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sucrosette · 4 months

Text

★— ⋆｡˚ [Things Missed]

For Day 26 of Carry on Countdown 23, Angst @carryon-countdown

Basil's finally ready to talk about the accident and Simon's there to listen, of course he is, he's not about to walk away.

Rated T for themes, language, & trauma talk.

This is part four of the Nurse/Lawyer AU. Just one more to go - I hope you enjoy. 🖤 [Part 1][Part 2][Part 3]

⋆｡˚ BAZ

Some days, I really miss the hours spent feeling my fingers stretched over the neck of my violin, plucking swiftly over the strings. I miss the feeling of the bowstrings reverberating noise under my strokes, the effortful, emotive playing that pushed me to sweat with effort. I even miss sitting my chin over the chinrest and just holding position in anticipation of playing.

I can still play, beautifully even, but I’m not the soloist I once was. I might have been playing sonatas in music halls across all of Europe at one point. I was good enough, I was more than good enough. I can’t do that now.

I usually manage ten to fifteen minutes before my bow hand starts shaking and my neck’s screaming for relief. Oh, there are workarounds, sure. I’ve tried the extended neck braces that eliminate the need for the chin rest. I’ve used the mobility bows that have the wrist straps, removing the need for my grip entirely. It’s just not the same though.

I had fifteen years of playing before the accident happened. It was a lifetime of habits I had needed to unlearn and repackage and… it’s not that I couldn’t have gotten to my old skill level with enough time, enough practice, but… I started to hate playing. I don’t want to hate playing, but every time I’d fuck up a simple chord progression or hit a note wrong or fumble due to relearning, that feeling would surge up inside of me. My body still wanted to play the way it knew best, and I still wanted to let it, and every time that urge clashed with the need to relearn it would put me back a whole day, sometimes more.

It hit a point where even just thinking about practicing would make me nauseous and angry, so I just stopped. I don’t want to hate playing. I love my violin. I focused on my physical therapy instead. I went to therapy. I got to the point where I am now and I changed course.

I switched to law school.

I cried a week over the decision and I had to speedrun undergrad but overall I’m better for it. I don’t hate my grandfather’s violin every time I look at it. I don’t feel frustrated just existing in a room with it. I don’t get jealous of other violinists who play half as well as I do for having just the slightest mobility advantage over me.

I can hold my bow again, position my violin and play my heart out for a full ten minutes without dropping anything or shaking and botching my play. I might not be able to do some of the more complicated pieces I once did, but what I can play, I play perfectly, just the way I remember, just the way I like. For ten whole minutes, it’s like I’m no different than I ever was, and I find that beauty I make in music and let my violin sing for me. She’s my oldest friend. I can’t hate her.

When Simon first hears me play, it’s a bit of an accident. I don’t really play for people anymore, since I can’t play long and sometimes I have to conclude a piece early when I start to feel my body react, so of course it’s a bit of an accident. It’s just my sisters I play for when I play for people now. Otherwise, it’s just me. I play alone and let myself have my memories of what once was and I put her down to reminisce another day. We share a peaceful relationship, an old friendship, but it’s not something I feel most people particularly need to witness. I aim to play alone.

It’s not that Simon doesn’t know I still play, he does, I’ve told him. Besides, she’s seen the violin, she’s seen me rosin the bow and tune my instrument. She got me a custom rosin case for it for my birthday, the very first we’d spent together— Simon is more than aware that I still play.

it just feels intimate in a way I haven’t quite been ready to share. Fifty-fifty odds I’ll cry at the end, or even halfway through. I like Simon seeing me strong, confident, and maybe a little cocky. I’ve been vulnerable, of course, I met him freshly stabbed and all, but this is a different thing.

So it’s a bit of an accident. Simon's been stateside for a friend’s wedding— she’d been her best mate in school— and I’m not expecting him home that day, let alone these ten minutes of the day I’ve chosen to play. I could've gone to the wedding with him, but I thought maybe meeting someone the week of their wedding might be a bit presumptive of me, especially with our relationship being fairly recent. Besides, the caseload at work’s been busy and I’d’ve had to fly separately, Simon's invested in his tickets an era ago and I don’t particularly want to fly over the Atlantic alone. I’ve offered to take Penny and her husband-to-be on a cruise together at some later date and we can get to know each other then, when they’re not so busy with pre-wedding and during-wedding and post-wedding.

Simon tumbles through the door about two minutes after I’ve started but I don’t hear him. He’s still at the door when I finish. Thirteen minutes later. I can feel my hand aching a little but my neck’s doing alright, so I’ll take that as a good day. I blink over at Simon, realizing he’s really there as I carefully settle my violin back into her stand.

“You play beautifully,” Simon says as she closes the door, “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

I blink back the way ears in my eyes. It takes me a minute to find my words, but I shake my head to tell him that he hadn’t. I find my confidence and breath and ultimately find it’s not uncomfortable for me to have Simon seeing me play. That’s a relief. Unsurprising, ultimately, but no less a relief. “You’re early?”

