Chapter Text
Spirit,
Winged with the thirst for life,
Is drawn into flight
On the summits of negation.
There, under the rays of its dream,
Emerges a magical world
Of heavenly forms and feelings
Spirit playing.
Spirit desiring.
Spirit creating all with a dream.
Surrenders to the bliss of love.
Alexander Scriabin
The echoing clacks of Jayce’s leather Oxfords against the marble flooring of the concert hall bring forth a melancholy so deep, it almost resembles nausea. This concert hall, the largest in the academy, with the late Cecil Heimerdinger’s name tacked onto it, feels akin to a home he is no longer permitted to enter. The fifteen-row orchestra, ten-row mezzanine & balcony—it is all too imposing on Jayce Talis, as he knows that his place is now there, in the audience, with the common listener, and not on the stage. He is not the star of the show. He is not the sensation, the one to bring forth minutes upon minutes of applause. He does not receive flowers, or expensive liquor bottles, plaques and interviews and shoots and attention. That had ended years ago, in a deeply explosive self-destructive injury. A shackle, a pain shooting up his spine and into his rapid fingers if he presses his foot into the una corda for too long. He now walks with a brace, a permanent reminder of the years he has to leave behind. It is loud only to Jayce, his pant leg crinkling against the metal as he takes his front-row seat.
Today, Salo is performing. A solo concert, put together by… Jayce, sort of. Beethoven’s first, second & third piano sonatas. It had been a struggle, teaching the stubborn young man. Jayce had never intended on taking him on as a student, feeling that their personalities, their performing spirits, completely clashed. And they do, it shows in his studio, as he guides his fingers into position, as he listens in on his progress. Another instructor would do Salo good, but it is unfortunately not up to Jayce. Not in the least. He is, without a doubt, a talented pianist. A nuisance of a student, despite that. Jayce is the first to arrive, surprisingly. Were it up to him, he would forego showing up at all, but courtesy is courtesy, and his profession and status does not award him the luxury of skipping his own student’s concert.
It should be about ten minutes until the concertgoers start filling up the hall, twenty until Salo takes the stage. Which means Jayce has ten minutes of lonesome time to stare at the stage, longingly gaze at the grand piano, reminiscence and reminiscence and reminiscence! It is the small things he reminiscences about, the sweeping of the tuxedo’s tail as he takes a seat, a nod towards the page turner, the inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, closing of eyes, relaxing of the jaw, clearing of the mind, before his fingers press onto the keys. The full-body control, a language spoken with himself only. Constant, continuous, harmonious. The crowd does not exist. There is nothing beyond the piano, nothing but the keys and the pedals and the strings inside, pulled taut as he plays, calling them to life! How unfair it is, to watch another pianist perform brings none of the satisfaction he was able to bring himself. The full-body shivers of ripping his hands off of the keyboard after the final note. A pin in a coffin, a climax, akin to an orgasm. It is painful to remind himself of what he has lost, of what he cannot do anymore, and so it brings forth a certain relief that people have started filtering into the hall, distracting his mind from the continuous self-flaggelation. There are plenty of familiar faces, patrons of the academy, previous students, upper-class snobs with a faux taste for the arts. Many faces he had seen in his own crowds, years in the past. Older now.
A short, stout man takes the seat to his right. They acknowledge each other with a curt nod. Jayce is sure the man is aware enough of who he is. Cassandra Kiramman, regretfully, enters his field of vision, and seems to be en route to the seat to his left. Her navy dress slinks against the slender, aged muscle of her body, hand-crafted for her figure, flattering. She, of course, makes sure to stare him up and down with a certain disdain reserved only for him, before sitting down. “You couldn’t have worn your better suit tonight?” She looks down at her watch, “This one looks… dreadful. Did you change your tailor?”
“When did you decide to start having opinions on my closet again, Mrs. Kiramman?” It is not a conversation Jayce wants to be having, seeing as he is already in a sour mood, but Cassandra Kiramman disregards anything that does not please, or benefit her. It is something he has gotten used to throughout the years. She does not dignify Jayce with a reply, only shoots him a stern glare as the people pass by their seats. The commotion is white noise, static in the back of Jayce’s mind.
