Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ VIVA ❯ 16: Fevered Andante and Syncopated with me. ( Chapter 15 )

Note: this part is for Holly and neko-chan for the continuous support and love they have showered on this fic, because that is a very rare thing. Everyone who over the past few months has emailed and begged for more, I apologise profusely for the wait…hopefully it is worth it.

16: Fevered Andante and Syncopated with me.

Rhythm is the primal instinct of all creatures. Some people say its sex, others freedom, others hope and love, but they're wrong. Rhythm is life and life is rhythm. From the moment you come into being, where one cell clashes with another, the symbols that mark each stepping stone of your life are in fact cymbals; crashes of steel and brass that create life, breathe excitement into every pore of your being and teach you how to live. Your heart beats, breath is both inhaled and exhaled and every action of your body has its own feel, its own timing; its own beat. Regardless of your abilities, whether you be deaf, dumb, blind, stupid, genius, indifferent or any other word you think might describe you, you are rhythmic because you are alive. This is the single undeniable truth of existence.

Drummers are the most alive beings on the planet. They are not necessarily the smartest, nor the most talented, or even the most loved, they are simply those most in touch with the base instinct of all life; they are the most alive. The most rhythmic. The most in love with the first and last beats of their hearts and they are the one's who love every beat that happens in between whether it be good or bad. They are the gods of the physical world; the masters of the material monster.

Relena Peacecraft was one of the best, a god among gods; a rhythmic rondo, consistently returning to the first, perfect beat of her own heart and shaping the music of all life around it. She differed from most drummers, even her godly peers, because she did not fill the music with life. Rather, she was a passive drummer and let the music fill her life, before returning the favor. With Relena it was always a cycle of give and take with no end in sight. She let the music rule her and in return was able to rule.

Solo was an entirely different kind of God. One could go so far as to say the exact opposite sort of God. While Relena was passive, Solo was active, tossing all of himself out there, into the world and the music of it, and watching as it all turned to listen to his beat and learnt from him. They were perfectly opposite, and yet they were both gods. Both masters of the same instrument, the same instinct. And the longer Hilde watched them the more she wondered, and when Hilde wondered it was never a good thing.

She approached Relena first. It was just an ordinary afternoon and most of the EO was in class. Bass and Drums had had a workshop together all morning and hence had been given the afternoon off. So Hilde followed Relena to the cafeteria and wasted a whole hour just staring at her friend, trying to figure out a way to ask, to make Relena see that it would work, and work well.

Bass is the instrument closest to the drums. It follows the same patterns, the same course and yet it is more complicated. Drums have no melody, no harmonic structure. The bass has both of these. Subsequently, a bass player is at a distinct advantage when listening to music. They hear the rhythm and they hear the melody but not as separate things. Only with the Bass player is the whole combined, given life and analyzed. Only in the bass do we find an understanding of the structure of rhythm in relation to the rest. Hilde knew this, understood this, and her bass instincts were screaming.

She stabbed at her tuna pasta, wishing it was salmon because the salmon had been brilliant and the tuna was just…sloppy. Someone obviously needed a lesson in how to drain the pasta. Maybe there was a new cook. If there was, Hilde wanted the old one hired, or if the new one was cute then he could be demoted, just so long as he didn't touch her food again.

"You're only making it worse, you know," Relena pointed out softly, reaching over to snatch the knife from Hilde's hands since you really didn't need a knife to eat tuna pasta. Hilde let her have it.

"I want you to play with Solo at the end of Semester performance."

Relena stared at Hilde. Hilde stared back. It was a clash of titans, a sparring between gods and neither knew the outcome. If there were outcomes to such things. Eventually it was Relena who carefully pushed the knife aside, leant back in her chair and carefully folded her hands in her lap, meeting Hilde's gaze levelly.

"You had better have a damned good reason for this."

Hilde just smirked, pushing the tuna pasta aside and standing, already heading for the door. There was much to be done. They had very little time until the concert and she wanted the two kits, playing together. If they agreed she wanted to be able to see Trowa to arrange it tonight. Of course, the hardest part was still to come. Relena was, after all, a passive drummer, prone to reason and consideration. Solo could just say no for the hell of it.

*

"So…you don't like the way people look at you?" Heero thought that was a little odd, but he wasn't going to argue. He had seen the way Duo reacted to certain people, certain tones of voice, particular actions, and he knew there was something instinctive about the disgust in Duo's eyes at that time. Something both natural and unnatural. He wasn't born with it but his life had trained him to it. That fascinated Heero, to whom life had shown little but how to be cold, distant and enraptured only by the strains of guitar strings and the feel of frets beneath his fingers.

