Chapter Text
Shane Hollander was right on time, of course.
That is, he must have been, because when Ilya peeked through the cracked door to the rehearsal room, his accompanist was already seated at the piano, playing a tune Ilya didn't recognize by ear. Prokofiev, maybe?
He barely glanced up when Ilya entered, and only after Ilya rounded the piano could he get his first close look at Shane's face. He was just as, if not more, breathtaking as he was from a distance, with doe eyes and full lips and a constellation of freckles covering his nose and cheeks. "You're late."
"By six minutes. Hello to you too, by the way," He propped his violin against the wall and shed his coat, hanging it next to Shane's on the hook by the door before turning to look directly at him. "My name is Ilya Rozanov. It is nice to finally meet you in person."
"We've met," Shane retorted, still looking at his iPad. "Everyone knows who you are."
"I could say the same for you, Shane Hollander. They say you're boring. Very uptight, too."
"And they say you don't respect other people's time."
Ilya laughed, eyes never leaving Shane's face while he lifted his violin case to unpack. "Wow. You are really this upset over five minutes?" It wasn't like Ilya at all, actually, but he'd bumped into his String Pedagogy professor at the building entrance, and it would have been rude not to stop and chat.
"Well, it's six past ten. Eight past, actually. So closer to ten than five. It's unprofessional," Shane finally turned to scowl at him. It was very cute, Ilya thought. Like a rabbit stamping its foot. "And so is putting your instrument on the piano lid."
"Relax, Shane Hollander, I will move the case when I'm done. It's not full of coffee. The piano will be fine."
"You could just unpack it at the table," Shane gestured to the surface in question, where Ilya had already set his water bottle. "Then you wouldn't have to move it at all."
"Maybe, but," Ilya looked up as he dusted rosin over his bow hairs, meeting Shane's glare with a smirk. "Maybe I want to get a good look at my very annoying, very pretty pianist before we play with each other."
"I'm not pretty. And I'm not your pianist," Shane said, schooling his expression and turning back to his iPad. Ilya had been sure that even a musician would blush at an innuendo like that, but it was hard to tell when Shane's freckled cheeks were already pink with irritation. A pretty sight either way, he thought. Especially with those nerdy, thick-framed, unfathomably sexy glasses. "And we won't be playing anything if you don't hurry the fuck up and tune."
Well. That wasn't cute, exactly. More like…. Ilya shook it off and brought his violin to his shoulder as Shane hammered the A4 key with a little more force than necessary. Tugging at his pegs and listening for perfect fifths from string to string, he wondered how many other ways he could get under Shane Hollander's skin if he was this flustered already. The idea of winding him up 'til he snapped was as enticing as it was– as Shane had put it– unprofessional.
Unfortunately for Shane, they were in an educational setting, not a professional one.
As promised, Ilya moved his case to the table and propped his own printed sheet music on the metal stand that had already been placed and adjusted for him. A bit lower than he would have preferred, but he had most of the piece memorized anyway. "Maybe you are normal polite Canadian after all," he said, lightly tapping his bowstick on the stand and giving Shane a wry look.
"You're welcome," Shane rolled his eyes. Ilya just smirked, waiting. The smug expression that haunted every conductor who'd suffered the emotional rollercoaster of Ilya Rozanov: Concertmaster seemingly had no effect on Shane, nor did the way Ilya ogled his broad hands and long, graceful fingers as they hovered over the keys, waiting. He stared right back and said, "So, from the top?"
Ilya set his bow as if he didn't have a two-measure rest before coming in. Still, he couldn't help himself. "Or, we could start from the bottom."
"Very funny. So that's a yes?" Ilya only hummed in agreement. He could have sworn Shane was going pink again.
He counted in under his breath and trilled out the delicate opening notes. Ilya humored him for exactly thirty seconds before letting his bow skid over the bridge with an obnoxious screech. "Woah, woah, Hollander. Why are we going so fucking slow?"
Shane gave him a look of disbelief. "The tempo is andante malinconico," he said slowly, as if speaking to a child. "And this is our first time rehearsing."
"Yes, andante," now it was Ilya's turn to roll his eyes. "Moderately slow. Not a fucking turtle's pace–
"–Snail's pace,"
"Whatever. We do not have to play at snail's pace even at the first rehearsal,"
Shane's lips twitched as if to argue back but he stopped himself, rolled up the sleeves of his midnight blue crewneck, and poised to play once more. "Fine. Let's start at performance tempo. See how far we can get."
