Chapter Text
There was a special room in Schroeder’s house, near the back, nestled between his bedroom and the guestroom. The room housed his beautiful piano, the one he’d meticulously cleaned and cared for since the day it’d been bought. The shiny black exterior clearly wiped clean multiple times a day. So clean in fact, that it looked like it had just left the factory.
Every key, although thoroughly used, remained in Pristine condition, and If anyone asked the boy, his first love was his piano. It had been gifted to him at 10, and he’d been glued to its side ever since like an obsessed boyfriend. As thankful as his parents were that the expensive gift was being put to use, they also wished their son would go out to play much more than he did.
Typically no one but Schroeder was allowed in the room, even his own parents barred from what’d been deemed the ‘workshop’; However it seemed every rule and boundary flew out of the window when it came to her.
Lucy Van Pelt, the suffragist, self proclaimed physiologist, and blossoming Violin player.
Schroeder swore to rid himself of her since they’d met, yet the second she’d cast that sad faraway look in her eyes, the boy caved. The blonde always did have a soft spot for the girl, not that he would never admit it.
And that led him here, music flooding out from the room, loud enough that his parents could surely hear the stress and anguish of a pianist and his so called ‘lovely’ violin playing assistant (a title she came up with, for the sake of softening the blow of bothering him everyday.)
“Again, you dragged on those runs.” The blonde boy said almost mechanically. They’d been at this for some time now, going through Beethoven’s Violin sonata, no 9, Kreutzer.
A song chosen after the two had found its record on a last minute run to the record store. It was a magical first listen, and even though Schroeder was surely Beethoven’s biggest fan, he’d heard it in a different light, as soon as he’d listened to it with lucy.
It didn’t take much to convince the boy, all he needed was her wide smile after the music came to a stop. He would do anything he needed to, anything to make sure she’d get where she’d wanted to be.
Lucy pouted, dipping into her violin case to grab some rosin. “C’mon Schroeder, can’t we take a rest? My fingers feel like they’ll fall off.” She applied copious amounts of the substance, praying he’d take some mercy on her today.
“Not when the competition is less than a month away.” He shook his head, trying not to look at her sad face. He couldn’t let her cute depressing face sway him, they needed to finish this. Did he feel a little guilty for overworking her? Sure he did, but they couldn’t afford to slack off. His pride was on the line, and by proxy, her’s too.
Lucy sighed, taking a sip of water while she still could. “If you insist. But I’m making the executive decision to hard stop once we get this down. You’ve hardly had anything to eat today, so we should get something in your system before you faint.” The girl rolled her eyes. She was a worrywart when it came to Schroeder, always fussing over his every move.
If he was honest, he thinks he’s growing to enjoy the attention, not that he’d ever admit that to anyone of course. This was something he would take to the grave.
It came to a head when they were all 12, and suddenly girls stopped having cooties and it was cool to talk to them.
It wasn’t uncommon for the boys of his class to talk about girls, especially now that they were 16-17 and deep in the thralls of junior year. It was time to start looking for prom dates, they decided.
Not that Schroeder ever paid mind to those conversations. His life was solely dedicated to Beethoven, and he’d made it abundantly clear to his peers.
He’d overheard Franklin and a couple of other boys talking about Lucy and the rest of the girls — She’d grown into quite the beautiful young lady, even Schroeder could admit that. He proudly commented about her undying dedication to him, only to be met with even more questions.
“If you hate her so much, why do you always talk about her?”
“Because she’s always around! How am I not supposed to think about her when she’s always bothering me!” Schroeder groaned, only to be met with the snickers of the people around him.
He’d never thought of it that way, his head hurting with the new rush of ideas in his head. How could he like her? Lucy Van Pelt, the very girl he swore to get rid of, was burned into every single waking thought of his. No matter how hard he tried to push the thoughts of her back, he couldn’t.
He would grumble about it before going back to his work, but unfortunately for him, the thought never escaped him.
Schroeder snapped back to his flow state, nodding to Lucy’s conditions in an attempt to get them back to the music as soon as possible.