“Ah, yeah,” Simon answers as she kicks off her shoes. I’m already moving to help with his bags while he explains, “Pen’s already on honeymoon and originally I’d wanted to stay over to see some sights but I just missed you so I checked to see if I could catch an earlier flight and here I am.” She does a silly little wave of her hands and it makes me impossibly bloody fond.

“You missed me that much?” There’s a touch of teasing there and Simon punches my arm for it, but he doesn’t use any strength to do it, and just sort of scrunches his nose in annoyance.

“Of bloody course I did, you prick. It’s been a whole week already…”

I hum as I follow Simon to our room, helping him unpack when we get there. I pause to nudge his side and when he turns my way I catch him in a kiss. “I missed you too.”

It’s an easy admission. “Of course you did,” Simon says it like it’s obvious.

it is obvious.

We work through unpacking him in relative silence, a companionable quiet that tells me both how tired he is and how happy he is just to be home. I’ll ask him all about everything after he’s gotten some sleep in him, reset properly from the jetlag over some food. I’m just as happy to have Simon home again too. I missed existing with her the last week.

“I’ll let you hear me play again,” I say apropos of nothing, except I can still hear those words in my head. You play beautifully.

I know I do. Or I knew I did.

The declaration stops Simon midway from tossing his dirty wash in our hamper, but only for a moment. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, whenever I play next.” It’ll be tomorrow. I play almost every day, so long as it’s not a snow day.

“I’d like that,” He answers with a soft smile, “I’d like it a lot.”

I love this about Simon. He’s just so bloody understanding. I don’t understand how he doesn’t press or complicate or assume anything. We just finish getting through his unpacking and collapse into our bed and cuddle close.

I think he’s fallen asleep already when his voice catches me off guard, but maybe I’d been the one closer to sleep. “Are you gonna tell me about it?”

“Not tonight,” I know exactly what he means without asking, “But soon, probably. After you tell me all about how the wedding went.”

Simon hums and snuggles in closer and I melt around him, letting myself relax with him, letting myself feel how much I missed him. I can feel Simon melting in my arms too. I’m too tired for anything else, he’s too tired for anything else, and it’s so bloody easy for us to fall asleep like that, tangled up in one another.

⋆｡˚ SIMON

He doesn’t tell me the next morning, not after all the talking I can manage on Pen’s ceremony and dress and everything. It’s a lazy morning. He called in to work from home (“No court days?” “No court days.”) and we slept in and stayed in bed hours longer and I still had three whole more days off work. I’m not in any rush to find out, I’m just happy I’ve gotten to hear him play now.

I ramble on and on about the States and everything that I’d missed about home and weird little language differences and all the things Pen had gone on about herself during our downtime. I think Baz might know her better than he thinks with how much I talk about her, but I’m not mad he didn’t come with me. I just missed him.

I don’t ask. I don’t need to ask. He’ll tell me when he’s ready.

I’m happy to linger in lazy mornings like this forever, if he’ll be here with me for them.

⋆｡˚ BAZ

I keep thinking I’m going to tell her, and then I don’t. I keep thinking I should bring it up, but then I don’t. It’s just such a bloody happy day and I’m such a greedy, selfish sap. I want to keep it a happy day. We deserve more happy, lazy days.

I do play my violin for him, just like I’d said I would. I only just make it through about eight minutes today, but Simon smiles so beautifully for such a simple piece.

I’m going to tell him, I know it, just not today. Today I want to keep his smile just like it was when he woke up, refreshed and comfortable after a week out of our bed. I want to keep her just like this forever.

⋆｡˚ SIMON

It’s about two weeks later when Basil wakes up in a cold sweat next to me. It’s not the first time I’ve witnessed his night terrors, we’ve lived together far too long by now for me not to be at least a little familiar with them, but normally he goes through the motions quickly enough that I barely have time to comfort at all. This time must’ve been particularly visceral. I sit up beside him and he still hasn’t budged an inch, except to curl in on himself. I touch carefully, brushing my fingers through his thick, dark hair, brushing his bangs aside so they don’t stick to his sweat-slick skin and hum.

I hum whatever he’d played me last. Something by Bach, I think, but I’m not good at classical music. I am learning, a little, but I still can’t tell Beethoven from the Greatest Showman and apparently the latter is a musical, not a classical composition. I’m learning. Baz smiles whenever I get something right.

He unwinds enough to roll himself over and into my arms and I wrap him up like I’m a security blanket made just for him.

“Bloody nightmares…” His voice comes out in rasp, dry and angry, but I don’t push, I just hold him like that until he stops shaking, until his breathing settles out against my chest.

I glance at the clock. Twelve more hours till work. I can nap after this all settles if I need more sleep. I have time. “Think you can sleep again?” I ask it as gently as I can manage.

