Chapter Text
S - ♫
Sebastian stands outside the doors of the orchestral hall and deeply, deeply wishes he didn’t have to enter. They’re double-doors; smooth, polished. The handles are a gleaming gold; the wood stained a luxurious red. It’s always red. Theatres and whore houses, Sebastian thinks. He’s still wasting time. The floor under his new, uncomfortable shoes is carpet; just slightly worn, but still thick enough to muffle the sound of footsteps. In there, it’ll be hardwood. Flawlessly smooth; installed with an anal-retentive ear for acoustics. The hall is an instrument, after all. One of many.
Even muffled by the doors Sebastian can hear the cacophonous sound of a hundred musical tools being tuned and played and fiddled with all at once. Individually, each might be beautiful; together, they’re a great ugly mess.
Sebastian does them the favor of hating them, both individually and all together. Still, he can’t help but pick out a few of the threads – blame his father for that. There’s Ysaye, done well. Dvorak, done badly. A screeching clarinet that makes Sebastian wince and think of high school, although that could also be the plodding scales of the cellos warming up.
Someone’s playing Liszt’s Au bord du un source behind it all, quite well, dreamy and ethereal and barely there at all.
The combined effect is giving Sebastian a headache.
He scrubs his fingers through his hair and glares at the lobby mirrors. In the soft theater lights, Sebastian’s expression might even pass for civil; but he doubts it. He’s got bags under his eyes and a scowl a mile wide.
And he’s still wasting time.
Sebastian growls to himself. Stop dicking about, Moran, he thinks, You’re already fucked.
He sets one hand on the left hall door and pushes it open.
It doesn’t exactly have a dramatic affect. He’s greeted by a wall of sound, three small steps, and a row of bassist’s backs. The door he’s entered through is set just slightly back from the raised stage, so for the moment, he’s hidden from sight by the risers. Better that way, he supposes.
The hall itself is lovely: Augustus Moran can afford to bribe the best, after all. It’s a huge, arcing place, with two floors and enough red scratchy seats to make a ticket-master wet himself in glee. The ceiling and columns are white, pristine, intricately carved. The honey-oak hardwood practically glows. Even just with dissonance, Sebastian can tell the acoustics are more than flawless; there’s a sort of halo to them, an imperfect bounce that isn’t quite an echo. It makes sound seem rounder, smoother.
The small, tortured part of Sebastian that still loves music shuts its eyes and sings.
Sebastian scowls and turns his attention to the orchestra.
From what he can see of the bassists – which isn’t much – they’re the standard lot. Third from the left hasn’t shaved the back of his neck – third from the right hasn’t asked for the small size meal since the day he was born. On the second row down one of the bassists has her instrument leaning against her knee as she chatters at – not with – one of the violas. She’s somehow making herself heard over the wall of sound filling the hall, which is equal parts impressive and terrifying.
Sebastian wants to turn around. Walk away. Call up dear old Dad and tell him, You know, I’d rather prison after all, thanks. Leave the orchestra and every bland, shallow piece of trash in it to play with their toys and rot.
But he doesn’t. This is a fight, after all. Hell if Sebastian’s going to be the one to run from it. He squares his shoulders, grits his teeth, and takes the three steps up to the stage.
Silence doesn’t fall at once; it drops into place like stars coming out at night, instruments flickering one by one into silence. The piano is last, that wispy, delicate Liszt following Sebastian up the podium. He registers somewhere that it’s beautiful. Almost perfect. Or maybe, like the hall, just imperfect enough to make you ache.
And that’s enough faggy fucking music talk from you.
Sebastian faces the orchestra, giving them a moment to take his measure as he takes theirs. Most of the faces looking at him are some degree of resentful or cold; he doesn’t blame the angry ones, even though he notes them carefully. Sebastian didn’t audition, like they did. He hasn’t earned his place. If it were him on stage looking at some untested jackass – and thank fuck it’s not – he’d be pissed enough to punch someone.
Still. If they think they can make him quiver like some virgin at a strip club –
Not now.
Sebastian exhales, and listens. Silence. Expectant musicians. The soft rustle of shifting bodies, creaking chairs.
“I’m Sebastian Moran,” he tells them. The hall makes his sound fuller than it is, gives it an air of harmonies it doesn’t have. “I’m conducting. You’ve all got your music. Sounds like some of you might even know how to play your instruments.”
