Archive of Our Own ^beta

Andrew should have said no. He usually did say no - particularly when it was Kevin asking. Saying no to Kevin was in Andrew’s top five list of Super Fun Things To Do. But. Jeremy and Jean were still on their honeymoon in Santorini, the bastards. Roland was actually seeing someone seriously which meant that he wasn’t currently taking Andrew’s midnight booty calls. Kevin was stuck in New York - if one could call an invitation to be the last minute guest solo pianist for the NY Philharmonic stuck . Robin was too inexperienced for a job of this magnitude, and really, Andrew was restless anyway. 

So, yeah, he should have said no, yet somehow, in the moment Kevin asked Andrew to do the job without him, something about the idea had been appealing: drive to Baltimore from Columbia to spend a week helping the son of the most famous and eccentric cellist of their time appraise his dead father’s music library. A library, Kevin had promised, that was filled with more rare sheet music and bound scores than they currently had collected in the entirety of Foxhall Appraisals & Acquisitions - both the Columbia and Berlin offices combined. 

Andrew didn’t usually make appraisal trips solo. Jeremy’s affable personality, or Kevin’s stoic professionalism, or even Jean’s calm haughtiness tended to go over better with the clients, and they handled the niceties while Andrew worked. Generally when their firm was hired it meant someone had died and now their prized possessions were being evaluated and auctioned off by grieving widows or daughters or nephews - a delicate situation that required more empathy than Andrew had the ability to muster. But Kevin knew this particular grieving son personally, was friends with him even - although where Kevin had been hiding a whole ass friend from Andrew for fifteen years was beyond him. Apparently he had known Nathaniel Wesninski - now Neil Hatford - since they were kids, and Kevin told Andrew that Foxhall would be stupid to miss out on this opportunity just because Andrew had a personality disfunction. 

So Andrew packed up his Maserati, left Robin to hold down the fort in Columbia, drove straight through to Baltimore, and parked in front of the sprawling Wesninski Estate. Andrew double checked the address Kevin had texted him before crawling out of the car - not because he needed to, with his memory, but because this house was not what he had been expecting.  

He looked up (and up) at the giant house in front of him. Could you even call something this big a house? Okay, a mansion. A manor maybe? The obnoxious door knocker reminded Andrew of a scene from his favorite movie - enough so that he couldn’t resist it, so he ignored the perfectly reasonable doorbell and slammed the little gremlin knocker three times against the carved door. He waited. And waited. And almost gave in to ringing the doorbell - because the sun was going down and the October air was turning nippy and he was tired - when the door swung open.

“Andrew?” the vision in front of him said, a small smile hovering on his lips. Andrew’s eyes swept down and back up quickly, involuntarily. Auburn hair was sticking up in one too many directions and clever blue eyes watched him steadily above just enough freckles to compose a sonatina with. He only stood a few inches taller than Andrew, so he was looking at him as opposed to looking down at him, and the whole package was wrapped up in an oversized raggedy cardigan and ripped skinny jeans that appeared to be painted on a pair of very fit thighs. Really Kevin?

Andrew nodded, cleared his throat. “Neil,” he said smoothly, not a question because obviously this was him.

Neil stepped back to open the door wider. “Come in.” Andrew registered just then that Neil had a subtle British accent, and oh. Oh. Fuck. This was, hm. This was going to be a problem. Neil’s smile settled a bit lopsided on his face and it was honest, and Andrew was having a hard time not staring at his lips, and why did he not Google this man before he agreed to spend a week under the same roof as him? Andrew sighed - resigned to his fate, plotting to send Kevin a strongly worded text later - and stepped into the house-manor-mansion. 

“How was the drive?” Neil asked, sliding his hands into the pockets of his cardigan.

“Fine,” Andrew said with a shrug. Neil appeared to accept that as good enough. 

“Great. I figured we wouldn’t start going through things until tomorrow. I was just about to try to figure out dinner - are you hungry?” Neil asked.

Andrew was pretty much never not hungry. “Sure,” he agreed, and then held his bag up questioningly. 

“Oh right.” Neil frowned a little. “So, I thought it was Kevin coming for the week. I’ve got you set up in the room next to mine in the guest wing.”

How odd - did it matter if it was him or Kevin in terms of where he slept? But then, maybe Neil would prefer he wasn’t in the room right next to him since they didn’t know each other. Whatever, in a house this big it wasn’t like there wasn’t another room Neil could put him in if he needed to. Andrew decided to skip over all of that - along with the fact that there was an entire guest wing apparently - and landed on the other implication. “You are sleeping in a guest bedroom. You don’t have your own room here?”

Neil raised an eyebrow. “Kevin didn’t tell you much did he?”

Andrew rolled his eyes. “He’s Kevin,” he said, mentally adding more words to his strongly worded text.

Neil shrugged. “I haven’t lived here since I was ten. I imagine I still have a room in the family wing, but I haven’t checked.”

Huh. After a moment Neil just shrugged again, turned and started walking, so Andrew shouldered his bag and followed. The house was opulent but understated: muted Turkish rugs scattered throughout, soft paint colors on the walls, intricate crown moldings and contemporary art in expensive frames. Andrew followed Neil up the stairs, around some corners, down a hallway, to a lovely bedroom tastefully decorated in navy and gray and warm wood tones.

“I’m next door,” Neil waved towards the next room over. “There’s an ensuite with towels and toiletries and whatnot, and a deadbolt on your door.”

Andrew raised an eyebrow at that. “A deadbolt,” he repeated.

“Yes,” Neil said, but didn’t elaborate. “So, drop your stuff and take a minute if you want. The kitchen is downstairs, back behind the stairwell off the foyer.” And with that Neil smiled that small crooked smile and walked away. 

Neil was a bit awkward. Andrew absolutely did not find it endearing. Nope. 

Andrew scanned the room and then dropped his bag in the armchair. He pulled his unruly blond waves back with one of the hair ties he had pilfered from Jean, washed his face, dried off with the fluffiest towel he had ever seen, and changed into a clean black shirt that hugged his biceps in just the right way (for no particular reason, of course). 

