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They arrive home at precisely 4:13 in the morning after a day of exploring what suburban Washington had to offer (which includes being chased by a big black dog with gnashing teeth and a whole heap of high-pitched screaming). John promptly kicks off his shoes, shoves it into the corner. He strips off his coat and tosses it onto the sofa with silent promises to put it away properly later (but they both know it’s a lie and it’ll be there when they wake in the morning).
Dave toes off his shoes, shucks off two layers of jackets, but struggles to get his right hand out when his glove snags on a button (“John help, my jacket, it lusts for my blood and flesh and– John?”). He stills, catches a glimpse of John as he disappears into the study. Which is… uh, definitely not in the direction of their shared bed. He frowns. “Egbert?”
There’s no response, but music starts playing. Dave pulls off his gloves and tosses them over his shoulder onto the sofa. It’s only now that he realizes just how little John has been playing. Between life and college, there’s not much time for unwinding. He hasn’t lost his touch though. Anything he plays would have been beautiful. This time though, this time it’s a delicate beat tied together by even frailer notes, sorrowful and sweet all at once. He’s sure that John composed it himself because during nights he hears John’s heart beat to this rhythm and he always wonders why.
He pads up behind John and he knows that the other can sense him even though his footsteps made no noise. Dave sits down on the bench next to John, watches him unabashedly through his shades; takes in the other’s chapped lips, the way John’s eyes are half-lidded as long spidery fingers play the piano expertly. He remembers John’s summer job as an assistant and how he made precise incisions on the small preserved bodies. Dave thinks that John has the hands for surgery. The hands of a doctor. It doesn’t really suit John though so he pushes it out of his mind.
Then John starts singing.
He doesn’t have the best singing voice. He misses notes in multiple places, hits too high in others, and his voice cracks embarrassingly the whole entire time. (Dave thinks it’s all too endearing though.) The song is too somber for his voice –too heavy (it pulls at John in ways the blue-eyed boy can’t see, stretches him too far and weighs him down with too much and and and)— clashes horribly with the beat in his voice, in his heart. But there’s a smile (tranquil and so beautiful Dave wants to trap its essence in a jar and protect it from every wrongdoing of the world) on his face and Dave wonders if this is what falling in love feels like.