Work Text:
"The tempo is dragging," Holst whispers, his voice a dry rasp against the velvet of the concert hall.
He isn't talking about the orchestra; he's talking about the suffocating proximity of his daughters. Beside him, Putzi is locked in a silent, vibrating war with Anna. It is a conflict of elbows and territorial claims over the shared armrest, a petty friction that manifests as sharp, rhythmic jabs to the ribs. Putzi’s face is a mask of focused aggression, her small frame coiled like a spring, while Anna responds with a series of pointed, rhythmic kicks to Putzi’s calf.
The air between them is thick with a childish, electric heat, a static charge that threatens to erupt into a scream.
Imogen, squeezed between them, has opted for total sensory withdrawal. She's humming—a low, buzzing drone of a Debussy piece that vibrates in the back of her throat. It is a sonic shield, a comfort song designed to drown out the psychic noise of her sisters’ warring egos. The humming is visceral, a humming vibration that Holst can feel in his cerebellum, rattling through his skull and muddling the precision of the symphony on stage.
Up there, Gustav Mahler conducts with a violence that borders on the erotic. He is a whirlwind of sweat and obsidian intensity, his baton slicing through the air as if he is carving the music out of the very oxygen of the room. Holst watches him, feeling a familiar, jagged spark of professional jealousy. The music is grand, perhaps too grand—bloated with an ego that mirrors the man leading it. Holst shifts, his thigh pressing against the velvet, feeling the raw tension of the room. He hates the bombast, yet he craves the fire. He catches Mahler’s eye for a fleeting second—a sharp, knowing glance across the distance—and the rivalry settles in his gut like a hot stone.