The orchestra gapes at him. Okay, the rudeness is cheap. But he’s still got that fucking headache, and it is very close to nearly entirely their fault. Fuck ‘em if they can’t take it. They’ve got the option of quitting. Sebastian turns his back on them, ignoring the itch between his shoulder blades. He takes off his jacket and hangs it over the stage railing. He’s already somewhat regretting the tight black jeans and v-neck underneath it. As soon as he takes off the jacket, Sebastian’s gone from rock star to club gay, and isn’t that just musicians in a nutshell.
When he turns back, the orchestra’s gone from mutinous to murderous. The first violin looks especially enraged; a slender man with black curls and blazing pale eyes, who could pass for a model or a murderer. Most of the violins are with him; like a rack of offended cats being offered the wrong food. From the look of the center clarinet, Sebastian can tell exactly who squeaked during warm-up. The rest of the group seem guarded and resentful; although percussion, as always, just looks a little bit stoned.
“Shall we?” Sebastian asks, and raises his arms.
Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin' –
Sebastian’s arms drop again. “What the fuck is that?” he demands, even though it’s obvious. The tinny music fills the air, amplified to uber-sonic proportions by the hall.
And we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive. Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin' alive...
“Who the hell,” Sebastian growls furiously, “Had the bloody balls to leave their cell phone on?” The musicians shift in their seats uncomfortably.
Stayin' alive…
“Oops,” drawls a deep, low voice from the back of the stage. “Sorry.” Sebastian’s head snaps up. He scans the back row furiously. The voice has a strange lilt, and, subconsciously, Sebastian expects to see one of the percussionists flushing; someone big, barrel chested. A little dopey, maybe.
The music starts to loop. Feel the city breaking –
“I did mean to turn it off,” the piano player continues, wiggling his cell phone above his instrument before he straightens. “It’s just our usual conductor is on time…”
And we’re stayin alive –
Sebastian’s head jerk backwards in surprise. The pianist grins at him, thumb pressed white on his cell-phone power button. He’s small – skinny, rather than slender, small rather than short. His black hair is slicked back, and his dark eyes are creased and sunken. He’s got the look of a teenager on a sugar high, or a mafia boss with his back to the wall. Something frantic, and manic, and untouchable. He’s not embarrassed; not even close.
“And you are?” Sebastian asks, coolly.
“James Moriarty,” the pianist responds, just as calm. “But you can call me Jim. No one else does, but you can, lucky boy.” He doesn’t seem at all bothered by the exchange, or the spotlight; from the lazy slump of his shoulders as he sets his phone down on the piano, the two of them might be alone in the room.
Fired, Sebastian thinks to himself, but he doesn’t say it. Not yet. Not after the Liszt. He has to be sure Jim’s replaceable before he fires him; rehiring a player would be fatal weakness for a new conductor. If Jim plays as well as his arrogance says…
Well.
“Your usual conductor let you waste his time?” Sebastian asks pointedly. Jim’s smile gets a little wider, bordering on creepy. He shakes his head. Freaky little fuck. Sebastian doesn’t quite manage to keep the hairs on the back of his neck from rising. “Well then sit the fuck down and play.”
Jim wiggles skeletal fingers at Sebastian, and plops heavily down on his piano bench.
Sebastian glares around the room. “Anyone else?” No one’s that brave. Or that suicidal. A single chair squeaks against the floor as someone moves nervously. “Good.”
He raises his arms again. “Let’s begin.”
♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫
Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5. Sebastian can see the notes on the score as if they’re written on the air in front of him, inevitable and unchangeable as physical law. The orchestra doesn’t so much create the sound as draw it out of the waiting air. First the strings surge to life – pulling out minor sixths that march across the stage like a threat, ebbing and flowing down to a winding thread of thirds. It’s delicate, narrow, strange; a twisting alley-way of sound, precarious and unsure.
Sebastian’s fingers twitch around his baton. He chases the strings through the first movement as if they’ll break when he catches them, weaving them through a gossamer path to the lyrical sweep of the first violin part. Sweet sounds. Creeping sounds. Sebastian’s baton flicks and smooths through the air, and he shuts his eyes.
In his head he can hear what it should be, and the sound around him comes so close it makes his skin ache. He can feel it press against him. A bitter-sweet emotion, by turns terrified and victorious.