"OK. Is that what you want?"
"Doesn't matter. I don't do what I want–"
"Except learn two hours of one composer's violin repertoire that you never use–"
"Fuck off. I do what's professional. And it's professional to start slow. But you're the soloist, so…"
"So what I say goes?"
"We'll see about that," Shane muttered, his lips pursed. Unreadable, which was annoying, but Ilya could work with it. "Alright. Fifty-two BPM it is. One, two, one, two…"
Ilya wasn't a complete idiot. He knew what game Shane was playing. He was waiting for Ilya to trip up and eat his words. The poor guy clearly underestimated just how much Ilya loved a challenge. And possibly how well he knew the piece. He drove the point home by speeding up through the animato phrase, which cost him a few of the many, many 32nd notes that followed, but it was worth it. A three-bar rest was plenty of time for him to flip the page and to catch the way Shane's jaw tightened as he hammered out the tense, rhythmic chords introducing the main section. Ilya launched into the first motif, and it was Shane's turn to start ramping up the tempo, well past the written allegro ma non troppo.
With his fingers flying effortlessly through the next series of Saint-Saëns-signature insane scale variations, Ilya half-zoned out to review the mental file cabinet of Shane Hollander Facts he'd been gathering for far longer than he cared to admit. He was in the third year of his undergrad, known for being excessively serious even by classical music standards, solitary despite his devastating good looks. As an accompanist, he was highly sought after by fellow students, which was perhaps exactly why he accepted so few requests. He'd been spotted holding hands with Rose Landry for a few weeks sometime last year, but now they were distinctly friendly. And he'd gone out with Scott Hunter twice. Nobody's perfect. At least he seemed to have a thing for male string players. If BoCo's ancient principal violist could woo him, then surely Ilya had a chance.
Most importantly, he harbored a passion for the violin works of Camille Saint-Saëns. A passion strong enough to agree to perform every one they both knew and, eventually, maybe record an album. Even better, he'd agreed to begin with the most difficult piece in their shared repertoire. In fact, Introduction et Rondo Capriccioso was one of the hardest pieces ever written for violin, but Ilya had been learning it for six years, and by this point he could have gone through most of it in his sleep. He'd never had the chance to play with a live pianist before, so this was shaping up to be the best day of his life.
Especially, he thought, when his pianist was so devastatingly gorgeous. He watched those hands leap from octave to octave, introducing the next melodic development, so mesmerized by the blazing focus in Shane's dark eyes that he almost, almost missed his cue.
Ilya ripped his bow across all four strings and let his hand fly into the eighth position, relishing in the shrill cry of the highest notes of his E string, racing down to the raspy moan of his G string, climbing back up for a showy harmonic. This was his favorite passage; the one that encapsulated everything he loved about the piece and its composer. The visceral abuse of the instrument's full range, the thrilling whiplash of tension and release. It made him feel alive and alert like nothing else ever could. He glided through the rest of the solo section without a hitch, and was sure they could make it to the next piano break if not all the way to the end, but Shane stopped them four bars into the key signature change and stood abruptly.
"What are you–" Ilya started to ask, but Shane was already stepping in front of him, pulling the pencil out from behind Ilya's ear, and tapping on the stand. He had opened his mouth to speak, but stopped dead when he got a good look at Ilya's sheet music.
"What the fuck is this?" he demanded.
"Violin part," Ilya shrugged, playing dumb. "Only one music staff. Very scary to look at for Mister Piano Genius, I know."
Shane glanced away as if to an invisible audience. "Concertmaster, asshole, world class comedian. What can't he do?"
Ilya had to work very, very hard not to lose his cool and let out a real laugh at that. Instead, he raised his eyebrows, waiting for Shane to go on. "You don't have an iPad? A binder? You don't even accordian-tape it?"
"Binder for orchestra music because I have no choice, yes. For solo work, I keep it in my case." Ilya shrugged. Shane wasn't the first person to give him shit for his sheet music organization– or lack thereof– but no one had ever been this genuinely offended by a few loose pages. Ilya was enthralled.
"And you just print off the first edition you find on IMSLP?"
"Doesn't everyone?"
Shane gaped. "Yeah, in high school, maybe. But you're telling me you don't have an iPad for sheet music. And you're a masters student."
