The Soloist - Chapter II

Mozart: Piano Sonata #11 In A, K 331, "Turkish March" - 3. Rondo Alla Turca

It is quite difficult to describe musicality – true musicality – to a person who is not a musician. The processes of the mind that only occur during performance are possibly some of the most mysterious aspects of the brain's inner workings, and yet, there was a small part of Blaine that didn't want to understand them. Breaking down a beautiful thing, dissecting it into pieces so that it can be analyzed, understood, often makes the thing less beautiful.

So it was with Blaine's performance – by memory – of Mozart's eleventh Sonata "Rondo Alla Turca" on his very first day with the Valiance Chamber Orchestra. He touched the first note, and from there, his fingers sped, but his heart and mind sped even faster.

Ring three four thumb, ring three four thumb, ring three four thumb. Three notes twice. Trill two three four, trill two three four, trill two three four five. Repeat.

He could feel his heart beating in his ears, keeping in time with the music…

Major lift, major drop. Repeat. Minor lift, minor drop. Repeat.

Seconds before he had started playing, he had been aware that he was starting to sweat, that he had an itch at the back of his neck, that his new shoes would inhibit his ability to use the sustain pedal. Now, the only vestibular senses he had at all were for his two wrists, his two hands, his ten fingers, and his right foot which, despite his earlier (and rather irrational) concern about his new shoes, was performing its part well.

Ring three four thumb, ring three four thumb, ring three four thumb. Take it down, take it down, aaand… refrain.

He reached the refrain. The part he knew better than the backs of his two hands which, despite that ever-mysterious lapse in mental processes that all musicians experience at some point during any given performance, continued playing. Not a wrong note was hit. Not a beat was missed. And Blaine was just watching. Watching his hands play.

I could stop if I wanted, he mused, watching his hands go, go, go… repeating the verse, the ring two three four again, again… and go back into the refrain… I'm in control of my hands. They're moving because I'm making them move. They're touching the notes I want them to touch. I could hit a wrong note. I might forget what comes next. Oh God, what comes next… right, right, up up up, then down down down… then repeat. Then bumble bee again… then back to the beginning…

Refrain.

Muscle memory, that's what it was. Regardless of whether or not Blaine's mind had been blank or repeating major lift, major drop, minor lift, minor drop, if he had wanted to pound out Mozart's eleventh Sonata, his hands would have. Blaine knew this, because the same thing happened every time he put his hands to the keys: his mind guided him for the first several measures, instructing his hands, and then… nothing. His mind went somewhere else, but his hands pressed on.

And then, at the very end, when his heart had reached a dangerous rate and he was starting to think Oh God, I'm so close, but it doesn't mean anything, I could still hit a wrong note, I have twelve measures to screw this up, his mind stepped back in.

Offset the double notes, offset the double notes, three trills and quiet, quiet, quiet, double notes in unison, double notes in unison, up down, up down, up down up down up down, and, DONE.

In a moment of sheer Beethoven-esque behavior, Blaine sat, still and quiet as ever as he stared down at the keys after finishing the song, and until he was slapped genially on the back an impossibly tall, strongly-built yet baby-faced percussionist, he hadn't noticed that the rest of the orchestra had positively erupted with applause.

Still somewhat frozen and very much shocked by the zealous response to his performance, Blaine finally brought himself to glance up and smile, shyly, at the other musicians, all of which (except Rachel, he noticed, who was eyeing him smugly with her arms crossed over her chest), were grinning either impressed at him or vindicated at Rachel, he was somewhat fulfilled to see.

Glancing appreciatively at each face, Blaine suddenly found his eyes locked with those of the violinist named Kurt. He wouldn't have lingered so had it not been for the expression on his face. Again, just as before when Blaine glanced his way during the argument, his facial expression was not exactly what he had expected it to be. He supposed he had expected it to look like everyone else's; an encouraging smile, perhaps. And it was, to an extent, encouraging. But there was something else there too. A look of pride, almost. Pride as you see it in the face of a lover when his or her spouse does or says something deserving of praise. Pride, admiration… and something else that Blaine just couldn't put his finger on. Curiosity, maybe…

The ardent applause finally began to die down. "Thank you so much, Blaine," Will said warmly above the last lingering claps, "Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic."

