Unexpected inspiration

[gwenchan]

Fandom: Hetalia
Characters: HWS France, HWS England
Prompt: Interruzione
Tag: Alternate Universe_Humans

The music flows from the keys, it raises to the ceilng, fills every corner of  the room.

It's not perfect, but after hours it starts sounding like a real melody. Pencil between his teeth, Arthur repeats the last passage, but changing the chord this time. It sounds better already.

Stretching across the piano, he takes note of the changes. Then, he hums the melody and the first words of the song that's already blossoming in his mind. 

It'll be something about a journey, that is sure. A journey on the sea, with a sequence of high and low notes, crescendo and diminuendo like the waves. A storm in the middle, the music grows faster, quicker and quicker till the inevitable explosion.

Then, silence. The sailors look at each other, in stupor. The ship has survived. Slowly, the first ones begin to cheer and the cheer intensify, there's fiddle music and laughter.

The notes pop on the paper. Using his wrist to hold the spartito jn place, Arthur plays with his right and write with his left. It's not his dominant hand, though years of practice made him almost ambidextrous .

The notes are little doodles, fast signs nobody can read at this stadium of work. It still needs days of polishing, but the potential is there and when it's done it'll be glorious.

He's thinking a cello and two violins, and maybe some brasses, for the thunders. 

A part however is still giving him grief. The end fights with him, almost as he envisioned but not quite. 

Truth is he doesn't know yet how he wants this story to end; if giving the sailors a safe harbour or if sending them onto new adventures one the danger is passed

The solution is there, at the back of his mind, but he can’t grasp it and it's driving him crazy. He presses the same keys over and over n hope to have a enlightment by force of repetition.  And the more he can’t find a way out, the more he grows frustate.

“You’ll break it.”

Arthur jolts. His hand slams down onto the keys in a cacophony of sounds that wounds the ears

He rolls on his stool. “You almost got me a heart attack. Didn’t you see the sign at the door?”

In the doorframe his husband shrugs. He picks something from the door “This one? To not bother you unless the house is on flame?”

“Yes. And since I am not hearing any -”

“You’ve been in here since dawn. I’ve already let you skip lunch,” Francis stops him. “I’ve been listening to you for a while now and you definitely need a pause. So now you get up, leave there your sheets and come to the kitchen with me.”

“As soon as I’m finished with this.”

Maybe he should change the key, now that he thinks about it. “You can bring me a snack here if you want.”

“I see.” Francis’ tone doesn’t promise anything good. “Time for drastic measures.”

It’s the only warning Arthur gets before two familiar arms pass around his waist. Shrieking, he struggles. “Put me down.” 

But Francis has always been bulkier and more muscular than him and Arthur’ limbs are weak with hunger. He slaps one hand onto the keys in a new attempt to free himself. The sound is all but pleasant. 

Francis only cradles him to his chest in a very undignified bridal hold as if he was weightless. 

“You’ll thank me, “ he says, careful to not bump into the doorframe.

“I won’t,” Arthur insists, still trying to put on a half-hearted fight as a matter of principle.

And it’s always as a matter of principle that later, as he scorches his tongue with too hot tea, watches the rain out the window and suddenly everything becomes clear, he won’t tell Francis he was right.