#also amélie made the banner and they both look so Hot i'm ---

[vanishingreyes]

TIMING: Today, in the evening LOCATION: Downtown, Conor’s window PARTIES: Conor and Xóchitl SUMMARY: Music reaches Xó’s ears and she approaches Conor’s window, eager to know who might be producing all that sound. CONTENT WARNINGS: parental death mention

It had been a while since he’d started a new piece. He’d been playing with an ensemble before he got here, and they would practice twice a week all together. He missed that, but he hadn’t really had the time to search for something like that. The shop had kept him busy, and all those new things he learned about himself, all those fae he had met, they’d made his anxiety spike. This was meant to help with that. He always felt better after playing. 

Adding notes with his pencil and his felt pens, the faun was finishing his first read of the first pages of Sibelius’ violin concerto. Usually, his cat ran out whenever he picked up his violin, and today would not be any different. Deciphering a score was not the most pleasant part, surely, but it still managed to fill his heart with joy, even as he noticed which part would be tricky for him. It wasn’t Paganini, thank God, but those damn trills were going to be a damn nightmare.

He could lose track of time when he played, but he tried not to inconvenience his neighbors too much. He’d just arrived in the neighborhood, after all, and he doubted they’d approve of him for long if he played past 9pm. 

The near-summer evening air was cooler than the day, though still warm enough. Which was ultimately for the best, because Xóchitl did prefer the heat - at least if given the choice between that and the cold cold. So a walk was nice, made doubly so by the fact that she’d gotten to leave work early - there’d been no clients after 3pm, and she’d taken advantage of that to go and do some reading at the library. Another small test to see how easily she’d be able to access the archives, the past news clippings, no matter how much she didn’t entirely like the idea of dealing with that.

How much she disliked the fact that Mackenzie’s death hadn’t been a front-page story. Except that, if she were entirely honest with herself, having something like that be complete front page news was likely some great level of entirely inappropriate. 

She glanced around her, the streetlights bringing her out of her thoughts, as was the sound of a violin playing. “Well, I know I’m not in some fancy-ass European city,” she muttered, more to herself than anybody else, “so what’s…” Xóchitl looked up, trying to discern the source of the noise. 

“Nice music!” She called, hoping whoever was playing the music would hear.

It didn’t take much more than two words for the faun’s cheeks to turn pink. A great part of him was tempted to remain away from the open window, another, small part felt bad to leave a stranger alone in the street with her words and, surely, a whole lot of embarrassment at being ignored like that. With a sigh, he dropped his instrument from his shoulder into his left hand and headed toward the opening to look down to the pavement. 

There was a young woman looking around, up at the house facades, trying to point out precisely where the sound came from. It struck him as odd. Conor always had good ears, and never had this problem. Maybe she had bad ears. “Hi,” he gave her a small gesture of his hand, something meant to accompany his words. “Tha-” He stopped in his tracks and offered a sheepish smile. “That’s nice of you to say, but huh, it’s really not…” 

“I mean, I’m not a musician,” Xóchitl called back up, finally having found the source of the music, “so I’m not an expert, but I think you sounded good, and my moms used to take me to the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops, so I like to think I’ve got a decent ear for that, and besides, I like it, so that’s all that should matter, right?” She raised an eyebrow up at him.

“But also, if you don’t consider that nice, what do you like, as far as music goes?” She’d stopped fully now, feet planted on the ground, looking up at his window. “I’m Xóchitl, by the way, just so you know the name of the woman who’s decided to talk to you in the middle of the night.” She made a small face, “I play piano, by the way. So maybe I know something about music.”

“You’re from Boston?” He hadn’t been in Boston in years. His whole family lived there and that was precisely why he couldn't go back. His accent still remained, after all this time, in the way he dropped his Rs or rounded his Os. 

His cheeks turned red and while she commented on his music taste, he tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. "It's not that I don't like what I'm playing, but I'm just reading the notes right now. It has no heart right now…" he paused . "Give it a few weeks," with a small smile, he set his violin in his lap, sitting against the window sill. "I'm Conor, I work downstairs," he explained. She told him she played the piano. He frowned. "I thought you said you weren’t a musician.” Shifting lightly, he glanced down at her : "how long have you played?"

“Lived from when I was eight, but no, I’m from here.” Xóchitl made a small face, again, before shaking her head. “I mean not literally here, I grew up on World’s End Isle. Which doesn’t have a lot of kids. Or didn’t. I don’t know what it’s like now.” Mackenzie had visited all the time. Even if the house was up for sale, Xóchitlwas pretty sure she wouldn’t have been able to live there again. It was bad enough being in the town, going back to her childhood home that probably had “Mac and Xó, BFFS 4EVER” carved into her closet door would’ve been entirely impossible.

“Are you inviting me back in a few weeks, then?” Her lips curved up into a smirk. “I’d be honored.” Xóchitl gave him a small wave as he sat at his window sill. “Flower shop? I’ve been meaning to stop by, so now I’ve got enough more of a reason to.” At his question, she paused. “Twenty-one years, I think? I started when I was eight. How about you?”