Once the crowd has settled, with pamphlets in their hands, the lights dim, the noise softens, and softens, into a mute tension. A mutual waiting. Anticipation, hair standing up straight on the back of a bony hand, a gleam in an eye as the spotlight gradually brightens up the stage. Silent awe, and then footsteps, crisp clicks against the stage flooring. It is not Salo that takes the stage first, but the page turner. Jayce knows this, not just from years of experience, but from the unfamiliar, soft sound of a rubber-tipped cane alongside the stepping. Salo does not walk with a cane. His eyes lock onto the figure making its way across the stage. He can hardly see him, just a slender little thing, with a slightly nervous gait, until he stands below the spotlight. It is then, in the thick stillness of the concert hall, that he gets a proper look at the young page turner, and suddenly, the decision of taking a front-row seat does not feel as useless as it had at first. Every movement, every tendon, ligament, bone, muscle in the boy’s body seems to call for Jayce’s attention as he takes his seat next to the piano. It is unexplainable, the pull Jayce feels. Curious. So curious. He leans forward in his seat, just a little. Unnoticeable.
Jayce is half-aware of the star of the show’s entrance, having tuned out the applause coming from the audience as his gaze stays firmly locked onto the page turner. He swears, that for a second, their eyes meet. It is quick, easily missed, but deeply charged in a way that has Jayce questioning if he truly must be losing it. Cassandra is sure he is. Maybe she’s right, for once. As Salo takes his seat, Jayce fumbles for the pamphlet in search of the page turner’s name. There are many names, many contributors to sift through. His own name is credited, right below Salo’s. Cassandra’s too, headmistress. There are multiple familiar names, unworthy of his attention, quickly and unceremoniously scanned and ignored.. and then he spots it: Viktor Reveck, page turner.
Reveck. The name rings a bell, somewhere in the depths of his mind. He is sure he has seen it before, but no matter. What matters is that he has an identity. The pamphlet is held tight, to the point of his fingers making permanent dents in the paper. Viktor. It stands out, underlined in his mind’s eye. He looks up, swaps the vision of the name for the person it is attached to. He knows not a thing about this young man, has never seen him before, and yet… he feels as if there is something there. Some connection. It is crazy, Jayce knows, but he feels as if the universe is begging him to seek out the boy. And then, out of some otherworldly forgiveness from said universe, some call from the world to snap him out of his head, the music starts.
Salo is not a stiff pianist by any means. He plays like you would expect a pianist of his status and experience to play. Smooth, not perfectly seamless to an eye, or ear trained to Jayce’s level, but graceful enough. It is enjoyable. It is music. Carried out with some passion for it. Not love, Jayce thinks, but emotion enough for it to stand out, to pierce your mind, or your ear. Not your heart. That is not the sort of pianist Salo is. He is driven solely by his head.
Beethoven’s first sonata is a playful one, in Jayce’s opinion, not fitting for a man like Salo. Despite this, he plays well. Jayce must pat himself on the back. Salo is eons away from the stubborn, overzealous but admittedly mediocre pianist that he had been when he first stepped foot into Jayce’s studio.
It is somehow clear, though, when the page turner, when Viktor, turns a page for the first time, that there is something in the boy. Some desperate passion, fascination. A longing to be the pianist. Somehow, Jayce thinks he is the only person in the entire audience that had heard the crisp turn of the page, the only one to pin all of his focus onto the slender, nimble movement of Reveck’s hand. Reveck is focused, he is as deep in the music as Salo, perhaps even deeper. His eyes are peered, lips slightly pursed, and he does not falter when Salo eventually reaches the last note available to him. The turnings are smoother than the playing, despite his hands twitching, playing along in his lap. Itching.
For a man unlike Jayce, it would be shameful to admit that the music has become secondary in his observations. For a man unlike Jayce, it would be wise to force himself out of watching the admittedly less important part of the show. But Jayce is himself, and deems whatever catches his interest the most to be the focal point of the event. The music may be secondary, a dull ringing in the back of his head, but it does not take away from his appreciation of the show. There are more pressing matters when he is faced with a person that stands out in this way. He has never considered himself a scout of talent, and really, there is not much talent being showcased here, and still… it calls to him. To him specifically, and nobody else in the crowd.