Blaine nodded at him, humbly accepting the compliment. Something in the enthusiasm of his new peers and the way Will had just spoken to him made Blaine sure that if James Paul Gee had been there, he'd have to eat his words. While Blaine was sure he'd have plenty more tests of strength to go as long as little Rachel was around, he already felt well on his way to becoming part of this new family.

"All right then, gang. "The Four Seasons, Spring." Let's do it."


One flinch of a finger left Blaine wincing. He thought he'd done it all, he really did. Sure, he'd never played in an orchestra before, but he'd spent hours, sometimes seven, eight, nine, sitting in front of a piano, playing his heart out on his own time.

But never in his life had his fingers felt like this.

The songs, the speed and complexity of each, the duration, the minimal breaks… all joined forces and put Operation: Torture Blaine's Hands into effect.

When Will had finally brought the last number to a close and given the orchestra one final pep talk / run-down of what the upcoming months had in store, Blaine heaved a sigh of relief and, despite the interior jabs of protest, opened and closed his hands a few times, cracking his knuckles and releasing hours' worth of built-up tension.

He was just in the process of rolling his neck a few times when, neck stretched backwards and room upside-down, he found himself face-to-face with a particularly agitated-looking girl. Rachel.

"Just so you know, Blaine Anderson," she said, Blaine straightening up and turning so that he could look at her properly, "My extensive formal training as well as my unparalleled, God-given talent put me one step above every member of this chamber, and you are not about to change that."

"I wasn't trying to-"

"I always have been and will always be the only reason this orchestra is as renowned as it is today, and no one, especially an unknown, untrained, under-qualified pianist, is going to take that away from me."

"I would never-"

"And while you're tickling away at those ivories, decibels so far beneath those of the first violinists that your contributions to this chamber are all but inaudible to the audience, I want you to know deep down that that's what you are to this orchestra: all but insignificant. So don't even think about trying to upstage me or get in the way of my impending stardom."

She took a deep breath, and before Blaine could even try to interject, looked him directly in the eye and shot, "I'm glad we had this talk," before storming off.

Blaine felt as though he had been pushed to the ground and punched in the stomach. He'd been called a lot of mean things throughout his life, most of which were slurs thrown at him all throughout high school that he wouldn't dare repeat, but there was something Rachel had spat at him in her… freakishly self-righteous ramblings… that felt like a stab in the heart.

Insignificant.

That hurt. A lot. He knew he was being silly, taking it so seriously (this girl, he had decided, obviously had some issues and desperately needed a priority check), but he couldn't help it. Insignificant. And from someone he barely knew…

He shook it off as best he could, reminding himself why he was here in the first place: convince my parents that I'm doing something with my life, make some money and save it up, dabble in some different environments and give different jobs a chance… Calm down. You're not here to prove anything.

Coming back to his senses, Blaine realized that a good portion of the musicians were already packed up, coats on and heading either backstage and out the backdoor or up the aisles of the theatre to exit through the front. The rest were still buzzing around, packing up their instruments, talking and laughing amongst themselves.

Several came over to him as he gathered up his music and he introduced themselves, all very pleasant and seeming genuinely friendly toward him, which he appreciated. He met the very laid-back oboist with the dreadlocks, the enthusiastic, Mohawked bass trombonist (who specifically requested Blaine refer to him as "Puck," short for "Puckerman"), a very young musician with a particularly kind-looking face and mild demeanor who spoke in a heavy Irish accent, and a few others here and there. Most were also more than complimentary of his talent, which he also appreciated, very much.

When the others began to filter out as well, Blaine stood up beside his compilation of music and stretched his arms to the ceiling, rolled his neck a few more times, then let his arms fall down again as he walked to the back of the piano where the quilted cover was lying unceremoniously on the floor.