"Yes. That is why I spend all my time in the practice room, not at Apple store in line for expensive toys." He waved his bow around Shane to indicate the Bluetooth page-turner resting by the piano pedals. Shane rolled his eyes.
"What, like it takes more time than standing around in the library waiting for your shittily formatted IMSLP transcription to kill more trees instead of buying the part online for five bucks? Or at least going to the music library? Did you even look?"
Touché. "But you didn't cut off our perfectly good run-through to talk about shitty formatting."
"No," Shane seemed to remember his purpose and dragged the pencil to the spot where they'd stopped, tapping the borderline illegible text over the staff. "You do know what con morbidezza means?"
"I'm a masters student," Ilya mimicked. He tucked his violin under his arm and leaned in, as close as he dared, to Shane's pretty pink lips. "Obviously."
Shane went very still, and his breath audibly hitched. He composed himself and thumped the pencil against Ilya's chest. "Then fucking play like it," he snapped, and returned to the piano bench.
"You had to work that hard to find a problem with my playing, hm?" Ilya teased, internally punching the air when Shane took a deep breath before speaking. His eyes were fixed on his own fingers as he ghosted over the left-hand part of the piece, correcting his already perfect technique, but he was almost smiling now.
"You have the dynamic range of a police siren, you subdivided like a psychopath in the 32nds run at the end of the introduction, you dig into your G string like you're trying to murder it, your decisions on where to deviate from the bowings and articulations as written are questionable at best. I could go on, but we're short on time. We'll start at the con morbidezza again, and if you actually play con morbidezza, we'll keep going. It's called expression text, Rozanov. You should familiarize yourself with it instead of just bullshitting the most important turning point in this section. Any questions?"
Ilya knew then that he could never invest in an iPad, because he had to start saving for a wedding ring right this instant. "I question your definition of 'most important,' but I will let it slide."
"He wouldn't change the time signature for the first time since the introduction if it wasn't fucking important."
"Actually, it is changing for the first time," Ilya argued, jumping at the chance to push a few more buttons. "Because, see, the 'introduction' is just a very short first movement to this very short piece. The real introduction is the allegro ma non troppo, rehearsal mark A, then at C you have the development with that very sexy G chord, and the recapitulation begins at D, F, or G depending on interpretation. There is so much important change from one motif to the next. Boring time signature change on a melody variation is nothing."
Shane took the bait again, yanking his hand from the keys. "The 'real introduction' is called the exposition, asshole. So, even if you're trying to argue this is in sonata form, which it's not, your application is missing an entire component. I'll give you one measure. Put your violin up."
Ilya obeyed without a word, already half-hard and mourning the loss of his instrument as a shield. He started the section with less than an inch of his bow, at first out of spite, then for the fun of a dramatic crescendo into the next phrase. There was no denying just how well they played together, making it all the way to the ad lib. section, both of them fucking up tremendously, but never falling apart so badly that they had to stop. Ilya rolled the final chord and lowered his violin. He extended his sore left wrist and rotated it gently.
Shane caught the motion. "You up for the pìu allegro?" he asked.
Ilya shook his head, his bow arm already aching at the thought of a whole page of straight 16ths. "I don't think so."
"Maybe you would be if you'd shown up on time and actually warmed up."
"Maybe, but we are done anyway. It is ten forty-five."
"Time flies when you're late." Shane said shortly, tucking his iPad and stylus into his bag. Ilya followed suit, packing up and hiking his violin case over his shoulder as he pushed the door open.
"So… Friday, same time?" he asked, one foot already out the door. Shane paused in his dusting the piano keys with a microfiber cloth and looked up, scowling at Ilya's outstretched hand.
"Ten, no later," He stood, coming face to face with him again. Nothing could have prepared Ilya for Shane grabbing his forearm hard and holding him in place. "Show up late again, Rozanov, and I'm out. Okay? Don't waste my fucking time."
"You are so cute when you're mad," was all Ilya could manage with his dry throat.
Shane let him go with a little shove and turned back to the piano.
The cruel hand of fate drove Ilya down the hall to his 11AM chamber rehearsal, instead of back into the room to bend Shane over the scuffed Steinway and–
He sighed through his nose and refocused on the humdrum Haydn quintet that forced him to maintain eye contact with Scott Hunter while they guided three half-awake undergrads through the second movement. He wondered what possessed someone to write not one but two viola parts into a chamber piece.
He wondered what it would take to get Shane Hollander's dick in his mouth.