A/N: My first super shippy fanfiction! It's called "midnight musings" both for the time in which the fic is set as well as the fact that I wrote this over the course of two midnights. The only time when I would be crazy enough to write something like this. This is so sugary compared to my usual stuff i'm sure I've just given myself cavities, but aaahhh these two are just so cute! No smut because I honestly think it's boring. Exploring characters' emotions and reactions is much more satisfying for me .
Anyway, the context of this fic is set in a larger, more complex story i'm slowly in the process of planning out, but I wanted to practice writing some SpAuses before I dive into the other parts.
Sometimes they didn't sleep at all during the particularly hot summer nights. Instead Toni would find a plank of wood and use it to wedge the stubborn window open, letting the night air relieve the stuffiness of his cramped living quarters.
Tonight Roderich was sitting upright on Toni's crooked bed, propping himself up against the headboard with a pillow and staring blankly off into the shadows, his face dimly illuminated by the faint streetlights outside. From his place curled up beside him, Toni thought how different he looked in this light, without his glasses and his usually neat hair all mussed up. He seemed more relaxed than he was usually in public, more personable and open than he purported himself to be.
"Hey," Toni said, sitting up as well.
"I thought you were asleep."
"It's way too humid to sleep. You should know that. What're you thinking about?"
"I wanted to stay up and listen at this hour." he said finally. " That's what the composers used to do– pay attention in the silence, so you can better discern the music inside of you. It's in the silence that what's within you can speak the loudest." He paused and leaned back. "I guess that's what it was like for Beethoven, you know? He found clarity in the silence. The only thing, though, was that he couldn't leave the silence once it came and engulfed him. Then he must have been lost in his own thoughts, echoing louder and louder inside his head, without being able to share them in the regular way. He was a someone who suffered much, who lived in a time of great conflict and distress, personally and politically, but in the midst of it all managed to create beauty." he sighed and glanced out again at the empty street.
Roderich waited for the response, expecting Toni to playfully reproach him for "trying to over-analyze everything again," as he usually did. But Toni stayed silent.
"And you weren't listening, apparently. I thought you would, since you were the one who asked"
"I tried." Said Toni. "But I got distracted. You know, you kind of look straight out of some Baroque painting right now. Caravaggio would have a ball with this lighting "
"You're just saying that." Roderich instinctively pulled the sheets around his shoulders, despite the summer heat, always one to feel self-conscious even in the most intimate of situations. "But that's probably okay if you weren't listening. I was rambling a lot of shitty nonsense. I just wish I could have that kind of inspiration, you know?"
"I'm sure it'll probably come if you just stop worrying and obsessing over it." said Toni. "I mean, I don't know anyone nearly as devoted as you when it comes to art. Pretty soon Orpheus himself and all twelve muses will have to pay attention to you, and come swooping down from Ancient-Greek heaven or whatever to give you all the inspiration you need. "
Roderich smiled despite himself. "Maybe I should write them some personalized invitations, then. Though don't you think they might charge more for their services? I mean, they're probably busy inspiring musicians and artists all over the world as we speak."
"Too true."
Neither of them said anything for a while. Toni closed his eyes and tried to pay attention to the silence as well, trying to discern the invisible symphonies of the night outside that Roderich was straining to hear. But he only heard the sounds of their staggered breathing, mixed with the beat of his own heart pulsing in his head. The rhythm was a welcome reminder that he was here, alive and well, at the side of someone he cared about. It was a different music, perhaps, than the one Roderich had been thinking of, but no less profound to Toni. He smiled and leaned in closer, resting his head against Roderich's shoulder.
"Hey," Toni spoke up again.
"Hey."
"I'm listening to the silence too."
"Are you, now."
Roderick stopped leaning against the headboard and lay down again on the damp sheets, staring up at a crack in the ceiling, Toni curled up at his side again. They didn't say a word, but held each other until they fell asleep again in the summer heat. The streetlamps cast odd dim shadows around the room, but as he drifted off to sleep, Toni thought only of Roderich's illuminated face standing out from the darkness, thin, pale, and solemn, like the face of a saint in some religious icon.
"You're beautiful, you know." Said Toni.
"Hm?"
"That's what I meant, with the thing I said about Caravaggio in the beginning. You're beautiful."
Toni expected another curt dismissal, but this time Roderich was silent.
"Thank you," he finally said after a long pause. "Just...thanks."