Steinway!verse
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Being a freshman piano performance major at a prestigious New England conservatory is difficult enough without landing the school's star baritone as your singer, and inevitably, your hopeless crush.
Ah, the boy's eyes
So sweet and clear to me,
and something radiates from them
that wins my whole heart.With those sweet eyes
He looks into my own!
If he should see his image in mine,
He would surely greet me lovingly.And so I surrender myself entirely,
Just to serve his eyes,
For something radiates from them
That wins my whole heart.(While this story is part of a series it works perfectly well as a stand-alone, so you don't need to read anything else to have this make sense.)
Now available as podfic too, read by the lovely pennyplainknits with music assistance by xenakis:
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- Part 1 of Steinway!verse
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"Music is the silence between the notes" ~ Claude Debussy; or, life is what happens when you're busy wishing you could be in a practice room.
Set very shortly after "Ach, des Knaben Augen". And for the first time, I'm gonna say that you have to have read at least that fic for this to make much sense. (All the Steinway!verse pieces are more or less organized here on my DW journal.) Copious linkage to music referenced throughout the text of the fic and also gathered up together at the end in the Notes.
Warnings: Casual homophobia by an old person. Some music kink here, too, of course. And lastly, this fic contains a whole lotta original characters; if this does not float your boat, get thee to -- well. Not a nunnery. Get thee to someplace with fewer OCs?
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- Part 2 of Steinway!verse
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Eames draws back again. "Let's see if I can't find this magic spot celebrated in song and legend."
"It's not celebrated in song and legend, it's celebrated in your Manhole collection of porn," Arthur returns reasonably.
Set in the Steinway!Verse not long after "Between the Notes" but probably works just fine as a stand-alone if you accept that Eames is 23 and Arthur is 20. The fact that they're musicians is actually totally irrelevant. Yay for porn?
Assorted pieces of the Steinway!Verse are collected here on this DW sticky post.
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- Part 3 of Steinway!verse
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It’s just that Eames honestly never expected Arthur to take Eames up on his offer.
Part of the Steinway!Verse, set not long after First, Do No Harm. Assorted pieces of the Steinway!Verse are collected here on this DW sticky post.
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- Part 4 of Steinway!verse
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"What is it that Miles says to you?” Eames says, feeling victory in his grasp even as Arthur resists him. "You have to leave the practice room now and then if you're going to understand what it is you're meant to be — god, I am drunk."
In the Steinway 'verse, about six weeks after "Er, der Herrlichste von Allen" and a couple of months before "Chantant sur le mode mineur".
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- Part 5 of Steinway!verse
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Arthur’s face shifts from interrogatory focus to something soft and slack and longing, almost within a bare second.
Warning for slight D/s themes. Set in the Steinway!Verse, a short time after Er, der Herrlichste von Allen, but probably good as a stand-alone too. I thought we needed some blatant porn at this point and handily I had this in my back pocket.
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- Part 6 of Steinway!verse
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Arthur's one of the bright lights of the conservatory, but he's sharing the stage with a star about to go supernova.
Notes: This takes place after Between the Notes, during Eames' final year at school. While I can't in all fairness label this as angst, I feel I should perhaps warn for something of an ambiguous ending, at least until I complete and post the next story in the series (which is mostly done, actually, but not quite ready for prime time.) I had planned to wait until all the big remaining story pieces were done but it occurred to me at last that this part is quite ready to go and putting it out there can only inspire me to work harder on getting the 'verse completed.
Also, Arthur is playing Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3, which is a crazily ambitious thing for a 21 year old pianist to tackle.
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- Part 7 of Steinway!verse
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“The piano is a monster that screams when you touch its teeth.” ~ Andre Segovia
Coming unravelled in your senior year is practically a tradition at the conservatory. Arthur's never been one to do things by halves.
Content Notes: Contains references to musician injury, open relationships, long distance relationship (failure), insomnia, and huge amounts of senior-year angst. Musicians live large, and that carries over to pain too, I'm afraid. All I can say is: in the grand scheme of things, the boys get their happy ending. But you already knew that if you've read the previous fics.
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- Part 8 of Steinway!verse
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Mal is fairly certain that this moment marks the first time Arthur and Eames have made music together in two years.
I will go wherever you go, and live wherever you live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. I will die wherever you die, and will be buried there.
There are three things that amaze me -- no, four things I do not understand: how an eagle glides through the sky; how a snake slithers on a rock; how a ship navigates the ocean; how a man loves a woman. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to know.
Set in the fall of 2005, in the Steinway!Verse - after Between the Notes and before Under the Steinway.
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- Part 9 of Steinway!verse
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"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going" ~ Beverly Sills
Doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results is a good working definition of insanity.
Content Notes: Contains some plot-related matter that may be triggering for some readers - click through and skip down to the End Notes (linked from the beginning of the story) for details. (There is no: character death, graphic violence, sexual violence, underage sexual content, or sexual content that's non- or dub-con.)
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- Part 10 of Steinway!verse
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There'll be time enough later for noisy family meals, hyperactive kids, and holiday chaos. This moment, this morning, is theirs.
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- Part 11 of Steinway!verse
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It's still far better than if Eames tried to give Arthur a voice lesson.
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- Part 12 of Steinway!verse
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"I'm next," Eames says. "If you don't smother me in blankets and tape me together my voice will be no use to you either. I'll probably sing in French instead of German or something equally disastrous."
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- Part 13 of Steinway!verse
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When Eames travels, the thought of Arthur travels with him.
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- Part 14 of Steinway!verse
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Arthur’s insomnia often kicks in not when Eames is away but when he’s home.
In the Steinway 'Verse, set around the time of Under the Steinway. I slept almost exactly three hours last night, so this falls under the heading of 'write what you know'. Sigh. But it's sweet and happy?
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- Part 15 of Steinway!verse
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Art is calling for Eames, but somehow Arthur is always the one answering the door.
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- Part 16 of Steinway!verse
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It takes a few years to break in a factory-new piano like Arthur's Steinway; in related news, Arthur and Eames are both still getting used to the glint of wedding bands on their ring fingers.
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- Part 17 of Steinway!verse
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Arthur will be very sorry indeed when Eames dies of ebola and syphilitic psychosis in their conjugal bed.
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- Part 18 of Steinway!verse
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Arthur's annoyance evaporates instantly when he sees Eames' face appear on the screen, Eames wriggling to get comfortable on his belly lying on his hotel bed a quarter of the way around the world, somewhere in Paris.
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- Part 19 of Steinway!verse
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The story of ‘happily ever after.’Series
- Part 20 of Steinway!verse
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Christmas in Windsor feels endless at times like these.
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- Part 21 of Steinway!verse
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Arthur has done it: he's conquered sleep.
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- Part 22 of Steinway!verse
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Timing has never been a strong point for them, as a couple.
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- Part 23 of Steinway!verse
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This isn't an old theory assignment; that much was clear from the instant Eames pulled it out, folded unevenly, from where it had been pressed between the pages of Thayer's dreary Beethoven tome.
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- Part 24 of Steinway!verse
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Driving off in search of moose and hot shirtless fishermen. As one does.
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- Part 25 of Steinway!verse
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Composition is a discipline, every bit as much as playing the piano ever was.
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- Part 26 of Steinway!verse