TSFF: Duet
Jun. 21st, 2007 07:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feliciakwDelving into the archives. Someone has requested access to read one of my old fics. (I'm tickled people apparently still read my fics. They even ask for them. :-) ) So here's one that was posted to Cascade Times on March 15, 2001:
Author's Notes: The following was inspired by a mental picture I got while reading The Power of Two, by Carolyn Claire. At CC's encouraging, I wrote this, and she graciously gave me permission to reference her wonderful fic in regards to this snippet. Thank you, CC.
Summary: A supplemental scene to The Power of Two, by Carolyn Claire.
Disclaimers: Ya mean I have to do this again? Well, ok. The guys are not mine. Never have been, probably never will be. I can't afford to purchase the rights, so Pet Fly, Paramount, and UPN have nothing to fear from me. I'm not makin' money off this or anything else I write. Pity.
Jim pulled the truck up to the curb in front of the Banks home and stopped the engine.
"What are we doing here, Jim?" Blair raised a puzzled eyebrow.
"Simon's working and we've got a day off."
"So, what, we're gonna make long distance phone calls and raid his fridge?" the young man chuckled as he got out of the truck.
"No, Shecky, you're getting your first lesson."
"Lesson?" Now Blair really was perplexed. "What lesson?"
Jim pulled a key from his key ring and opened the front door. "Piano lesson."
"What?"
"You said you wanted to learn."
"When did I say that?"
"Every time you play air keyboard." Jim took his friend by the wrist and held his hand up. "You've got great hands for it. I'm thinking you've got the talent, you just don't have the skill." He let Blair's hand go.
Blair looked at his hands as Jim led the way to the living room where the piano was located. They shrugged their coats off and laid them on the couch. Jim opened the piano bench and began shuffling through the music within. Seeing that everything was far too advanced for a beginner, he turned his attention to a magazine basket next to the piano.
"You know how to read music, right?" Jim asked.
"Huh?"
"You play the guitar. You know how to read music."
"Oh," Blair responded with realization and waved his hand dismissively. "Uh, no. Don taught me how to play by ear when I was a kid."
"Don?" Jim selected an untitled piece of music he recognized and thought Blair could learn quickly.
"Yeah, Don. McLean."
Jim looked at his friend with a cocked eyebrow.
"He and Naomi were pretty tight for a while," Blair explained with a shrug.
"Of course," Jim replied under his breath. Each such revelation merely reiterated what an unusual upbringing his friend had had.
As Blair watched with admiration, Jim sat down at the piano and experimented with chords in an attempt to refresh his memory and loosen his fingers. He ran through a few scales, and dug from the recesses of his mind the opening bars of a couple of songs he vaguely remembered memorizing. Then he set the music he had selected on the stand and attempted to sight read the notes. He was surprised at how much had actually stuck with him. He had chosen a duet and took the accompanying part.
After a few minutes of experimentation, he adjusted the piano bench, making room for Blair, and pulled the young man to sit beside him. He quickly gave his friend a crash course in the notes on the keyboard and the markings with which they corresponded on the page in front of them. Then he showed him simply how to find the notes he was to play for this particular piece, no more than two notes at a time. They spent most of the morning experimenting, stopping and starting, and finally smoothing out the song into something recognizable.
So focused were they on their project that they paid no attention when a car pulled up outside the house.
~~~~~~~~~
Simon Banks had decided to take the rare opportunity to go home for lunch. He was surprised to see Jim's truck in front of his house and the inner front door ajar until he remembered Jim mentioning something about needing to stop by that morning. Simon had been in the middle of preparing a brief for the Chief of Police and had absently given Jim permission to stop by and use his key to the house if necessary.
As he approached the door, ready to call out and make his presence known, he heard the soft strains of piano music. Quietly he entered the house and stopped in the entryway to the living room. If someone had told him three years ago that he would see what he was seeing right now, he would have seriously considered sending that person to the department shrink. There, at Daryl's piano, in his very own living room, sat Major Crime's best investigative team: a no-nonsense, tough-as-nails, ex-Army-Ranger-former-covert-ops detective (who just happened to have heightened senses) and a resourceful, obfuscating, peace-loving, anthropology-studying, academic neo-hippie flower child (who just happened to be the one person in the world who understood the no-nonsense, tough-as-nails, ex-Army-Ranger-former-covert-ops detective's heightened senses). He stood listening as the partners bantered back and forth through false starts, missed notes, and finally, perfect harmony. Or what passed for perfect harmony with these two. He watched as Blair followed Jim's lead, nodding at Jim's instructions, while Jim patiently waited for Blair to stumble through his part, until finally Blair, playing the melody, took the lead and Jim followed. The give and take so reminded Simon of the lives these two men now led that he could no longer completely envision one without the other somewhere in the background. Kind of like the music he was hearing. And such an appropriate song. You need the pair to accomplish the most good.