He dug his phone out to send a quick text to Kevin, smirking when he realized Kevin was probably on stage right now and the first thing he would see is -  you asshole   - when the performance was over. It was fun having a best friend sometimes. 

There were no other doors into his room other than the hallway door, which settled Andrew’s nascent nerves, and he checked out the deadbolt on the way out of the room. It was brand new, freshly installed. Something snagged in the back of Andrew’s mind, and he walked down the hallway and took a quick look at the door to Neil’s room. A deadbolt, brand new, freshly installed. He stared at it for a moment, and then walked across the hall to the next closest door. As he figured, it was another bedroom. There were white sheets thrown over all of the furniture, and no deadbolt on the door. Andrew filed that information away. Neil’s odd comment about prepared rooms halfway making sense now. 

Kevin had said Neil was one of them. An understanding, an implication.

It was, unfortunately, an implication that Andrew understood. 

Andrew wandered back downstairs, and it turned out the kitchen wasn’t that hard to locate - he just had to follow the classical music drifting through the hallways to find Neil standing in the middle of an enormous kitchen glaring at an array of random groceries laid out on the marble countertop. 

A little Bose speaker played Gnossienne no.1, the notes drifting hauntingly in the vaulted room. Andrew closed his eyes and let it soak into his bones for just a moment. Satie was a favorite of his. When he opened his eyes Neil was watching him intently with a jar of pasta sauce in his hand. “Spaghetti?” he asked. 

“By spaghetti do you mean putting that jarred sauce on dried pasta?” Andrew asked.

“Yes?” Neil said, sounding unsure.

Andrew just started shaking his head and perused the produce on the counter. “That won’t do.”

“It won’t?”

“No,” Andrew picked up an onion and a zucchini and set them aside. “Where did these groceries even come from if you don’t know how to cook?”

“Who says I don’t know how to cook?”

Andrew looked pointedly at the offending jar of tomato sauce and then back at Neil with a raised eyebrow.

Neil laughed. “Okay fine. My uncle had these delivered before I arrived this morning, I have absolutely no idea what he thought I was going to do with them - it’s like he doesn’t even know me.”

Andrew was momentarily distracted by the single dimple that appeared in Neil’s cheek. 

“We can order pizza if you want,” Neil said. “I didn’t really - I mean, I thought it was going to be Kevin so I didn’t really plan how to host someone here.”

“I’m not someone,” Andrew said.

Neil shrugged. “You know what I mean.”

He did. “I hope you didn’t think Kevin was going to cook,” Andrew said. 

“No, but Kevin wouldn’t throw shade at my jarred sauce.”

He wasn’t wrong. Andrew sighed. “I can take care of dinner,” he said. “Let me start some things and then you can show me the library while we wait. Do you have any wine?”

“You cook?” Neil asked reverently. He was looking at Andrew like he hung the moon and then stood on it to scatter the stars. Andrew ignored the little flutter in his ribcage. He was not going to turn into a puddle just because this pretty man smiled at him. 

“Obviously,” he said, as he added some garlic, a lemon, and a carton of cherry tomatoes to his pile on the counter. “Do you have any chicken? Or shrimp?”

Neil looked in the giant industrial fridge. “Both.”

“Shrimp then. How about feta? Spinach?”

Neil placed a brown paper wrapped parcel of shrimp, a carton of baby spinach, and a package of feta next to Andrew on the counter. Andrew was impressed. “Your uncle is a man after my heart if this is how he stocks a kitchen.”

“Uncle Stuart doesn’t do anything halfway.” Neil grinned, opening a bottle of white wine and pouring two glasses. 

Andrew got to work, preheating the oven and chopping things. He set Neil to slicing cherry tomatoes in half. It was oddly homey, particularly considering he’d just met Neil less than an hour ago and this wasn’t his kitchen. He didn’t dwell on the fact that it had been a very long time since he had cooked for anyone that wasn’t Kevin or his family. He also didn’t dwell on the fact that he might be chopping an onion right now because the man next to him was incredibly sexy and Andrew wanted to impress him. 

The music flowed into Bach’s Goldberg Variations which was - okay fine, another of Andrew’s favorites, but not exactly obscure. He paused, though, when the opening notes of the next song trickled out of the little speaker. What even was this playlist?  “Nils Frahm,” he said, surprised. 

“I can change it if you don’t like it,” Neil said, and he grabbed his iPhone. Andrew reached out to stop him without thinking, putting his hand on Neil’s. Neil froze, and so did Andrew - staring at Neil’s long, elegant fingers underneath his own scarred hands for a long moment before pulling away. 

“No, leave it. It is one of my favorites,” Andrew said quietly. 

Neil frowned at him for a moment, and then set his phone aside. “Mine too,” he said, sliding his bowl of sliced tomatoes over to Andrew. 

Andrew ignored the buzzing warmth in his fingertips and tossed the tomatoes with olive oil and herbs before putting them in the oven to slow roast, keenly aware of Neil’s eyes on him. He poured a bit more wine in both of their glasses before looking at Neil again. “That will take half an hour, then the rest will come together quickly. Library?”

Andrew once again found himself following Neil through the house, this time on the ground floor, until they reached a far back corner and a set of ornate double doors. Neil handed him a key, so Andrew unlocked the doors, pushing them open. It was darker than dark on the other side, and he blinked once before amber light began to warm all around him, growing slowly into the eaves of the room which was indeed the library. Andrew glanced over his shoulder to see Neil turning the dimmer switches until the room was bathed in a bright, merry glow, but Neil’s face was shuttered, no trace of that lopsided grin he’d been tossing about carelessly all evening. 

The music library was three levels - an epic repository of books and records tucked in their dust jackets and Andrew could see from his place in the doorway that most of them were old and in pristine condition. To his right, the entire expansive wall appeared to be folio after folio of bound scores of sheet music, and archival boxes stacked neatly in their cubbies - he could only imagine their contents. On the far side of the vast room a concert grand Steinway held court, and nearer to them was a 19th century oak partner’s desk that Jeremy would probably trade his husband to get his hands on. 

