus can’t tell. He should know though, it kind of sounds like –

The neighbor stops abruptly, then starts again. Up, up, up then soft and flying, elongated and down then graceful. As he repeats the pattern and replaces a few notes by a few others, it dawns on Magnus that of course he can’t tell which piece it is, of course the piano stutters, for his favorite neighbor is creating.

The next time it happens, it’s a Saturday morning.

It’s a lot longer than Magnus remembers. So fluid, too, and gorgeously written. His neighbor stops regularly and plays one measure or another, trying out different combinations. Magnus bites into a pancake, still in his pajamas. He can tell the window is open two stories below; his neighbor doesn’t mind him listening to a work in progress.

It may be the most honest proof of trust Magnus has received these last few years

When the neighbor takes a break, probably to write down his progress on a clean sheet, Magnus can only hope he’ll start again. He’ll never be bored of this man. Magnus will never be bored of how much he shines and shimmers even when the sun is down, especially when the sun is down.

The small piano sings and sings until noon and Magnus sits in awe, seriously considering what he’d be ready to do to have his neighbor’s music play in the background of his life every day.

Magnus buys two bottles of purple ink. Seeing the color dance inside the glass is mesmerizing when the bottle is full. He was surprised when he finished his first one. He doesn’t use purple ink this much, but after using his trusted fountain pen for months, he desperately needed to recharge.

“A humble request to the pianist,” he writes this night, “Wedding Day at Troldhaugen”

Expecting Grieg’s masterpiece to start playing under his balcony, Magnus is confused when something completely different comes through his open window. He stops what he was doing; for some reason, he can’t think properly. He knows this piece, he does, but what is it?  What’s most important is why his neighbor is playing it. He’s sure he wrote Wedding Day.

He could have shrugged it off and listened to the piece; he doesn’t. Instead, Magnus leaves his apartment and walks to the third floor. His neighbor must have left an explanation on his doorstep. The music echoes through the walls and the pipes of the stairs, resonating around him in an eerie symphony.

On the doormat of the apartment 3.03, Magnus finds his own note; on the other side, something is written with a blue pen.

“we’re not quite there yet, are we?”

Magnus can feel his face heat up at the insinuation; he raises an eyebrow and admits to himself he’s at least a bit charmed by the boldness of his neighbor. He may or may not develop a crush right here and now.

It gets worse when he recognizes that one the other side of the door, his flirty neighbor is playing Schubert’s Serenade.

Oh good lord.

Alec’s neighbor starts leaving music sheets from time to time. There are still normal notes, and then there are… other notes. “A humble request to the pianist: this one”.

The sheets that appear under his door are fascinating. Alec had never heard of most of them before and the ones he knew, he never could get his hands on until then. Baffled, Alec thinks of asking where he got all these sheets. Not that the music they carry is rare or exclusive; it’s that some of the sheets themselves are old. Too old. He even has to check the availability of a few, not fully convinced that he has an authentic dated copy of Bartók’s Piano Concerto no 2 from 1932 – it’s so hard he can’t even play it. On a Mozart sheet that has turned yellow over time, the notes are handwritten, the lines aren’t always straight. More exceptional even, a couple of Bach sheets come wisely laminated, a hard layer protecting the fragile paper. One of them carries a signature.

For an instant, Alec panics. He doesn’t want anyone to think he has stolen these sheets from some place. He reassures himself by muttering that they must be copies, they must be fakes. Still, by safety, he puts the sheet back under the door after having played its music (if he could) or copied the contents somewhere. Most of the time, the sheet is back in his apartment by morning.

Alec can feel himself get better at his own art. He doesn’t stumble in any of the pieces he owns now, he doesn’t hesitate or stops. Every night, he plays fully and his heart is at the tip of his fingers. October is stretching to reach its end; Alec has played for his neighbor for almost three months now and he has learned more than he thought he would.

He’s learned about his piano, about what this small beast still has to offer. He’s learned about the music, about all these pieces he had never heard before, never took the time to explore. He sees far now, his horizons broadened. There is an ocean behind all the Lakes and Alec is eager to crash on its shores. He’s learned about himself most of all, about what he can channel when he knows someone is carefully listening to him. Alec wants to impress, to make him proud, he wants to overwhelm and transcend. He knows what his neighbor’s ears like, knows what his heart prefers when it comes to music; so he gives, he tries, he excels at times in a desperate, fervent attempt to give back.

He’s learned about him, the man living upstairs. He’d know the purple handwriting anywhere, the regular clap of his hands, the details he pays most attention to; it’s for Alec, it’s all for him. All his cheers and his celebrations, all his efforts and presents, it’s for Alec. Day after day, a craving buds inside Alec’s chest. He wants more of it.

“A humble request to the pianist: please.”

Tonight, the sheet doesn’t wear a name nor a title. It’s freshly printed and the melody looks simplistic to the extreme. Alec frowns, wondering what his neighbor has in mind; still, he’s curious.

Windows wide open as per usual, he sits at his piano, puts the sheet in front of him and starts playing.

Before finishing the second measure, he recognizes Call Me Maybe.

Alec stares off into the distance, his fingers heavy on the last keys they’ve touched. He could swear a man is laughing upstairs; his voice barely muffled by the distance cuts through the silence.

Magnus finds the sheet he printed the day before on the brown doormat of the 3^rd floor. Where a title and a name should be, someone wrote a phone number followed by the letter A.

Magnus can’t breathe. It’s almost literal; his nose is stuffed, his forehead is warm with the fever he’s been battling for the past two days and his body is burdened by more cramps than he ended up with last time he went climbing. He rightfully hates life right now.

Still, without missing a day, he uses the little energy he has to leave a note on his neighbor’s doormat. The music that comes through his window is the only thing that seems to help his battered body fight this flu. With a pinch to the heart, he can’t help but notice that his handwriting is far from looking as good as it usually does. With great effort, he manages to keep it cursive – it looks good and he knows his neighbor likes it.

The first piece tonight, courtesy of the neighbor, is Poulenc’s Phantom Ball. Threading spectral undertones with a serene melody, Poulenc – through the talented pianist – paints rays of light shining through thick smoke. Otherworldly, the song spreads over around Magnus, ethereal voices vibrating above his head, below his feet. In a waltz as old as time, it’s nostalgia that leads the dance, pulling whoever is listening into a smothering embrace; old memories, ageing ghosts, that’s what this piece was carved from. Illnesses come and go, family manors turn to haunted ruins yet the music stays. Magnus wonders what the piece would mean to him if he had been blessed with immortality.

“A humble request to the pianist: Moths”

Not actual moths, of course. Poulenc’s Moths. He hopes he doesn’t have to specify.

One step after the other, Magnus goes down the stairs carefully. He’ll just put his note on the doorstep and go back into bed. After only thirty steps, he already misses his blanket dearly.

By the time he reaches the door 3.03, the Phantom Ball has ended. The last few notes are suspended in the corridor then vanish after a couple of seconds. Magnus exhales and looks down. There’s already a piece of paper on the doormat. He stops in front of the door, puzzled.

Before he bends down to reach for it, something attracts his attention. Staying completely still, Magnus can hear movement behind the door. Light, controlled steps are getting closer. His neighbor is coming towards the entrance of the apartment, deliberately calculating his every move to stay as silent as possible – it doesn’t really work. Even with a banging headache, Magnus can recognize this sneaky way to walk anywhere. His heart starts thrumming in his throat; the door is going to open any second now and Magnus will be standing in front of it, red-faced, deer in headlights. He looks like a mess; a mess! Him! Of all people, him, looking like a mess! It happens maybe once every three years and yet here he is, about to be introduced to his charming neighbor at the worst moment possible.

The door doesn’t open.

The steps come to a halt right behind it and nothing else moves.

He’s waiting. The neighbor is waiting. He’s never done this before. Magnus never heard him actually come forward before the note goes under the door. At best, Magnus can sometimes hear a few steps once he turns around and goes back to his apartment. This is new.

At loss as to what he should do, Magnus takes the piece of paper waiting for him on the doormat. It’s not a piece of paper, as he soon realizes; it’s more than ten music sheets, clean and fresh. Notes dance over the bars, one page after the other. Instead of the name of the composer, Magnus only reads the letter A; instead of a title, he reads a confession.

“Humble nocturne No.1 in A flat major: To The Neighbor with Purple Ink”

On either side of the door, two men hold their breath in unison.

Magnus shakes his head in disbelief. In his hands lies a piece composed entirely from scratch with him in mind, him and him only. He can’t hold back a lopsided smile, reading the title over and over again. Despite his best efforts, he can’t tell what he did to deserve this. No one has ever done something like this for him. He knows too well the devotion and commitment it takes to compose anything, let alone such a massive piece.

Something pulls him towards the door. He’d like to knock and say thanks. Above all else, he’d like to listen. Is it egoistical? Asking someone to play something they have written for you? Magnus doesn’t really care.

He bends his knees and slips the pages under the door carefully. The bundle of sheets is thicker than a single page so he has to put in some work but after a moment, he succeeds; the pages slip halfway to the other side before hitting an obstacle. Magnus inhales sharply and takes his hands off them. He’s 100% sure the music sheets just hit his neighbor’s feet.

Slowly, he watches the sheets being pulled slowly from the other side. They disappear under the door, leaving the doormat clear and Magnus’ hands shaking. A forearm against the door for balance, Magnus stands back up. Hopefully his neighbor understood his request and didn’t take him returning the piece as an affront.

He’s still not sure of what just happened. The Neighbor with Purple Ink. No nickname could ever surpass this one.

After an instant, steps can be heard again from the other side of the door, way less careful than before. They’re getting distant; the neighbor is going back to his piano.

He’s going to play.

He’s going to play a hymn to Magnus and Magnus wouldn’t miss it for all the gold in the world. He considers staying here, in front of the door, and listening to the music through the wood but decides against it. It’s better from the balcony – everything is better from up there, it’s more authentic. It’s like the first time his neighbor played for him; it’s the kind of first time Magnus would be glad to experience over and over.

Forget the flu, forget his heavy legs, forget everything. Magnus rushes to the stairs like a possessed man and prays with all his might that his neighbor has the heart to wait for a few minutes. He hurries through his front door and jogs to his window, wheezing. This is not good for his health but damned be his doctor’s recommendations, damned be everything. He’d gladly take another day to recover if it means he’ll get to be drenched in his neighbor’s idea of him. The quality doesn’t even matter, it’s irrelevant, completely irrelevant; the man downstairs could very well play a succession of the same three notes for ten minutes, Magnus would still stand and sob.

New York is quiet; it’s 9:30 pm, the moon is out. The stars have aligned for Magnus Bane.

Up, up, up then soft and flying, elongated and down then graceful, the modest piano starts singing. Like water under a bridge, measures flow one after the other with delightful fluidity; first a subtle song is born, right in the center of Magnus’ chest, then an ode arises. Gentle and oh so warm, it carries his name and blooms in his heart like a sugar rose. A pattern, finesse itself, builds up and emerges from under the swirls in the tune. Never drowned in it, never lost, the pattern floats and accompanies, perfectly crafted for the piece. One hand marries the other; bold and intense, the music rises and blossoms in Magnus’ throat like a cotton flower. He can’t swallow, he can’t move. The man downstairs is talking to him.

As winds and currents do, the piece transports; gravity is insignificant for Magnus flies with both his feet on the ground. The pattern starts over and Magnus finds love between the layers of feathers; when the song rises again, its brilliance reaches his eyes and moves oceans there. In the lows and the dips, Magnus could swear the earth bends. The weight of these lasts months, the weight of the entirety of him lifts from his shoulders when his neighbor’s left hand carves magic from his piano. The right hand draws a map of the clouds above, or maybe it’s a map of him, a map of what the man downstairs knows of him; poignant and refined, it’s a myth in motion. Magnus doesn’t try to anticipate, he doesn’t try to read ahead for the present is enough, for he can already melt at the sound of the flawless nuances hidden in the rhythm. That’s why when both hands sing in unison, when the tune spirals and explodes again in sublime passion, Magnus gives in to the grandiosity of it.

Masterfully laced with each other, rich poetry blends with raw emotion; there’s devotion in there, Magnus can hear it, there’s love and gratefulness embroidered in piece. So simple yet so majestic, the piece unveils a portrait one measure at a time.

So magnificent, oceans spill over their shores.

Bliss spills across the night as if the sky had been a blank canvas all this time. Effortlessly, the piano sings for a while longer, suspended between dimensions; it pulls and pushes then pulls again, bringing Magnus up over the ether. An entire garden grows in his lungs, he can feel petals vibrate in cadence. The melody lightens and radiates with the gold of pure honey; with both hands at work, Magnus’ neighbor takes him apart and makes him whole again. Magnus lets the pianist mold him, from clay to marble to man.

The neighbor draws some final strokes gently; Magnus wishes he never stopped playing. It ends too soon. The final note disappears into the silence like a drop of water into the sea. New York hasn’t moved, the wind hasn’t picked up but Magnus feels like he’s traveled through time. To know one person on the planet has thought of him for weeks on end and came up with such a breathtaking gift renders Magnus speechless. His own voice would be foreign to him; in fact, everything from a bird’s morning song to his favorite composer’s masterpiece would also sound unfamiliar. Tonight, the Humble nocturne no. 1 is all he can ear and he’d give away his very heart to have the privilege to listen to it again.

Magnus can’t see clearly, he can’t clap loud enough, he can’t breathe. He’d like to say thank you, he really tries, but the words refuse to come all the way to his lips.

Something has awoken in him and he doesn’t want to stop it.

Before going to work, Alec leaves the sheets for the Humble nocturne no. 1: To The Neighbor with Purple Ink on the doormat of the apartment 5.03. On his way out, he briefly wonders what his neighbor felt while listening to his composition.

On the bus, he thinks about learning to play the ukulele.

Twice this morning, Alec considers writing another piece.

By lunch break, he can’t stop wondering if it’s possible to develop feelings for someone you’ve never met.

Magnus keeps the sheet for Call Me Maybe but never texts the phone number scribbled on it. He doesn’t know how to start an actual conversation – he doesn’t really want to.

It’s the hundredth note.

Alec hasn’t properly closed the plastic folder in about a month now. Piling up, the notes haven’t lost any of their beauty. The ink hasn’t faded, the paper still looks just as good; they all carry different memories, each as precious to him as any other.

“A humble request to the pianist: Liebesträume no. 3 in A flat.”

Alec keeps count, it’s the fifth of this kind. He knows he’ll never be able to hear this piece again in his life without thinking of his neighbor. It’s stained now, it’s heavy with the memory of someone he’s never seen in person. Alec tries not to think too much of how heavier he’d like this piece to become. He wouldn’t mind attaching more strings to it.

This note is different though, for there is a “M.” scribbled at the bottom.

Alec raises an eyebrow, grinning to himself. Never has anyone taken so much time to lower their walls and introduce themselves to him, but his neighbor is getting there. It’s a single letter but for now, it’s good enough.

Later that night, Alec will lean back and listen to the clapping as if he had never heard it before. This week, he promises to himself, this week I’ll go knock on his door.

The shriek of his doorbell almost makes Alec drop his plate. Man, he hates this bell, he really should have it replaced. Jace never misses an opportunity to make him jump and this freaking doorbell is his weapon of choice. Alec is going to make him regret this one day. With a sigh, he puts his plate down onto the table and goes for the intercom. He hasn’t cooked enough food for both Jace and himself but they can still order pizzas if needed. He presses on the mic button and unlocks the door of the apartment building at the same time.

