E.Q.--The Last Christmas
The last christmas for the boys before the defection.
December that year was hard on Felipe, hell the whole year was. Arpeggio could see it in the languid lines of his shoulders, the often distracted answers, forgetting things. Even coloring his hair was lazy these days, a flat red color for the last couple months.
He was just....tired.
"Fel?"
"Hm??"
"...never mind."
Arpeggio was trying to clear time for them to enjoy the holidays but it was hard. As the illustrious Trancer 42, the hardest of busts and the most important of control situations usually went to them. Gigs for election rallies. World series games. Tree lighting ceremonies being lined up like figurines in a collection. He could reduce their office hours to only clocking in on gigs but even that felt exhausting. Arpeggio had to admit it to himself one day as he glanced in the bathroom mirror.
Darkened circles beneath his eyes told a story of little restful sleep. Even he felt his skin was paler than a clump of snow.
"Jesus, I look like death warmed over," he said to his reflection. He recalled that Felipe had the same signs of exhaustion, and sighed.
"We both do."
~~~
Felipe lay across their couch that night, languid arm over his eyes as Arpeggio was making dinner. Despite the fact they had made it back earlier than usual, 6 pm, it felt like 10 to the both of them.
"Fel, how much bacon do you want on this sandwich?"
"Uh...whatever," he replied. His voice had the husk of soreness.
He came out of the kitchen and set 2 plates with large sandwiches on their coffee table. The faux redhead didn't even bother getting up for nearly a minute.
Arpeggio chewed his slowly as he spaced out by watching their window. It had begun to rain, and the light caught the streetlights. Amber beads rolled down the dark window.
"Pege," whispered Felipe.
"Yes...?"
"I'm...I'm tired." His voice sounded just....dead.
Used to deeper meanings to even the simplest of words, the Tchaikovsky's Child put his sandwich down and looked at his partner. Feeling there is more, he stayed quiet.
"I....I'm tired. I'm so damn tired." His whisper had a small hitch in it.
Arpeggio got up and sat next to him on the floor. He, after nearly 16 years with someone who wore his emotions on his sleeve, still had trouble trying to find the right actions, words, or even music to communicate. His shoulder rested gently against Felipe, the physical contact was what he hoped was the "right" response. It bothered Arpeggio. That he constantly had to question which responses to people, especially people close to himself, were "correct".
His partner moved his arm, looked down at Arpeggio who stared at him with his usual placid face though the eyes were concerned. He took a deep breath and sighed.
"I'm sorry. ...I shouldn't complain. You've been tired too." He reached over and brushed some of his jet black hair from his forehead. "You look practically clear these days, Pege." He gave a half-hearted chuckle. "You're gonna look like the visible man if you're not careful."
Arpeggio took his hand and gave it a squeeze. "Fel. You don't have to pretend. Not around me. Please. Its....its heartbreaking...."
It was the last word that got Felipe. That he used the word "heartbreaking". His face quickly crumpled and he took a deep, shuddering breath before he started to cry. It wasn't body wracking, but it was so full of despair.
The fact he's so tired that he can't even cry as hard as he can see he wants to hurts Arpeggio to the core. He gets off the floor to hold him, and he just pulls him into his embrace. They sit in the living room, food cooling, just holding each other. The raven-haired musician cried to himself too. He couldn't tell if it was because he too felt so despairing and tired....or if he was feeling Felipe's emotions right through him. Felipe ended up crawling into bed, and Arpeggio wrapped their dinners up, setting them next to the last 2 nights of dinner half eaten. He crawled into bed behind him, and they both fell asleep.
Arpeggio wept softly, holding Felipe. It was a long, hard night.
~~~
They took the next 2 weeks off, and while Emi gave them a lot of grief over it, when Arpeggio told her it was final and set their armbands and badges on her desk, she accepted it with a grumble. It was for show but it was a show she bought.
"She works through every holiday, even Christmas," Felipe muttered. "She ain't human, I swear."
"Agreed. Now let's clean up the desks, we won't be back til after New Years." Their office was pretty clean anyhow, but they packed up a few things from the desks. Felipe was packing a secret, small, frankensynth into a box that Arpeggio pretended not to see, then stopped. Like a jump cut, his body language changed from lighthearted if tired, to exhausted and completely drained. His face was anguished. He leaned on his desk, his head bent down as his flyaway hair obscured his eyes. Small tears began to hit the desk.
"Fel?" Arpeggio asked, his voice really concerned.
"Its...its not even done," he says between sobs.
"...What...isn't?"
"Your...your song. I haven't gotten a single thing...not a single note." He cried, softly, so no one would hear. "I haven't gotten a single thing done....and I've tried. I've tried so damn hard, Pege...but....nothing. Nothing comes out."
