Work Text:
This is probably the third étude of his you have played tonight. He watches you with lazy eyes over a half-full wineglass, and when you are finished you turn to face him, spread your arms wide. "Enough yet, Chopin?"
He smiles. You reach for your own glass and empty it, because apparently you cannot face that smile without the shamelessness of a drunkard. "I will never grow tired of hearing you play," he tells you, enunciating carefully. Perhaps he has also had too much wine.
You sigh. He is sitting at the writing-desk, the chair turned toward the piano, and has been ignoring the letters you started some time ago. "Have you finished your correspondence?" you ask, and in curiosity you stand and walk over to him. He turns back to it when you peer at it over his shoulder, the last few lines messier than usual, and you pick up a pen and add a line about his modesty (or lack of) before you sign your name. No doubt Hiller will notice your inebriation through handwriting alone. His presence intoxicates you more than the wine.
"As you can see," he murmurs, and then: "Will you play for me?"
"I have been playing all night," you say, and it must be bad judgment and impairment that makes you take his arm, pull him toward the piano. "If you are so enamoured of my technique when applied to your compositions, I will teach you it." He allows you to seat him on the bench, your hands on his shoulders, and he gives you an amused look when you frown.
You have watched him at the piano before, of course. His touch is delicate; he plays from his wrists and his dexterous fingers. You examine him seated, and absently place a hand on his lower back to adjust his posture. He straightens accordingly, and asks, "Then what should I play?"
He is unfamiliar with your work because he thinks it unoriginal, because Frederic Chopin can only appreciate music he can play as himself. Your resentment burns occassionally, but you smother it with the knowledge that you, at least, have a technique which is not instantly polarising to critics outside Paris. You say, "Another étude of yours? We might play through the set in a day."
He laughs. You realise your hand is still resting at the small of his back, which shakes with the movement, and you quickly remove it. "I doubt there is enough time in the night for that." He slants you a look when he places his fingers on the piano keys, and plays the opening bars of his first.
He has an approximation of your style already, but you murmur, "Loosen your arms," and raise his elbows, lower his wrists as he plays. He uses the pedals more masterfully than you; otherwise his imitation is flawless. He tilts his head toward you when he improvises the end as you might, moving two octaves higher and shifting over on the bench.
The invitation is implicit, and you move around him to sit at the bench, your elbows brushing. He is still playing as you do; in return you relax your posture slightly, and when you begin to play it is with Chopin's own light hand.
You have improvised with him before, though always on separate pianos, taking turns carrying a melodic line. Here, there is constant feedback in the brush of his shoulder, the flick of his wrist, and together you craft something that isn't all his, isn't all yours. He slips back into his usual technique when he loses himself in the composition, and you cannot help watching him as you would from a distance, enraptured.
He finishes on a quiet chord which you belatedly echo. There is confusion writ on his face and he opens his mouth to speak, then thinks otherwise, his tongue instead running along his lips. In the glint of moonlight shining through the curtains to his face, you would swear his eyes are blue.