“Come in,” he calls, his voice partially covered by the buzzing sound of the door.

“Uh, it’s for a delivery,” a foreign voice answers from the other side. Alec frowns; he’s not expecting a package. He releases a button so the door lock stops buzzing.

“A delivery?”

“Yes sir, it’s your piano,” the voice explains. Alec’s jaw drops. His piano? Which piano? He never ordered a piano. He shakes in head in disbelief before realizing the man on the other side of the intercom can’t see him.

“There must be mistake, I didn’t buy a piano,” he says. After a pause, the delivery man shuffles through papers.

“Apartment 3.03, Mister A. Lightwood? Is this you?”

Alec blinks and scoots closer to the intercom. It’s ridiculous. The chances that this is an elaborate scheme to sneak into his apartment and rob him of his every possession are abysmally low but it’s still more probable than him having ordered a piano in his sleep. He glances to his living room quickly; his small piano is still here. Tired, yes, but here. Where would he put another piano anyway?

“Yes,” Alec confirms after a couple of silent seconds, “yes it’s me, but I don’t understand, I – I haven’t ordered a piano.”

The man insists. “The delivery costs have already been paid for, sir. I can’t leave this piano on the sidewalk.”

Alec is honestly at loss for words. The delivery man continues.

“Me and my colleagues can bring it to your apartment. Do you have enough room?”

Alec stumbles over his own tongue.

“I – uh, I guess? How big is it?”

On the other side of the intercom, the man flips a page over.

“It’s a grand piano, sir. Around six feet at its largest.”

Alec takes a step back and closes his eyes. “Oh my god,” he breathes, “a grand piano.”

“Can we bring it up?” the delivery man comes again.

The possibility hits Alec like a ton of bricks when he opens his eyes again. What if it’s the neighbor? No, it’s not possible. No fool in New York would spend thousands on a grand piano for a stranger – an almost-stranger. Alec doesn’t even want to start thinking of how expensive the instrument must be; grand pianos are way out of his budget. He played for the neighbor yesterday! Yes, his current piano may not be the best out there and yes, Alec would likely enjoy playing on a piano of a higher quality but still! But his neighbor is rich, Alec already knows this… No. No, it’s not possible, he can’t have –

“Sir?”

Alec steps forward and presses the mic button again.

“Yes,” he blurts, shaking his head. “Yes, bring it up.”

“Sir, we’re going to need you to open the door please.”

Still shaken, Alec presses the button; a loud buzz comes from the other side of the intercom and several voices start chattering as workers get ready to carry a freaking grand piano inside. Alec releases all buttons once he’s sure they’re keeping the door open; for their own good, he hopes the delivery men will find the heavy duty elevator.

Febrile, Alec pushes a table to the side and makes way in his hallway. He starts pacing in his living room, his nerves getting the best of him. What is happening? He should probably go talk to the neighbor, if he’s home. If it’s not him, if the Neighbor with the Purple Ink isn’t behind this, then who is? No one in any of his social circles are rich enough to have a grand piano delivered on his doorstep out of nowhere. Alec is violently pulled from his thoughts by a knock on his front door. As expected, it’s the delivery crew.

“Good evening sir,” a man says. Alec recognizes the voice from the intercom. Behind him, three other men are still busy pushing a large piano on wheels down the corridor. The instrument is covered in a thick blanket and what looks like the upgraded version of the bubble wrap. From here, Alec can see the distinctive shine of a black piano. Jesus Christ, it’s really happening.

“Good evening,” Alec parrots. With a head tilt, he invites the man inside his apartment and guides him to his living room. “Just put it around – Uh, here.” He gestures towards a free corner where, he hopes, the piano will fit. It’s crazy. A free piano. Alec still has a hard time coming to terms with what’s going on; his dinner is getting cold on the kitchen table. The delivery man doesn’t seem nearly as worried as him.

Why he has even accepted the delivery is still a mystery to Alec. He shouldn’t have done that. It’s going to turn against him in the worst way, he can feel it.

With great effort, the four men manage to get the piano through the doorway after taking the legs off. Alec watches them put the legs back into place and gently move the piano to the corner of his living room. One by one, they take off the protective layers and undress the majestic instrument. Alec’s heart misses a beat when he recognizes the characteristic golden logo of Steinway & Sons embossed above the closed lid that covers the keyboard. These pianos cost a fortune. He runs his hands through his hair, grabs his own head in bewilderment and exhales everything he holds.

He can’t accept this. It’s too much, it’s way too much. Even if it wasn’t a Steinway, it’s too much. A nervous chuckle escapes him.

Two of the men carry a large bench into the room. It’s luxuriously cushioned – probably leather – and matches the black coat of the piano.

“Here are all the documents regarding your new piano,” the delivery man announces, handing a slick black box to Alec. Alec takes it without thinking and gets lost in thought staring at the golden logo on the box’s lid. This can’t be real. “I’m going to need your signature to confirm the delivery please.” A clipboard appears in Alec’s field of vision, making him blink. Slowly, he puts the black box down on the back of the piano and takes the clipboard. He almost asks the man to pinch him to make sure he’s not dreaming but ultimately decides against it, lowering his gaze onto the paper he’s been handed. His address his in the top left corner under the name “A. Lightwood” and the phone number written under the address is undeniably his.

Alec’s stomach’s sinks.

It’s the neighbor. It’s really the neighbor, no doubt about it. The neighbor has his phone number. He doesn’t have his full first name, only an initial, but he can find his last name on his mailbox, downstairs. It’s the neighbor who did this. A shiver runs down Alec’s back as he considers the implications of such a gift.

In the top right corner, the billing address points to apartment 5.03; above it thrones the name of Magnus Bane.

“Is everything okay sir?”

“Yes, yes it’s fine.”

Alec signs mechanically and hands the clipboard back to the delivery man.

“Your piano was tuned before delivery but it may need some adjustments. You’ll find a phone number in the documents,” the man says, pointing at the black box. “Call if you need anything.” Alec nods politely. After a smile and cordial “have a nice evening, sir”, the four men leave Alec’s apartment; when he closes the door behind them, he’s not even sure he’s thanked them. His mind is elsewhere, wandering around this piano itself, around the beast sitting in his own home.

He turns around to look at it. It’s gigantic, way bigger than his small upright piano. Lustrous, the glossy black of the piano’s coat makes it look like a collector’s piece. Adorned with golden accents around the lid and over the pedals, materials blend into one piece; brass, wood and soul have melted together. It feels sacred, charged with too much energy for Alec to put his fingers on it. Back when he was a student, one of his piano teachers used to play on a similar instrument; it’s the closest memory he has from a religious experience. These beauties are something else.

Inside the slick black box, Alec finds various documents and guides to his new piano; it’s apparently a model O, which doesn’t mean much to him. Specifications of the instruments are listed in great details and Alec can feel his blood pumping a little bit faster at every line. He breathes in, breathes out. It’s going to be fine. Everything’s fine. Gently, he leaves the black box on the table he pushed to the side and slowly starts to open the piano’s lid. He reveals the music rack first and props it up then lifts the heavy lid and secures it so it stays open. He also takes care of the lid over the keyboard and reveals the keys. Finally, Alec adjusts the height of the cushioned bench (which probably costs a small fortune on its own, judging by the quality of the leather) and gently sits on it, his hands resting on his thighs. It’s large enough for two people to sit side by side so he has plenty of room. He inhales deeply.

There’s so much he’d like to exteriorize he doesn’t know where to begin.

The beauty of this instrument is making it hard to breathe. And it’s his. It’s his because it’s a gift. From someone he’s never really met. A crazy gift from someone he, at the very least, considers a friend. But friends do not spend tens of thousands on each other, do they? In what kind of world does anyone spend that much money on anyone anyway?

It’s too much; it’s too pretty, too perfect. Unable to resist, Alec starts playing an Ave Maria, loosening the knots in his fingers. By the time the first notes hit his ceiling, there is no man nor angel for the lines have vanished through the call to Mary. The sound so pure, the tone so clear, the time so slow; this is how music was meant to be played all along, with a choir under every key.

Someone knocks on his door. The spell shatters.

Alec’s eyes widen. He knows who this is.

He gently pushes the bench back and makes his way to the door. There no note in the hallway, no piece of paper that came flying from under his doorstep; he’s going to miss them. A humble request to the pianist, he’s going to miss these words if they stop coming after tonight.

The door handle is cold and Alec’s bones are burning.

When the door opens, it’s the light that hits Alec first. There he is, standing at his doorstep. He’s shorter than Alec yet towering; impeccably dressed with dark violet pants and a black shirt open at the collar, he has a presence, an aura Alec could already read through his handwriting. Silver and gold cascade over his collarbones, shine around his ears and when he offers a hand to Alec, heavy rings catch the light too.

“Good evening,” the man smiles. “I’m Magnus.”

Alec shakes his hand. “Hey.” God he’s gorgeous. “Alec.”

Magnus glows from within when he lets go of Alec’s hand; he looks at Alec fondly. “I’m a huge fan of your work,” he says, his hand waving towards Alec’ chest, “and I’m glad to finally meet you. In person, I mean.”

Alec can feel himself blush. Everything he wanted to say to someone who just had a piano delivered to his doorstep is out the window, forgotten and buried.

“I, uh, you are the one who – “

“Sent you the grand piano?” Magnus’ eyebrow shoot up. “It’s me, yes. I figured you’d like to have a quality instrument to match your talent.”

Alec doesn’t know where to look; his words escape him, he can only smile vaguely. Magnus takes the lead.

“Can I?” he asks, gesturing towards the inside of the apartment. Alec immediately feels like a horrible neighbor.

“Of course, come in.” He steps to the side to let Magnus enter his flat and closes the door behind him. His ability to talk come back as he watches Magnus make his way to the living room.

“Listen, it’s really nice of you, but I can’t accept this,” Alec admits. “It’s way too much.”

Magnus spins around. “Too much? Alec, please don’t worry about that. It’s a gift from the heart, and I want you to have it.” His shoulders sway as he walks towards Alec, hypnotic. “Besides, you’ve spoiled me enough. My turn.”

Alec drowns in him. He’s been trying to keep up all this time, trying to keep his head above the surface and not let his heart race for the tide like this but now it’s too late; Magnus pulls, magnetic, and Alec weakens by the second.

“I have one last humble request, if you let me,” Magnus smiles, visibly proud of having used the perfect phrasing. He steps even closer, his hands joined together under his chest as he rubs his own palms gently. “Please, teach me,” he almost whispers.

Alec raises an eyebrow. This doesn’t make sense, Magnus always seemed to be such an expert. “Teach you? What do you mean, you don’t play it?”

Magnus’ eyes dart to the left. “I know a lot about music but I’ve never really…” he moves his hands around, looking for a word. “Taken the time to learn myself.” He locks his gaze back into Alec’s eyes. “So let’s make a deal. Keep the piano and give me lessons in return.”

Alec gulps. He’s not a teacher, he probably doesn’t have an ounce of pedagogy in him; this still sounds excellent. He’d get to keep the Steinway in his living room, play it whenever he feels like it and on top of that, his hot neighbor could come and visit on a regular basis. They’d sit side by side on the leather bench and Alec could show him how to use his hands, how to keep control over his fingers, how to develop a good wrist.

Oh no. Now he’s thinking about things.

“Alright,” he blurts, “yeah. Yeah, let’s do this.” He runs a hand in his hair, avoiding Magnus’ stare. “Let’s – uh, let’s do this. You want to start now or...?”

Magnus gleams with delight. “Of course, I’d be honored.”

“Okay, because I was about to have dinner but I’m not really hungry anymore,” Alec waves a hand, vaguely aiming for the kitchen, “so we can just… play for a bit?” He hopes he’s getting his point across because he’s really not focused on what’s leaving his mouth right now.

Magnus’ eyes widen but his face stays soft. “Are you sure? I can come back later you know.”

“No, no,” Alec insists, walking around Magnus to make his way to the piano. He feels the weight of Magnus’ gaze on his back. “We can do it now. I can’t just – I can’t play it by myself, it’s yours.”

Magnus lets out a breath and joins him. “It’s as much yours as it is mine, Alec.”

Alec was right about everything. The grace, the power, the beauty of this man; he knew all of it before laying his eyes on this face, on this body, on these hands made to carve blessings out of flesh and paper. He sits on the bench, leaving half of it free, and invites Magnus to sit by his side.

“Thank you, Alexander.”

Alec turns his face to look at him. “How do you know my name is Alexander?” Magnus smiles tenderly. “I don’t. It was just a guess, but I assume I was right?” Alec nods with a crooked smile.

On the cabinet over there sits a pile of notes Alec wants to show Magnus. He wants to ask him what’s his favorite piece, he wants Magnus to talk about his love for Liszt, he wants to hear him play the ukulele. “Let’s start with the basics,” he hears himself say. The basics. They’ve gone through the basics already. They’re met and crashed, they’ve sung back and forth and bloomed like a symphony does; like two hands of the same pianist, they found a pattern, a melody of their own. Now they can thrive and transcend, they can build it up higher, together, and give each other shivers like great sonatas do.

Now that he’s not alone in front of this keyboard, Alec understands. The piano isn’t a trap, it’s an anchor. It’s a promise. It’s a choice. It’s not about him, it’s about them. Magnus plays three random notes and Alec can’t help but smile wide. It’s about us.

Chapter Text

To the untrained eye, New York constantly changes. Unstable and volatile, her mood varies with the weather; for summer to fall to winter, she lies a new world under the feet of her children every day. She’s well-loved, even though she’s as unpredictable as a wild horse at times. Yet, those who know her better than tourists do will be able to see through her. No matter the snow, no matter the wind, her voice still pierces through those who listen. She’s at her prettiest right after the golden hour; music to the eyes, she delights in the colors the brings to life, look at me, look at me. Ruthless mistress, she will let you have some luck if you give her everything you have.

At 9 pm, Alec always opens his window; New York listens.

It’s their tradition. Maybe that’s how they’re born? Habits old as age and passed down for generations had to appear from somewhere. Only few forces could push anyone to repeat the same gesture over and over, to offer the same fruit to the same statue every day at the same hour. The force that found Alec is the grace of a stranger, the rolling rivers in his neighbor’s voice. Maybe that’s how traditions are born, from the flank of a fool blessed by a lucky star.

In the corner of his living room, the small brown piano is still standing. The lid over the keyboard has been closed for days now. Alec feels like he’s been cheating on his spouse since the Steinway made its way into his apartment. It’s not fair to leave the old piano on its own, away from the spotlight, away from the familiarity of Alec’s fingers. It’s disrespectful to their history, to the ups and down they’ve been through together, through all these years. The piano was already old when Alec bought it and the guilt of leaving this antique instrument isolated, deprived of any attention, ties his throat into a knot. It’s barely his fault; the Steinway is calling. The massive piano, black panther of iron and pine, hypnotizes just by standing in the room. Alec has pushed it further back, closer to the windows; still, its large frame monopolizes the attention of anyone entering the apartment. It contrasts with the rest of Alec’s belongings – it can’t hide between a simple table and a modest cabinet. Even the couch, which was Alec’s most expensive possession until this piano came to him – why did he have to buy a new couch already? – pales in comparison. The piano is regal, as cleanly designed as a baroque marble; crowned with gold, it demands attention, and attention it shall obtain.