Baz shakes his head against my chest, but it’s alright, I just keep humming while he sinks deeper into my arms and the tangle of blankets around us. If there was less time, I’d even call out, but there’s plenty of time.

“I think I want to talk about it.”

⋆｡˚ BAZ

I’ve surprised him, I can tell. His mouth is doing that little ‘oh’ thing that she only does when she’s caught off guard. Maybe that’s fair, I haven’t talked about for long enough that maybe she was never truly expecting me to, but I have wanted to.

⋆｡˚ SIMON

He presses a kiss to the hollow of my throat and it brings me back to my senses enough to encourage him to keep going. “If you’re ready.”

Basil hums again and nods along, “I’m ready.”

I press a kiss to his temple and wait. I have time. I can always wait where Baz is concerned, but he doesn’t make me wait long. It spills out in chunks, but I fill in the blanks well enough. Trauma’s like that, I know, sometimes memories just don’t come back clean.

⋆｡˚ BAZ

I was twenty when it happened. It was winter break and I was driving back home for the holidays. The road had been slick from the storm but it was only a four hour drive, a little longer if I went easy, and I always go easy when I need to. So I’m headed home and thinking about what to get my sisters in the meanwhile and not at all worried about the process of getting there.

Of course, it was never me I had to worry about. A truck twice the size of my little Beetle comes hurtling down the opposite side of the road at a good twice my speed. It must’ve started hydroplaning at the exact right moment to cause him to swerve right into me.

There’s no time to react, no time to brake or swerve or anything at all.

There’s only the truck’s blinding headlights on a collision course straight for me.

I can still feel the hear the sound of the metal crunching together in front of me. I can still feel the pressure of the airbag going off against my face, against my hands. The way my arm had hit the center dash and turned blue almost immediately. The whiplash from my head flinging back so suddenly, the wrongness in my neck.

Simon’s petting through my hair as he listens to me, taking everything in, kissing my forehead again, and then pulling back enough to pull my hands up to kiss them too. She’s patient through it all and it’s not until the lull in my story that I realize I’ve been crying. Just a little. Just quietly while I go through it.

I lose myself in the realization for a moment, thoughts dissipating into nothing. I’m not sure where I was in the story, or where to pick up, it’s just all sort of a blur anyway. I let myself have my tears about and Simon, my sweet Simon, kisses my tears away and holds me closer through it.

“Is that what your nightmares are about?” Simon asks when my tears start to slow and I’ve worked myself further out of that ball of stress.

“No,” I answer, and it feels a bit silly, but also not at all. “My nightmares are… they’re about the first time I picked up my grandfather’s violin, after I’d supposedly healed enough to try again, and I dropped it.”

⋆｡˚ SIMON

Baz chokes when he confesses it, loses his voice halfway through the word dropped, but his mouth still forms the word it. My skill in lipreading fills in that blank too. “You don’t have to say more if you don’t want to, you know. It’s okay to be done talking.”

He hums low and shifts our hold so he’s more holding me now, wrapping his legs around mine and practically clinging. I don’t bother to resist. I don’t mind comforting him like this either. It’s plenty comfortable in Baz’s arms too.

“I don’t think there’s much else to say,” Baz breathes out when he finds his voice again, “If there is I can’t recall right now.”

I nuzzle his chest and tangle us up that much more thoroughly. “It’s alright, love… if you want to talk more later, I’m always here for you, alright?”

“Alright.”

“I love you.”

⋆｡˚ BAZ

Simon quiets in my arms after that and I can feel my exhaustion creeping up again. I press a kiss to her temple and let my thoughts drift away from my nightmares, from my spotty memories, from the little Volvo I had once loved so much. I suppose it saved my life that day, gave it’s own for me. If cars have souls, I hope it's thriving somewhere.

I let myself drift to thoughts of Simon, of our life. Of the time we’ve had together so far, of the time we’re going to have together. I think of his soft hair and softer marshmallow scent. I thought it was a perfume or cologne at first, but no. That’s just Simon, sugary sweet.

“Hey, Simon?”

She murmurs her own soft, unintelligible acknowledgment against my chest and I can tell from the weight of him that she’s drifting back off already.

“Thank you,” I say into the mess of her hair and she makes a happy little noise. Her own of course, anytime, always, without the mess of words. She makes me so bloody soft, so bloody comfortable. “I love you too.”

Simon’s little noise repeats itself and I can feel a smile crack my lips, just a little bit even after all the emotions thinking about the accident can give me.

“Rest well, love,” my words fall soft and Simon’s already gone, and I think I can manage the same. I think, probably, without dreaming terrible things all over again.

#Carry On Countdown #COC 2023 #baz pitch #simon snow #snowbaz #carry on fanfiction #my writing #there's more of this to be posted #Bigender Nurse Simon Snow (He/She)#Lawyer Baz Pitch #soft snowbaz #emotional hurt/comfort #tw: car accident #alternating pov

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