The show is over faster than Jayce would realise, and it is humbling to realise he held no attention to the main course of it whatsoever, could not remember any specifics, or if Salo had made any mistakes, a flat note, a silence lasting too long. It was only when Reveck had reached for his cane to stand, and the audience’s roaring applause, that Jayce had realised it was over. He stands himself, cheers as is expected of him, and discreetly, albeit a bit ridiculously, thinks to himself that the laudation should be for Reveck instead of his own student.
The hall is quiet. A bouquet of flowers lies flat on the desk in front of Jayce, a finger of whiskey next to it. It had been two hours since the concert had concluded, and Jayce hadn’t stopped thinking of the Reveck boy for even a second since he had first laid eyes on him.
It is not often that he stays behind, in the quiet of the concert hall’s backstage, as doing so triggers the endless feedback loop of mourning the performer’s life, but now it had felt impossible to bring himself to leave, or, God forbid, join the post-concert gathering. He used to take a small amount of pride in going to those gatherings, back when they were all about him. They were not his favourite, having to act as Cassandra’s little show-pony, but he did enjoy the praise, the teary-eyed, star-struck crowds of people more than he would like to admit. Now, he realises it would do him no good to stand in the corner of the room, shaking hands with persons that do not care for him if he is not in the spotlight. Thinking of it hammers in the fact that he has grown into a man unrecognisable even to himself.
It is well past nine in the evening, and just as he is about to bring himself to his feet, he hears a sound. A note. It comes from the main hall, the stage, to be precise. Somebody is playing the piano. No, not somebody. There is an unexplainable feeling, deep in Jayce’s gut, that tells him that the Reveck boy must be the one out there. The two of them had been the only people to not join the gathering, and Jayce had not seen him leave the building. A cord snaps. Jayce almost shoves the chair back, clattering onto the floor as he jumps to his feet. He does not even prepare himself for disappointment, as he struts through the room towards the door into the main hall. The possibility of it being anybody but Reveck sits far back in his mind, barely even crosses it, as he pushes the door open to the middle of the hall as quietly as he possibly can muster. Of course, Jayce still feels an inch of surprise, of giddiness, when he sees that it is him, the Reveck boy. Jayce deludes himself into thinking he is able to see his fingers drift across the keys, the furrow in his brows. He is curious as to how he plays, considering he must have a weak leg. The cane Jayce had taken note of lies against the grand piano. It is then that he recognises what is being played. Schumann’s Carnaval, the 7th section, Coquette. Jayce almost laughs, disturbing the otherwise quiet room. The short section of the piece, jumpy and frilly, portraying a flirty young woman, is played with fervor, the young pianist almost embodying the coquette in question. It almost feels as if it is being played to Jayce, despite Reveck not knowing he stands there, a peeping tom.
The section finishes by the time Jayce has taken a seat, barely a pause before he transitions into the eighth section, Replique. A reply to the coquettish young flirt. Reveck has not noticed his presence, deeply entranced in his act, and it is with a melancholic thought that Jayce realises just how much it reminds him of a youthful version of himself. Truly, though, he is entranced. Never in his life has he allowed himself to sink back into his seat, to truly take in the music, the talent of the pianist. It would be outrageous to say out loud, but Reveck is the first pianist to ever capture his attention, bewitch him entirely, despite the boy being quite amateurish. It is not that he is bad, far from it. He plays with soul, a certain passion, heart and brain and body that Jayce rarely sees in his students, or even peers.
It is only when Viktor reaches the 12th section, Chopin, that he notices Jayce’s presence in the room. Their eyes meet, just for a split second as Viktor snaps out of his trance, and in an instant Jayce sees them widen. He is quite distant, but there is no mistaking the instant anxiety and fear that floods the boy’s psyche, his movements turning flighty. The air is instantly sucked out of the room, his fingers hurriedly ripped off of the keyboard as he clambers to his feet, reaching for his cane with a shaky movement.
“Mr. Talis, sir, I–” he trips over his feet, a scramble to defend himself. “I just wanted to test the… the piano, to see if it needed any tuning. I’ll leave, I apologise.” A shameful sense of pride fills Jayce’s body, watching the confidence drain out of the young pianist. Reveck knows him.
