the silence

six.

his bow was destroyed. the wood was completely broken in half and the bow hair looked like it had been cut with scissors. his jaw dropped as he stared at it, unable to form words. he didn't know what to do. he hadn't thought to bring an extra bow and he didn't have time to go get one. the one that was broken in his hands had been his favorite, and the most expensive.

his hands were shaking with anger as he made his way to his seat. asking brett if he had an extra bow was not something he wanted to do, but he didn't exactly have a choice. it would be impossible for him to make it through the day without one. he sat down and turned to brett, who immediately noticed the rage radiating off of him and frowned.

"brett," eddy said shakily, trying to keep his cool. the last thing he wanted was to scare him. brett raised his eyebrows up in response.

"do, um.. do you have an extra bow? mine is, um.. well.. i can't use it," he said through clenched teeth. brett stared at him, wide eyed, before nodding and getting up. eddy followed him because he couldn't stand to sit still.

brett led eddy to his shiny black violin case and bent down to open it, very aware of eddy's presence behind him. hands trembling, he took the extra bow out of his case and handed it to eddy.

"thank you.. i'm, uh, sorry i had to ask. i'll explain later," he mumbled. brett nodded and they walked back to their seats.

hours passed before eddy seemed to calm down at all. he was fuming for the first half of rehearsal and it showed in his playing, somehow making it better and worse at the same time. the raw emotion could be heard and brett thought it was beautiful.

lunchtime rolled around and brett was prepared to just go sit in his car again. going to get food alone and possibly bumping into someone from orchestra was not something he was interested in, so he just hung out in his car until they had to be back. he was starving when he got home, but he didn't care.

he had almost made it out the door when he heard running footsteps behind him and a hand on his shoulder. he turned around quickly and saw eddy standing there, out of breath.

"brett," he said, leaning forwards to try and catch his breath, "where are you going?"

brett stared at him for a moment before shrugging. he wasn't going to tell eddy that his plans were to sit in his car.

"let me take you to lunch," eddy breathed, "payback for letting me use your bow."

there was a strange silence between them as brett stared at eddy, his heart pounding. the fact that he'd been running just to ask him to lunch made brett blush and he figured there was no way he could say no.

"okay," brett mumbled, nodding. eddy smiled cheekily and took his hand off of brett's shoulder, standing up straight again.

they made their way to eddy's car and got in, eddy talking about random things the entire time. brett took a moment to look around eddy's car, sincerely appreciating the lack of a mess. there were a few receipts in the floor and a yellow blanket in the backseat, but those seemed to be the only items in eddy's car that weren't necessarily meant to be in a vehicle. brett smiled a little at eddy's cinnamon scented air freshener, looking down at his lap. he loved the little things about people, like what scent they preferred their car to be or what brand of ice cream was their favorite. silly things like that made brett happy to know and finding out that eddy's car was cinnamon scented made him smile a little too much. he shook it off and looked out the window.