"I don't like the way the wrong sort of people look at me," Duo amended, frowning as he stretched the mesh back over the small frame of the microphone he had spent most the afternoon tearing apart and altering before finally starting the process of putting it back together.

Heero strummed a few chords on the guitar, trying to find new formations to get a cleaner sound for the pieces…Trowa would appreciate the effort and trusted Heero to get it right, and there was no way Heero would betray that trust. Besides, he had nothing better to do, the very fact that had led him to track down Duo after class, before dinner in their two hours of recreation.

"How do you know if they're the wrong sort of person?"

Duo looked at Heero as if he thought maybe that wasn't a serious question, but Heero just stared back plainly, fully expecting a response. He was awarded with a heavy sigh as Duo turned his attention back the microphone, shrugging a little.

"I just know."

Heero rolled his eyes and added a few grace notes to Trowa's melody. It worked. Disgustingly well, if he was honest. There was just something about the way Trowa placed the notes. Someone else could write them down in exactly the same way and for some reason it still wouldn't sound the same. It was uniquely Trowa; quiet, insidious, then building until it broke loose, for just a moment, and then quiet again, building…Haunting. Like a circus act gone seriously wrong.

"What about the way I look at you?"

Duo paused, glancing aside at Heero, a calculating look in his eyes before he smirked and his head bowed back to its work once again.

"Are you the wrong sort of person, Heero?"

And Heero supposed that was all the answer he was going to get, so he let the topic drop. They sat in companionable silence for some time, before the door swung open and Trowa stomped in, and almost trod right on Duo…

"Heero, you won't believe…." Trowa looked down at Duo on the floor and the one, lean visible brow rose, curious. "…what's on your floor."

"Hn. It's Duo. Oddly enough, I already knew that prior to your abrupt entry. Lovely knocking by the way."

Duo was looking from one to the other like they were ghosts, or aliens from another planet, or just plain out of their minds. Heero thought it somewhat amusing and made a mental note to mess around more in Duo's presence. He could prove he wasn't always a grump; that he was the right sort of person. Not that he wasn't already, but it was nice to make sure of such things. The last thing Heero wanted was Duo getting revenge…especially since all he had to do was get Heero's guitar and not Heero himself.

"Oh, you liked it? It's new…the sound of no hands knocking, to accompany one hand clapping. Terribly difficult to play, but such wonderful audience effect. I think it would make a great harmonic impact played over four minutes thirty three seconds of silence, don't you agree?"

Sometimes, Trowa Barton was just ridiculous. Heero wasn't sure if it was growing up in the circus, or some inner quirk all his own, but Trowa always managed to take a joke too far and then over the other side of too far and back into just plain ridiculous again. But it was funny…funny enough to get a chuckle out of him and to have spiels of Duo's laughter echoing around the room.

"You did have a purpose in coming in here, I presume?" He urged and Duo promptly stopped laughing, as simply as if someone had hit a switch in his head. Heero spent exactly two seconds wondering if that was normal before he decided it didn't really matter. Not much about Duo could be considered normal. That was why he was at Wing.

"They've put forward the performance. The Auditorium is needed for a three week stint for some new gear they want to install, so they've put the holidays forward."

They…what? Heero blinked, looking up at Trowa and figuring there was no way it was a joke.

"When?"

"We have a fortnight. It's Friday week."

It was…doable. They all shared a knowing look. Heero grabbed his guitar. Duo finished reattaching the mesh to the microphone. Trowa already had his things all neatly packed in his bag. They didn't waste time walking to the concert hall. Running was sometimes so much easier.

*

There was….some sort of noise coming from the strings rehearsal booths. Quatre eyed the rooms carefully, because really they were supposed to be soundproof. He pinpointed the sound to the end room and headed down the hallway, thinking the door must not be shut properly, but when he got there he found the door sealed tight, the black screen pulled low over the small window so he could not see inside. Curious, Quatre carefully tried the handle and it gave slightly under his hand, so he opened it enough to slip through, covering his ears at the cacophony of noise that erupted, slamming the door behind him as quickly as he could.