Chopsticks.
~finis~
Author's Notes: The following was inspired by a mental picture I got while reading The Power of Two, by Carolyn Claire. At CC's encouraging, I wrote this, and she graciously gave me permission to reference her wonderful fic in regards to this snippet. Thank you, CC.
Summary: A supplemental scene to The Power of Two, by Carolyn Claire.
Disclaimers: Ya mean I have to do this again? Well, ok. The guys are not mine. Never have been, probably never will be. I can't afford to purchase the rights, so Pet Fly, Paramount, and UPN have nothing to fear from me. I'm not makin' money off this or anything else I write. Pity.
Duet
Jim pulled the truck up to the curb in front of the Banks home and stopped the engine.
"What are we doing here, Jim?" Blair raised a puzzled eyebrow.
"Simon's working and we've got a day off."
"So, what, we're gonna make long distance phone calls and raid his fridge?" the young man chuckled as he got out of the truck.
"No, Shecky, you're getting your first lesson."
"Lesson?" Now Blair really was perplexed. "What lesson?"
Jim pulled a key from his key ring and opened the front door. "Piano lesson."
"What?"
"You said you wanted to learn."
"When did I say that?"
"Every time you play air keyboard." Jim took his friend by the wrist and held his hand up. "You've got great hands for it. I'm thinking you've got the talent, you just don't have the skill." He let Blair's hand go.
Blair looked at his hands as Jim led the way to the living room where the piano was located. They shrugged their coats off and laid them on the couch. Jim opened the piano bench and began shuffling through the music within. Seeing that everything was far too advanced for a beginner, he turned his attention to a magazine basket next to the piano.
"You know how to read music, right?" Jim asked.
"Huh?"
"You play the guitar. You know how to read music."
"Oh," Blair responded with realization and waved his hand dismissively. "Uh, no. Don taught me how to play by ear when I was a kid."
"Don?" Jim selected an untitled piece of music he recognized and thought Blair could learn quickly.
"Yeah, Don. McLean."
Jim looked at his friend with a cocked eyebrow.
"He and Naomi were pretty tight for a while," Blair explained with a shrug.
"Of course," Jim replied under his breath. Each such revelation merely reiterated what an unusual upbringing his friend had had.
As Blair watched with admiration, Jim sat down at the piano and experimented with chords in an attempt to refresh his memory and loosen his fingers. He ran through a few scales, and dug from the recesses of his mind the opening bars of a couple of songs he vaguely remembered memorizing. Then he set the music he had selected on the stand and attempted to sight read the notes. He was surprised at how much had actually stuck with him. He had chosen a duet and took the accompanying part.
After a few minutes of experimentation, he adjusted the piano bench, making room for Blair, and pulled the young man to sit beside him. He quickly gave his friend a crash course in the notes on the keyboard and the markings with which they corresponded on the page in front of them. Then he showed him simply how to find the notes he was to play for this particular piece, no more than two notes at a time. They spent most of the morning experimenting, stopping and starting, and finally smoothing out the song into something recognizable.
So focused were they on their project that they paid no attention when a car pulled up outside the house.
~~~~~~~~~
Simon Banks had decided to take the rare opportunity to go home for lunch. He was surprised to see Jim's truck in front of his house and the inner front door ajar until he remembered Jim mentioning something about needing to stop by that morning. Simon had been in the middle of preparing a brief for the Chief of Police and had absently given Jim permission to stop by and use his key to the house if necessary.
As he approached the door, ready to call out and make his presence known, he heard the soft strains of piano music. Quietly he entered the house and stopped in the entryway to the living room. If someone had told him three years ago that he would see what he was seeing right now, he would have seriously considered sending that person to the department shrink. There, at Daryl's piano, in his very own living room, sat Major Crime's best investigative team: a no-nonsense, tough-as-nails, ex-Army-Ranger-former-covert-ops detective (who just happened to have heightened senses) and a resourceful, obfuscating, peace-loving, anthropology-studying, academic neo-hippie flower child (who just happened to be the one person in the world who understood the no-nonsense, tough-as-nails, ex-Army-Ranger-former-covert-ops detective's heightened senses). He stood listening as the partners bantered back and forth through false starts, missed notes, and finally, perfect harmony. Or what passed for perfect harmony with these two. He watched as Blair followed Jim's lead, nodding at Jim's instructions, while Jim patiently waited for Blair to stumble through his part, until finally Blair, playing the melody, took the lead and Jim followed. The give and take so reminded Simon of the lives these two men now led that he could no longer completely envision one without the other somewhere in the background. Kind of like the music he was hearing. And such an appropriate song. You need the pair to accomplish the most good.
Chopsticks.
~finis~