Jayce stands up, opting to move towards the boy instead of replying, and when his hands come up to a slow clap, it somewhat eases the tension in the room, in Reveck’s body. Every step against the floor feels much louder in the hall than it had before, both due to the absence of a chattering audience, but also due to the pin-point laser focus the two of them have on each other. It should feel suffocating, this quiet energy, but through Jayce’s tunnel-vision it is something else. Electrifying.
He stops about three meters away from the stage, in front of the first row of the orchestra, and brings his hands down to his sides. “You know who I am?” Jayce says, clasps the hands behind his back. An offer of civility. Viktor almost breaks into a scoff.
“Is this a joke? I can assure you, Mr. Talis, there’s no need to humiliate me even further–” Jayce laughs, low in his throat, at that. Perhaps his attempt at humility fell flat.
“That was not my intention. I’m not upset at your playing at all. You can continue.” This close to the stage, he is just barely able to see the reddening of Reveck’s cheeks. A rosy dusting complimenting his handsome, sharp complex of a face. From where Jayce stands, there is finally a chance to truly take in the boy, the angles of his cheekbones, unbearably sharp, the moles dotting him down to his neck, one under his eye, another atop his lip, and one, a little astray, peeking out from under his shirt collar. It is impossible to detail how drawn he is to the boy. It is not attraction, not lust, he thinks, and although Jayce is impressed by his ability to play, his passion and determination that causes his performing to stand out in the midst of an epidemic of mediocre musicians, that is also not entirely it. There is something else, something unexplainable, unattributed to the workings of the human mind. Rooted deep in Jayce’s mind, beyond his years of playing, experience, multitudes of received respect, there had always been a piece of him missing. A piece so detrimental to his psyche, that he could not contain himself at times without it. That roaring, unstable part of himself is almost quieted now. Silent, leaving his head clear, almost as if the boy intends to slot himself into place in his mind, fill up that space. It is silly, utterly deluded, as Jayce does not know the boy at all, and yet, the thought drives him to walk along the stage, up the steps, walking, walking, slowly as if Reveck were to run away would he approach too fast.
The echo of his last footstep before coming to a stop next to the boy is loud in the empty hall. He guides towards the stool in front of the grand piano. “Sit, it’s okay,” he tells Reveck, giving him a moment to take a seat once more, still flighty in his movement, “continue from the 12th section, Chopin.” He hears a stuttering exhale as Reveck’s fingers find the keys once more. Then he begins to play, as if all previous nervousness promptly decides to exit his body as soon as he hits the first note. It is a short section, as they purposely all are in this specific work, and yet it betrays no emotion, fills the hall with sound and sentiment and excitement and Jayce is elated. If his leg would not betray him, he’d waltz the floor with joy. An itching, desperate part of him longs to correct Reveck, to slow him down, to interrupt his playing with a firm stop, a familiar word to Jayce, echoing back into his own mind in a sterner voice, Cassandra’s voice. To hold Viktor’s hands, press into the knuckles, like this, have him repeat the piece over, and over, and over again, until it’s perfect. But Viktor is not his student, not yet, and so he holds back, and allows the boy to finish. He concludes the section, and before he gets the chance to continue into the 13th section, Estrella, Jayce claps, applauds the boy enthusiastically.
Under the ceiling’s spotlight, the boy looks heavenly, his tousled hair forming a halo on the top of his head, a shy spread of colour on his cheeks. It is as if God himself had sent him down to Jayce’s enclave as a test of some sorts, despite Jayce’s relationship with Him being less than it was. Jayce longs not to pass the test, but to mangle it, turn it on its head, break it down, down, down, and build it back up again. He longs to rip a plant out of its soil, and replant its seed, direct the stem, the flowers, the fruit into unfamiliar, exotic shapes and patterns. Over, and over, and over again, until an oasis is built out of the effort. The thrumming of his heart is loud in his ears, his twitching fingers aching to do something!
“Where did you learn how to play like that?” Jayce asks, although a million other questions beg to be let out. He can tell Reveck’s body is still attuned to the piano, a strenuous attempt to will his hands to not continue his playing, and it is as if he is looking into a mirror, reflecting the young man he once was. Reveck looks up from the piano after a moment, his eyes glassy.