He can make them hear it.
The melody is a frightened, delicate thing; the first violins find it, catch it, swing it nervously back and forth across the stage. Sebastian lets them play, almost too freely, tipping on the edge of a delicate beauty. The violins are a question without an answer. It’s the woodwinds that have to respond, confident and sweet. Sebastian beckons, letting the violins fall back forgotten. Minor in strings; chromatic scales in celesta. Friction resonates on the air, and Sebastian leaps up like he’s forgotten – it’s the brass he needs, hurried and uneasy – he gathers them in an urgent hand and throws them upwards, strident, nervous, shouting the question that the violin strings had whispered.
Minor chords fall among the rows like accusations. Sebastian finds the softest build of stroking rhythm and teases it forward out of the mess of sound.
With his eyes half shut he can almost see the melody slide forward on silken slippers.
Sebastian pushes the musicians violently, cajoles them, seduces them. He can feel each instrument like electricity on the air, like strings of a great harp beneath his fingers.
Like if he could just reach out, he could guide each player through the eye of a needle.
Quick steps, here, precise little notes – witty and clever, trickling down into the piping brass where it’s swept away by triumph. And the solo violin, oh yes, there – Sebastian’s fingers curl towards the violins; forgetting everything but the sound waiting to be heard.
The first violin doesn’t disappoint him; sound leaps over it all, friendly and playful, dancing in and out of the rest of the sound like it’s teasing them to catch it.
It’s close to perfect. They might even be a good orchestra, one day.
Sebastian drives them hard towards the end – tense and stark as thunder on the air.
Drums, now – the snare – timpani – yes –
Sebastian shuts his eyes and there, there is the song he’s been chasing. The orchestra meshes together like a single, many-handed being. Their voice is triumphant, the electric shock of the symbols and strings rising from dissonant tension into pure, exultant, joy.
Sebastian feels the notes between his fingers, on his skin, and forgets their flaws. He gathers instruments up and throws them down together like a force of nature, falling headlong after the timpani to the inevitable, breathless conclusion.
Imperfect. Exquisite.
Yes!
♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫
They crash to a halt.
Sebastian frowns, shuts his eyes, and plays the music back in his head. Augustus’ voice snaps at his ear – there’s a billion fucking mistakes, you absolute idiot, surely you can find me one – and they start to light up like fireworks. Once he gets going, Sebastian’s not sure he can stop. Making this into a functioning orchestra might just be an impossible task. He’s just going to ignore the tempo, for now, because if someone had it right he couldn’t hear them over the rest. There’s plenty of other problems. The bass has creatively invented its own key to play in, for starters. The brass could use a set of very large corks, if he wants them to play less than mezzo-forte, and at this point he’s not really sure he has French horns at all for how much he could hear them. At least his violins have a consistent tone, if the wrong one.
Sebastian grits his teeth.
The worst part, of course, is that the piano was spectacular. Damn Moriarty to bloody hell. He has to stay.
“Right,” Sebastian says finally. Start with the violins. “Who’s Concert Master?”
The willowy, model-pretty violinist in the front row unfolds himself from his seat. He’s wearing a crisp black suit, even though formal wear isn’t standard for practice, and his black curls froth over the collar. His cheekbones look polished enough to cut diamonds, but his expression is sharper.
“Sherlock Holmes.”
“You have a problem with tuning that?” Sebastian asks, nodding to the Strad in Sherlock’s hands.
Sherlock goes still in the way of a cat stalking a mouse. His eyes narrow. “Excuse me?”
“Well,” Sebastian explains, deliberately condescending, “I’d like it in tune, so if you could manage – “
“It’s in tune.” Sherlock spits.
Someone in the back of the room giggles. It sounds disturbingly like Moriarty, so Sebastian ignores it. “Good. Get the rest of them that way.”
Sherlock sets his jaw like he’s going to argue, but Sebastian just stares at him and waits. Sherlock might be replaceable, he might not be, but if Sebastian backs down the group will never respect him and there’s no way around that. This is a fucking pissing contest with only one winner, and both of them know it.
Sherlock turns with an elegant and unnecessary flourish of his bow. The rest of the orchestra snaps to attention, like Sherlock’s got them on puppet strings. Sebastian can respect that. He steps back, and turns to the empty seats with his eyes closed. Listening.