Alec still hasn’t quite gotten used to the beauty of what the black piano sings. He wonders if he ever will. The purity of the sound, the truth in the tone, it’s nothing like he’s ever played. When he sits down and starts a piece, he could almost feel the crowd by his side, sitting in silence and absorbing his every movement; when he finishes a piece, he almost hears the applause, the thunder so characteristic to opera halls.

Like in all good relationships, what the small piano taught Alec never quite leaves him. With reverence, he sits on the bench and opens the fall board; one note, then the other. He’s ready to play.

He plays in the morning sometimes, before work. He plays on his days off, he plays when he comes back home late. The old couple living on the 4^th floor let him know how much they adore his music, unlike the horrible instruments our upstairs neighbor likes to play, if only you knew. They never interrupt him – they even invited him for dinner once. Alec had to decline politely; that night, he had a guest over.

After all, regular practice is key.

That’s what Alec likes to tell himself every other day; regular practice is key. It’s not the thrum in his chest, it’s not the smiles that come to him, it’s not the haunting craving that doesn’t want to let him sleep; no, it’s his dedication as a teacher, it’s his diligence as a tutor. On Mondays, he doesn’t obsessively check his watch out of impatience, he’s simply making sure he will be home on time to keep his promises. On Wednesdays, he doesn’t go through all his music sheet folders for nothing, no, he just wants to find the next piece he should teach. On Fridays, he never means to check his phone this often; after all, he knows Magnus has his number if he needs anything.

Sundays are his favorite.

They’re soft, the Sundays. They’re slow and intimate. The Fridays are good too; after all, they don’t have to wake up and go to work on Saturdays so they can stay up late. Still, nothing compares to the Sundays, to the cushioned comfort of a lazy evening after a busy weekend. Alec would buy candles, put them on the piano and light them to perfect the atmosphere but that would be way too much; nevertheless, he hasn’t been truly able to get the image out of his head. He’ll never admit it out loud.

On the other days, Alec still plays. He follows the same ritual and opens the windows at 9 pm then takes his time to unravel a piece over this glorious keyboard, one note after the other. Today it’s Debussy, once again, who carries him over the moon and back with his Clair de Lune; the piece gains another layer of beauty through the Steinway, as if Alec had been suspended between the moon and a crystalline lake, as if the music born within him could resonate and echo against the droplets of water below.

When the piano turns mute under his palms, Alec stretches his neck and kneads the muscles over his shoulders. Eyes closed, he counts in silence and slowly turns his head from side to side then lets it fall back to expose his throat and make something crack between two vertebrae.

A paper slips under his door.

Thirty-two.

Alec opens his eyes again and gently rises. Magnus was already on his way to the 3^rd floor before Alec stopped playing, obviously. It only took him thirty-two seconds today.

He picks up the note; the purple ink is still the same, rich and luxurious. There’s nothing quite like this extravagance in the highest letters, in the tilt of the words Alec has learned to love.

“A humble request to the pianist: Ballade no.3 in A flat major”

Alec can’t contain a smile. He was scared, a few weeks ago, that this would stop, yet Magnus still comes in silence and asks something of him every other day now, as if they had never met. As if they had two lives, two ways to look at each other. Alec likes when they talk. He also likes when they don’t. There’s relief in the curves of a word, in the familiarity of a handwriting. There’s history where they built it, between the lines of notepad paper where they first found each other.

That’s where traditions come from. In the corner of a smile, in the warmth of a blush, that’s where men look when they need a reason to do something over and over again.

Alec will sit and play with the same fervor as ever, for his neighbor is listening; as always, he’ll pour his whole being into his piano without fear, without restraint. He will play until the composer has taken everything he wanted, until there’s nothing but satisfaction left to be felt. He will play and Magnus will break into applause as if it were the first time he’d been this lucky.

The leather of the bench becomes more supple and pliant as days go by. It’s still just as black, it still looks just as expensive but it’s more gentle to the touch, more giving. Finger marks start to appear on the polished sides of the piano, dust subtly accumulates in places Alec doesn’t reach for. The music rack is always up and paper starts piling up on top of it. The instrument is alive.

Magnus is careful.

Everything in every single one of his movements is deliberate, thoughtful, almost loving. Attentive, it’s with great measure and an almost innate talent that he applies what Alec teaches him. His eyes drop from the music sheet to fall on his hands before he brings them back up, his chest rises and falls along with what he’s trying to play – the notes carry his breath as he tries to do them justice. With more grace and patience than a child on his first week of piano lessons, Magnus does as Alec taught him; he soaks.

Sitting on the right side of the leather bench, his hands are the ones that make the piano sing higher. To his left, Alec watches. With octaves of difference, Alec’s voice is rumbling, low, almost whispering in some aspects, far from the dancing tones Magnus can play with.

At first, Magnus could tell only his hands were being observed. As days went by, he started to feel curious eyes trailing up his arms, undressing his neck, dripping down the jewelry he always wears. By now, a heavy gaze always slithers up his throat, details his features when Alec thinks Magnus is too focused to notice.

When Alec’s hands are the ones to play, aligning a measure or two as an example, Magnus can’t take his eyes away from the fingers dancing over the keyboard; in other circumstances, he’d gladly take this opportunity to learn about the curves and the angles, about the lines not drawn on paper. Alec is an exigent teacher – focus, he’d say, focus or you won’t see anything. He knows when Magnus isn’t paying attention, reads him without looking. It’s a talent that comes with the right to be called a pianist.

So Magnus pays attention, he soaks; he memorizes the dips between the knuckles, the shade of cream over the bone. He maps the veins and the few scars that have healed years ago. When he can, he reads the lines under the palms, molded from the soft flesh there, he predicts the choreography of the tendons under the skin as Alec repeats a measure.

Alec talks with his hands; when Magnus listens, he never runs out of things to say.

The Consolation no. 3 carries a heartbreak, swells up with the bittersweetness of seeing someone you love offering their whole being to someone else. It’s rain on a field of roses, it’s a sunny funeral, it’s the steel hook digging deeper into one’s guts as they watch someone they’ll never have. When Alec plays, he tries not think of these things, of the fire that burns people from the inside and refuses to be extinguished; he must though, and he lets the piano’s lament wash over him.

“A humble request to the pianist: Consolations no. 3”

Long after the end of the piece, long after Magnus stopped clapping, Alec still holds the note between his hands. He’s almost sure his neighbor is still on his balcony, two stories higher; the nights are still warm at times. If this piece means something to Alec, what does it mean to Magnus? Does he hear the laugh of an old flame through Alec’s fingers? Maybe he also feels the tug, the calling of earlier years; maybe he sees a face or two, masked by the shadow of what could have been.

It’s regrets, Alec knows, it’s regrets that make people like the Consolations.

Before going to bed, Alec closes the heavy lid of the Steinway to protect the guts of the piano from dust. Instead of closing the windows, he walks around the instrument to stand at the keyboard and plays the first five measures of Liszt’s En rêve. In dreams, the notes say, in dreams I float away.

He stops and leaves the interrupted song to hover between floor and ceiling; after a moment, someone closes a window a few stories above.

“Good evening, Alexander.”

“Hey,” Alec smiles, “come in.”

Alec closes the door behind Magnus. His neighbor – his student for tonight – is standing in the middle of the hallway, hands together as he patiently waits for Alec to guide him to the piano.

“How was your day?” Magnus asks, as he always does.

“Busy,” Alec shrugs, “but nothing new.” He makes his way to the entrance of the living room and passes Magnus, catching a hint of his perfume. “Yours?”

Magnus smiles at the question, following Alec closely – Alec can feel him right behind his shoulder blades. “Exhausting. I need a break.”

Alec opens the lid of the grand piano and invites Magnus to sit on the bench with a hand gesture. “You’ll have to empty your mind tonight, we’re learning something new. It’s going to be hard.”

Magnus sits and opens the fall board to unveil the keys. “I wouldn’t expect anything else from you, Alec.”

Alec can’t hold a smirk; he hopes he manages to hide it as he walks around the piano to sit to Magnus’ left. From a small pile of music sheets, he pulls the Ave Maria he knows so well. Magnus gapes but Alec talks first.

“It’s harder than it sounds. For tonight, let’s try to get you to play one or two measures.”

Magnus just stares at Alec, brows furrowed. Alec stares back, grinning.

“It’ll be fine,” he promises. “I know you’ll manage.”

Magnus inhales and lets his gaze trickle down from Alec’s eyes to his chest. He finds a dip there, between his collarbones, where the skin is flushed and radiates with the heat of a beating heart.

“If you say so,” he breathes, shaking himself out of whatever he was falling into.

Alec places his palms on the keyboard. “Let’s start with the right hand,” he says. “It’s six notes, always. It starts with these ones.” He rolls out said notes with habile fingers to demonstrate but Magnus doesn’t really listen. He watches though, he watches what Alec’s hand is trying to tell him, so it’s kind of the same thing. Bringing his right hand to the keyboard, Magnus finds the first note and Alec slows in his rhythm to let him follow.

It goes from left to right, a slow wave carries Magnus’ fingers on its back. One two three, four five and six, a legendary ode is born in the living room. Alec repeats and Magnus copies, his eyes on his tutor’s dancing hand. With a click of his tongue, Alec reminds him to look at the sheet, to read where the magic comes from; with a roll of his eyes, Magnus lifts his chin to look at the paper. It’s not nearly as entrancing as Alec’s fingers guiding him.

Alec picks up the rhythm to match the cadence of the piece and Magnus surprises himself when he catches up. He makes it so easy.

Without warning, Alec changes tone and moves his hand slightly, hitting other notes. Magnus stutters but doesn’t complain; when Alec slows down again to let him catch his breath, Magnus smiles without a word. The dance is the same, the wave just as high; he rides it without resisting. When Alec picks up the rhythm again, Magnus let the wave carry him; he follows. They repeat the same six notes a couple more times and by the time Alec changes again, Magnus knows the sea for it floods his throat. His lungs are full, his chest light as a feather. He leans to the left and his eyes get lost somewhere between the music sheet and the keyboard, in a place where Alec is not looking.

Alec slows down and changes the notes again to conclude the first measure – one two three, four five and six. Magnus knows it already.

At the end of the measure, Alec exhales deeply. He subtly nods at Magnus in appreciation.

“Left hand,” he smiles before switching hands to play two short notes. Magnus waits until the echo doesn’t carry the notes anymore then imitates him. Alec does the same; he insists, playing the same two notes. Magnus parrots him. Visibly satisfied, Alec brings both hands onto the keyboard.

Here comes the tsunami.

Very slowly, Alec starts to play; he keeps his eyes on Magnus’ hands instead of his own and watches. Impartial, he stays on the same six notes until Magnus gets it right, just right, until the song of the piano is as natural as a mother’s lullaby.

It’s Alec’s hands that paint the picture, Magnus can only copy. He can only breathe it in and drown in it until he feels it, until the water comes right under his Adam’s apple. Alec picks up the rhythm and changes notes; Magnus sighs. Its only his fingers, his long, strong fingers that write the poetry, Magnus is barely imitating and yet, yet it pulls his own head up, it calls onto him. It’s only this power and this love for the black piano but Magnus can’t tell the difference when they play like this. Together, he’d call them one, he’d let Alec lead him anywhere.

The measure is short.

They stop playing exactly at the same time; four hands rest on the keyboard. Alec smiles wide. “Good,” he admits, “very good.” Magnus can only bow his head in return.

“Let’s try the second one,” Alec offers.

“After you,” Magnus accepts with a nod.

They train until late at night. Alec shares what he knows and lets Magnus play it. He talks without using his voice and hopes Magnus understands.

He realizes it works when Magnus turns around, leans against his doorstep and asks if he can come back tomorrow. He wouldn’t want to bother but – and Alec stops him. He, too, felt the duet. He, too, knows the highs from the lows; he, too, can’t wait to do it again. He doesn’t say it out loud – at least he hopes he doesn’t – but yeah, of course Magnus can come back. Anytime.

Anytime, will Magnus sing to himself on the way back to his apartment. Anytime, he only has to ask and the magic is all his, the beauty of the Ave Maria is for him to carve. It’s there, between Alec’s fingers.

Magnus has thrown his endless legs on the couch without much ceremony. There’s an open wine bottle on the small table of the living room; it’s a grand cru according to him, but it’s even better when shared. Of course, Alec accepted a glass – even though he’s not much of a drinker.

Shirt lazily open on his golden skin, Magnus steals the spotlight form the Steinway. So close yet so far, he sips on his glass as if no one was watching; a Caravaggio in motion, he gives time more weight. Alec feels the seconds tracing over his skin, he feels the memory of the moment sinking within his flesh. He'll remember this moment. There’s only them, and silence. Magnus moves and the Earth moves with him. He raises a hand and the moon is full. He adjusts his legs and flowers bloom. He turns his head, looks at Alec and smiles gently; Alec is alive.

Alec closes his eyes; he knows what they need. He starts to play Liebesträume no. 3 in A flat.

Even without checking, he feels Magnus’ eyes on his cheek, against his temple, warm in the curve of his neck. O Lieb, the piano sings; Alec leans back and draws clouds with his fingertips, finds the map they both know so well. When the pattern emerges, he smiles and Magnus smiles with him. Without a word, they bask in the comforting aura of the piece. Slow, fast then slow again – the piano lifts the air in the room. High, higher, highest, Alec reaches all the way to the top in perfectly constructed trance and brings Magnus with him. Several times again, the instrument goes back down, up and down again; Alec doesn’t hold back, he falls and runs when he needs to, his entire torso following the rhythm.

O Lieb, he chants, O Lieb. Here is what he holds, here is all he has. Here is what Magnus taught him, here is what he’ll teach him in return. O Lieb, he pleads, and he knows the moon will listen. O Lieb; all that truly matters is already here, sprawled on his couch with the elegance of a masterpiece in progress, knight without his armor. It’s Magnus, it’s all Magnus, it’s always been Magnus, and Liszt wrote this for him, for them.

O Lieb, Alec implores and the song implodes and bursts under his fingers. Magnus lowers his glass, his gaze melting with Alec’s every movement. He soon closes his eyes and purses his lips, embraced by the piece. His free hand comes above his chest and he draws in the air, as if he was directing the piece for himself, pushing the notes he knows by heart up to the sky and down closer to the ground. His hands twirl in graceful curves and hills; he can’t tell he if truly directs or if Alec just reads through him.

Magnus delights in the sublime for as long as Alec allows him to savor this light he casts. When the piano stops, it’s like it never started in the first place; the music is here, in Magnus’ head, and refuses to go away.

Alec can tell his student is far from being a novice. He wonders, more often than not, if Magnus is just humoring him. He knows music too well. He knows how to feel already, he plays better than most apprentices do. Magnus can recognize a piece by hearing half a measure from a distance; somewhere in his flat must be an impressive collection of music sheets Alec would gladly put his hands on.

Above all, it’s the way he moves that convinces Alec. Magnus has long fingers, flexible at that. It may have taken him a while to learn the keyboard’s map by heart but now that he’s used to it, his hands are fast, confident. Still, he takes his rings off; they’re right here, sitting on the piano, glimmering in the light. Naked, Magnus’ hands barely copy his – they move on their own. Magnus is at ease, Alec can see it. His lips slightly parted, his head moving from side to side as the notes on the bars climb and fall, his lashes fluttering when he finally gets it just right; it’s all here. The light cups his face when Magnus leans forward, adding gold to the treasure of his features.

Alec is staring.