Andrew’s first coherent thought was that he couldn’t believe Kevin was going to let him do this without him. His second was that there was no way they would get through all of these materials in a week. A month, maybe. A year, more likely. He stood in awe, and it wasn’t a feeling Andrew was accustomed to. 

Neil came to stand beside him. “I haven’t been in this room for fifteen years,” he murmured quietly, letting out a small, ragged laugh. “Not that I was allowed in it before that anyway.”

Andrew felt at war with himself; his fingers were itching to rifle through the shelves of sheet music, to touch the edges of pages that had been held by composers unknown, to run notes up and down the keys of that gleaming piano, but he could feel Neil receding, folding in on himself, and he knew - he knew - this was not something to tackle in the dark. 

Andrew took Neil’s wine glass from him, set both their glasses down on the pristine desk, and hitched his hip on the side of it. He watched Neil shudder, watched him turn his gaze upwards, his eyes flitting around the room before snagging on the piano. He walked over to it, ran his fingers along the fallboard before lifting it, and then sat on the bench, still, quiet, staring. 

Unease crawled into Andrew’s throat as Neil lifted his hands to the keys, hovered carefully before he resolutely dropped a thumb on middle C, holding the note down until it faded away. He mashed it again, this time pressing the damper pedal so the sound lingered, resonating throughout the room. 

Andrew waited, because this wasn’t his breakdown to have, but he wasn’t going to leave Neil alone to cut himself on the jagged edges of this room. The sound of middle C faded again, and Neil closed his eyes, reset his fingers, and started to play. 

It was Mozart - Piano Sonata no. 12. Andrew had heard it a hundred times at least, but he had never heard it played like this. Notes were held until they squirmed under Neil’s fingers, the timing dragged out and soothed until it was languid, the trills on a delay, the crescendos all wrong and yet perfectly reversed in a way he’d never known they could be. This was Mozart turned on his head, upside down and inside out, reworked until it was unrecognizable and yet so recognizable that it seared Andrew’s heart with the delirious beauty of it. 

There was nothing for it but that Andrew had to get closer to whatever Neil was doing, the magic he was coaxing from the keys, and Andrew was no longer standing next to the desk but was next to Neil, watching his fingers have a secret, private conversation with Mozart that somehow Andrew was privy to. As the last note faded, the damper pedal dropped, and Neil looked up at him clear eyed and guileless. 

“The last time I touched this piano I was ten years old. I snuck in here while my parents were out at a party, but they came home early. My father beat me so hard I passed out. The next day Uncle Stuart came to fetch me and I never saw them again.” Neil looked down, thumbed at middle C again, gently. “It’s a bit out of tune.” 

“Neil,” Andrew said, and Neil looked up at him again. 

“I’m fine,” Neil said, casually tripping through a couple of arpeggios with his right hand and that lopsided grin was back in place. “My father’s dead, and I definitely think this piano is out of tune. Time to check on your tomatoes, no?” Neil stood and strode out of the room, and Andrew was stuck frozen by the piano for several moments before he managed to uproot himself from the floor, to grab their wine glasses from the desk, and to follow his memory back to the kitchen. 

Neil had put music on again; Debussy’s Reverie floated dreamily around the kitchen. Andrew handed off their glasses, and Neil poured them more wine while Andrew started cooking and they didn’t talk about what had happened in the library. 

With the tomatoes done, Andrew boiled water for the linguine and sautéed the rest of the vegetables and the shrimp with garlic and butter before throwing everything together with the feta and spinach, some lemon zest and red pepper flakes. They sat to eat at the kitchen island, sitting across from each other with twin bowls of pasta piled high. It was an easy dinner Andrew had made a thousand times, but you would think he had executed the most difficult of recipes judging by the look of abject pleasure on Neil’s face as he chewed. 

“This is divine,” Neil moaned as he twirled noodles and speared a shrimp. “Whatever you did to the tomatoes, I just…,” he trailed off as he shoved the forkful in his mouth and smiled at Andrew as he chewed. 

Andrew shrugged as he looked down at his own plate. He knew his ears were turning pink and goddamnit the man needed to stop smiling at him. “You play like that every night and I’ll make dinner every night.” Fuck, why did he say that?

“Play for you,” Neil repeated, and Andrew looked up to see him staring at him intently, his fork paused on the plate. “You liked my playing?”

Andrew snorted in response, his meaning clear enough.

Neil picked up his fork to twirl more pasta. The playlist had moved on to Liszt’s Consolation no. 3, they had about finished the bottle of wine, and the food was delicious. They sat in silence, piano notes weaving in and out softly between them, and Andrew had given up on an answer to his question when Neil finally looked up and said, “Okay.”

“Okay is not a yes,” Andrew said. 

“Yes, then. I’ll play for you if you cook for me.” Again that lopsided smile, as Neil swirled the last of the wine in his glass. 

“It’s a deal,” Andrew said, downing his own glass. 

“Any requests?”

“No.”

Neil’s gaze was intense and so fucking blue. “Okay,” he said after a long moment. 

They finished their food in relative silence, Andrew sneaking glances at Neil whenever he could. He still looked enraptured with every bite and Andrew couldn’t get enough of his face and the passing thought that he put that look on it.

After, Andrew washed the dishes and Neil dried them. They put everything away and stood in the kitchen a moment. It was early still for bed, but then Neil yawned, which made Andrew yawn, which made Neil laugh. 

“God. I think I’ve been up for almost 24 hours with the flight from London, and I’m sure you left early for your drive?”

Oh. Right. Andrew yawned again, and nodded. Neil locked up the house and they headed upstairs to the guest wing. Neil paused next to Andrew outside of his bedroom door and cocked his head, and Andrew was struck by his awkward intensity once again. “My father hated my playing. Said that I had no ear, that if I couldn’t play the notes correctly I shouldn’t play them at all.” 

“He was wrong,” Andrew said, and he’d never believed anything so fiercely in his life.

“Mmmm,” Neil hummed, searching his face, and Andrew stood still, shrugging off the odd feeling that he was being sized up by a wild animal. “Goodnight Andrew,” he said after just a touch too long of a pause. 

