larry- one shots

flawless

Tchikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 23

Harry clutched the program too tightly between his fingers, wrinkling the paper. As always, he wanted to run away, to rip the neatly ironed suit from his body and dash out the nearest exit, but something kept him anchored to the ground. Through the slats of the stage doors he could see the concertmaster rise and strike an A on the grand piano. Any moment now he'd be told to take the stage, and there would be no going back, and part of him would be relieved to know he had no other choice. Part of him would thrill in excitement, in wonder and anticipation, and usually this part drowned out his sour stomach of nerves.

"You're on, Harry," he heard, and with a simple nod in response his body moved forward on autopilot, the program slipping from his hands and fluttering to the blackened wood floor.

People clapped as he walked through the orchestra towards his destination; out of habit, he pasted on a grin. When he reached the piano bench he bowed slightly before taking a seat and resting both hands on his thighs. He could feel the warmth from his legs seeping up into his fingers and he wished he could leave them there to charge, to fill up with heat and dislodge the cold emptiness currently in his arms. But when the conductor raised his baton, Harry's swirling thoughts and what-if's faded into the background.

As the opening chord vibrated through him, echoing out into the hall and bouncing off the high ceiling, Harry readied himself for what was to come. Throughout the years he had constructed a system—like a ritual rite, a carefully ordered series of locks—through which to channel that thing his teachers called musicality. Harry had dubbed it simply the phenomenon, because to him it wasn't just a look of passion or an artistic flailing of the arms, like it seemed to be for many of his peers. Harry could feel this thing, tangibly; it would well up inside him during a climactic swell and push on his chest, sometimes painfully, and Harry would have to lance the tension, let the thing out, relinquish control of his conscious self and allow the phenomenon to possess him.

It seemed dangerous, though, this thing, and so Harry made sure to tame it. With a lifetime of practice and perfectionism (perhaps rivaled only by the gods), Harry learned to stamp conditions onto the phenomenon. Only in conjunction with the highest standards of musical excellence could it be released. Only when Harry had earned the right, through hours of preparation and minute attention to detail, could this horribly powerful thing be loosed inside of him. Only with a performance of near perfection.

Thus Harry became addicted to performance. He began to need the release it afforded him because he had no other drain for his bloated sponge of a heart. The adrenaline rush, mingled with such wrung-out relief, defied Harry's attempts at explanation; he only knew that the phenomenon felt better than orgasms—better than sleep. He couldn't call it chills, really, yet it tingled and blossomed inside him like honey bubbles in his chest, like liquid fireworks, a vibration without noise, a growing, real thing, a thing so beautiful it made every other sensation blur into irrelevancy.

Two movements of the piano concerto passed, the fabric of time suspended throughout them. The third and final movement dawned with all the looming buildup of a spring rain, its melodic climax delayed methodically as the harmony crawled out of its world-building to ascend the scale in uneven intervals. Soon the orchestra joined Harry in the crowning moment, the top of the arc, the crest of the roller coaster...

As the music crashed into resolution the phenomenon surged through Harry's veins, awakening him, freeing him. He lived for it.

The piece ended and he stood, flushed with warmth and alight with the aftershocks of completion. He shook the conductor's hand and bowed as the audience rose to their feet. The stage lights shone down on him, blinding his view.