He had been alone at this point, or so he thought. He hoisted the heavy thing onto the piano lid, sifting through folds upon folds, trying to find the front end.

"Here, it's the one with the red tag on it."

"Hu… huh?"

A familiar gentle laugh, then the violinist, Kurt, appeared next to him, took the cover in his hands, and worked his hands from one end to the other until he was holding a fold with a tiny, red cloth tag sewn into the hem.

"You can find the front by looking for the little red tag, see?" He held out the hem.

Blaine nodded, then smiled, "Duly noted," before looking up at Kurt.

"Are… are you okay?"

He mentally slapped himself as soon as he'd asked it. He barely knew Kurt, for goodness' sake… but it was so clear to Blaine that something was wrong that his inhibitions and his sense of propriety momentarily vanished. Kurt's eyes were shining, his nose was pink, his entire face, actually, was slightly flushed. Blaine knew it didn't make any sense, but somehow, he knew, or thought he knew, anyway, that Kurt hadn't been crying, but rather, resisting the urge to cry.

Blaine felt his emotions mixing, contradicting themselves when Kurt responded with a smile, a sniffle, and a too-quick "Yeah, yeah I'm fine." Part of him was relieved that Kurt didn't ask "Why do you ask?" and Blaine didn't have to stammer stupidly, trying to come up with a response other than "your eyes are glassy and your face is flushed and it looks like you've been trying not to cry," which would have made him sound way too observant and creepy for a normal human being.

But there was another part of Blaine that was mentally reprimanding himself for taking relief in the fact that Kurt was bottling up whatever was bothering him. Well-acquainted or not, that wasn't something he ever enjoyed seeing a person do.

"Oh… yeah, yeah sorry, I don't know why I…" You're stammering stupidly anyway, you idiot. Stop it. Stop it, stop it, stop it.

"It's fine," Kurt said… Saving my awkward ass once again.

Kurt sniffled again, then handed Blaine one side of the cover. Together, they pulled it forward and around the font of the piano until the black quilt was fitted snugly around the entire concert grand.

"Like a glove," Blaine said, patting their handiwork proudly.

Kurt smiled. He walked back over to his chair, where (to Blaine's curiosity) he had yet to pack up a single thing. He started organizing his music into a shiny black folder.

"Need any help?" Blaine asked, running a hand over the now enveloped piano once last time before moving around it to Kurt's music stand.

"Oh, don't worry about me," he said, a hint of something sad in his voice that made Blaine feel… he wasn't sure exactly how it made him feel. Almost like Kurt was trying to tell him something…

He brushed it aside, reasoning, again, He doesn't even know you.

"Hey," Kurt said, suddenly turning around, violin in hand. Blaine looked at him questioningly. "Don't let Rachel get to you," he said, a certain amount of warmth and comfort in his eyes that, despite the abstractness of the idea, was clear as day to Blaine. "She's like that with everybody… sometimes I wonder if there's actually something wrong, you know, 'upstairs' with that girl."

Kurt punctuated his last sentence with a wide-eyed grimace that made Blaine laugh, then turned back to his chair to place his bow and violin carefully into their case. Snapping it shut, he glanced over his shoulder at the still-grinning Blaine with a knowing smile.

"I'll try not to," Blaine said, pulling on his coat while Kurt pulled his on as well. "She really knows how to hit you hard, though. With words. I mean, I've been called some pretty nasty things in my life," Blaine thought he saw Kurt's expression soften at this, "But ouch," he laughed, halfheartedly.

"Believe me, I know," Kurt said, his tone all empathetic and not at all attention-diverting. "I've been called some pretty nasty things as well, but she…" he huffed out a breath, partly amused and partly annoyed, "She certainly knows how to tear a person down."

"Well, we tune it out and keep moving forward, right?"

"Right," Kurt agreed, picking up his music and violin case.

