Broken String

CXXX

The auditorium floods with people as the auditorium floods him too, and hard. Oh, God.
Oh, God.
He remembers so well what happened last time he was here, in the back there, watching. He lost it then, worse than he's ever lost it anywhere and he had to be saved by the kind lady who holds his handlebars right now. He takes as deep a breath as he can and tries to stay calm as his lip starts quivering. 
He needs to be here. He needs to. For Brett, for Todd and Ian, for Frank. 
Hell, he needs to be here for himself so all the dreams go, put to rest, vanished to whatever hell they came from. 
"Hey." Anita says in his ear as she pushes him up the ramp towards where they sat last time. "You say the word and we're out, yeah?"
He nods. He can't say yeah, sorry, because if he talks he cries. He scrunches his eyes together and tries to keep himself in one piece. Another breath, not as deep as he'd like and they're by the fateful row, just where there is an opening between two rows of seats.
"You're staying in the chair?" she asks as students and parents take chairs around them. 
He nods, still not trusting his voice. She nods back and smiles, then parks him and sits down next to him. Her hand is on his shoulder for a moment and it grounds him. Another breath, deeper this time. 
"You've got this, Eddy." she says as she picks up the programme and studies it intently, like it's the most interesting thing in the world. 
He grins and finds his voice. 
"Wasn't it you who printed that anyway? Don't you know what it says?"
She looks up, one eyebrow heading for the ceiling. 
"Getting mouthy, are we? Yes. I printed it. So sue me."
He grins again.
"Nah, way too much work."

He sits, he breathes, and the orchestra comes on and tunes. God, it's hard not to cry because he sees them, he sees Brett, second chair, sitting down, looking confident. It should have been him up there, right by his side, close enough to touch. 
Would they be touching the other way, though? If he hadn't gotten ill?
The realisation hits him like a wrecking ball to the face, his shocked intake of breath loud enough for Anita to turn and eye him. 
"You good?" 
"Um. Yes." he says. His eyes are wide though and he can feel them spread open further still, fissiparously fixed on Brett. 

They wouldn't, he's sure of that. The images fly through his head as if the auditorium doesn't even exist anymore. There would have been no way for them to take that step if Brett hadn't come into his room at night when he was baulking, right? If he hadn't lain down with him when he was sad and in pain.
Right?
The worlds tilts on its axis as Frank steps on stage to raucous applause. Then the conductor lifts his hands and everything in the room goes still, everything but the storm that rages inside. And he would tell Anita something because she's eyeing him with concern, whisper it maybe because the words burn inside him, yearning to be heard, but she has no idea that Brett and he are even... together. 
Because they are, right? At least for now? He grins incredulously and looks down at his useless hands as the ethereal thirds he's feared so much start. His eyes fly to the second chair. Brett is there, focused, in the moment, lost, clearly.

Okay, maybe it's Frank who lifts his violin, maybe it's Frank finding the G, maybe it's him breathing in with the orchestra and starting the soaring line he loves so much, the line that lives in his ears and heart forever. 
Frank doesn't have Brett, though. 
He doesn't.  
The realisation floods him harder than any auditorium could, driving out any but the happiest of tears, and it carries him through the first movement. By the second movement he even relaxes into it and starts enjoying the concert, his eyes still on Brett, who is clearly playing well, clearly in it, his movements sure, solid and calm. 
There will be a solution for all of it, right? He'll get better soon, right? And then he'll play the Barber, and he'll still have Brett. 

He will, right?