“Goodnight Neil,” Andrew said, and waited until he saw Neil slip into his room, heard the deadbolt slide, and then he retreated behind his own door, leaned against it, and indulged in an incredibly dramatic sigh. 

Andrew flopped on the bed (also dramatically) and picked up his phone to see that Kevin had responded to his text and sent him an audio file. 

Andrew snorted softly, clicked on the link for the file, and closed his eyes. It was Mendelssohn and it was Kevin’s fingers on the keys with the full force of one of the top five orchestras in the country behind him, and though the recording from the phone was spotty, it was absolutely perfect. When the concerto ended he started it again, listened all the way through with a small private smile on his face before texting Kevin back. 

When Andrew woke up, Neil had already gone for a run, picked up lattes and croissants, and called for someone to tune the Steinway. “If I’m going to play for my dinner I’m not doing it on an out of tune piano.” Neil had winked at him over the top of his Starbucks cup. 

Back in the library in the light of day, they opened the drapes to let the sunlight in, and Andrew contemplated the wall of sheet music while the piano tech plunked away behind them, tweaking strings and muttering. 

“This is going to take longer than a week,” Andrew mused out loud. 

Neil rocked on his heels next to him. “Okay,” he said. “Can you stay longer than a week?”

Andrew shook his head. He really shouldn’t. “I can,” is what he said instead.  

Neil smiled at him, “We’ll need more groceries then.” 

Andrew rolled his eyes and started pulling bound scores from the shelves. They spent the morning making piles around the partner’s desk and on the floor along the wall, organizing them by year, and Andrew spent most of his energy trying not to geek out entirely. 

There were 18th century operatic scores that Andrew didn’t even know still existed in hard copy. There were pristine 19th century leather bound complete works of all the great composers, as well as lesser known and rarer works. It was overwhelming, and he wanted to spend hours memorizing each one. Most were printed, but a small few were hand written, the notes elegant and dripping with time and history across the page. Scribbled edits in German were tucked into the margins of a Wagner and Andrew wanted to discard his cotton gloves and trace careful fingertips over them.  

The piano tuner eventually finished and Neil tested the sound, cheekily deadpanning his way through Claire de Lune - though the tuner missed the irony with which Neil played Debussy’s overplayed masterpiece. Neil showed him out, and when he came back he put the little Bose speaker on the desk, queued up some Chopin and sat cross-legged next to Andrew on the floor, his knee almost but not quite touching Andrew’s thigh. 

Andrew slid the score he was perusing until it was between them, and reached up to push his tortoiseshell reading glasses back up his nose. “This one is mid 19th century,” he said pointing at the title page: Collection Complete des Trios, Quatours, et Quintettes pour Violins, Violas, et Violoneelle par L. Van Beethoven. “It is worth around fifteen hundred, maybe two thousand at auction.” Andrew gestured at the several stacks of similar scores, bound in leather with gilded or embossed letters, some faded and well loved, but most looking like they had been printed last week instead of two hundred years ago. “There are at least twenty more in this pile worth that much, and we have barely made a dent.” 

Neil was looking at the Beethoven text and nodding, and he reached out to tap a finger on the page, which made Andrew twitch. Neil glanced at Andrew’s gloved hand, then back at his face. “You don’t have to wear the gloves if you want to touch them,” he said. 

“That is not how this is done,” Andrew said. 

“I don’t care,” Neil said, and he held out his palm, gazing at Andrew steadily. 

Andrew hesitated, and Neil waggled his fingers at him. Huffing a small sigh as his heartbeat betrayed him, Andrew lay his hand in Neil’s, and Neil grinned, tugging at each finger of the glove in turn and then pulling it off and throwing it over his shoulder before requesting Andrew’s right hand and discarding that glove just as handily. Neil kept ahold of Andrew’s hand, turning it over, and Andrew was pretty sure he wasn’t breathing, and he was entirely sure that he didn’t know why he was letting Neil touch him so casually, but he didn’t pull his hand away. 

“What do you play?” Neil asked, still looking at Andrew’s hand. 

“Why do you assume I play?” Andrew asked carefully, watching Neil investigate his hand. 

The grin Andrew was starting to think of as Neil’s trademark crept up the side of his face. “Because you are friends with Kevin of course. And you know,” he flicked his gaze to the scores scattered around them and then back to Andrew’s face, “all this.” 

Andrew hummed, because he was very gay and that was about all he could manage right now. Neil’s blue eyes were even bluer today - which Andrew blamed entirely on his cobalt sweater - and the afternoon light was streaming in the windows and turning his hair the color of burnished copper, and Neil was rubbing his thumb against the callus on Andrew’s pointer finger and what the fuck . 

“Violin?” Neil mused, poking at Andrew’s calluses. “No.” He held up Andrew’s hand, inspected his fingertips, and Andrew let him. “Cello, isn’t it?” 

Andrew cleared his throat. “Yes.” 

“Which?” 

“Both. And some others. And piano of course.” 

“Of course,” Neil parroted, and he placed Andrew’s hand on the score and let go, but he was still looking at Andrew’s face, and goddamnit. Neil tilted his head, considering, and then reached out slowly, paused inches from Andrew’s face, and when Andrew didn’t move away Neil put one finger on the bridge of Andrew’s glasses and pushed them up his nose to where they belonged. “I like your glasses,” he said. 

That was. Hm. Okay. Fuck. What?

Andrew panicked, looked down at his bare hand laying on the score, scrambling for something to say. “We really shouldn’t be touching these like this,” he said, but what he meant was you really shouldn’t be touching me like that unless you want me to touch you back.  

Neil shrugged. “My dad did it all the time. What’s one more set of hands? You clearly want to, and I don’t mind.” 

Andrew ran a finger down the edge of the page, and it kept him from running a finger down the line of Neil’s jaw. “Why are you even going through all of this?” Andrew asked. “You could just sell it off in bulk. You don’t have to be here dealing with this yourself.” 

Neil shifted, and his knee finally pressed lightly against Andrew’s thigh. “I just wanted to make sure that I could,” he said thoughtfully.  

Andrew nodded. That made sense to him. He turned the page, eyed the notes, the first stanza. “Do you know why your father collected these?” 