“You’re getting better,” he breathes eventually after Magnus lets silence fall back over them. Magnus squints and tilts his head to the side, as if he was going to tell a secret.

“I don’t think I’ve told you, Alexander,” he purrs, “but you’re not my first time with a piano.” His eyes catch Alec’s and his heart with them; with an eyeroll, Alec breaks contact. He breathes. Magnus turns again to face the music sheet and raises his chin. “But it’s not – let’s say, my instrument of predilection. I much prefer the violin.”

“The vio – You play the violin?” Alec blurts. How has he not heard of this before?

Magnus runs his hands over the keys, as if he was petting a cat. “Well, not here. The local audience is not quite fond of string instruments.”

Alec doesn’t care. The old couple of the 4^th floor could go to Hell for all he knows, he needs to hear this. He needs to witness Magnus, draped in strength and grace, playing the violin. Making it sing for him. He shakes his head, trying to find the right words, but Magnus talks first.

“Would you like to hear it sometimes, Alexander?” he offers, his tongue rolling over the name. Alec raises his eyebrows at the sound.

“Yes, yes I’d love to,” he accepts with a nod, the corner of his lips raising on their own. Magnus smiles and blinks slowly. “I’d be a pleasure.”

They keep playing for a little while longer – tonight is for the piano after all. Magnus is the one who reminds them of the time; when he leaves, Alec considers taking the clock off the wall of his living room.

Before he knows it, Alec has spent a full week without opening the windows. He didn’t have to, for his neighbor has come to his apartment every day. Shoulders brush against each other in the middle of a piece; Sundays truly are his favorite.

“Go ahead, take a seat, I just need to, uh – Find these partitions.”

Alec seems quite at loss on this Monday evening. He digs through his cabinet in a frenzy while Magnus observes him from a distance. It’s endearing, the way Alec frowns and licks his lips as he scans a pile a paper, one sheet after the other. Kneeling on his own floor, Alec looks vulnerable right there; head low, sleeves rolled up, he sits on the back of his heels for support. While Magnus still has his polished shoes on, Alec is only wearing socks – how adorable can he get? Magnus can’t stop detailing him while he’s not looking; the tight muscles of his neck, the soft curves of his shoulders, the hint of a strong chest beneath a thin layer of fabric…

“Here it is,” Alec proudly says, picking a sheet with both hands. He rises and Magnus has to blink out of it. Alec leaves the mess he made on the floor and comes to sit to Magnus’ left, as per usual. On the rack, he carefully places two partitions.

“This one is for you,” he says, pointing to the one of the right. “It’s the simplest of the two. I’ll play the other. We can try to get through the first page for tonight.”

Above the bars, Magnus can read the name of Fauré’s Berceuse from his Dolly Suite. A charming little piece.

Most importantly, a piece that can only be played with four hands.

“For you, it goes like this,” Alec starts. He aligns clear notes after each other until they form a full sentence and repeats the pattern. Magnus follows, hiccupping at times; he quickly gets it though. Alec show him some variations in tune, his hazel eyes following Magnus’ hands instead of his own. Meanwhile, Magnus has a hard time focusing on his own movements.

He could watch Alec for hours on end yet there is something particularly endearing in the way he stops playing; of all, this moment is the fondest. His fingers accompany the keys as they raise back up then they sit there for a second, soft fingertips against their cold surface. As a goodbye, Alec’s fingers linger on the keyboard before slowly slipping away as if he was reluctantly taking his hands off a lover.

How lucky Magnus is, to have a neighbor like him.

“Let’s keep it simple for now and try the first three measures. Just repeat what I showed you.”

“Don’t lose me, Alexander,” Magnus replies. Alec smiles.

He starts playing slowly and Magnus picks up behind him, trying to remember how it goes. He knows the piece, of course, and he can read sheet music but he has more important things on his mind right now; the fact that his left hand keeps brushing against Alec’s right is one of them.

The tempo is gentle, sluggish almost. Magnus can’t tell if Alec is trying to help him or if he’s just savoring the moment. For the first time, they play complementary tunes that would have no flesh nor bone without each other. What Alec’s playing is distracting – not quite as distracting as the warmth of his breath Magnus can feel from here. The subtle movements of his muscles under the skin of his naked forearms, the way he swallows after the end of the first measures, before starting again from the top, these details are what keep Magnus going. From the corner of his eyes, he can see Alec’s eyelids fluttering shut; his lashes are so thick, so full they’d make a good number of people jealous. A couple of minuscule beauty marks are barely hidden under the light scruff that has grown around his strong jaw. His tongue comes out to wet his lips as eyes open again; Magnus can see the pupils dilate slightly from here. Alec leans forwards and with this light, Magnus could swear he sees almost invisible freckles around the bridge of his nose. Before he decides whether he’s hallucinating, Alec makes his tongue click. Focus.

Magnus realizes he’s stopped playing.

The front door of Alec’s apartment is rarely locked after 8 pm. Most days, it’s slightly open, offering a glimpse of the inside of the flat to anyone who passes by – which means no one for the most part. Magnus knows it’s for him; still, he knocks every time he comes for a lesson. Alec already told him he can just enter if the door is open, no need to announce himself; Magnus apparently prefers to be theatrical and knocks twice before pushing the door open. Alec doesn’t actually mind. He likes feeling his heart do this little jump.

So when Alec leaves his bedroom to get the piano ready only to find Magnus already standing in his hallway, he stops dead in his track, his face torn with questions. It doesn’t help to see that Magnus isn’t looking at him but rather at a thing he so desperately tries to hold against his chest. Magnus mutters something to himself; behind him, the door is wide open on the corridor.

“Magnus, is everything okay?”

“Oh, good evening Alexander,” Magnus replies without raising his eyes, his tone chanting as if he were surprised to meet Alec in his own home. “Say, do you like cats?”

Confused, Alec makes his way around Magnus. “I – I do?” he answers without much conviction as he pushes the door to close it. Magnus spins around.

“Good, because I brought one.”

Of course he did.

Cradled between Magnus’ hands, a tiny little orange thing wiggles and whines, obviously trying to get away.

“I found her on my way back home. Isn’t she adorable?”

Perplexed, Alec frowns. Does Magnus bring home all the cats he finds? Still, he can’t help but agree; with her tiny paws and large green eyes, the kitten is definitely adorable.

She’s still adorable when her claws dig into Alec’s leg as he tries to play. She climbs him like she would a tree and Alec tries to focus on McRae’s Mirror Lake. It’s hard, it’s so hard because Magnus is just sitting there, watching, his gaze juggling with the cat and the hands on the keyboard. It’s so hard because the feet must be perfect on the pedals, the beauty must show through every movement. Alec can feel Magnus smile by his side; he still manages to play as well as the Mirror Lake can be played, his fingers sliding from one key to another like a boat on the surface of a calm sea. It flows and shines – the same way light pierces through clear glass, the sound is pure, unaltered, raw yet so delicate.

The kitten makes her way to Alec’s lap and snuggles there. Alec slows down and would have stopped if Magnus hadn’t taken the cat with one hand. He carries her to his side of the bench and lets her sit in his own lap, his eyes not leaving Alec’s hands.

That’s what he came here for.

Of course, Alec continues. The piece rolls over, repeating a tune and Alec puts more intensity this time, more subtlety in the tone. Simplistic, the song doesn’t lack in nuances in ways to say there’s something I miss, there are memories I long for. It’s sad, truly, that the beauty of the Mirror Lake must come from the back of the pianist’s throat.

The kitten rolls her small body into a ball, purring.

Magnus soaks in the moment.

“What’s her name?” Alec asks later, sitting on his couch and watching Magnus train from afar. Magnus stops in the middle of a measure. The kitten is trying to play with his fingers, walking all over the keyboard.

“She doesn’t have one. I think I’ll give her away.”

Alec leans forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “I thought you’d keep her.” Magnus chuckles at the thought.

“I already have two of these demons at home. I’d gladly take another under my wing but I’m afraid Church would scare her away.”

The cat plays random notes without any coordination, walking on the ivories lightly. Her little body cannot reach far enough to create the most beautiful harmonies but she simply doesn’t care. Both Magnus and Alec watch her try to knead a C into a decent bed before curling up on herself and lie on a few whites with contentment.

“Well, I can’t play with this young girl on my keyboard,” Magnus sighs.

“You can use the other piano if you want.”

Magnus shifts to look at Alec. His expression is something new, something Alec’s never seen on him before. It’s open and amazed. “Alexander,” he says and Alec melts, “this one is yours.”

Alec would roll his eyes at him – he doesn’t. Still, he can’t believe he must insist. Magnus bought him a piano after all. A gigantic grand piano. Of all people, he’s the first person who has the right to play anything he’d like on the small upright piano.

“Go ahead,” Alec nods with a grin.

While Magnus looks like he was born to play on luxurious instruments like the Steinway, Alec can’t help but notice how gorgeous is he right there, sitting at the brown piano. It’s not extravagant like him, it’s not the same kind of stunning; Magnus contrasts with the rough angles and the modesty of the instrument. There is more to this sight though; he also fits so well with the warmth of the wood, the clarity of the gold against the mahogany. This piano is not as good as the Steinway, it doesn’t sound as perfect – Magnus doesn’t mind. He opens the lid and plays one note. Then another.

Alec recognizes his own ritual; his eyes flutter, his heart beat picks up. He listens, and Magnus plays.

Very slowly, he lays the first measure of the Mirror Lake onto this old keyboard. The voice of the piano rises and blooms in a flourish, familiar like an old friend’s. Under Magnus’ cautious fingers, the song takes another meaning – it’s not sad through him. He tries and the piano answers, Alec’s old partner follows as if Magnus had known how to guide it all along. The Mirror Lake lifts off and spreads; Magnus’ technique is not perfect but to hell with form! To hell with immaculate technique! To hell with all of it, it’s the heart, it’s the heart only that matters and Magnus knows how to turn his pulse into a melody. Melancholia stripped off, the piece talks about what ifs, about what would; from icy to heartwarming, Magnus takes what Alec thought he knew and makes it his own.

No one but Alec had played anything on this piano for years. Magnus hesitates but the piece is forgiving, the small piano sings for a while longer. Alec’s chest swells up as raw nostalgia and cherished familiarity twirl and marry in the room. His own fingers still, his hands unmoving, he isn’t the one playing and yet he feels just as much; he falls, he follows his dear piano and falls as deep at it will take him. The light cuts Magnus’ profile neatly – he’s focused and doesn’t see Alec bite his bottom lip as he drowns.

Before leaving, Magnus will remember to take the small kitten and hold her against his chest as he walks through the door. Fondly, he’ll wish you goodnight, Alexander. It’s only much later that Alec will notice he forgot two silver rings and left them to sit on top of the black piano.

The door 3.03 is closed tonight. Magnus will come back on Friday; for now, Alec needs some time for himself. He doesn’t mind having someone over several times a week but – maybe he does mind. His solitude has something comforting. It’s a known environment, a familiar place to be. He likes to play for himself and in a way, he misses early September, when he didn’t know who was listening to him through his window. There was a thrill to it, a game of strangers.

He knows he’s lucky though; it’s Magnus. It could have been anyone but it’s Magnus, sorcerer Magnus, magnetic Magnus. In most ways than not, Alec isn’t actually the teacher when Magnus comes over. He sees it more and more; it’s not him who tests, it’s not him who pushes the other over the line.  It’s not him who, teasing, leans against the piano and sighs, so, in a long syllable, so, Alexander, what are we playing tonight? It’s all Magnus, all the color in his outfits, all the decadence in the gold he wears, who looks at Alec in the eye and says show me. It’s these hands, soft as silk, that Alec looks at more often than he looks at his own. It’s the way Magnus circles around him, lurks and stares as if he’d been invited to do so; shameless, his grace makes Alec lightheaded. It’s the way he chuckles instead of saying yes, the way he squints instead of saying no, the way he tilts his head instead of saying oh please.

It’s in his silence and what he makes of it, in the words he doesn’t use because he knows Alec can read him. Magnus is aware, Alec realizes, that he should show more than he should tell, as it’s been the case since their first day.

A note slips under the door.

With a piece of notepad paper on his floor, Alec truly feels at home.

“A humble request to the pianist: The Girl with the Flaxen Hair”

Here is the innocence. Here is the refinement Alec sometimes misses, the true gift they give to each other. Here is the purple ink he loves dearly.

The Girl with the Flaxen Hair is short but honest like a confession. It’s someone falling in love when they watch her dance, when she smiles and leads them through a waltz. The gentleness of the piece doesn’t let any bitterness peak through; it’s all love, taking the pianist by the heart in a slow burn. Floral, the song carries different colors, all as soft as spring. The tune is so personal, so intimate it’d talk to the coldest of hearts. When the rhythm jumps without warning, Alec can feel his pulse follow; for a couple of minutes, he falls in love when the piece asks him to. He must perform after all, he must show – the Girl takes his two hands and shows him the way, one measure after the other. Alec lets her.

Two stories higher, Magnus wonders.

“I can listen to you from here, you know.”

It’s obvious that Magnus isn’t used to being the one who is supposed to take classes. He’s most likely an autodidact at best, not anyone’s student. Sitting in the middle of the large bench without Alec by his side, he keeps looking away from the keyboard. He plays either too slowly or too fast, he hits the wrong keys too often; he’s not focused at all. He doesn’t even look like he’s genuinely trying. If it’s not to train, then what did he come here for?

“It’d be better if you were playing too, Alexander,” Magnus says, a warm invitation in his voice.

“You won’t learn if you never play on your own, Magnus,” Alec retorts.

Magnus sighs dramatically, his hands coming down heavy on the keys in the middle of what could have been a decent Ave Maria. Alec makes his way to the instrument to stand on Magnus’ right side.

“Start again from the top, you were almost there,” he insists.

Magnus leans back ever so slightly and looks at him without a word; Alec can tell Magnus is trying to read him.

“Magnus –” he starts but Magnus suddenly stands up, turns his back to Alec and leaves the bench.

“Do you still have this bottle of wine I brought the other night?” he asks innocently.

Alec shakes his head. “Wh – Yeah, it’s there but are you – Are you going to have a drink right now?”

Magnus spins around, his eyebrows raised as if Alec had just asked a rhetorical question. He takes a few steps backwards in the direction of the kitchen.

“Alexander,” he purrs with a knowing look and half a smile before turning around again and disappearing behind a wall. Alec hears a bottle being picked up from a counter and the clear clink of a couple of glasses. He closes his eyes and massages the bridge of his nose; why is Magnus like this?

As expected, Magnus comes back with two wine glasses and a half-full bottle of whatever he brought last time. Visibly proud of himself and much happier now that he’s not playing anymore, he struts to the piano and leaves the glasses on its back to open the bottle. Alec walks around the leather bench to join him.

“We both need to relax,” Magnus says, taking one of the glasses to fill it up. “You too seem to be quite tense tonight, my dear.” He hands the glass to Alec, who takes it without protesting even though he doesn’t like red wine. “Just one, and then we can train again, mmh?” Alec nods.

Magnus fills the second glass, puts the bottle down on the black piano and looks at Alec in the eye.

“To Franz Liszt then,” he toasts, raising his glass.

Magnus wants to drink to the composer of the Liebesträume no.3; Alec bites the inside of his cheek when he understands it’s not the piano, it’s not the art that Magnus wants to honor. It’s them.

He doesn’t want to stop it from being about them.