“Ah, well I got here a couple of months ago. You must know Boston better than I know the area,” the faun assured her, leaning his back against the window’s frame to get more comfortably seated. “I have only been there for wedding venues. I didn’t take much of a look around,” he didn’t have much time for that. “People don’t like having kids at weddings nowadays. It’s a bit sad.” Sure enough, they were loud, and they kept moving around, but he remembered he liked weddings back when he was a little kid. Maybe he didn’t though, and he just liked spending the whole day with his mother instead of waiting for her to come back home from work.

“You want to come back in a few weeks?” Conor looked down at her, and catching her smile, felt his cheeks warm up a little. Was she making fun of him and questioning his word or did she really want to listen to the progress? "Huh, sure. If you want," he glanced down at the front of his store then back at her, or rather at a spot on the window sill. "Oh I started when I was 6 years old," with a half shrug, he glanced up. It wasn't precisely a lie, and it beat telling her he'd practiced for around 60 years. "You know, I think that makes you a musician." He noted, unsure of what she might have meant by that.

“I might, yeah.” she kept her gaze focused up toward him. “But I’m not a tour guide by any means.” Xóchitl nodded, “That’s true. My moms had me at their wedding, but to be fair, they couldn’t legally get married until just about a year after we moved.” That was too much personal information, and Xóchitl involuntarily winced - backpedaling a few steps. “It is sad, I mean, I get it sometimes, but never wanting kids anywhere seems a bit weird.” She and Mackenzie had gone with Mackenzie’s mom more than a few times to help cater events - she was a baker or a cook or something that Xóchitl couldn’t quite remember just this moment, but she did remember eating frosting out of a bowl next to her friend, feet hitting the doors underneath the countertop.

“I’d like to.” She offered him another smile. “We can communicate from the window again, I’m not inviting myself in, unless you’d like that.” Xóchitl sighed. “Two years before I did, then. He looked to be roughly her age, maybe slightly older - though she’d never been too good at guessing ages. “Well, then I’ll accept it, even though that won’t make me change my actual job, it’s nice of you to call me that.”

“Oh, no, I don’t want a tour,” Conor preferred exploring the area at his own rate, without rushing through town. On his first day in town, he had gone for a walk in his neighborhood, and ended up enjoying a stroll by the sea front. It was a nice town, if you could forget about that weird smell that enveloped it now for months. His garden provided for a nice change of air, but even his flowers weren’t enough to completely fade off the scent of rotten eggs and charcoal. 

“Oh you have two moms?” He fell silent, as if digesting the information. “I have one. I have no dad though,” he was happy to keep it at that. Conor had just gotten used to write parent as a singular word, that was all. His father wasn’t worth thinking about. Conor felt he’d have felt even better had he not existed at all. 

“That’s no way to listen to music,” he protested. He wouldn’t invite people over, he couldn’t bring himself to, but he wouldn’t allow for this either. “We could meet elsewhere?” The town was large enough, and offered enough options when it came to meetings with strangers. “I suppose. We look about the same age,” he gave her a small nod. “I don’t think you need to make it your job to call yourself a musician,” was it how that worked? You could play music for decades and still not be considered a musician? 

I wasn’t offering one. Xóchitl nearly said, but Conor was being nice, so she held back. “Yeah, that makes sense, and I mean I know some ways around town, but not having lived here in about two decades makes me not the best choice. 

“I do.” She nodded at his comment. “Well, my moms have always been married, so I also don’t have a dad. I - I’m sorry you don’t, though, if that was something you wanted.” Having two moms had always been the best for her - though she didn’t know of any other way, of course - but Xóchitl liked to think that even if she had the chance to have had a dad, nothing could ever have topped having the two best moms in the world.

“Sure, we could meet elsewhere. Whatever works for you, though I suppose if you want me to play, we’d have to go somewhere where there’s a piano. My house is always an option, but that might be too soon.” Xóchitl fought off a smirk. “That’s fair. Also maybe it’s just personal preference? I don’t know. If you want to consider yourself one, then I say you are.”

“That makes you a terrible choice,” Conor agreed. He wasn’t sure how much the town had moved in over 20 years, but it was safe to say that she didn’t remember much of it either way. How much did he really remember of Boston outside of the block around his mom’s apartment, aside from the way to school, or the park? 

He gave her a shrug. He didn’t like talking about that. “I’m glad you had a happy family,” not that his family had been unhappy, but they weren’t the sort you found in picture books. Every father’s day, Conor was one of those rare kids who came back home with a present he couldn’t give to the right person. His grandfather collected them dearly. He wondered if things would have been different for him, with a father. He wondered what would have happened if his father had stuck around. His expression darkened the more he thought about it. He tried to shake it off before she would notice. 