“My foster father taught me.” Reveck replies, a tremor in his voice, his pink tongue swiping at his lips for a second as the words leave his mouth.
“No classical training?” Jayce takes a step forward, hands itching to rest atop Reveck’s slender shoulders, shake the boy a bit, as if information would rain out if he were to.
His hands, still hovering atop the keys, come to rest on his thighs. “No, sir.” Jayce wonders if Cassandra had even inquired about the page turner when he had signed up to assist with the concert. Probably not.
“How did you find out about the concert? Usually it’s students that turn pages.” Viktor looks up, and then down at his own feet, cheeks reddening once again as he wracks his brain for a response to Jayce’s question.
“I lied. Pretended to be a student. There was a flyer advertising it outside of the academy.” The reply does not shock Jayce, not at all, and of course nobody had bothered to check if the boy had been a student or not. Jayce had barely come near anything to do with the concert, apart from teaching young Salo how to play the music. It is wholly impressive, and now he sees something else within the boy. A strive to be a part of what he is not invited to. Make place for himself. It only causes Jayce’s intrigue to grow, a need to turn this aspiring young boy’s want to become a part of the academy a reality.
“Can I sit down next to you?” Viktor nods, scooches over a bit, looks the other way as Jayce takes a seat next to him on the stool. There is a sliver of space between the two of them, barely an inch that prevents their thighs from touching, their feet from crossing. Jayce turns to look at the boy, taking in his face, his body language, how the strands of his hair frame the rest of him, the slope of his nose, and the underfed, lurching part of him that is not visible to the naked eye. The need to be something. Jayce wants to bring that something out, wants to reach into the depths of his figure, air out the valves of his heart. He is aware that if he stares too long, holds eye contact for a moment more, he will potentially scare the boy off, and so he starts speaking.
They speak, and speak, and speak, until the clock turns a few minutes into an hour, and then two, and three, and it all feels timeless. A void, a rip in the rules of physics. His knowledge is impressive, on music, composers, theory, philosophy and politics, the aching, aching feeling of playing to nobody but yourself. In the middle of a talk of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, Viktor looks a second too long at Jayce’s wristwatch, his eyes widening, presumably at the hour.
“I’m sorry, sir, I need to get home, the last bus is about to leave.” He reaches for his cane, scrambling to pull his suit jacket back onto his shoulders. Jayce’s own firm hand stops him from getting to his feet, a grounding press onto his left shoulder, burning through the fabric.
“I’ll drive you home. Sit still. Don’t worry about it.” It is as if the words and touch stun Reveck, an electric shock to his body, pinning him down onto the stool, freezing his expression. At that moment, Jayce realises something about himself. He wants to do this again, see that expression, the subtle spark of obedience, again, and again, over, and over, and over.
“I couldn’t possibly ask that of you–”
“You didn’t. I’m insisting.” Jayce is rewarded with a bashful silence on Reveck’s end at the words. He simply nods, looks down at his fidgety, flighty hands in his lap, clenches them into fists, once, twice. The air has thickened in the spacious hall, a tension developed that had previously been there, an undercurrent, but had amplified tenfold. Jayce is reminded of the old masters, of high Renaissance painters, and if this is how they had felt, in discovering a young student, or a muse. It is all he longs for, for this boy to become his protégé, a smaller, more slender, refined version of himself. Perhaps not, perhaps something unlike himself. A picture of innocence, a cherub with his instrument of affection. The agape to his eros.
Jayce has an old manual car, a vintage, with leather seats, and a sleek, black paintjob. It had been a gift from Cassandra, a man of your status shouldn’t resort to those ugly new models, she had said. He agrees, in a way. Appreciates the old aesthetics, a reminder of a past where he would watch these same cars drive by from a church window, his mother’s voice beckoning him back to his seat in the pews. An old habit of his that he has long phased out of was to find new, fascinating things residing in his daily movements. A drop of milk in Cassandra’s earl grey, swirling to resemble a vine twisting up a building, or a vein, still and pulsing underneath the skin. A misplaced note in a composition, played out to sound dissonant, and yet fascinating, to be left in the piece. He finds himself going back to this habit when Reveck slides into the passenger seat. The white of his exposed wrist contrasting against the jet-black leather seat. The crooked crossing of his feet. He looks candid, and timeless, like a film camera picture, developed twenty years after its taking.