Magnus brings the glass to his lips and swallows, gazing into Alec’s soul the whole time. Alec imitates him but lowers his eyes before bringing his glass back down – he can’t do this. When he’s not playing, Magnus is almost too intense. At least when they train, Alec is in control, he’s the one who knows and guides. But the minute Magnus stands up, the instant the piano isn’t the third person in the room, he becomes blinding.

He starts walking around the room, working his shoulders like he always does. Alec can see the back muscles rolling under the satin; he can guess the power in these long legs of his. The allure of this man could only be compared with the way large felines parade, light over the ground and beautiful in every move but oh so dangerous.

“Tell me something about yourself, Alec.” Fondness can be heard through the words. Alec takes another sip. “Something I don’t know, of course.” Alec watches Magnus turn around, both hands around his glass. He looks so eager to hear something, anything. Alec grins at the sight, at Magnus still trying to know him better despite already being able to read him like sheet music.

“What do you want to know?”

“Oh”, Magnus shrugs, “anything. For instance, what do you like?” Magnus asks, the hand holding his wine glass reaching for Alec as if he was going to make a toast again. From where he stands, Alec finds the room a tad bit smaller. He takes a third sip.

“I like my piano,” he says eventually, and Magnus smiles.

“Of course you do Alexander, but please, tell me something I don’t know,” he implores, his eyes piercing through Alec over the rim of his wine glass. Alec swallows.

“I like my sister,” he says. Magnus steps closer. He hums, lips on his glass, and Alec’s hands tingle.

“I like my brother, even when he’s a pain in the ass,” he continues, getting lost in how Magnus’ shirt reflects the light. Magnus smiles. And steps closer. Alec drinks more.

“I like The Shining,” he mutters next. “I like Saturday mornings because I can sleep in.” Magnus stands a couple feet in front of Alec, ostensibly busy detailing Alec’s hands – or is it his chest? Alec can’t tell. After a couple of seconds, he steps closer.

“I know that,” he says softly, his eyes jumping back to Alec’s face at the end of his sentence. He’s getting close, too close. Alec can see a hint of red on his lips, where the wine has left a stain. He can see the ever so subtle nuances of raven black reflects in his dark hair. He can see his irises well enough to tell them from the pupils, open wide.

“I like baking, I’m the best in the family so I like b – “

“I know that.” His tone still as gentle, Magnus takes another step; his glass clinks with Alec’s and the back of their hands brush for a fraction of a second. Unblinking, lips apart, he pushes and teases; Alec combusts without words. Magnus right here, right here, looking up to him yet so impressive. If Alec looked down, he’d certainly see more of his skin through the open collar of his shirt – he could follow the lines of his collarbones and let his gaze drip down under the satin the way a drop of wine would. There’s just a breath between them and it’s not enough for Alec to ignore the warmth of this body almost flushed against his, it’s not enough for him to think of something other than the way Magnus wears bronze as well as he does silver, the way purple fits him perfectly, the way he’d sound if he whispered. Alec likes the tongue washing over the lips, he likes the roll in his name, Alexander, like rolling stones at the bottom of a running river; he likes the striking beauty music cannot describe and light cannot take credit for, Alexander, what do you like.

Alec can’t remember.

He suffocates, everything is Magnus; the heat around his throat is Magnus, the pulse against his temples is Magnus, the pull on his hands is Magnus, the cotton in his knees is Magnus. These eyes, drilling into his very being, it’s Magnus. The air lacking from his lungs, the walls getting closer, the words refusing to reach his mouth, it’s all Magnus; it’s him, who makes Alec’s head spin at the thought of these arms fitting around his waist, of raw contact, crashing, pushing, between their bodies. Magnus would undo him with a click of his tongue and Alec would let him do whatever he likes. The rest of New York could crumble, Alec wouldn’t even bat an eye; nothing matters more than Magnus making him buzz all over.

Then Magnus takes another step and Alec could swear his legs are going to give out; he throws himself backwards to find support and stumbles over the leather bench, only for his hand to fall flat onto the keyboard in a loud dissonance. Alec is petrified; Magnus sips on his wine.

“Oddly reminiscent of the first chord in Chopin’s Etude no.1, if played in C major,” he comments, “I like it.”

Alec stands back up without looking at Magnus; inhale, exhale.

Magnus turns back around but from the corner of his eyes, Alec can still see him down the rest of his glass of wine. “Well, it’s probably enough for tonight after all. I should go,” Magnus announces but Alec doesn’t register all his words, still lightheaded. Magnus puts his glass down on the table of the living room.

“It was a pleasure, Alexander.”

“Yeah, it was – Me too,” Alec tries, feeling the blood finally leave his face. If he recalls properly, they were supposed to train for a bit longer but right now, all he needs is a cold shower. Magnus’ decision to leave still seems sudden but he can’t think about it right now; he walks him to the door, not really sure of what just happened. He blocks it out, breathe.

“I’ll see you on Wednesday?” he still asks.

Magnus smiles wide; heavens above, he’s so beautiful.

“Of course,” he assures with a gentle nod. “Have a good night, Alec.”

“Yeah, you too.”

A hand against the closed door, Alec will listen to footsteps fading away; it will dawn on him that despite his best efforts, a valid answer to Magnus’ question would have been “you”.

The box is heavy, almost too heavy for what Alec knows it contains. The rich navy of the painted wood contrasts with the cream of the ribbon; when the man asked “is it a gift?”, Alec mechanically said yes. It’s not. It’s for him, and him alone. He already knows what’s in this box, but unwrapping it feels like a small Christmas.

Alec takes the pen out of its casket with reverence. It has a fountain tip, wide at the base then thin as a thread at the tip. He never tried to use one of these. He’ll learn.

Playing with four hands turns out to be harder than Magnus used to think it’d be. Coordinating his hands together is already quite the task, so having them move in harmony with another pair he doesn’t control is something else. He thought he’d get better at this just as fast as he improved his solo skills but sadly, he seems to be held back. It doesn’t help that physical contact between pianists seems to be a requirement. It doesn’t faze Alec – Magnus checks. Impassible, Alec makes the piece loop without talking; he knows Magnus will follow.

The start of the Berceuse is soothing, round and regular. There’s a natural balance to it, a childish simplicity Magnus had underestimated. It’s only later that the tune builds up; from gentle to deliciously intoxicating, sweet as plum liquor, the music permeates and thins out the blood of whoever listens.

Somehow the piece is getting to Magnus in more ways than one, it’s running, circling him as if he were a fool. He spins and spins and spins and Alec leads him into a waltz for the centuries. It’s been played before, by millions of hands and just as many souls but this one is special. This one is Alec and him, this one is theirs.

He can’t look, he can’t stare, he can’t take his eyes anywhere. They’re useless to him now. There is only skin and ears, there is only the hair of space between them, their ribcages blowing up following the same tempo. Their hands may be different but they’re complementary; complementary, that’s the sacred word that had been hanging onto the tip of Magnus’ tongue. This piece wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the both of them, together. It’s not Alec himself, it’s not his straight back, his perfect technique or the way he brings his soul to his fingertips. It’s not Magnus, it’s not his eagerness, the passion that flows through him or the way he creates more than he contains. It’s the resonance, it’s the echo they send to each other. When their ways collide and combine, it’s the light in the middle, the bubble of energy right here.

With every note, Magnus falls a bit lower.

He realizes he’ll never try to hold it. He can feel Alec close his eyes by his side – he’ll never try to hide it. When he reaches the bottom, he’ll dig deeper.

Alec stops eventually and takes his hands off the keyboard; he turns to his right and smiles the prettiest smile Magnus has ever seen.

“Good job,” he says, his cheeks pushing tiny creases under his eyes. “You got it just right this time.” He radiates joy in this instant; it’s all over his loving gaze, in this tilt of his head he does when he doesn’t try to sit straight. Against the black luster of the grand piano, he stands out like a sun would contrast against coal.

Magnus cracks open.

Winter is not quite here; still, opening a window in the dead of the night doesn’t sound like a sane idea. Magnus does more than that. Faux fur draped around his shoulders, he opens the glass doors to his balcony and leans against the balustrade. On the 3^rd floor, a window is open; he wouldn’t miss any of it for the world.

It’s 9 pm on a Tuesday - after a F and a B, Alec starts playing.

After a couple of bars, Magnus recognizes the Liebesträume no. 2, played in E flat. He wouldn’t have expected it from Alec; ode to lust and carnal pleasure, the second of Liszt’s musical poems doesn’t sound as pure, as immaculate as the third. It swings and bursts often, it rolls like lovers under a blanket then falls silent; bliss runs up and down bodies in these pauses.

Magnus lets his elbows rest against the iron of the balustrade. The piano picks up again, softly at first; like a finger following the curve of a spine, it wakes a trail of goosebumps over the skin. The music rises and tempts, malleable under Alec’s hands – somethings folds in Magnus’ chest when the pattern appears. It’s familiar to him already, he knows the dance, he’s been through the measures tens of times but as usual, Alec makes it different. Maybe he pictures himself in this nocturne, maybe he projects; that’s why there’s tension in the highs, where the skies part, and heat in the lows, where the tune is more akin to pillow talk.

Magnus is taken by surprise when the piece stops. He didn’t see it coming.

His mind is blank, empty; he doesn’t know to do, what to say, what to ask for. This was it. Alec’s original idea, this was it, all he needed to hear.

At loss, he rushes to pick up his notepad and his trusted fountain pen; after making sure the ink is flowing, he tears off a page and starts writing.

“A humble request to the pianist: more.”

He climbs down the stairs in a rush, locates the door 3.03 then climbs them back up just as fast.

By the time Alec starts playing, Magnus is already back on his balcony. With a pinch to his heart, he hears Isolde’s Liebestod. It’s intimate murmurs that reach him first but the piece accelerates soon, racing like hearts driven by passion. He holds onto the iron.

The song thrums, taking full advantage of the percussive nature of the instrument; after slowing down for a couple of seconds, it picks up with intensity, both hands working towards the same goal. Soon it gallops and the pianist loses control – torrid, something builds up measure after measure. In a decadent crescendo, incandescent waves pulse back and forth, following the rhythm of lovers riding the night together; back and forth and back and forth, they continue to pull higher, over the seventh level of heaven, until the music tips over the edge. Magnus holds his breath when the tune explodes. Tenderly, the piece shakes for an instant as if the pianist’s hands were shaking themselves; it falls back to earth like a feather, nuzzling into the crook of a neck.

Magnus surrenders.

“Come in,” Alec calls from the living room.

“Hello,” Magnus replies from a distance, stepping inside the apartment. Alec hears the door closing. He pushes his laptop to the side and stands up from the couch to meet his neighbor; he finds Magnus in the hallway, stunning in navy blue, already looking at him like he’s the moon.

“I brought something for you,” Magnus says. In his left hand, he carries a case Alec can’t see well from this angle. “Well, it’s not a present but I figured you’d like it anyway.”

Alec frowns in confusion. “What is it?”

Magnus makes his way to the living room table and gently lowers the case on it. Alec’s eyes widen; it’s a violin.

“It’s my baby,” Magnus purrs; he opens the case with reverence, as if he was unveiling the crown jewels. Cradled in velvet, a beautiful instrument appears. With careful hands, Magnus picks it up; the wood catches the light in a hundred different ways, bringing a tone of red to the spruce. Around the edges, the robe of the instrument turns amber in the curves and the points. “Violin and piano sound beautiful together, don’t they?”

Alec watches Magnus angle his violin under the artificial light; his hands carry the instrument so delicately, the love he has for this violin must be second to none. Now, Alec doesn’t know much about string instruments but he knows about Magnus – he knows the way he licks his lips without thinking, the way he curls his fingers within his palm when he’s stuck in contemplation. Alec can tell Magnus admires; he wonders if it happens every time he takes the violin out of its casket. Most importantly, he wonders when else it happens.

“You know our neighbors don’t like these kind of instruments, right?” Alec asks, not trying to come off as abrasive. On the contrary, he’d love to listen to Magnus, but he’d hate being interrupted.

“Oh, I’m not worried,” Magnus replies. He looks at Alec from the corner of his eyes. “They may or may have not found tickets for La Traviata in their mail box yesterday, and if they have, I doubt they’d say no to seats in the fourth row of the Orchestra.” Magnus takes a few steps to the side and spins around. “The floor is ours for tonight, my dear.”

Alec gapes. What? Two tickets for the Metropolitan Opera, probably bought only a couple of days in advance, dead in the center of the Orchestra? And only because Magnus wants to play the violin? What kind of money –

“Oh please don’t look at me like that, I’m going to feel bad,” Magnus chimes.

“Magnus, did you actually send them to the opera?” Alec asks, his right hand waving around. Magnus purses his lips.

“Well, I didn’t take care of their taxi. Technically, they’re sending themselves,” he retorts.

Alec can’t believe this. His arms crossed, he stands in silence to stare at Magnus, who started working the floor again; Magnus brings his violin under his chin and raises his bow then stops in his tracks and closes his eyes. The hair touches the string and Alec forgets about the opera, about the neighbors, about what Magnus may or may not have done. The truth of the single note Magnus taunts him with is worth so much more.

The note dies into silence and Magnus lowers his bow to look at Alec, who probably has adoration written all over his face.

“Shall we?” he offers, and Alec doesn’t even try to contain it.

“Yes. Yes, let’s – Let’s do this,” he blurts immediately, turning around to go to his piano before realizing something’s missing. “Do you know what you want to play?”

As his sole answer, Magnus raises his bow again, lets his chin rest against his instrument and pulls a long note from the wood, then another; Alec sighs in delight when he’s sure it’s the Ave Maria they’ve both played so often. Magnus stops until Alec sits at his piano, lifts the lid over the key and starts unrolling the notes. One two three, four five and six, in practiced perfection, Alec draws light from his keyboard the way he always does, until Magnus joins him. Adding a layer of beauty on top of the piano, the violin rings clear and light; pure emotion is vibrating from the strings, molded by Magnus’ wrist.

The Ave Maria stays simple, even with a second instrument, yet Alec has never heard it this way. With two voices instead of one, the piece he knows so well shows other colors; it reveals another kind of grace. Every note from the piano now has another reason to be – it sings with the violin harmoniously as if it was made to be played this way all along. Avian, the piece goes higher still and Alec can feel Magnus smile somewhere to his left.

When the piece ends, Alec wishes it was an hour longer.

Magnus takes a few steps to stand closer to Alec. Alec can’t tell if he’s carrying the violin or if the violin carries him up; he’s so light on his feet, so high, stellar almost. His naked hands hug the wood the way they would a lover, the instrument resting, nested in the crook of his shoulder – Alec can’t breathe.

Without a word, Magnus starts another piece to give Alec a hint. After a measure, Alec can tell it’s Elgar’s Salut d’amour – his heart almost cramps. He hasn’t heard the full piece in such a long time but it’s the kind you can’t forget.

Magnus stops and exhales slowly. Without looking at him, Alec starts. The violin is the main voice on this duet so nothing is too technical for Alec; he can let his mind wander between his fingers, above his hands, around Magnus. He can turn his head and watch as Magnus sways lightly, the weight of his entire body pushing poetry out of his violin. He can learn how Magnus’ shoulders support him from above, how his arm sketches delicate lines in the air; the bow trembles, impeccably controlled, and Alec is convinced that Magnus can read through him even with closed eyes. Entranced just like Magnus seems to be, Alec loses himself in the rise and fall of his chest along the piece, in the way his necklaces glimmer but still aren’t as pretty as who’s wearing them. Magnus frowns when the ode gains in nuance, visibly getting carried away by the tide that guides him; Alec remembers to breathe.

