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“Start whenever you like.”
Stiles nodded, placed his long fingers on the keys and took a small, almost imperceptible breath. As always, his posture wasn’t correct. His shoulders were raised and his back was bent as if gravity was pulling him forward. Derek decided against mentioning it or correcting him for the moment. He had given up straightening the boy and teaching him what a long neck was. By the end of every piece, Stiles’ body was again hunched over the piano, seemingly unmoved.
Stiles had expressed his desire, rather intensely, to take part in the S-Orchestra that would play Rachmaninoff for a college concert the following month. But Stiles’ playing, just like his posture, was sloppy, with him never looking at the music sheets, recomposing as he went. For this, they had ended up in one of the college’s music rooms -that had two pianos- once again, to find a way to sync in rhythm or to practice, or maybe dash all Stiles’ hopes of being part of the orchestra.
As the first notes filled the room, Derek’s surprise was such that he could have easily taken some steps back and pass his fingers through his hair, if it wasn’t for the fact that he needed to stay seated and accompany Stiles as the orchestra’s part in Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No2.
Everything was so wrong with the piece, starting with a fortissimo instead of pianissimo, adding notes and composing as he went, fingers so fast on the piano that Derek had to wonder if he should stop this. Stiles had proved his point magnificently.
He didn’t stop him though. He couldn’t, because no matter that the piece was so different and still the same, it had such energy that it reverberated through the walls, making the room feel alive under the melody.
As Stiles went on, changing the tempo and adding new notes that, really, should have always been there, Derek found himself lost between improvisation, admiration and resentment.
He had been obsessed with nothing less than excellence ever since his family died. He had promised himself that since he was the only one who had lived, since it was his fault that they there weren’t with him anymore, he would at least make them proud. Find a way to redeem himself, even if it didn’t make sense anymore, by following rules and not changing the tiniest thing because everything was important; for a piece to be good it had first to be perfect.
And here he was, trying to keep up with Stiles, the kid that lived next door, that had intruded in his life and hadn’t stopped talking and babbling ever since, that had downright denounced rules or discipline in any aspect of his life and that loved playing so much that he didn’t give a damn about anyone else, sticking to his cantabile style even when playing Bach. Always smiling, even when playing Handel’s Sarabande.
Here he was, making music from a classic piece his partner had only heard a couple of times before, going along with this craziness, every string keeping him attached to logic and order breaking one after the other with every new note and change of tempo, and every content smile on Stiles’ face.
But Derek followed. And despite feeling lost and scared, he also felt, the tightness deep in his guts had to be this, like walking down the right path for the first time in years.
As the piece ended and Derek felt himself coming down from a high that made the hair at the back of his neck rise, Stiles was still looking at his keys, mind far away to wherever his imagination had taken him as he played and composed.
Derek’s heart got bigger in his chest, a flash of something he hadn’t experienced since that day. Excitement. Maybe happiness.
Or - because how would he know?- it was just raw music that had finally managed to unfreeze his veins and restart his heart.
“Well?” Stiles voice was full with expectation.
Derek managed to get up from the stool, almost hypnotized, driven only by an urge inside his body that he never knew ever existed or that he was capable of feeling. An urge that took control over his logic and thinking, an urge to which he gladly submitted as he approached Stiles with soft, deliberate movements.
Stiles turned around, placing his legs on the other side of his stool, waiting for Derek’s inevitable berating. Well, in another life, maybe a life that Derek hadn’t been part of Stiles Rachmaninoff, that would be the truth. But Derek… Derek had been there.
“Your eyes are doing something weird, dude. They’re sparkling…Do you have anything to say to me…Edward?”
Even under the teasing tone and the playful expression on Stiles’ face, Derek could hear the awe and see the understanding dawning, as he positioned himself between Stiles’ legs and took his face in his hands. He didn’t stop, didn’t hesitate. Derek bent over him and doing the unthinkable, he joined their lips.
In his ears, the blood was pumping in the same fortissimo Stiles had played the whole piece. And there it was. Suddenly clear to him as they were tasting each other with pent up tension, that this was the climax.
Maybe it wasn’t a climax appropriate for a concert or the climax Rachmaninoff himself had imagined while composing this piece. No.
It was his and Stiles.
And Stiles was giving back as much as Derek was offering him. And more. So much more that in all his honesty, Derek couldn’t handle it. But he’d tried, because it occurred to him that that was what Stiles had been doing all this time. He was giving. Even when he was talking too much, or teasing him by changing the classical music in Derek’s mp3 with Taylor Swift and Imagine Dragons. Even when they were arguing for his damn posture over the piano. Stiles had been giving.
As Stiles moaned softly on his mouth, Derek realized that this had to be the way feelings sounded. A murmur of warm lips, the allegro tempo of Stiles’ heartbeat, and the resonance of letting things for once take their own, unruly way.