Author's Note: This is a short drabble taking place when Elliot is dying. Both Elliot and Leo are talking at once. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you for 100+ followers on tumblr! (leolikestoread)
There used to be a game that I liked to play. But I'm not one for games, so this might not even be a game to most people. It didn't have a name; all it needed was two people, and a piano. Situated in a cozy music room, there weren't any echos off of the padded walls. That was what made it beautiful; because there weren't any pretentious airs around it like in our daily lives.
I always started, because you felt that you were asserting your authority over me too much. You were forever cautious in that aspect of you. Did I mind following your orders? Were you being too bossy? Am I viewing you as an equal? Things like that–you always asked them with your eyes. So I always started this game. I'd play a phrase, and you'd continue it. Usually, my fingers would instinctively press the middle C. I never did like taking risks, but you didn't mind, because you didn't like them either.
After that, it would be my turn. We spent so many afternoons in this way, making long, volatile compositions that I could never seem to remember. I wouldn't be surprised if you memorized each and every one. You had a natural talent for music, something I was always jealous of. The thing with this game, however, was that there could be no unintentional hesitations. So I would try a chord, or a D, because I hated revealing things about myself through my music. You could see enough of my soul to fully understand me, even with those ridiculous glasses that you liked to wear. You've never needed me to express myself through playing the piano because you knew me already. To you, I was an open book.
The only time you ever fully saw my feelings was when I was playing the piano. Maybe that was why you backed off when I improvised phrases of extreme simplicity. You were more comfortable playing loud music–music that was honest, just like you. But I liked slow pieces that were calm, just like I pretended to be, and half-jokingly forced you to be. Your face would flush so red when you felt that you'd shown too much of yourself in your music. Like that time when you gave me Statice; your face was almost painfully red then. The messages that I'd picked up from it embarrassed you with how strongly you were feeling about this.
You always did like to fluster me.
Usually, you'd play only one note or just a chord after such a passage. But this would happen sooner or later anyways. You could compose only with an unlimited amount of time. In our games, you were always the first to drop out.
I hated it when I seemed to be the one to confuse that marvelously lucid melody of yours, a melody that I can never hope to replicate. That might be why that I selfishly claimed Lacie as mine.
You were the weird one, for once.
Do you remember how you always let me play the last chord? No matter how jarring the silence was while I fumbled for the right note to play. No matter how long that you had to wait, it was always me who finished it. It's fitting, I guess, for me to finish the Concerto of our briefly intertwined lives now.
"Elliot," I say. You're there, aren't you? I think you can hear me too. I wonder what you're trying to tell me because I can't hear it. There's a sort of a screech in the background, something that I imagine banshees would sound like. I have a vague idea that this is me. You're getting cold. Just last week, you had a fever. You were so unbearably warm then. So completely and miraculously alive.
Stop screaming. It doesn't fit you. Why don't we play that game again? The game that you always start. Play a phrase of music, any phrase. It doesn't have to be major or minor, and it doesn't matter what key it's in. Any phrase, any at all. I'll play the next one.
Silence encompasses me. It's so quiet I think I can hear your life draining away.
I'm sorry.