In the middle of the piece, the music shifts slightly lower but stays still as calming. Magnus leans forwards every so slightly and Alec follows. When the poetic pattern emerges again, Magnus straightens up, pours everything he has into the last verse and Alec feels churches being built around him. His head turns to cotton, drowned in the beauty of the colors in the music. There’s a clear path in the melody, a direction they both have to follow side by side to reach the moment in the piece when the sky opens up.

Alec would let Magnus guide him anywhere.

The song ends eventually. Alec can see Magnus lower his violin; he doesn’t say anything. Magnus simply comes closer to the piano and leans against it. Holding his violin and bow in his hands, his eyes find Alec’s; he stares in silence and Alec stares back. There is nothing but sincerity in his gaze, or maybe Alec can read longing in here too. Magnus shakes his head, as if in disbelief, and lets genuine tenderness shine through. His lips tight against each other, he tries to contain a smile but fails.

It’s the last nail in Alec’s coffin; crystal shatters in his chest when he falls in love.

At 9 pm on a Saturday, Magnus opens the doors to his balcony. He stays in though; December is not forgiving. A cup of hot tea between his hands, he lounges on one of his couches, stretching his legs over the pillows. Alec should start playing any minute now.

Someone knocks on his door. Magnus sits back up, careful not to spill any tea on himself, and looks at his hallway. Of course, no one opens the locked door but he hopes whoever is on the other side feels how unwanted they are. With exasperation, Magnus puts his mug down on a low table and stands up. If this makes him miss Alec’s first piece, he’s going to be pissed.

There’s a piece of paper in his hallway.

Oh dear.

Magnus doesn’t even make sure no one is standing behind his door; he already knows whoever was there is long gone. He’s done the same too many times to count.

He picks up thick, sophisticated stationery paper; it’s unlike what he would have expected and when he realizes it was probably bought specifically for the occasion, he feels himself melt. The note was carefully folded in two and at its heart, Magnus finds a jewel.

The ink had time to dry but it stills shows nuances in color, from a deep forest to a clear emerald. Green fits his neighbor well, truthfully. While an obvious effort was made, the handwriting is not cursive nor particularly elegant; it’s honest, simple, unpretentious. The letters don’t curve high under the fountain pen but stay low, safely close to the line. The hand behind the pen was clearly unexperienced, yet the writer tried.

Magnus shakes his head. What did he do to deserve this?

“A humble request to the violinist: The Girl with the Flaxen Hair”

Alec must love this piece, to request it before anything else. When he played it with the windows open, it wouldn’t have taken a genius to notice how fond he is of this song – the way he toyed with the weight on the keys spoke for him.

Magnus is going to give Alec the most stunning violin rendition he could ever imagine.

After a last look at the note (which he may or may not frame sometimes next week), he walks to his designated music room, picks up a case and goes back to open it on the couch he was resting on earlier. Gently, he takes his beloved Stradivari out of its bed and leans it against his shoulder; straightening his back, he exhales and closes his eyes.

The first chord is a drop, the second a shower, the third a downpour. Cascades wash over Magnus then suspend, defying gravity and his balance with it. From his hips, Magnus carries the notes higher, from his waist he pulls them lower; in a lonely dance, he makes the strings vibrate the way masters do, with feeling.

Hope pierces through, then yearning, - Magnus can’t tell if it’s him singing or the violin speaking. The pattern dies often only to come back again, natural wave that no effort can dampen, and Magnus encourages it. If playing this piece was work at some point in his life, it’s not anymore; it’s natural, innate. Magnus understands – he could have written it himself in another life.

The pieces ends, leaving something new on the balcony, something between sound and silence. Before Magnus thinks of opening his eyes, he already hears grateful applause coming from the third floor.

Alec closes the door and immediately kneels to take his shoes off. A drop of cold water runs down the side of his face while he unties a shoe; he forgot his umbrella (again) this morning so he kind of deserves to be wet to the bone after walking back home. Nothing sounds better than a hot shower right now. He leaves both shoes on a rack, takes off his coat to leave it on a hanger and groans. Are there any leftovers in the fridge? He can’t remember.

There’s a note in the hallway.

After all this time, Alec knows well that Magnus isn’t the kind of person to text when he can avoid it; still, if this continues, he’ll soon send messages through carrier pigeon. Alec makes a mental note to talk to him about this. He gave him his number for a reason, and it has nothing to do with politeness. Still, he picks it up with curiosity. The last time Magnus left him a note during the day, it was to let him know he was going to be gone all weekend; this time, the purple ink carries an invitation.

“A humble request to the pianist: dinner at 8?”

Alec re-reads the note again. A humble request to the pianist, yeah, he got this right, he knows that part by heart. Dinner at 8? Dinner? Dinner. With Magnus? Dinner together? As in, a dinner date? Or is it dinner at his place or something? Alec closes his eyes, frowns, opens them again. Dinner at 8. The words are the same and his throat is still as tight.

Jesus Christ.

It wouldn’t be Magnus if it wasn’t cryptic like this, but knowing him, Alec can tell they’re probably going to some fancy restaurant he’d never dream to afford, or maybe it’ll be a simpler place full of charm and authenticity. Does Magnus know Alec doesn’t like seafood? God, if they go to a burger place, he’s going to look like a mess while eating, this is going to be a disaster. Alec runs a hand through his hair, exhales; if it’s the Fancy Restaurant option – which is more likely – will he have to fake his knowledge of wine? He’ll have to look good and oh my god he smells like a wet dog right now and he has nothing to wear.

A shower. He needs a shower, and fast; it’s 7:09 and the clock is ticking.

After almost burning himself under the water, Alec thanks the gods for that one time his sister told him to buy a hairdryer, you never know when you’ll need one. He promises himself to give Izzy a big old hug next time he sees her because right now, without this hairdryer that’s been sitting in a bathroom cabinet for months, he wouldn’t be able to keep his heart rate under the tachycardia threshold. Does he have hair gel? He must have some, somewhere. How much hair gel is a tasteful amount of hair gel?

Alec would give anything to move back in with Izzy right now but sadly, he only has about forty minutes left and it’s not nearly enough time to do so. He remembers the words she had a couple of years ago though, your outfit Alec, your outfit comes before your hair. Alright, the hair gel will wait.

A towel around his waist, he jogs to his room and dramatically opens his wardrobe. Jeans won’t cut it (or could they?), neither will flannel or any of these shirts he owns; five of them are the same but in different colors, what can he say? The fit is perfect. He still has this badly cut suit but it says business, not candlelight dinner (candlelight dinner? God, he must stop overthinking this). What else is there? Black on grey on light grey on more black, a Christmas sweater and oh!

Here are a couple of suits he never wears, hidden behind all the other clothes. He remembers the strict, black-and-white cocktail suit he bought for a recital a long time ago – it should still fit him. By safety, Alec picks the other; with a deep blue blazer, it’s cut less sharply, looks less formal. He wouldn’t want to risk looking overdressed, especially next to Magnus.

Holding the hanger high, Alec rotates the suit a couple times. Yeah, that’ll do it.

Making sure he’s as dry as it gets, Alec puts the suit on carefully; thank the lord, he ironed it properly last time. Over a white shirt, it looks splendid, even he can tell. Now the question is: tie or no tie? Does he even have a tie or doe – oh yes, of course he does. It may be too much though. Alec inhales and tries to channel his inner Izzy; what would she say?

After staring into his mirror for five seconds without coming up with anything, Alec gives up and jumps on his phone to text her. He types half a message, Izzy, I need advice on something, before locking his screen without pressing send. He doesn’t have time for this. There’s not time for this, if dinner is at 8, he should already be ready! And he’s not ready!

No tie it is.

Alec puts some silver cuff links on and pops a couple of buttons open. He doesn’t have to worry about shoes, he only has one pair that could fit. They’re clean but not shiny so he frenetically rubs a piece of cloth over them in hopes to bring a polished look to the leather. Does plain black go with a blue suit? Well, his pants are black too but – It’s not important anyway. These shoes are all he has, it’s not the time to think about this.

In the bathroom mirror, his reflection looks nervous. His mom would call him handsome though, this suit does miracles.

Good lord, he’s a mess.

Still, he manages to do something with his hair, makes sure his shave isn’t too messy and readjusts the fit of his suit at least three times. He looks good with the blazer closed; better with it open. Maybe he should wear a watch? Watches look cool, right? Izzy would probably say yes so he –

It’s 7:57.

What is he supposed to do? Go to Magnus’? Wait here? What if Magnus ends up taking him to a sushi place or something, he’ll look like an idiot. Worse, what if he doesn’t take him anywhere? What if they have dinner at Magnus’ and he dressed up as if they were going on a date?

This is ridiculous.

The universe doesn’t care about ridiculous or messy or not ready because someone knocks on the door.

Alec tries to convince himself his hand doesn’t shake on the door handle.

“Good evening, Alexander.”

Alec doesn’t clearly see the black, burgundy and gold; all he sees is how much Magnus radiates and shines. Breathtaking in his suit – thank god – he smiles fondly, hopefully not aware of the effect he has on Alec, whose heart has a hard time keeping up. Instead of staring at Magnus’ face, Alec would like to look elsewhere, catch the details, but he can’t.

“You look handsome tonight. Are you ready?” Magnus asks, as naturally as ever. Alec must make a conscious effort to reply.

“Yes, I’m – I’m ready. So are we... going out?” Alec stutters, unable to align one word after the other. Why did he ask this? It’s stupid, of course they’re going out, he’s wearing a suit himself for heaven’s sake.

Magnus beams. “Yes. There’s this place I’d love to show you.”

Alec follows.

The taxi takes them deep downtown, in places Alec doesn’t know well.

“Where are you taking me?” he asks after the car turns for what feels like the twentieth time. Sitting by his side, Magnus leans towards him – Alec wants to grab his face.

“To a beautiful place in which you’ll fit just fine, don’t worry.” Magnus answers. “But if you prefer, we can go anywhere, really. I know this sushi place, it’s – “

“Magnus,” Alec interrupts him, shaking his head. “It’s fine. I have no issue with you choosing where we go to eat.”

Even though the back of the taxi is badly lit, Alec can see Magnus’ jaw clench; he’s doing this smile again, the one he tries to keep in but can’t stop from showing through.

“Another time then.”

Alec has to stop himself from grinning.

“Another time, yes.”

He likes the idea of another time.

The inside of the restaurant looks and feels like a museum. It’s polished wood and chiseled stone everywhere, complimented by luxurious drapery. Crystal chandeliers hang high above the tables; the diffused light, limpid through the glass, gives an underwater vibe to the room as it reflects against smartly placed mirrors. From floor to ceiling, every single thing – living or not – seems to have been handpicked and made prettier than it already was. The flowers, fresh from the morning, throne on the tables and bring color to the night. The staff, as elegant as characters right out of some Renaissance painting, glide over the floor with the ease of beings barely affected by time and stress. Masterpiece of this scenery, it’s the piano that ties colors and movement together. Absolutely massive, it has its own altar under a pillar, surrounded by a rich red flooring and golden decorations. A woman sits at the keyboard, playing what sounds like Satie’s Je te veux.

“Good evening gentlemen,” a feminine voice rings, pulling Alec out of his thoughts.

“Good evening,” Magnus replies. “We have a table under the name Bane.”

The lady smiles. “Of course. Please follow me.”

Isolated from the bulk, their table is covered in a cream cloth; a candle was lit before their arrival. Alec doesn’t know why there are three kinds of forks in front of him and just as many knives, but he’d rather not think about it right now. Someone brings menus and a large bottle of water. On the other side of the table, Magnus seems to be in his element – does he have bronze reflects in his hair now or is it just the lighting?

“Magnus, this is incredible,” Alec starts, leaning over the table.

“Is it your first time in a place like this?” Magnus asks; when Alec nods, he smiles playfully. “We’ll come back then.”

“Actually, I’ll have to take you to a burger place before we come back. This is amazing, don’t get me wrong, but it’s – “

“On me,” Magnus interrupts him, refusing to let Alec worry about anything. “It’s on me. You relax.”

Alec quirks an eyebrow. He’ll get back at him later.

“So, what is there to eat?” he asks, opening the menu. The description of every meal is longer than what seems acceptable; he scans the page for every mention of beef. It’s only after going over half a page that he realizes his menu doesn’t show prices.

“Well, their salmon is divine and their lobster is an experience by itself, but I’d say their duck really is my favorite.”

“You come here often?” Alec asks, his eyes not leaving the menu. He can feel Magnus’ gaze on him after the question. No he’s not flirting, of course not.

“Sometimes,” Magnus replies. “It’s better with good company.” If they weren’t sitting, he would probably have come to tease Alec from up close. Alec smirks behind his menu at the thought. He’s getting flustered over nothing, god.

He likes it. Letting Magnus get to him like this. While a part of him keeps thinking he’d be better at playing for him than making small talk, no silence between them has ever been uncomfortable for they both show more than they say anyway.

Alec ends up choosing a quality piece of meat and Magnus orders something that sounds like a fish – he also points to a wine on the menu. Alec lets him.

“You can’t keep doing that, you know,” he says, gesturing at the table as a whole. Magnus tilts his head to the side, visibly confused.

“Do what?”

“Spoil me like that. Buy me stuff and treat me to a fancy restaurant,” Alec says lower. “It’s not fair. I mean, don’t, uh, don’t get me wrong. I appreciate that, but you have to understand I’m not able to return the favor.”

Magnus smiles. “Oh but you can. Take me to that burger place you talked about.”

“Magnus,” Alec sighs. “You know what I mean.”

Magnus leans forward. “Alexander, meeting you was the best thing that happened to me in a while.” Alec swallows, not sure if he’s ready to listen to whatever will come next; Magnus continues. “If you want me to stop entirely, then I will, but so far I’d say we’re having fun, don’t you agree?” He straightens back up and fills two glasses with water. “I’m not doing all of this just to please you, I’m also doing it for myself, to be honest. I’m having a blast, if you haven’t noticed yet.”

Alec takes his glass. “Alright, but stop skipping piano classes then.”

Magnus raises his eyebrows, taking his glass in turn. “You don’t like my violin?”

“I do,” Alec corrects, “but the deal was you’d take lessons.”

Magnus shrugs. “Fair enough.”

“So what do you think of her technique?” Alec asks casually, tilting his head towards the pianist playing on the other side of the room.

Magnus sips on his water, listening for an instant.

“She’s quite stiff,” he decides.

Alec nods in appreciation. “And?”

Magnus raises his eyes to look at Alec. “Too heavy with her left hand,” he adds. Alec smiles.

“Yes,” he says, “my thoughts too.” He drinks from his glass, then finally asks the question that’s been taunting him for a long time. “So, how do you know so much about piano if you don’t even play it?”

Magnus lowers his eyes and his glass. “I work with the Opera,” he admits, “I hear more music than you can think of. Unless you think of, well, all of it, which would be a pretty accurate estimation.”

Alec grins. Of course Magnus works there. Which place would be a better fit for such a character?

“Will you show me your partitions?” he asks, genuinely curious. He still has some music sheets Magnus slipped under his door over the months and if they’re any indication of the quality of his collection, Alec could spend weeks going over what Magnus has.