A single clear, pure note drifts out from the oboist, hanging thready on the air. Then the rest of the woodwinds swell up beneath it, supporting it, holding it round and full and large around the hall. They die out together, sound fading back from the front row like a wave.
Again. The 440 A note, lonely and fragile, brass instruments twining in beneath it and stretching for the corners of the room like an indrawn breath before the sound dies off into stillness.
A third time. Oboe. The strings, singing in one voice, sounding one clear note with triumphant strength, reaching, failing, fading –
A breath. Snatched from the air like a gasp of pleasure. It’s Sherlock; satisfied with perfection in the way that only genius is.
Sebastian opens his eyes, but he doesn’t turn from the empty red chairs. “It’ll do,” he tells the orchestra. He grips the stage’s railing. As much as he wants to knife Augustus’s training out of his brain, he’s unable to help himself from wanting to hear the music perfect. And he knows how. Damn it all.
“Now, as for the rest of it – clarinets, oboes, a little softer. The notes are paws, not boots. Don’t stomp them down. Legato. Brass…” Sebastian can’t help a grin, and he ducks his head to hide it even with his back turned. “You know what I’m going to say.”
Some brave soul stage whispers “Play quieter,” and they all laugh.
“Clever,” Sebastian allows, when the laughter dies down, “Now make it happen.” He turns back to them, finally, his smile lingering around his lips. “Try to keep in tempo with me, this time.” He taps the baton against his stand, even though it’s unnecessary. The orchestra snaps to attention only a little slower than they had for Sherlock. It’s something, at least. Sebastian gathers them with his eyes, takes a deep breath and holds it. When he reaches out he can feel tension strain against his hands, as if the music waiting to happen is a tangible thing that he can twist around the end of his baton. He can feel it thrum on the strings, quiver in the reeds, press against the sweating palms of the percussionists. Sebastian holds them all, vibrating and fervent in his hands.
The baton flicks up and when it slices down, he pulls them violently along into the song with him; his eyes closed as he abandons everything but the sound.
♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫
“Better.” There’s sweat on Sebastian’s forehead. He wipes it away, and looks up. A few of the faces in the crowd aren’t resentful, any more. Some might even be friendly. But there’re still things – moment when the band faltered, when he let them drop. But Sebastian can hear it in his head now; how the score would sound, if he could convince this group to play it. They’re so close. Every musician is an instrument in his hands; and he can feel them coming in to tune.
Sebastian sets the baton down and steps forward. “Much better,” he repeats, with a slow nod at the cellos. He lets his eyes drag over the orchestra, holding them one by one. The quiet has a new quality, now. Sebastian no longer feels like he’s standing in front of a pack of wolves trying to convince them to take him as their alpha. Even Moriarty, a dark smudge behind the piano, doesn’t look quite so mocking.
Sebastian’d be bitter, if he could. Augustus’s perfect prodigy in the end after all.
But it was better.
“Only one thing,” Sebastian finishes. “And it’s big.” Nervous shuffling follows his words. Sebastian looks down at the first violins. “You’re out of tempo in the second movement. And you’re pulling them – “ with a jerk of his head at the rest of the orchestra – “Out with you. You stumbled over più mosso, I think – or did you just decided to translate it as don’t change a fucking thing?” The violins are sullenly mute. Then, one by one, their eyes slide slowly to Sherlock. Sebastian follows their gaze, outraged. “What.”
“Glad you asked,” Sherlock says, bouncing out of his seat and to his feet. The Strat he takes time to delicately place down before he thrusts himself in Sebastian’s face. “There shouldn’t be a change in tempo there. It’s rubbish.”
Sebastian considers Sherlock coldly. Right, then, he wants to say, you take this fucking job, I never wanted it anyways. What comes out of his mouth is “What instrument do you play?” Sherlock’s eyes narrow, confused. Obviously he plays the violin. Sebastian steps back. “That’s right. You play the violin. And this – “ he picks up the baton, “You have no fucking idea what to do with. You are first chair. You’re the most talented violin in the section, without question, and you certainly think you’re the most talented musician in the orchestra.” Sherlock, sensing a trap, doesn’t say anything. Sebastian points the baton at his chest like a fencing rapier. “You’re probably not, but maybe.” He shrugs.