Neil considered the question. “I think he liked to own things,” he said eventually.

Neil looked down at his hands, the corners of his mouth tucking down, and Andrew wanted more than anything to put that crooked smile back on his face.  Before he really clocked the why of it, he reached out and tucked an unruly piece of Neil’s burnished hair behind his ear, and Neil tilted his head, chasing after the brief touch like a cat before he caught himself, his eyes snapping sharply to Andrew’s. “I’m sorry,” he muttered and then jumped up. “Meet you in the kitchen to help with dinner in an hour?” He didn’t wait for Andrew’s answer, and in a blink he had left the library and left Andrew dizzy from the whiplash of the moment. 

Andrew already had a glass of cabernet in hand and was perusing the fridge when Neil walked into the kitchen an hour later. He must have brought the little speaker because Brahms floated in with him. “Stir fry?” Andrew asked without turning around. 

“Perfect,” Neil said, pouring his own glass of wine and propping up against the kitchen island. “How can I help?” 

“Sit there and drink your wine. The cooking is my job - that’s our deal.” Andrew pulled out the chicken, some ginger, garlic, bell peppers, and broccoli. He set the rice to cook and started chopping things, ignoring Neil’s eyes on him. 

“How did you learn to cook?” Neil asked as Andrew started to whisk soy sauce and olive oil and maple syrup together, and Andrew paused his whisk to look up. Neil had his chin propped in his hand, was rolling his wine glass haphazardly, tilting the base here and there and just barely managing to not spill his wine all over the counter. Andrew didn’t really want to talk about Aaron, but. But. Neil had shared some truths - even if Andrew hadn’t asked for them. 

“My brother is a chef,” Andrew said as he started grating the ginger and garlic into the soy sauce mixture, adding some red pepper flakes for good measure, and whisking it all together again. The Brahms rolled into another Chopin nocturne. “Do you only ever listen to classical music?” Andrew asked.

“Pretty much,” Neil said. “I can change it if you want. I think Stuart put some Velvet Underground on my phone - some Bowie too, maybe? He stole it and added a bunch of things after the last time he berated me for what he calls my ‘depressing life soundtrack of dead pianists’.”

“That about sums it up,” Andrew almost smiled. “Leave it. I do not find it depressing.” He added onions and peppers to coconut oil, then the chicken, letting it brown. He had evaded talking about Aaron, and Neil hadn’t pushed it. Andrew sighed, and turned away from the stove, crossing his arms. “I have a twin brother. I didn’t meet him until I was twelve years old. Our mother gave me away and I grew up in foster care, but she kept him - kept Aaron.” 

When Neil didn’t comment on how fucked that was, Andrew relaxed just a little and turned to stir the chicken, added the vegetables and sauce. “He’s a chef now, living in Berlin with our cousin. He taught me to cook.”

“Remind me to send him a thank you note,” Neil said. 

“Ha,” Andrew deadpanned, plating up the stir fry and carrying it over to Neil. He slid into place across from Neil, watching as he took a bite, as he made that face . Andrew felt warmth pool in his belly. “You act like you’ve never had decent food before.”

Neil gifted him with the lopsided smile. “I live alone and I don’t cook. I eat a lot of bad take out, really.” He took another bite, closing his eyes in happiness.

They ate. John Field made an appearance on the playlist. Neil poured them more wine. “You don’t like to talk about him,” Neil said after a while. “Aaron, I mean.” He said it casually, unobtrusive. It wasn’t phrased as a question, and Andrew didn’t have to answer if he didn’t want to. He thought about Neil’s face in the library, Neil’s father who beat him and didn’t like his playing, Neil - who had shared these things with Andrew. 

Andrew contemplated his wine glass. “It’s complicated,” he conceded after a moment. “The foster homes I was in - none of them were good. I came out of that pretty fucked up, and Aaron was fucked up from our mom. I was an asshole, but so was he. Our cousin Nicky put us in cooking classes together, I think he thought it would help us bond.” 

“Did it?” Neil asked.

“Yes. It became our thing. I was okay at it, but Aaron was better, and he liked teaching me the more difficult techniques. But that same year I met Kevin at school, he found out I played music and just kinda attached himself to my hip."

“Yeah he does that,” Neil laughed quietly. “So what happened?”

Andrew shrugged. “Nothing really happened. We graduated high school and Aaron was accepted into the premier culinary school in Berlin, and he wanted me to go with him. Kevin’s professional career was just taking off, so instead I stayed in Columbia and started Foxhall with him. Nicky moved to Berlin with Aaron, met his husband there. It was all for the best.”

Neil considered him. “Aaron thinks you chose Kevin over him.”

Andrew shrugged again. 

“But you didn’t, did you?” Neil said. Andrew stared at Neil, wondering when he had become so easy to read, wondering where this man who seemed to actually see Andrew had even come from.

“No,” Andrew agreed, shaking his head slowly. “I chose music over cooking. It was never about Kevin or Aaron. It was about me.”

Their wine glasses were empty, and Neil smiled his real smile and said, “Let me play for you now.” Andrew had never heard a better idea in his life. 

They piled their dishes in the sink for later and meandered to the library. Neil settled at the piano and Andrew dragged a leather clubman chair close and sprawled in it, waiting. Neil cocked his head, set his fingers, and played. 

It was just as before, Neil’s long fingers flowing over the keys, bending the music to his will, teasing the third movement of Ravel’s Miroirs, and teasing Andrew too. He had never heard anyone play like this, and he watched Neil: how he leaned forward then rocked back, how his fingering was all wrong but somehow worked, how he occasionally closed his eyes and that was when he’d hold a note longer that he should - like he was asking the composer where they might go next, like it wasn’t yet decided. Neil pulled arpeggiated chords this way and that, slowing down and then speeding up unexpectedly, taking Andrew’s breath with him at his will. 

Neil trilled to a finish, barely paused, and then rolled right into Gnossienne no. 3, and suddenly, desperately, Andrew realized that although he knew every note of all of these melodies, when Neil played it was like he was hearing them for the first time. That - that - was the magic of Neil at the piano, and Andrew was so incredibly gone for it.