“Alec,” Magnus smiles, and Alec knows he made a mistake somewhere, “if you want to come to my place, you can just say it, you know.”

“Magnus, it’s not – “ 

“I’d understand after all, there’s no shame in asking,” Magnus continues, his left hand waving as if he was making an obvious statement. “We’re having dinner together, it’s in the continuity –”

“Magnus,” Alec stops him, unable to completely stop himself from smiling. He’d try to correct his words but a waiter comes by with a bottle of wine. Later then, later he’ll try to make things clear. God, he’s bad with words – so much worse than with a keyboard.

Magnus approves of the bottle and the waiter fills two glasses. Alec takes his and watches Magnus do the same.

“To us,” Magnus toasts, locking eyes with Alec.

“To us,” he repeats, making their glasses clink. Heat creeps up to his throat and runs to the back of his neck when Magnus looks at him like that, just over the rim of his glass. He’s seen this look before. It came back to him late at night, more than once.

He wonders for a second if the thought of Magnus will ever stop haunting him.

The meal itself is delicious, worth having put a suit on, but Alec finds him more surprised and intrigued by the man on the other side of the table than by this new kind of cuisine. He may have known Magnus for more than half a year now yet they don’t know each other the way most people do. They haven’t met in a bar or in a swimming class, they haven’t grown together or teamed up at work; instead of inside jokes, they have recurring songs. Instead of calling each other late at night, they defy the wrath of the old couple living on the 4^th and play for each other. Instead of good morning texts, they have early ballads on Saturday mornings.

Alec doesn’t mind. It’s enough for him, for now. When Magnus comes over to his place, they never talk about work, about themselves; somehow, it always ends up being about each other and what’s in between. It’s the piano that, even silent, carries them.

So when it’s not here, when it’s only the two of them, naked before each other without being able to hide behind music, Alec feels like he’s meeting someone new. It’s still Magnus and all his manners, Magnus and the beauty to him, the dense magnetism of the man, it’s still the person Alec wishes he could touch. He has different colors though, he moves differently when he talks about his travels to Prague and this time he accidentally adopted an alpaca in Peru. It’s still Magnus when he listens to Alec the way he listens to a piece he doesn’t know how to play, with his eyes unblinking and his lips parted.

Stuck on a chair, Magnus stares a lot when he doesn’t have to talk. He can’t move around, he can’t twirl or conveniently distract from the conversation; instead, he diligently absorbs everything Alec brings to the tables – he soaks.

Alec can’t tell if it’s the wine getting to him or if it’s something else entirely; every time Magnus parts his lips and tilts his head to the side, revealing tense muscles under the skin of his neck, Alec fights a primal need to throw their plates off the table and make Magnus gasp his name.

“Will you take a dessert?” the waitress asks, seemingly coming out of nowhere. Somehow their empty plates have vanished from the table, Alec hadn’t noticed.

Magnus’ hand come to tap Alec’s wrist; Alec keeps a straight face for the waitress – for some reason – but his heart misses a bit. “Do you like chocolate, Alexander?”

Alec drowns in Magnus. With these eyes on him, he’d say yes to anything.

“Yeah,” he nods enthusiastically, “of course I do.”

Magnus smiles at him, three fingers still on his wrist; he can feel them well now, even through the sleeve of his shirt. Even if he tried to redirect his attention to something else, it would still fall on something Magnus. Alec holds a breath. He doesn’t deserve this.

“We’ll have a fondant then, please,” Magnus says to the waitress. After a pleased nod, she leaves and Magnus takes his hand off Alec’s wrist, who controls a shiver at the deprivation.

“Maybe you should teach me how to play the violin,” he blurts without thinking, trying to get his mind off Magnus’ hands being anywhere close to his own. It’s not the first time though, they’ve played the piano together before, but this time they have no excuse, no reason other than wanting. It’s terrifying.

“Would you like me to?” Magnus asks warmly. “I’d be honored, my dear, but the violin is not easy to learn if you’ve never played it before, so it may take a while.”

Alec shrugs. “I have time.”

Magnus hums in response, visibly pleased.

When the waitress comes to place the dessert in the middle of the table, Alec realizes how far they’re both leaning towards each other; when they straighten up to leave her some room, the empty space seems so absurdly large Alec could imagine a river flowing between them. As soon as the waitress is gone, Magnus is the first to lean against his elbows again. He takes a spoon and digs into the chocolate cake.

“Now this is the best thing I’ve had in my life. Please don’t let me eat everything on my own because if you just sit here and watch, soon there’ll be nothing left for you,” he warns Alec.

Alec does just that, he sits and watches as Magnus takes the first bite and frowns dramatically, savoring the warm chocolate. There’s a hint of chocolate over his bottom lip but his tongue catches it. Alec lowers his eyes.

“Alexander, please,” Magnus pleads, and Alec lets out a breathy laugh.

“Alright, alright, let me have a taste.”

They share the dessert; with his mouth full, Alec can only express his appreciation through enthusiastic hums, which seems to make Magnus happy for some reason. Even when splitting a cake, they find balance – Magnus goes for the core while Alec prefers the edges.

Under the dim lighting of the restaurant, with the candle pushed to the side and the cozy atmosphere of the room, Alec could have stayed there all night. There’s little else that he’d wish for; using two spoons for one dessert is already way more than he thought he’d do tonight. The casual intimacy in sharing a chocolate cake in the middle of a fancy restaurant, both all dressed up as if they were on their first date even though they’ve known each other for months, makes Alec lightheaded. He doesn’t have much to hide to Magnus in the first place, but right here and right now, he’d be ready for anything.

Yet he can feel his eyes glaze over when the Liebesträume no.3 starts playing. Without a word, he lowers his spoon and raises his eyes until they meet Magnus’; Magnus looks back at him but there’s this sparkle in his eye, this game he’s so proud to have won.

He knew.

Alec can’t believe this. Magnus must have asked the waitress at some point, or maybe even before coming. Without a sound – he wouldn’t want to ruin the piece – Alec tilts his head to the side and wiggles his spoon towards the piano, his eyes staying on Magnus. It’s a knowing look and a smirk that he receives as an answer, confirming what he thought.

Magnus will be the end of him.

The pianist doesn’t quite play the way he would; she feels less, recites more. Still, Alec can’t remember the last time he was part of the audience of the Liebesträume. Most importantly, he knows for a fact he never had the luxury to look at Magnus during the song. What a waste, he realizes, what a shame he can only see this now; Magnus’ traits have softened, his gaze is simply elsewhere and even though he’s still busy licking his spoon, it’s not the chocolate that keeps him around the table. He gives in, Alec can see it, he lets himself go for an instant. Maybe he reminisces about old memories or maybe he just goes back where he was in early summer, living two stories above a stranger. Alec watches him melt away, transform like the piece does; from eccentric neighbor to moving piece of art, Magnus fascinates.

O Lieb, the piano sings and Alec echoes. He falls, too, under the spell of the piece; he can’t deny it, not when the tide catches up with him like this, not when his heart hurts in the crescendo, especially not when Magnus raises his eyes and looks at him like that. What a shame, he thinks again, that he’s never seen the effect of this piece on Magnus, that he never knew it could transfer its beauty directly onto whoever listens. Breathing ray of light, Magnus leans back in his chair and puts his spoon down; with his collar open and smooth gold over his fingers, he seems unaware of his own grace. He looks at Alec and Alec knows he’s done for; if Liszt hadn’t written the Liebesträume before him, he’d gladly rip the tablecloth in two and start composing right here and now. He’d try to transcribe the discussion without spoken words, the longing that consumes him, the purity of this image that will refuse to let him sleep. He’d throw his obsession on paper along with the aura Magnus has, the grandiosity of his whole being, the unique way he is. Alec would write and write about how much he needs and how much he craves and how much he’d love; under his fingers, the piano would sing O Lieb just the same.

Magnus’ hand moves slightly, low over the table; when the piano exhales and sighs in the dips of the piece, a smile cracks between his lips. Unfocused, his eyes still dig into Alec’s chest. His eyebrows frown imperceptibly at times, when the piece gains in density; he’s getting carried away and this time, Alec can watch him give in to everything that pulls and pushes.

By the time the piece is halfway done, Alec knows he won’t leave this restaurant without giving in too.

He doesn’t have to ask – he wouldn’t even think of it – to know what Magnus thinks about. Between them are the memories of these past months. Alec still has the first note, the very first; the ink still looks fresh. How he mocked the purple! How he smiled at the large curves in the letters! Little did he know, back in July, how strongly he’d associate purple with the thrill of falling for a stranger.

His fingers trail over the table as slowly as the piano weaves nuances within nuances, his heart is still. His blood could be cold for all he knows, Alec doesn’t feel much, he doesn’t pay attention to the rest of his body; all that matters is the tip of his fingers coming to tease Magnus’, the silk of the skin under his fingertips, the warmth pulsating there. He can’t look at Magnus in the eye, it’s impossible, but he can read his hands like he knows how to; when Magnus turns his wrist to open his palm in invitation, Alec sees a confession. His hands slides into Magnus’ and presses a few notes into the soft flesh of the palm, reminiscent of all these times he’s played the same song for him. Magnus runs his thumb in gentle circles against the side of his hand and Alec remembers to breathe. Liszt, this demon, gives him the strength to raise his eyes and meet Magnus’; the tenderness he finds there, the sheer adoration contained in this second would be enough to power him through a lifetime.

When the piano stops, its song doesn’t.

“Wanna get out of here?” Alec breathes, and Magnus barely nods.

On their way to the taxi, a hand finds the crook of an elbow. The ride back to their apartment building is a blur. Alec won’t remember if he actually tried to take Magnus’ hand in the back seat or if it was all a daydream; worse, he won’t be able to tell if Magnus actually linked their fingers together or if he hallucinated.

“Would you like to see my partitions?” Magnus asks innocently as they make their way through the hall of their apartment building. Alec grins wide, rolling his eyes.

“Magnus – “

“Just asking,” Magnus shrugs. “We can also go back to your place and play some Scriabin if you want, I’m not opposed to something more casual.”

Alec presses the button to call the elevator down to the ground floor. If Magnus thinks he didn’t catch the reference to how erotic Scriabin pieces are renowned to be – Actually, Magnus knows perfectly well Alec caught that reference. Of course he does.

“Let’s go see your collection,” Alec sighs, “you can’t keep it all for yourself.”

Magnus smiles. “I never intended to, my dear.”

The elevator dings and the door open. Magnus is the first to step inside; Alec can see him use the mirror to keep his eyes where he likes them to be.

“You should wear suits more often, Alexander,” he says, spinning around when Alec enters. “This look is fantastic on you.” Before Alec can decide how to answer, he continues, adding a purr to his tone. “Or you can also not wear a suit, I wouldn’t be one to complain.”

Alec can’t tell if Magnus has always been this flirty of if it’s the wine; he closes his eyes, inhales, opens them, exhales. Without looking at Magnus, he can feel the grin from where he stands. Maybe if he made his tongue click, Magnus would stop being this flirty.

The elevator takes them to the 5^th floor. It may be the nerves that make Alec’s heart run but he prefers to think it’s the perspective of finally seeing Magnus’ music sheet collection – which he is genuinely curious about. Magnus has always been elusive about it.

“So does the Opera let you keep all the partitions or do you buy them?” he asks as Magnus fiddles with the lock of his door.

“Oh no,” Magnus shakes his head. “These sheets are mine, Alec. But let’s not talk about work right now.”

When Magnus opens the door and turns on the lights, Alec discovers an apartment way larger than his. From the entrance, he can already see the other side of the living room and gigantic windows offering quite the view. Magnus leads him inside; compared to the simplicity of Alec’s place, his flat is opulent, packed with beautifully crafted furniture, half a ton of books – each looking older than the next – surrounded by rich drapery and sumptuous ornaments seemingly coming from all corners of the globe. After only a few moments inside, Alec has already spotted a golden elephant wearing a sapphire on his forehead, a large circular plate made of what looks like antique marble attached to a wall and an ever-swaying pendulum suspended over the massive table of the living room.

He has so many questions.

Magnus bends over to pet a cat who lazily came forward to rub against his legs, mumbling loving words Alec can’t hear properly. After an instant, apparently bored, the cat escapes him and trots into a corridor. Alec remembers Magnus mentioning two cats once – there’s no sign over the other one though.

Magnus stands back up and turns around to face Alec. “Let me show you the music room, since it’s what you want to see so badly,” he says, inviting Alec to follow him with a wave of his hand.

He takes a left and walks down another corridor, turning on the lights as he goes. Alec follows him, staying a few feet behind to take his time and look at everything they walk past; there’s a plant growing blue flowers in a corner, right under a painting Alec would call a Monet if he didn’t know better – there’s no way Magnus could get his hands on a real Monet. A beautiful painted mask carved from wood stares them down from the ceiling, suspended next to what Alec hopes isn’t a genuine skull in a glass box. Why does he even have this?

Bringing his eyes back onto Magnus, Alec feels the fantastic pull he’s tried to ignore since the start of the evening come back to taunt him; there’s a gap, right there between Magnus’ shoulder blades, that Alec knows to be sensitive in most people. Under the deep burgundy of the blazer Magnus is still wearing, his back moves with his pace, the fabric accentuating the shape of his shoulders. Right above the collar, under the hairline, a smile of skin is visible; Alec could run his fingers there, bring them up to the dip at the base of the skull and kiss whatever spot he likes best. He could keep his hands on Magnus’ shoulders or slide them around his waist and pull until his lips meet the back of the neck, until he can make Magnus shiver without having to play.

He could, technically. It’s a possibility.

Magnus stops and pushes a door. “Here we are.”

He steps in, turns the light on and takes off his blazer; in other circumstances, Alec would watch him get undressed but nothing, even a well-sculpted body, could compare to what stands before him. Of the four walls, two are covered with massive wooden shelves standing from floor to ceiling and packed with books and folders. All around are various instruments; Alec sees a cello, a trumpet and three concert flutes just by standing on the doorstep. An ornate chandelier crowns the room and casts a cozy light onto the furniture.

“Do you know how to play all of these?” Alec asks, making his way towards a splendid harp seemingly carved from ivory. The light drips over the curves of the instrument in such a way it looks like a mirage; leaves of pure gold wrap around it, as if it had been played by ancient gods in another millennium.

“Not yet,” Magnus replies with a certain enthusiasm.

Alec’s attention has already drifted onto the child of a wild peacock and a guitar. At his perplexed expression, Magnus steps forward. “It’s a taus,” he explains. “I don’t know how to play this one, but it looks good,” he admits.

Alec raises his head and makes his way to the shelves. There, he finds the most extensive collection of partitions he has ever seen; composers he’s heard of before do not even form the bulk of what Magnus has hoarded. Old sheets, wonderfully preserved, are filed next to more recent ones; just by quickly looking through what he first puts his hands on, Alec counts six different languages and as many centuries of musical history.

“How… Did you get all of this?” he questions, unable to stop himself from shifting through the files.

“I found them,” Magnus answers as if it was obvious; Alec would start wondering about the legality of his activities but quickly decides not to dwell on the matter. “See something you like?”

Alec turns to Magnus. Yes. Yes he does. Of course he does.

This wine must have been stronger than he thought because he can’t stop wondering when he let Magnus’ hand go. He can’t remember.

When they go back to the living room, Magnus picks up his ukulele that had been laying around on a chair and starts playing a song Alec recognizes as the one he wrote himself months ago. It’s simpler than the original version but just as charming; to think Magnus has learned it by heart and adapted it to other instruments makes Alec want to kiss him on the spot. He doesn’t though.