Inside…everything was awash with dark red light, like it was washed completely in blood. Dorothy was sitting in the middle of the room, Cello in her hands, playing madly and all around her danced blood red notes that flared to life like fireworks and faded as the note droned out. A desk was laid out in front and Wufei and Sally sat there, cables everywhere, fingers twisting at knobs as they yelled at each other over the din. Quatre couldn't hear a word they said. He watched Dororthy, head encased in some kind of weird helmet and he wondered what it looked like inside when the outside was so spectacular. He took a step closer and was almost sorry he did as Wufei looked up, saw him there and…hit the stop button on whatever it was.

"Quatre!"

Sally looked up and the bow slowed, Dorothy's head turning in his general direction. The look on Wufei's face was almost scary, predatory in an entirely not good way. He had another helmet in his hands.

"Get out your violin, Quat," Sally said, waving in the general direction of his bag while she began routing through another input, plugging the helmet in. Just where had the two of them even found all that stuff anyway? Quatre supposed he really didn't want to know and obediently got out his violin, grabbing an amp from the corner of the room and plugging it all in, letting Wufei take care of the power.

The helmet was passed to him and it was with extremely tentative fingers that he slipped it over his head, running a slender finger over the smooth monitor on the inside of the visor. There was something hanging near his ear and when Quatre touched it he realized it was a small headphone, so he slipped it around the ear and then pushed it in. There was another, so he pushed it in too.

There was a second's silence, and then it came on, the screen flickering to life and he realized he could see Wufei and Sally kneeling in front of him, and the wall…there had to be a camera on the helmet. He looked at Dorothy and she was looking straight at him, a grin just visible under the line of her visor.

"Afternoon Blondie." Her voice echoed in his ear and he shivered. This was…eerie, but perfect. "How do you like your dragon's latest toy?"

Wufei had built this? How long had it taken? Where had he found the time, the inclination? Was it something he had built before? Quatre had no idea, but he liked it. He ran the bow experimentally across the strings of his violin and almost fell off his chair as the sound whipped its way through a reverb and synth, returning to route through the speakers sounding similar to a death wail. It was…spectacular. Deafening if the sound were not filtered out for the most part by the helmet. What the audience would hear…would be stunning.

Sally waved to Wufei and hit a switch and a blue light lit up on the board before half the red light sensors at the edge of the room turned blue and there were lines of blue interspersed between the blood. The room looked like a vampire den and Quatre grinned as Dorothy whopped loudly.

"Alright boys and girls…let's see what pretty pictures you can make…" Wufei's voice came through the headphones and Quatre looked at Dorothy expectantly.

"Trowa's," was all Dorothy said and all she needed to say. She started the low drown that would mimic the bass and Quatre counted himself in, watching as the red notes started to float.

When he came in, the notes floating in front of him glowed a dark blue, and it surprised him somehow that he couldn't feel them as they clashed against his skin, disappearing momentarily and as they floated higher they clashed into the red notes from the Cello and exploded into purple fire, disappearing as those below rose take their place…there was no way to describe it.

"Let's make a nightmare, Blondie," Dorothy's voice was amazingly clear and concise over the noise he knew they had to be making. It was a miracle Wufei and Sally weren't deaf…He nodded, fingers stretching lazily as Dorothy worked the intro under them and switched to their finale piece for the performance.

He let the weight fall to the head of the bow and stabbed down with it, letting the strings wail in protest, feeling the give as they sang and drawing back, hard and fast, letting the hair of the bow scratch even as the Cello mimicked, a fourth below, stabbing…back and forward, back and forward. It was so real as the notes danced in the lights around them, walls of neat lines of red and blue that collided in purple rain, over and over, and then the chorus came and Quatre let the string loosen, let the bow slide free, and it sailed, the blue notes twirling over to battle the red until the room was blue, the red falling away, waiting and then….Dorothy was back, the blue died away and the red rose like retribution from the dark.

"Ever wondered why theatre majors come in handy in a music school, Blondie," Dorothy laughed knowingly. Quatre was too lost to reply. He had wondered, but he would never wonder again. It was the unique blend of Wufei's love for Gothic theatre and Sally's obsession with torture methods in theatre and how it can be displayed on stage that had built this, he knew, and he doubted anything would surpass their teamwork.

The music notes shifted, changed and they became coloured shadows and Quatre knew Wufei and Sally were moving, dancing, the lights following them and he could just see what would happen when Duo's dancers were in there, moving, Duo's voice over the top of it all, the guitar, the drums, the bass…The EO were about to outdo themselves, Quatre knew. But he knew what the EO didn't. They were about to destroy every preconception about music ever made. Trowa…had assembled a team and written a song that would recreate every piece of music ever written. Music was…origina