The notes of Satie faded away, and Neil turned towards him, a small shy smile on his face, and it was different from his usual lopsided grin. “Do you want more?”

“Yes,” Andrew said. Yes, absolutely, I want everything.

“Still no requests?” he asked. 

“Play me something you’ve never played for anyone,” Andrew said softly. Neil blushed, and turned back to the piano, and Andrew struggled to keep it together. The light was amber in the library again, casting a soft glow over Neil and the luminous cherry wood of the piano. He hesitated briefly, then rested his fingers on the keys, pressed the damper pedal, and the music rolled into the air as if in slow motion, coming right for Andrew’s soul and holy fucking shit, how was Neil even playing this?  

Andrew stood, took the two steps to the piano, and it was surreal, but he was awake, he was sure of it, this wasn’t a dream. He sat to Neil’s left on the bench, and Neil slid over but kept playing, and then Andrew lifted his hands, closed his eyes, took a breath, and jumped. 

It was a duet, and Neil was playing it wildly, letting the notes go feral. Andrew’s fingers flew, filling in the rich notes of the secondo, letting Neil lead him through the improvised tempo changes, and it was Andrew cracked open on the keys of the piano and left out to bleed. They chased each other into the crescendo, Neil letting the sound reverberate in a way that was never supposed to happen with this piece of music as they crashed down together, meeting at middle C, the sound seeping away into the high ceiling of the library and they both stilled until it was silent. 

“Andrew,” Neil breathed. “That was amazing.” 

Andrew nodded, not looking at Neil. “How do you know that piece?”

“Kevin sent it to me. How do you know it?” 

“I wrote it,” he said quietly.  Andrew took a breath, let it out. Then another, and then he looked up to find Neil staring at him in wonder. 

Neil abruptly turned back to the keys, set his fingers, and launched into a broody nocturne. He turned the notes this way and that and Andrew thought maybe Neil was trying to kill him, or that maybe he really was asleep, that he was really back in Columbia dreaming up this pipedream of an avant garde pianist with red hair and blue eyes and a crooked smile. 

Neil finished the nocturne and turned to him. “And that?” 

Andrew nodded. “I wrote that too.” 

“You are Kevin’s secret composer,” Neil said reverently, and his eyes were shining.

“I did not know he had sent my music to anyone,” Andrew said. 

“I’m no one,” Neil said. “He knows I don’t play for people.” 

“You played for me,” Andrew said, and he turned towards Neil, slid his left hand lightly onto the keys next to Neil’s.  

“That’s different,” Neil whispered, and he hooked his pinky around Andrew’s thumb. 

“Is it,” Andrew whispered back. Neil was so close to him, their thighs pressed together on the bench. “Why did you apologize earlier?” 

“What?” Neil’s brow creased, and he looked at Andrew’s mouth. 

“When I touched your hair,” Andrew said. “Like this.” He reached up, carded his fingers in Neil’s hair just behind his ear, and when Neil closed his eyes and leaned into his touch Andrew’s heart stuttered. 

“Because I liked it,” Neil sighed, and he didn’t pull away this time. 

“You apologized because you liked it?” 

“I don’t usually. It was confusing,” he mumbled. 

“You don’t usually?”

“Like being touched.” 

“Neil.” 

“Hmm?”

“Open your eyes.”

He did, and Andrew glanced at his lips, asking the question, and Neil leaned into him, answering it, and Andrew kissed him. 

That kiss was followed by another, then another, seeking and finding the melody and harmony of lips and tongue. Then hands grabbing and holding - carefully, tentatively. Questions asked and answered over again, hands in hands, and hands in hair, and faces pressed to necks. Neil’s blue eyes blown wide, Andrew’s heart climbing clumsily out of his chest. 

Eventually they’d stumbled upstairs without ever washing the dishes, and Andrew pushed Neil to his room before retreating to his own because they had time, because Neil had whispered throatily against Andrew’s lips that he had no idea what he was doing, because neither did Andrew, but for completely different reasons, he was sure. When Neil turned back to him just before disappearing into his own room Andrew kissed him fiercely because this was not a no, this was a not right now. 

Tucked sideways in his bed in the dark, Andrew clicked the audio file Kevin had sent him from tonight’s performance and tried (and failed) to not think about Neil curled in his own bed one room over, and he tried (and failed) to not wonder if Neil was thinking about him. 

Camille Saint-Saëns and Kevin and the NY Philharmonic Orchestra sent notes tripping out from his phone, wrapping around him, and Andrew’s heart did whatever the opposite of breaking was, and somehow it felt the same and completely different all at once. He hid his smile in the pillow and clicked the file to play again before texting Kevin. 

It took them a month to work through every score, every piece of music, to catalog and appraise it, to organize it for auction. 

Andrew thought more than once that they might have made it through everything faster, except Neil was so fucking distracting. 

He was distracting when he pulled Andrew’s hair down from the haphazard bun he kept it in and ran clever fingers along the strands, braiding and twisting and touching, kissing Andrew’s neck when he accidentally moaned in pleasure.

He was distracting when he found a piece of antique music that sent him tripping to the Steinway to apply his fuckery to it, then called Andrew over to play the secondo, and Andrew sighed and joined him on the bench, because what was he going to say, no?

He was distracting when he discovered the scars underneath Andrew’s black armbands, drew music notes and treble clefs along his arms, kissed the pulse points on Andrew’s wrists, one and then the other. Andrew retaliated by stealing the pen, turning Neil’s freckles into quarter notes and eighth notes, drawing a swoopy g clef just under his eye. Neil laughed, pulled Andrew’s glasses from his face, licked his bottom lip, and pressed kisses to Andrew’s nose and cheekbones and jaw and lips.

Andrew liked being distracted.

Their world migrated from the library to the kitchen and back again, eventually pulling Neil’s bedroom into their orbit when in the second week they undressed each other slowly in the lamplight, kisses already bitten into lips and skin feverish as Andrew carefully pressed Neil into the mattress, his tongue marking a path down Neil’s neck, tracing his collarbones, hip bones, the back of his knees.