Instead, he opens the glass door to the balcony and steps outside. From the 5^th floor, the view is better, the city quieter. Golden lights from the streets warm the horizon in a halo, soft and fuzzy, embracing the deep navy of the night. Where the colors mix, a rich amber is born.

The ukulele stops playing behind his back. Alec feels Magnus stepping outside after him and coming to lean against the balustrade of his balcony. He tries to imagine what it must be like to hear music coming from below, to have the wind carry it all the way up here. He’d see himself sip on a glass easily; what a luxury it must be, to be served with classic masterpieces in the middle of summer. He’d almost understand why Magnus bought him a piano (almost).

With anyone else, Alec would start making small chat. If they had stayed inside, maybe he would have, the way he has talked with Magnus since they first left his apartment hours ago, but the Magnus he knows from up close isn’t quite the same as the Magnus who comes from the balcony. The Magnus who claps hides in the Magnus who takes classes. The Magnus he got to know first was merely a pair of ears and ten habile fingers; the Magnus he knows now has eyes deep as a trench and ten even more habile fingers. Still, it’s easy to admit they’re one and the same, mainly because Alec can’t tell who he first started to fall for.

Resting his elbows against the iron of the balustrade, Alec lets his shoulder lean against Magnus’. It’s pretty cold outside at this hour of the night but the body warmth shared through the fabric is enough to make him forget about winter – not because it’s warm enough but because now he’s unable to think of anything else than taking Magnus’ hand again.

In silence, Magnus contemplates, probably like he does every other night. Alec looks at him from the corner of his eye; he’s lucky. Lucky to see him like this, to know him like this. There mustn’t be a lot of people who can say they’ve seen Magnus’ profile when he lets go, when his lids grow heavier, when he never quite keeps his lips together. Which angel of Fate brought them to live so close to each other, Alec will never know but he’ll always be grateful. Even though he only heard it for the first time recently, Magnus’ voice naturally fits his own.

Alec wants to talk but he doesn’t have a piano here.

The air is thick, suffocating; his lungs are full of things he’d like to express, to push out of himself. He wants to talk about tonight, about going downtown sometimes, about sushi and cheap burgers. He wants to tell Magnus about the effect he has, about symphonies yet to be written, about what it’s like to watch him walk and spin and smile; so many things on his tongue yet so few words to say them, it’s crescendos that Alec needs, it’s power in the chords and tension in the strings. English is air, it’s wind but music? Magnus would understand music.

So he takes Magnus’ hand again, where he is softness and bone at once, because that’s all he knows. Touching a finger, then another, he goes over the weapon of the violinist and Magnus lets him. Alec knows these hands by heart, he’s watched them train for so long; he also knows Magnus knows his own and can read him through the minuscule shakes, the stutters when he moves, the eagerness when he draws a line in the palm.

When Alec raises his eyes, Magnus is still looking at their joined hands. Alec moves his thumb towards the wrist and watches Magnus’ expression change imperceptibly; he clenches his jaw when Alec rubs a circle there, his lashes flutter for a second and when Alec squeezes, Magnus frowns the way he does when a piano reaches a new high. Alec gives and Magnus answers with more subtlety than any instrument would, so he does it again. He caresses the inside of Magnus’ palm with his fingertips and his heart comes all the way up to his throat when Magnus licks his lips mindlessly, his eyes glazed over, an eyebrow slightly higher than the other. Magnus reacts to his touch the way he does to the Liebesträume, Alec notices; it’s intoxicating, so much so he decides on the spot to never deprive himself of the sight.

He takes his hand away; Magnus’ fingers curls when Alec’s fingertips brush his own, as if he was hoping they wouldn’t let go. Finally, Magnus raises his eyes and Alec meets him; there’s yearning there, yearning and a special kind of fear, a worry Alec wishes he could smother. He only holds back for a second before doing just that.

With one hand, he lifts Magnus’ chin; with the other, he pulls him in; with what’s left of himself, he kisses him.

As if he had been waiting for this all his life, Magnus bends and gives under Alec’s fingers like keys do, their lips moving against each other with a newfound patience. Something new blooms in Alec’s chest with every breath; his hand goes to cup Magnus’ jaw and keep him close, right where he can taste him, right where he can feel him. Magnus’ hands slip up Alec’s chest and rest there, over the suit, the skin and the heart – Alec knows he can feel the running pulse. One of them tilts his head and kisses deeper; Alec can’t say who’s moving for the balance is the same. They breathe into each other, sigh with delight when relief washes over them both and Alec pulls Magnus closer still. Finally, he can give in to the tide.

In harmony, they resonate and move together, savoring every second of it; Alec pushes against Magnus’ lips, greedy, and Magnus lets him. He kisses back, tender and careful, one of his hands coming up to caress the side of Alec’s neck and rubs gentle circles there. It’s too much, it’s perfect, and Alec crashes, melts away. When he smiles in the kiss, he can feel Magnus smile too. They have to stop for an instant because Magnus pulls back, leaning his forehead against Alec’s – he’s not going anywhere. Alec keeps his eyes closed, trying to keep the ghost of the kiss to linger for longer over his lips but Magnus robs him of the luxury of imagination and kisses him again.

It’s all hands, hands and lips over skin and fabric, it’s all pulls and pushes as they stumble back inside; it’s a laugh from the other’s mouth and a name from the other’s throat, it’s fingers running in someone’s hair and a roll of the letter -r. It’s a sonata for an audience of two, a song they write in a language they didn’t know they’d master – Alec gives and Magnus gives in kind. They build, shatter and build again, like piano and violin do, and map each other’s necks with delicacy. Alec doesn’t feel his heart, doesn’t hear any music; still something sings, O Lieb, and carries him away.

When he falls asleep, Alec will still feel the sugar in Magnus’ skin lingering over his lips, the gold he found in these hands resting heavy in the palm of his own; he’ll still hear Magnus’ smile through his sighs, even with the lights off.  

The old couple living on the 4^th floor must have bought some solid ear plugs but Magnus prefers to think they’ve grown to like the sound of his beloved violin. On the table of his living room, a small note sits. Emerald against the cream of the paper, the handwriting has gotten better; his neighbor must have practiced, as seen through the ease in the curves and the thickness of the lines. It’s not only the handwriting that has gained in quality – Alec has learned more about violin music as well as the ways of Magnus’ heart.

“A humble request to my violinist: Massenet’s Meditation”

Rarely has Magnus played the Meditation with such intensity; “overrated”, some people call the piece. “Overplayed”, “not worth it”; these people don’t know what it’s like to rediscover a piece through someone else’s advice. When he breathes, the violin breathes with him. When he leans and sways and carries the song from highs to lows with his whole body, the violin trusts and follows him. The voice of his instrument is nothing like a piano’s but it transports all the same; Magnus loses himself in the second half of the piece, floats to a place where only birds could find him.

It’s Alec’s genuine applause that brings him down to Earth – Magnus couldn’t think of a better way to be called back to reality.

“Good morning, Alexander.”

“Good morning.”

With a smile, Alec leans forward to great Magnus with a chaste kiss before stepping inside the massive apartment. Magnus closes the door for him.

“Dropping by for breakfast?” he asks, making his way to the living room where the sunlight of an early Saturday brings shimmer to the silk he wears. Alec follows him, unable to stop himself from catching more details than last time – he should really ask about this opal spear that stands in the hallway one day.

“Just to say hi,” Alec answers, knowing fully well that Magnus can’t make pancakes to save his life. “Jace is still sleeping and I wanted to see you.”

Magnus stops and turns, his face lit up with this smile again. Even when he turns his back to the windows, inundated in backlight, he’s solar, oh so beautiful.

“Jace slept over?” he eventually asks, but his tone is too joyous for someone who just heard of Jace.

A small cat comes to rub against Alec’s calf; he bends over to pet him behind the ears.

“Yeah, he came over late last night.”

Magnus picks up his ukulele and tugs on the strings, throwing a few clear notes in the air. “Does he play anything?”

Alec scratches the back of the cat, who curls into an arc under his fingers. “Not really. He sings under the shower, if it counts.” After an instant, the cat trots away and jumps on a chair to lie in the sun.

“Chairman Meow likes you,” Magnus says warmly, nodding at the cat.

“I like him too,” Alec replies. He reaches for Magnus and finds his waist; slowly, he makes his way closer as Magnus plays a few random notes on his ukulele.

“Are you busy tonight?” he asks innocently.

“Me? Always,” Magnus shrugs, “unless, let’s say, someone has other plans.” He raises his eyebrows in expectation but can’t hide a grin.

“I was thinking of this burger place I talked to you about and I was wondering – “

“Yes,” Magnus cuts him. “Absolutely. Any time.”

Alec smiles wide and brings Magnus against him. “Eight?”

“It’s a date then,” Magnus chimes, playing a chord on his ukulele. Through the wood, the sound his carried over in Alec’s chest and resonates there.

Without another word, Alec leans in and kisses Magnus tenderly; Magnus smiles against his lips and kisses him back just as gently. Caressing the small of Magnus’ back, Alec tilts his head and lets himself exhale through the kiss, his shoulders falling with the sigh. Magnus doesn’t hold back and gives in, melting between his arms. The Chairman comes back to rub against their legs; his purr is the only noise in the room.

That is until a thunderous boom explodes from few stories below, making them both jump and the cat run back to his chair. Another boom follows and Alec immediately recognizes that no, it’s not an explosion, but rather the characteristic sound of someone slamming their hands on the keyboard of a grand piano. As if a cow had decided to lay on the keys, a cacophony emerges; Alec physically cringes at the thought of someone bullying the precious Steinway. Magnus closes his eyes and frowns, visibly upset by the ugliness of the sound. After three more terrible noises – because there’s no other way to qualify them – the piano is finally left alone. Magnus opens his eyes, relaxing against Alec’s chest at the silence.

“Well, I guess this means your brother is awake.”

Alec sighs. One day he’ll kill Jace with his own two hands. “Yeah.”

“Does he know you’re here?”

Alec tilts his head, avoiding Magnus’ gaze for an instant. “He, uh – Well, he might?”

Without looking, he can feel the warmth in Magnus’ expression; he’s doing the smile again, he’s trying to hold it back but he fails, and Alec loves him for it. He lets go of their embrace and steps back.

“I should go, but see you tonight?”

Magnus leans forward and places a kiss at the corner of his mouth. “See you tonight.”

By the time Alec makes his way down the corridor of the 5^th floor, Jace has started banging on the piano again and Alec has to remind himself to inhale, exhale.

“He invited himself. I couldn’t say no,” Magnus sighs, watching the Chairman climb onto the grand piano. The cat peers into the guts of the instrument, visibly trying to find a good place to hide or play with the hammers.

“If I need to tune the piano after tonight, it’s on you,” Alec says.

Magnus shifts on the couch, careful not to disturb Alec; he’s resting on Magnus’ chest, head in the crook of his shoulder. Even his dear cat wouldn’t bring Magnus to perturb him. “The Chairman doesn’t assume responsibility for anything. We’ll have to tell the technician that the piano fell out of tune on its own.”

Alec laughs; it resonates his Magnus’ ribcage and grows roots there. With his mouth so close to Alec’s temple, he can see tiny dimples in Alec’s cheeks when he smiles this wide. Magnus’ lips brush the skin he can reach – it just feels right.

The cat tries to slither under the lid, his claws starting to leave marks over the black gloss of the grand piano. Alec sits up suddenly, apparently heartbroken to see the perfect robe of the instrument being ruined like that. Magnus almost holds him back when he leaves; the air hits him like a cold shower now that Alec isn’t here to warm him up. He likes watching him walk though, he likes the broad back he could draw maps on and the slight sway of the hips. And he knows Alec will come back – he always does.

“You can’t do that,” Alec protests, lifting the cat up. He takes the Chairman in his arms; there isn’t much resistance, which Magnus is very pleased about.

Alec sits at the piano, putting the cat in his lap, and takes both the Chairman’s front paws; a goofy grin on his face, he starts playing a stripped down, unbalanced version of the Ave Maria with the cat’s paws. It doesn’t make much sense, it’s barely recognizable if you don’t know the love Alec has for the piece, but Alec doesn’t seem to care. Unimpressed, the Chairman lets him.

Magnus melts on the spot. Forgotten, the cocktails on the table; forgotten, their sushi date; forgotten, the bad weather, the state of the world, himself. All that matters is Alec, playful Alec, looking at him to check if he’s smiling too, if he’s laughing too. All that matters is the joy on this perfect face, the ridicule of it all; Alec is comfortable and when he’s comfortable, he blossoms into a star Magnus would be glad to live under for the rest of his life. There is little he could think of, even less he could say; all he knows is that he’ll marry this man one day.

At 9pm on a Thursday, Magnus pours himself a glass of wine. Frost has already started to grow over the iron of the balustrade but he wraps himself in faux fur and steps outside anyway. A couple of stories below, a window opens; first it’s an F, then a B, then the entrancing fragility of Brahms’ Fantasien’s Intermezzo Adagio. Alec paints a city, a life lived under the rain and few regrets; he draws and colors with the patience of those who know good things take time.

Magnus closes his eyes. In an alternate universe, there is a version of him who never wrote a note to his neighbor, who never let purple ink guide him; how dull such a life must be.

One note, then another. It starts low, down in Alec’s guts, before he brings it up, up and higher. It doesn’t sound quite right, so he starts over. Down and grave, rolling almost, then up, up and still, constant and ringing. Fluttering? Yeah, this version sounds better. It feels true. Alec takes note of it on a fresh music sheet. He already has two measures down. This piece is far from being complete, but he’ll get there.

He starts from the top, making sure the rhythm is right; behind him, the violin joins the piano.

It doesn’t hesitate and even though it’s not perfect, it follows the voice of the piano just fine, creating a fragile harmony. When the piano goes higher, the violin complements the song by shifting the key. It doesn’t try to sing over the piano but besides it; Alec smiles at the end of the measure. They’ll get there.

Magnus walks over to stand behind Alec; burying his chin in Alec’s hair, he takes the pen and scribbles a few corrections on the sheet, adding five notes on the next measure. Alec leans back against Magnus’ chest while reading this graceful handwriting, trying to hear the song in his head.

Magnus rubs his shoulder, comforting. He doesn’t move when Alec starts playing again, following the changes and adding the notes he didn’t write himself. The few measures end up draped in another light; there’s a different tone to it. Where Alec had just written a crescendo, Magnus added a blooming passion, the start of a story. Once he reaches the end, Alec pauses to look at Magnus from below; he sees a smile, a precious affection in these eyes. Alec could drown in it. 

When he plays again, the violin follows; this time it’s perfect. Without sounding calculated, it flows around them, as natural as the sun raising after a long night. The pattern develops shyly but it’s there, waiting to be unveiled.

Alec can’t wait.

More than their instruments, it's their own voices he wants to see guided by the same partition. It's what's unsaid and what's not that he wants to make waltz together; the lines should disappear, the colors should blend. He knows how beautiful what they compose together can be; if the skies let him, he'll be lucky enough to wake up every morning to the sweet melody of an O Lieb.

Magnus will bend over and kiss him after they complete the fourth measure; Alec will stand up, cup his face in his hands and kiss him back with the fervor of a teenager. When they lean against the Steinway, the piano will roll away under their combined weight; they’ll laugh about it but won’t actually mind making out on the carpet.