Jayce shifts into reverse, backs out of his parking spot, shifts into the first gear, and they’re off. “You drive a manual?” Viktor asks.
“I do. I prefer it.” It is true, he does prefer it, greatly. “Keeps my eyes on the road.” Especially after… he shakes his head. It will do Jayce less than good to think of that with Reveck in the car. Viktor hums. Unsuspecting.
Jayce asks Viktor for his address once he’s left the parking lot, and it is wholly unsurprising to him once the address leads him to the outskirts of Piltover, bordering Zaun. The house he stops in front of is old, quite ghastly in a way, tall, with an unkept garden. A light is lit in a single window on the second floor, illuminating two decorative, rusty hooks on either side of it. Jayce is able to spot the silhouette of a man through it, slender and tall. Reveck the older, he assumes.
“Well, thank you for the ride, sir… and for the night. I hope you’re able to forgive me for….” Jayce chuckles, rests his hand on the gear stick. There is only one way Jayce is sure he is able to convince Reveck that his apologies are unnecessary.
“I’d like you to become my student.” It is an offer he has never even thought to propose to anybody else, something he hardly ever saw himself thinking, as his position as a professor, a mentor, is something he still grapples to accept. Yet, it feels right. Perhaps a bit rushed, but there is nothing he would like less than for the boy to step out of the vehicle, never to be seen again. To lose this as fast as he had found it. Viktor, understandably, remains silent for a moment, his shock reflected on his face meeting Jayce’s.
“I-I can’t possibly accept that, I don’t have the funds, and I’m sure the headmistress wouldn’t allow it after I–”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself. There are full-ride scholarships available, and the headmistress won’t be a problem. I’ll talk to her.” Jayce replies. “I’m sure she’d be elated with me taking on another student.” The car is silent, save for the engine’s purring. Reveck does not reply, simply remains seated and still. Jayce does not blame him.
“My studio is on the second floor of the classical wing, and my last student leaves at four-thirty.” He turns back to the steering wheel. “I know you’re smart enough to find your way there.” Reveck still says nothing, but Jayce takes note of the silent acknowledgement. The chances of Reveck rejecting him, of not showing up, are incredibly slim, he is sure. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Reveck nod, reach for his cane, and swing the car door open.
Once he’s swung his legs out, found solid ground under his shoes, and gotten to his feet, he pauses for a second. “Goodnight, Mr. Talis.”
“Goodnight, Reveck.”
“Viktor. You can call me Viktor.” And that is that. The door is shut, a crisp sound as it slams close, and their eyes hold contact for one, two, three more seconds before Viktor turns and walks towards his home, the cane’s muffled clicking causing Jayce’s ears to ring. He does not drive off until the boy has closed the front door behind him. He tests the syllables of his name, Vik-tor, in his mouth, repeats it as he drives, over, and over again. Vik-tor Re-veck, Vik-tor Re-veck, and it is the first time in years that he does not think of swerving off the road on his way home, of leaving his body battered and bruised and dead for an innocent bystander to find.
Once Jayce enters his home, the clock reads fifteen minutes past one in the morning. The shucking of his jacket, left on a stool by his door, the removal of his shoes, one remaining standing on its side, are hurried and not careful in the least. He loosens his tie as he makes his way to the living room, an oil-on-canvas portrait of his mother staring him down as he makes a beeline for the piano. He sits down, opens the fallboard, and starts playing. Starts composing, off the top of his head. A note, a chord, scales, and it comes to him easier than it ever has. The hours come and go, and come and go, as he plays, and plays, and plays, only taking a break from the keyboard to write down the notes, and it is hurried, and possibly unexplainable and unplayable to anybody but himself, but he finds he does not care. What matters is that it exists, that the piece is not left in a state of limbo, that his emotion and passion and what-else is evident. And he thinks of him, the boy. He thinks of Viktor, thinks of what he could do. A man of lesser artistry would perhaps see it as obsessive, and perhaps it is, but to Jayce, it is a saving grace. A reminder of what he is capable of, of the person he is. Of the person he will mold Viktor into.