Blaine stored his binders beneath the piano, just taking one home, the one containing his 'homework' for the week. Blaine's stomach did a happy little flip when he realized that Kurt was all ready to go, but was simply standing by his chair, waiting for Blaine. Whether out of politeness or out of the actual desire to keep talking to him, Blaine didn't care. Either way, it was nice gesture. It made him feel slightly more… at home.

"So, how long have you been here?" Blaine asked as they made their way back up the aisles towards the theatre lobby.

"Here as in Valiance, New York, planet Earth…?"

Blaine chuckled. "How about all three?"

Kurt looked a little surprised, like it wasn't often he had someone to bounce jokes off of around here. He smiled at Blaine, looked ahead as they walked and began. "Well, I've lived in New York my whole life. I grew up in the Bronx, and still live there now, two doors down from where I was raised. I got into Valiance when I was nineteen. My family never had a lot of money, but my dad had always set some aside so I could keep taking music lessons. I just went to Community, but I had a professor who," he sighed, smiling, "saw something in me, I guess. Got me an audition, and here I am. Oh, and as for planet Earth," he added, eyes glinting playfully, "Twenty-one years, four months, seventeen days and counting."

"And counting? Until what exactly?"

"Ohhh no." Kurt shook his head. "That's for me to know and you to maybe find out."

"Oh, come on," Blaine urged.

Kurt just shook his head, his lips sealed.

"You've got your sights set on somewhere else…?"

"How about my turn?" Kurt interrupted, turning to look at him again. "How about you, Mr. Anderson?"

After a quick exchange about The Matrix for Blaine's name's sake, Blaine gave Kurt the Reader's Digest version of how he had landed the pianist position in the chamber. Kurt, though, was more interested in Blaine's free-spirit lifestyle before coming in the orchestra.

"So where else in the Bronx do you play?" Kurt asked, when Blaine mentioned Cecily's and Renato's.

Blaine shrugged, elbowing his way through the velvet red curtains and into the lobby. "Mostly just around Morris Park, which is also where I grew up." When Kurt's face lit up a little, Blaine began to ask, "You said the Bronx, are you from…?"

"Woodlawn," Kurt finished, nodding, "It's like, I don't know, a ten minute drive, at most."

"Yeah, yeah I've been through there. A very Irish neighborhood, if I recall," Blaine remembered, giving Kurt a questioning look just as Kurt began to nod, rolling his eyes amusedly to himself.

"Yeah," he sighed, humorously, "I… come from a very Irish family. Did, did you meet my cousin today?"

Blaine thought back to some of the last minute introductions, and instantly remembered the kind-faced boy with the heavy Irish accent before turning back to Kurt with an excited, "Oh yeah! Green shirt, hair like Elvis Presley…" to which Kurt simply laughed and nodded, "Yeah, that'd be Rory."

"He seemed sweet," Blaine said.

"Yeah, he is." Kurt whispered a soft, "Thanks," when Blaine pushed and held open one of the side doors for him (as the revolving doors were already locked up for the night), and the two made their way out onto the sidewalk. It was cold. Blaine would have bet that the temperature had dropped twenty degrees, easy.

Blaine offered to accompany Kurt on the subway ride back to Woodlawn, as his own stop let off just a bit beforehand, but Kurt said he had a few errands to run midtown before heading home for the night. They bid each other goodnight, Blaine thanking Kurt for the warm welcome and Kurt assuring him it was his pleasure.

The ride home wasn't all that crowded, given the lateness of the hour. But Blaine's mind had been in so many places at once… Will, Rachel, the chamber, the pain in his hands in fingers, Kurt… that he nearly missed his stop.

Even the relatively short walk from the subway station to his neighborhood had him almost completely worn out. All Blaine could think about as he unlocked the front door and stepped inside the small but cozy two-floor home was climbing into bed… but by the time he had hung up his coat, dropped his music on top of the upright in the small living area, climbed the steps to his bedroom, taken a quick, hot shower, and dressed himself in a t-shirt and flannels, he seemed to have passed the point of exhaustion.