Neil spent the mornings running, always returning with coffee and pastries and cheeks flushed from the October cold. They made the library their own - sweeping out the lingering cobwebs of Nathan Wesninski’s memory with lopsided smiles and huffed laughter, music played sideways and inside out, shivers from lips and teeth and tongue and hands, and everywhere they went the little Bose speaker followed, their own soundtrack of dead pianists and live ones too.

They cooked together: Risotto with butternut squash and kale, ropa vieja with black beans and rice, braised chicken with roasted cauliflower, and - on a particularly chilly night - Andrew made Aaron’s secret recipe béchamel mac and cheese while Neil perched on his stool and watched, pilfering bites of gruyere and parmesan and cheddar. Neil’s eyes rolled right up into his head on the first bite, and he kissed Andrew with cream on his lip. Andrew’s ears turned pink, and Neil laughed and kissed his pink ears too. 

They played together: duets à quatre mains by Mendelssohn and Brahms and Saint-Saëns, Andrew following Neil wherever he led across the keys. Other nights Neil would play his favorites, Andrew sprawled in the leather chair, as close to the piano as he could get while Neil argued with Chopin and Debussy and, of course, Satie. They played Andrew’s concertos and nocturnes, the ones he had written for Kevin, the ones that no one knew were his, the ones that Neil had memorized before Andrew had ever knocked on his door. 

The evening after Andrew mapped out Neil’s body, swallowing his gasps and staying through the night, Neil brought out a violin case, handing it to Andrew casually along with some sheet music, one of his lopsided smiles hovering on his lips. “Do you know this one?” 

Andrew nodded. “Of course,” he said, scanning the notes of the Avro Pärt duet. 

“It’s my favorite. Play it with me?” 

Andrew looked over the violin. It was a 4/4 Stradivarius - gleaming, and old . He thumbed the strings, tested the bow. It was beautiful. “Is this yours?” 

“My mother’s,” Neil said.

“You don’t talk about her,” Andrew said. It was a statement, and an invitation. Neil could take it or leave it.

“There is not much to say. She wasn’t great really - better than my dad, but.” He stopped, ran a delicate finger along the edge of the violin where it was nestled in velvet. Clearly it had been well kept, cared for, by Neil.

“But,” Andrew repeated. 

Neil shrugged. “She’s the one that got me away. Called Stuart. After she died Stuart told me she had stayed because if she didn’t, she was afraid Nathan would come after me. Made him promise not to tell me that until it was all over.”

“It's complicated,” Andrew said. 

“It is,” Neil agreed.

They stopped talking and they played. When they reached the last notes Neil closed his eyes, whispered, “Again,” and they switched - Andrew floating the arpeggios on the piano and watching Neil, who placed his fingers wrong, and moved bodily with the bow, and did everything just as backwards as he did on the piano. It was perfect, it was stunning, and Andrew knew with startling clarity and way less terror than he would have expected that there was no going back from here.

It was the next morning, during Neil’s run, that Andrew sat down alone at the piano with a blank stack of staff paper and a pencil. He spent that morning and the mornings after with fingers on piano keys, bow on violin strings, scribbling notes, always shuffling his pages away and out of sight while Neil showered.

The day they finished cataloging and appraising the music was rainy and cold, and it was barely noon when they labeled the last box, smoothed hands along the empty shelves, and surveyed their work. The library had become their nest over the last month - comfy furniture dragged from other rooms, Neil’s raggedy cardigan draped over a chair, wine glasses left here and there, and a well played piano snuggled close with a violin inviting their touch. It was a completely different room than what Andrew had walked into a month ago.

With the job finished, there was no more reason for Andrew to stay, but they hadn’t talked about him leaving either. Nothing had been different about these last three days, even though they both knew the pile of material keeping Andrew in the library next to Neil every day was dwindling. Jeremy and Jean were back from Greece and texted him every few days about new jobs popping up on the radar. Robin let him know that a shipment had come in from Erik and Nicky at the Berlin office, and it was waiting in Columbia for Andrew to appraise and list on their online auction site. Kevin was needling him, wanting him to come to New York before his stint was up with the Philharmonic. He needed to get back to his life. 

Neil disappeared that afternoon to make some calls, some arrangements. The art appraisers had to be scheduled. Buyers from a specialty bookstore in DC were coming to start on the books tomorrow, and antique dealers for the rugs. The goal had always been to clear the house, to sell it, so that Neil could finally and completely close the door on his abusive childhood, return to London, return to his real life - where he played piano for nobody and ate bad take out. Andrew frowned, alone in the library, and - annoyed at everything - sent himself to the kitchen.

Andrew contemplated the fridge, taking stock. He concluded it wasn’t too early for wine and poured a glass of the Saint-Émilion. He had led a raid on the wine cellar last week, and had practically composed a lament on the spot that they had waited that long to discover it. Neil had just shrugged and grinned and grabbed the dustiest bottles he could find. 

Andrew sipped his wine and decided to start a bolognese. He ignored his heart as he minced onions, carrots, celery. He didn’t think about tomorrow as he chopped garlic, diced pancetta, crushed San Marzano tomatoes with his hands. He sautéed the soffritto, browned the ground beef and pork, waited patiently for it all to caramelize, occasionally scraping the heavy bottomed pan with his wooden spoon. Eventually he added the tomatoes, the nutmeg, a sprinkling of spices and a dash of cream. 

He’d just set it to simmer and refilled his wine, when Neil appeared, Nils Frahm trailing out of the little speaker in his hand. Neil’s shy smile was soft on his face - it was a little less lopsided than his trademark grin. “From our first night, remember?” he asked. 

Andrew rolled his eyes, but he grabbed Neil’s belt loop, tugged him close. “I remember everything,” he murmured against Neil’s mouth before kissing him, pressing him against the counter, fighting to keep his quiet desperation out of Neil’s mouth, terrified that he was failing. 

But Neil was kissing him back, his hands on Andrew’s hips, and Andrew thought that just maybe he tasted the same quiet desperation on Neil’s tongue, and he sighed, pulled away, tugged Neil’s forehead to his, letting his heart even out. 

