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Lately, Hessian’s started tapping on the piano while Salieri plays.
It’s not a distraction from his playing, exactly. Hessian’s heard this song from him often enough to follow the beat of the music. But it is new.
“Are you asking for my attention?” Salieri asks, after letting it go unremarked on for a while.
Hessian spreads his thumb, index, and middle fingers, then brings them together. ‘No.’
A silly question. Hessian has more direct ways of getting Salieri’s attention and isn’t shy about using them. (Even in public, before Salieri asked him to be more discreet. He can only hope Marie will stop teasing him eventually.) “Then, what are you doing?”
Two thumbs up side by side that Hessian moves in a circle. ‘Together.’
…Of course. For Hessian, this is the equivalent of humming along to his music.
“If I’d known you wanted to join in with me, I would have given you your own instrument,” Salieri says.
Hessian mimes the playing of a flute.
“Obviously not woodwinds or brass, but strings should be perfectly fine. Perhaps a violin - no, that rests under the jaw, proper form would be difficult…”
The shaking of Hessian’s shoulders suggests laughter. The sign for ‘drum’ is similarly straightforward to the one for flute.
“Were you an army drummer?” Salieri asks, which is a more polite question than ‘why would you pick drums of all instruments to accompany a piano?’
Hessian taps out ‘Reveille’ on the piano top.
“I don’t know any duets for piano and drums offhand, but… I’ll see what I can do.”
He traces a heart on the back of Salieri’s glove.