Summary: How is it possible to be so close to someone, yet still so far away?
Prompt: "Dee teaching Isaiah some piano, like the movie Ghost with piano instead of pottery"
In the twilight zone between slumber and consciousness, Dee reaches out reflexively, expecting to feel the solid, if not familiar, warmth of another body curled up against him.
His hand falls upon empty sheets.
Bolting upright, now startlingly awake and heartbeat pounding in his ears, he looks around expecting the worst. That’s when Dee hears it, the plinking hesitance from the other room of unsure hand playing with a piano rather than playing it.
Of course Isaiah wouldn’t have left without a word.
Dee drags the sheets behind him as he leaves, shuffling out to confirm his assumptions. Isaiah looks up from where he’s seated at the piano when the fabric rustles against one of the countless music scores scattered about Dee’s apartment. Most of his compositions are still playable, but there’s been a distinct lack of musicians left alive and sane enough to play since the Civil War.
“Apologies, cat. I, ah, couldn’t sleep.” Isaiah offers by way of explanation, the expression on his face shifting from curiously guarded to pleasantly surprised, “Did I wake you?”
No but your absence did, is what Dee wants to say. He does not, of course, ask about how it is possible to feel so very close but still incredibly far away, or the way sometimes Isaiah stares through him as if Dee was transparent.
Instead, he smiles back and shuffles across the room, leaving the sheets where they are. He slides up behind Isaiah on the piano bench when the other man moves forward to make room, “I was getting up anyways. Do you know how to play?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“Here,” Dee murmurs, leaning head against the warmth of Isaiah’s back and taking his hand, “It’s easier than you’d think.”
Isaiah sighs, a slight rise and fall of his shoulders. Dee recognizes the timbre of this particular sigh, the soft exhalation Isaiah often makes when he lets Dee talk him into something.
“Sure thing, cat,” Isaiah says, his voice rumbles pleasantly against Dee’s ear and there it is again. The sound of him handing over control to someone he trusts.
Summary: Sometimes it's hard to remember that there was a time before Rapture's fall.
Prompt: "Maybe some sort of drunken run-in back in the old days, before Fort Frolic was closed"
He wouldn’t have been surprised if Dee didn’t remember. The alcohol had been flowing freely, the hour was late and the alleyway lights were dim. Isaiah could have been any tall dark stranger that night. There was no reason for the pianist to remember the feel of his lips, or the soft empty promises dragged out by liquor.
Dee’s eyes widened, making a small hurt noise when Isaiah moved to break away. Guess he remembered after all, Isaiah thought, and smiled as he leaned back down.