Sherlock’s pale eyes meet Sebastian’s, blazing fury and pride.
“Still. You don’t decide how to play. I do. And trust me – ” Sebastian drops his voice so the orchestra has to lean in to eavesdrop, “If you challenge me one more time, I will hold auditions for reseating.”
It’s just like conducting. Tempo. Volume. Tone. Sebastian winds them around his voice, tight as a coiled spring, and if he hates himself for it he doesn’t let it show on his face. It’s effective, anyways. Sherlock bristles, but he steps down.
Or so Sebastian thinks. He turns away.
“And what instrument do you play?" Sherlock snaps at Sebastian's back. The conductor stills. His hands curl into fists at his side, white and cold with anger.
He turns on his heel, slow and careful. Sherlock's bow hands loosely in his long fingered hand, tapping against his thigh. By the piano Sebastian can see Moriarty - paused in the middle of practicing fingering silently above the keys, those pale fingers frozen in the middle of their dance.
"Fiddle," Sebastian hisses in Sherlock's face, indulging the red-hot twist of anger surging through him. It's a mistake he'll hear about later, but right now - with Sherlock's polished curls shining like a prize poodle in front of him - he doesn't fucking care. “Now sit down."
Sherlock's lip lifts in a sneer. He's not alone. Half the strings within hearing distance have just resisted the urge to spit. Sebastian, once again, can't bring himself to care. He stays where he is through the tense moment when he thinks Sherlock is going to say something, but with a prima donna sniff Sherlock flounces back to his chair.
"Anyone else?" Sebastian growls at the now-silent room. Over by the piano, Jim is grinning - wide and cruel. No one speaks. "Then go through it again," Sebastian tells them, "And this time, the violins follow my fucking tempo."
He raises his arms.
♫ ♫ ♫ ♫
“You didn’t have any helpful comments for me,” someone says, in the murky, shadowed hall. A lilting voice. Dark. There’s an implicit threat in that voice, although Sebastian can’t tell what it is.
Sebastian turns from locking the stage doors and there’s Moriarty; his head just slightly tilted, his eyebrows raised. He’s leaning on the wall of the corridor in a neat grey suit and tweed jacket, his hair in perfect place despite the long hours of practice.
“I wasn’t aware I had to,” Sebastian says carefully.
“Mmm.” Moriarty pushes himself off the walk and stalks forward towards Sebastian. There’s something about him that pushes Sebastian’s shoulder blades together; Moriarty may not even come up to Sebastian’s chin, but there’s a whispering sound as he moves that makes Sebastian’s spine prickle. “You didn’t,” Moriarty murmurs. He looks up at Sebastian through a haze of thick dark lashes. “I played nice for you tonight. I won’t again, you know.”
Sebastian firms his jaw, feeling his tendons tense with sounds he can’t seem to force out. It should be easy to tell Moriarty off the same as he’d done to Sherlock, but the words keep dying in his mouth.
“I…” he starts, but before he can finish, Moriarty is moving.
And fuck, the man is fast. Before Sebastian can so much as think, Moriarty’s slim finger is pressed against his lips – white and cold as bone in the darkness.
“You really should have said something to the fourth chair clarinet, though,” Moriarty purrs. He gives Sebastian a once over, slow and intimate. “You might do for the job, but he never will.” Moriarty’s finger drags down Sebastian’s skin, pulling on the flesh of his lip.
His mocking smile breaks whatever mad trance he’s got Sebastian in. Sebastian jerks his head back and says with what he hopes is conviction, “You’re obviously out of it. You should go. If you’re lucky, I’ll chalk this up to nerves and forget it happened.”
His voice isn’t weak, but it isn’t exactly strong either.
Moriarty steps back, the eerie smile still fixed on his face. “So you don't know what I'm talking about,” he murmurs, sounding strangely surprised, his eyes gleaming with reflected light. “Better work on that, Maestro. It'll get you killed.” Sebastian’s heart pounds against the center of his breastbone. Moriarty laughs breathlessly and touches his fingers to his temple in a mocking salute. “See you tomorrow,” he smirks, and turns. Sebastian watches Moriarty amble across the red carpet all the way to the hall’s glass doors. He leans on them, face reflected in deep shadow and ethereal white. The doors lock behind him with clicks like coffin nails.
Only then does Sebastian feel it’s safe enough to breathe.