Cursing himself for not just saying "screw it" and collapsing onto the couch when he walked in, fully clothed and music still in hand, he figured as long as he wasn't going to be getting to sleep anytime soon, he might as well do something about the rumbling in his belly.

He made his way down to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, spotting the carton of eggs and remembering the fresh bagels Wes's mother had brought the two of them the day before, and decided that an 11:00 pm breakfast sounded absolutely fantastic at the moment.

He sliced a bagel in half and slid the two pieces into the toaster, then whipped up a scrambled egg mix and poured it into the sizzling pan, adding salt and pepper and scrambling the mixture with a spatula.

Blaine hadn't realized that he had been humming to himself, and wasn't sure exactly when he had started or what he had been humming. Conscious of it, he retraced his mental steps and realized he had been thinking about Kurt. His interesting, unexpected facial expressions, the sadness in his eyes after rehearsal, but his kindness and willingness to make Blaine feel welcome…

Blaine kept up the humming, moving from note to note without any inhibitions, just improvisation. He found himself repeating a combination of six or seven notes, a short little tune in a minor key, as he pulled the bagel slices out of the toaster and dished some scrambled eggs onto a plate next to them.

He was just taking a seat at the kitchen table when he heard the front door open, and looked into the living room to see Wes Montgomery (his long-time friend and roommate) stepping in out of the cold, rubbing his hands together and "burrrring" dramatically.

"Do I smell breakfast?" he called into the kitchen.

Blaine, his mouth already full of scrambled eggs, gestured to the frying pan with his fork as Wes passed him, clapping him on the back in gratitude.

"Thanks man," he said, plopping down into the chair next to Blaine with a plate of his own. Blaine swallowed, then finally asked with a mischievous look, "So…?"

Wes smirked. "So… what?"

"Details…?" Blaine pressed, waggling his eyebrows at Wes.

Wes just gave him a knowing smile. That night had been a new "first date" for Wes, his first in months. He'd become something of a workaholic after his most recent breakup, totally and completely devoting every minute of his spare time to his job as a journalist for one of their many local papers. And being that he was pretty much "big brother #2" to Blaine, Blaine hated seeing him so miserably anti-social.

Blaine had been somewhat teasing of course, as he wasn't expecting anything too juicy to have happened on the first date, nor would have wanted any details whatsoever, but he was curious as to how it had gone. And, Wes had been happy to report that the girl "showed a lot promise, especially for a first date."

Nevertheless, Wes was unable to conceal the reservations he had about dating again in general. The last girl he had been with, well… tellingly, he and Blaine now referred to her as Envy Adams. "It sums up her personality and gives us an excuse to make daily Scott Pilgrim references," Blaine had told Wes in an attempt to make him crack a smile those many months ago, "Two birds, one stone."

Fortunate enough not to have had any traumatic dating experiences himself, Blaine vaguely began to wonder on how strongly past experiences could affect a person, particularly in his or her love life, when Wes inquired about Blaine's day and pulled him back to reality.

Blaine filled him in on the day, keeping it as short and simple as possible, as sleepiness finally seemed to be creeping back into him.

He thought about bringing up Kurt, and nearly opened his mouth to do it, but then realized that he didn't have anything to say about him. He just wanted to have something to say about him, for some reason. Probably, he reasoned, because he was curious about him, about why he looked so upset when he appeared there with Blaine after the others had left. There was nothing there to discuss though. Nothing concrete.

Wes eventually went up to bed while Blaine did the dishes, humming to himself again. By the time he had shut of the kitchen light, gone upstairs to his bedroom, climbed into bed and slumped, exhaustion having taken him over once again, into his pillows, the melody had grown to include exactly nine notes. Over and over it ran inside Blaine's head, hauntingly beautiful, lulling him to sleep.

Thanks for reading! Comments are greatly appreciated, as always – I love hearing everyone's thoughts. Cheers =)