“You okay?” Neil asked, rubbing circles on Andrew’s hip with his thumb. 

“I am always okay,” Andrew huffed back. 

“Okay, badass.” Neil laughed, and took Andrew’s bottom lip between his teeth, and Andrew growled and kissed him again. Distracting fucker.  

After a few minutes they pulled apart again. “Make pasta with me?” Andrew asked. 

“Like, make it make it?”

“Ummhmm,” Andrew nodded, already pouring Neil a glass of wine. He dug a pasta crank he’d found last week out of the cabinet, set it on the counter, and raised an eyebrow at Neil. 

“Okay then, let’s make pasta.” Neil grinned, and it was lopsided and real and Andrew loved him. Fuck.

They made pasta. Andrew taught Neil how to separate egg yolks, how to make wells in little flour mountains, how to knead the dough. Flour went everywhere, all over them, all over the kitchen. Andrew briefly despaired of the life choices that led to him wearing all black around Neil Hatford and a bag of flour, but then Neil kissed him, and his hair was streaked with flour, and his nose crinkled as he smiled, and Andrew thought maybe his life choices had been quite good after all. 

They rolled out the dough, cut pappardelle strips, tossed them in flour, and laid them to dry. “Hey, remember when I offered you jarred sauce and dried pasta?” Neil smirked. Andrew threw a noodle at him and Neil laughed, his elusive dimple making an appearance, and Andrew decided he absolutely could not wait until after dinner. 

“This is going to take a couple more hours to finish simmering,” Andrew said, stirring the sauce and turning the heat down just a bit. He tilted the lid, and held his hand out to Neil. “I’ve got something to show you,” he said, and he didn’t recognize his own voice. Neil frowned at his tone, but took his hand without a word and Andrew led him back to the library. 

Andrew settled Neil at the Steinway and lifted the fallboard. “You want me to play?” Neil asked, that frown still hovering on his brow. 

“No,” Andrew said. “I mean yes. Just. Wait.” He let go of Neil’s hand reluctantly, and headed for the corner of the library where he’d hidden his work, Neil’s eyes tracking him, concerned and curious, until Andrew was back. He settled the stack of handwritten sheet music on the piano and stepped away, holding his breath.

Neil stilled, staring at the music in front of him: Sonata in Three Parts for a Pipedream scrawled in heavy script across the first page. It was obviously hand notated, neat and evenly spaced, and inked over in black pen once Andrew had finalized the penciled-in notes. Neil was silent, and after the longest moment of Andrew’s life he lifted his hands, rested them on the keys, and played. 

With the first note, Andrew exhaled, and his heart left his body with his breath and he had to sit down. He slowly collapsed into the leather armchair as his notes, the notes he had written for Neil, soared around him. He wasn’t sure he took another breath or that his heart pumped another beat until Neil’s hands lifted from the final note of the first movement, and he turned, his eyes shining and deep as he looked at Andrew, and Andrew couldn’t move; he thought that maybe, just maybe, this moment in time was enough to last him for the rest of his life. 

Neil opened his mouth and then closed it again. Andrew knew exactly what that felt like, and he didn’t even try to speak, but he leaned forward in the chair, and he hooked his fingers in Neil’s because he absolutely needed to be touching him right now. 

Finally Neil tried again, and this time the words came. “You wrote it for how I play,” he choked out, and Andrew nodded. “I didn’t change anything, I played it exactly how you wrote it,” he said wonderingly. Andrew nodded again. “I-,” Neil started, but he just stopped, and he started shaking, and Andrew tightened his fingers and pulled Neil into his lap, and kissed the words out of his mouth. 

“So you like it,” Andrew huffed quietly against his neck many minutes later and Neil laughed. 

“Asshole,” he whispered. “I fucking love it, I can’t believe you did this. You are amazing.” Andrew smiled the smallest smile, tucking his face in Neil’s neck. Eventually Neil pulled back. “There’s two more movements,” he said, pressing a kiss on Andrew’s eyebrow. 

“I know,” Andrew said. 

“The second movement is a duet à quatre mains,” Neil murmured, pressing a kiss on Andrew’s nose. 

“I know Neil, I literally wrote it,” Andrew said, feeling his ears turn pink. 

“Play it with me?” 

“Always,” Andrew said. 

They played the second movement, and it was a variation on the first movement, their hands flying over the keys, the arpeggios soaring, the chords reverberating, the melody haunting. 

The third movement was softer, sweeter, and Andrew had written it for the violin and piano together. Neil silently handed Andrew his mother’s violin, and Andrew stood behind him, and they played. 

It was a tapestry of notes at once entwined and untethered, and even though he had woven those notes, it was the first time Andrew was hearing them come together, the two instruments arguing and kissing and making up and then doing it all over again. 

When they’d finished, Andrew lay the violin on top of the piano, sat next to Neil, hooked his thumb around Neil’s pinky - a mirror of the first night they’d kissed. Neil turned to him, his face honest and wide open and it was enough to settle everything that had been fluttering in Andrew’s chest because it was right there , laid bare for Andrew to read as easily as a book.

“Stay,” Neil said. 

“In Baltimore?” Andrew asked.

Neil shook his head. “No, just stay. With me. I don’t care where we go. I can go anywhere. I will go anywhere, as long as you stay,” Neil whispered. 

“Okay,” Andrew whispered back, as if there was anything else he would say to that, to Neil. 

Neil’s shoulders relaxed minutely, and his crooked grin bloomed across his face. “Okay is not a yes,” he said cheekily, stealing Andrew’s words from their first night. 

Andrew slid his hands to each side of Neil’s face, pulled him gently forward, hovered lips over Neil’s lips, and swallowed his answering sigh. “Yes,” Andrew said, heartfelt and earnest, and he kissed him. 

That night they sat next to each other at the kitchen island, savored the bolognese, opened another bottle of Saint-Émilion, and Andrew didn’t try to hide his smiles as Neil made obscene noises over his food. They kissed, they made plans, they played Neil’s Sonata again, and then they played it again , with Neil on the violin. Andrew recorded it on his phone, and when they curled up together in bed that night they sent the audio file to Kevin.