Arpeggio takes a few seconds to let it sink in before he sets this box on the other desk and pulls him into another embrace. He can't recall a recent time when he's felt he's had to hold Felipe so often. Even his last nightmare cycle didn't require the amount of reassuring he had been doing lately.
Or was he trying to reassure himself? That by holding him, it would make things better, even for a short amount of time?
Or was he trying to keep his partner from falling to pieces?
"Let's go home, Fel. We're tired."
Felipe nodded, dried his face, and after a few breaths, seemed to be calmer. But the depressed aura around him hadn't evaporated, even a little. If anything, it felt as if it had grown thicker.
~~~
Felipe let himself feel inconsolable for the next day or so. Arpeggio could finally see how hard he must have been working to pretend he was just fine, if tired from the month, to everyone else. Even to Trancer 8392. Enough to even fool Tungsten. He tried to get to the laptops, his synths, to try to get something out but he'd simply sit there and stare at the machines, his eyes faraway.
Arpeggio ended up entirely scrapping the song he had started himself. He admitted privately as he shredded the music sheets, that he hadn't liked a single thing he'd put down. He kept working, as if it would resolve itself but it wasn't until Felipe had his small anxiety over his that he realized it wasn't really what he wanted to do with it.
They moped around the apartment for a few days, listlessly going about the motions of living, but neither of them really spoke much. They gave up on the music for the time being. It was the first time Arpeggio actually felt a rut he couldn't escape from. Something told him that while it wasn't Felipe's first rodeo, this also wasn't a normal occurrence.
Christmas Eve, they were sitting in the living room, instruments on the table. They had been sitting next to each other, and everything had been listless, unproductive work.
Felipe finally cut to the chase, his voice deadened. "You think...we're tapped? Like...this is it? We're...we're through?"
Arpeggio's heart skipped a few beats because he isn't sure what Felipe means by the word "through". He looked at his partner and the alarm in his eyes must have made Felipe rethink what he said because his black eyes blinked in surprise.
"Not us," he said rushed. "I mean....us. Music. I mean. Work is...work." He tried motioning with his hands. "Work...you don't think, you just...do what they say you do, with the pieces they give. Doesn't feel like making music. So I don't mean that. I mean...making music...." He drifted off because he was frustrated that he can't articulate what he means.
But its something about what he said that made the TC put his hands up.
"Work...you don't think, you just...do what they say you do, with the pieces they give."
Felipe stopped talking. Waited.
Arpeggio can hear it in his mind's ear. He couldn't pinpoint the actual "when" it had started but he could hear it clearly. When Trancer 42 had started, Felipe would bend the rules, bend the samples, making music but toeing the line between sanctioned Music Corps work and music. There was life in their pieces, its what made them recognized, efficient....untouchable it seemed.
Then....after a long, long time...Felipe's hand was left deft. More automatic, almost robotic. Like the children's game where someone starts a gesture and everyone follows in such a way so that eventually you can't tell who started and who's just miming, he couldn't tell if it was the Corps "style" from his own training leaking into their style, or if he was taking cues from Felipe.
But at some point....Trancer 42 stopped making music...and had deftly fallen into line.
"...you just...do what they say you do, with the pieces they give."
This isn't the Felipe he knew. Not anymore.
"When...did we stop making music...?"
Felipe KNEW exactly what he was asking because he himself was questioning it. By the time he was able to notice....they'd been playing the MC's tune so long he couldn't tell when it started.
His face had a look of recognizing, melancholy, and something like relief. "...Its...its not just me then." It wasn't even a question. It was a statement.
They say it at the same time, as if rushing to reassure the other: "I'm sorry." It quiets them for a long time.
Then, as if something in Felipe woke up after a long sleep, he snapped, "Well fuck that." He took up one of the laptops and started on his music making program.
Arpeggio watched him for a bit before his partner glanced at him.
"What? Ain't we gonna jam?"
Arpeggio could see the barest of glimmers of that spark in his eye. He gave him a small smile.
"At least hook something up to record it."
It wasn't the most ideal Christmas, and the both of them knew something had changed. Maybe something had changed so much that going back to the days they couldn't remember was now impossible. But even Arpeggio knew something had changed. Not between them, just around them.
A few months later, Arpeggio was staring at his partner, his face facing the window as they watch police cars finally pull away from their latest bust. He's putting his violin back in its case after tuning it.
"I don't want to do this anymore."
They were the words he was expecting to hear. He had a script to say, he knew what he had to do to defer this urge. He knew what he was trained and told to say to keep him in the Music Corps, what he had to do to protect the Corps, protect its integrity, its grip on the world, at the cost of running their best musicians into the ground.
He's never told Felipe since they ran that he wasn't trying to see his resolve in leaving; he was planning this moment since that Christmas Eve. He just never thought he'd be doing it the way it turned out.
"I want out, Pege."