And soon enough, the room was filled with the sounds of hardwork and dedication once more. Schroeder's piano mixing elegantly with Lucy’s violin. A conversation between the two being translated perfectly within their music. It sounded as though their sound was made for each other. He smiled to himself as he heard the girl finally get one of the god forsaken runs they’d been attacking for hours now. She cheered in her head silently, not wanting to ruin their flow. Lucy’s face morphed into a proud smile, she tilted her head to where she could look at Schroeder. He smiled back at her, giving her a small acknowledgement that no one but themselves could decipher.
They were close that way. Small nothings being spoken into the air with nothing but a glance, or even a small squeak. Their classmates found it kind of…Odd, especially with how adamant Schroeder was about his so-called disdain for the girl. He waved it off frequently, telling them they were in an understanding.
An understanding that neither of them shared it seemed.
Lucy never really stopped her advances, opting to go through more traditional routes. When she picked up the violin it was only natural that the two of them teamed up for some sort of duet. Lucy was ecstatic when she was deemed ‘good enough’ by her violin teacher for higher caliber music. She’d run to Schroeders house, excitedly telling him the good news. He agreed on only the condition that their first piece together be Beethoven.
It didn’t take much to convince her.
They had almost gotten through the movement, before Schroeder began losing himself in his thoughts again; Albeit, all he was thinking about was how gorgeous she looked in front of him. The soft glow coming around her from the setting sun makes her look almost angelic.
He tried to shake off the thoughts, he didn’t really think she was pretty, so why was it freaking him out this much?
Her hair moved softly as she began working up what seemed to be a state of perfect concentration and bliss. She looked like she could do no wrong, like she was made for the violin the same way Schroeder was made for the piano.
It was almost enough for him to like her.
Schroeder kept playing, hands dragging gracefully across the keys, keeping perfect tempo as if he were guiding Lucy to their shared success. It was hard not to be distracted by her when she was oh so beautiful, and right there. He could feel his own heart beat accelerate as the music grew more intense, the climax of the movement approaching ever so quickly.
(Whether it be the music or the girl causing the heart palpitations was pretty much anybody's guess.)
He could feel everything mounting, the oncoming competition, all the hours of grueling practice, it was all culminating in this moment. Their first full run through of the piece, and they would nail it this time.
And then all it took was one smile from the girl to get him all jumbled up.
Schroeder’s hands fumbled about, seemingly losing feeling as if his body froze at the sight. This was the very girl he was supposed to hate and here he was, swooning at the sight of her stupid grin.
The boy tried his hardest to remain composed. It wouldn’t be a perfect run, but it was still salvageable. Lucy’s eyes flickered back to the pianists, eyebrows raising in concern. She kept playing, words dying on her tongue in an attempt to keep going.
Somehow this small act of care and concern made everything worse for the boy. His tempo began dragging and somehow also rushing in spots, something completely out of character for him. He’d practiced almost religiously with his metronome, so a mistake like this surely hurt his ego.
Lucy paused, turning to face the boy fully. She slowly lowered her violin, mouth opening to speak before being beat to the punch by the pianist.
“Listen I’m really sorry about that, I don’t even know what happened.” Schroeder shook his head, a small sense of guilt filling him. “I must just be tired from school,” He sighed, looking at the ground.
“Don’t even think about beating yourself up about it. I make a ton of mistakes and you tell me it’s not a big deal.” Lucy rolled her eyes.
“We can go again if you want, I know you wanna get through the whole thing.” Schroeder sighed, stretching out his hands in anticipation. Lucy checked her wrist watch, looking back at Schroeder who was just about to start the next movement. Their ‘conversation’ seemingly stopped.
“It's already 6.” She blinked, putting her violin into its case. Schroeder pouted at this, knowing that someway or another he’d be forced out to eat.
“We should go eat, we’ve been practicing for three hours, maybe that’s why you messed up…” The girl sighed, getting ready to argue with Schroeder for five minutes before he inevitably gave in to her request.
