Chapter Text
“Do you believe in falling in love with someone just by hearing their violin playing?”
As soon as my brain comprehends the question, before you even finish reading it out loud, I need to carefully control my expression, my posture, my gaze, to keep my heart from spilling over, from making a fool of both of us at once. Everything in me wants to look up at you, but that would be telling. It would be the equivalent of serenading you, of dropping to one knee (or two) right then and there, and that just won’t do. What you and I have, it deserves to grow within carefully guarded walls.
But what available brainpower I do have still thinks of an unspeakable answer to the question.
I think of you in our living room, eyes closed, immersed in the music, fingers gently coaxing pure beauty out of your instrument.
I think of you aged fourteen, clammy-handed and nervous and still masterful.
I think of the first time you picked your violin up after months of illness at the con, a reunion so beautiful and painfully sweet that only our meetings after spending our lives in separate cities - desperate hugs, eyes squeezed shut and breaths held - have ever come close to it.
I think of stiff fingers and tired eyes on the streets of Sydney, of how I loved hearing you even when everything in me craved for a reprieve, a getaway.
I think of your Sibelius, being able to provide the backdrop to your most shining hour, and how I’d thought I would be perfectly happy playing second violin to you for the rest of my life.
I think of how gorgeous you sound now, when you have a priceless Strad to do your magic on, and want to save these few brief weeks, play them on loop forever.
So.
“Do you believe in falling in love with someone just by hearing their violin playing?”
What a foolish question.
My love, I do it every day.