“Can’t we wait a while? I’m not exactly hungry right now.” He sighed, churning out some Hanon warm ups in order to keep his fingers in motion. Much to Schroeders dismay, his stomach growled, loud, and that was enough for Lucy to begin trying to pry him away from the piano.
“You’re clearly hungry, Schroeder!” She laughed, successfully dragging him out of the room. She ignored his protests, practically dragging the much taller boy down the hall. Lucy greeted Mrs. Felton, who’d been incredibly grateful that the girl had dragged him out for mealtime, and had laughed at the sight of her son being ragdolled. Schroeder groaned something along the lines of ‘…betraying your own son’
“Schroeder tried to cling on, but I made sure to get him out of there, Mrs. Felton. I can’t have my future husband dying of Beethoven induced malnutrition, can I? That’d be very bad press for the first woman president!” She giggled, reaching to sit at her spot at the table.
“I’m glad you managed to get him out, I was afraid he’d be there all night.” Mrs Felton teased, beginning to load the kids’ plates for them.
“I’m right here mom.” Schroeder groaned, pulling both Lucy and his chairs out. “I could’ve gone for longer, I’m still not that hungry.”
Lucy snorted, hand immediately flying to cover her mouth. “Sorry! It’s just… You can’t say that when I heard your stomach growling like it was some fierce lion!” She laughed, turning to face the boy’s mother. “Oh you should’ve heard it Mrs Felton! I was sure he was about to keel over in starvation!”
“The boy’s got quite the appetite for someone who claims to not be hungry all the time,” Mrs Felton chuckled, placing plates in front of the kids.
She’d come over so frequently for so long that the feltons ended up giving her a proper seat at the table, the once set of three turning into a nice even set of four. Much to the boys chargin, the new addition to the table had been deemed a welcoming gift to their new ‘daughter in law’. As much as he protested the secret nickname his parents had for the girl, it stuck; coming out only right after the girl had left, primarily used for when his mother was especially enchanted by the sight of ‘Young love’ as she put it.
“This is really good, thank you Mrs Felton.” Lucy smiled softly, quieting down as they settled for dinner. Schroeder noticed the way she held her fork and knife, very dainty and almost trained.
Lucy looked towards Schroeder, catching his glance and smiling at him before looking back towards his mom. “This is a lot better than what I eat at home so thank you for always having me over,” The girl spoke warmly.
Mrs felton reached over and patted the girl's shoulder. This only confused Schroeder a little. What on earth could she be talking about?
“Well I hear your competition is coming up soon, right?” Mrs felton cleared her throat, finding a surefire way of getting a conversation going. “Do you need me to drive you Lucy?”
“Our competition is in a month, we’ve been working really hard.” Schroeder beamed, looking up from his plate.
“A ride would be great, thank you.” Lucy nodded politely.
“If we win we get a sum of prize money and a trip to the national competition in New york.” Schroeder grinned, looking over towards Lucy. “We’ll be able to see the New York Philharmonic, and I can take Lucy to see the ballet.”
“I hope you two don’t plan on going unsupervised,” Mrs Felton snickered.
“Wouldn’t dream of it!” Schroeder rolled his eyes.
—
After Lucy had called to let the Felton’s know she’d made it home safely, the family began preparing for sleep.
Schroeder’s father had made it just in time to say hello to the girl before she left, though the hello turned into a 10 minute conversation about something he couldn’t decipher. He shrugged it off, going off to brush his teeth before it got too late.
It didn’t take him long to be ready for bed, he made sure to say goodnight to his parents before heading to his bedroom.
Schroeder laid uncomfortably in his bed, comforter pulled up to his chin as he stirred. He couldn’t figure out what was keeping him up.
His mind raced with the possibilities; Maybe it was the upcoming competition, maybe even the test he’d heavily prepared for. The boy shook the thoughts away, trying to find any semblance of sleep.
Whatever it was, he could deal with it tomorrow. No use in stressing about it now.