“Huh, yeah. I am pretty sure you’re not supposed to invite strangers over to your house,” even if he knew her name, he didn’t know her, aside from the piano playing or the two moms thing. “I play music, and so do you. We’re musicians,” the faun rose to his hooves, turning around to come lean his elbows on the edge of the window instead. “Don’t you have one of those portable keyboards?” 

“It does, I’d agree.” Which at least meant that there was little-to-no chance he’d ask for her view of the town. Which was something she was more than happy to have anybody not ask her about. Even if Xóchitl couldn’t pretend that she’d never lived in town (hell, there were still diner workers and librarians who’d known her twenty-one years ago), she could pretend like she didn’t still have a good portion of the town’s layout memorized. If only because maybe, somehow, that would help with figuring out what happened to Mackenzie.

“I’ve never taken that for granted.” She knew not to. Xóchitl also knew that her moms wouldn’t have faulted her for anything, but that was just another reason to love them. The fact that they truly did love her unconditionally. She’d elected to make cards and gifts for both of her mothers whenever the class did father’s day things – of course, she celebrated mothers’ day with both of them, but more gifts for them were never bad, and she’d taken to glaring at any teacher who questioned what she was doing. Thankfully, very few ever had.

“Seems like one of the first rules regarding stranger danger, huh?” Xóchitl offered another shrug. “Okay, so not that. We do both play music. We are musicians.” She offered him a bright smile as he came to the window. “I can see you better now, so that’s nice. But - yes.” Or she could buy one, because she preferred her non-portable piano. “Sorry, very good point, yes, I can bring it just about anywhere.”

“You shouldn’t take them for granted,” he paused. “They’ll be dead soon.” She looked about his age and he seemed to have forgotten, for a moment, that this was only true for him. Conor was nearing his seventieth year. Of course his mother was close to passing away. 

He returned to Xóchitl her smile, as though he never said something so grim. “That would be lovely, I look forward to it.” It would be nice, playing with someone again. 

“If you like it enough, we could ask around if others would be interested in playing with us,” he took a look down the street. “But I’m getting ahead of myself,” and a red tint colored his cheeks once again. “We can go buy music sheets across the street. The shop owner, Leti, she probably has them,” he paused. “Any piece you’d like to do in particular?” 

“I - yeah.” Reminders of death never sat well with Xóchitl. Because Mackenzie hadn’t been supposed to die when she did, they weren’t even double digits in age, and everything had gone wrong, then. “That’s true, I guess. Except they aren’t that old. They’re not even sixty, yet.” But he probably hadn’t meant that in a rude way. Maybe he was just far more matter-of-fact than other people were. “I look forward to it too.”

Xóchitl nodded, “that could be good, we can see about it.” She nodded again, “Leti? I know her, actually. She’s wonderful, and she’d have excellent taste in music, so I can tell that you’re smart, and you’ll do well with this sort of thing. Logical. If that makes any sort of sense. But I’d be up for anything - whatever strikes your fancy.”

Sixty. About his brother’s age. He didn’t want him to go so soon, but Conor knew he had no control over it, and that all he could do was cherish whatever time he had left with his loved one, even if he could never see them again. 

“You can tell that I’m smart?” Because he knew the woman across the street sold music sheets? “I’m really not that smart,” he shook his head, although didn’t care much to do more to dismiss her words of kindness. “Anyway, I’ll pick a sonata tomorrow. We can meet sometime this week to read it and start practicing right away,” he didn’t take her hesitancy to choose something as anything else but that. It didn’t occur to him that perhaps she was avoidant to get herself out of the interaction. He knew people lied all the time, and yet it never occurred to him that they did. 

“I mean, I’m not an expert on qualifying what is smart, but yes. Besides, aren’t you trying to make a good impression on me? It’s perfectly fine to say that you are, even if it’s a bit of a lie.” Xóchitl shrugged. “Well, you seem at least passably smart, then. You are a nice conversation partner, and I’ve enjoyed this.” She nodded, though she didn’t know if he could see that. “Sonata is perfect, and should I give you my number, or would you prefer to be called upon on the street again?” She’d only not chosen a piece because of her curiosity about what he’d pick. Nothing more - other than the fact that she was tired and didn’t want to try and think of one at the moment.

“I’m sure we’ll be experts in no time.” Xóchitl let her lips curve into a smile that was nothing but kind; a gentle sort; because the idea of playing music not all by herself was a very good sort of idea.

It’s fine to lie? His eyebrows curled. No. That was not fine. Lying was not fine. “Passably smart, alright, I’ll accept that,” shifting to rest his hip against the sill, he looked down at her, pointing toward the store front beneath him. “Just knock on my door, alright. No need to complicate very simple things, is there?” 

He gave her a shrug as his only answer. He wasn’t sure experts would be the term. He had played for over 60 years, he was beyond that. If she had been playing for 20 years, he was sure she would be fine too, had she been serious about it. “See you then,” Conor gave the girl a nod and a small wave. He’d never been great with social cues, and it was no wonder he bumped his head against the window’s edge as he stood back up and disappeared beyond the curtain. “I’m fine,” he called out. Stupid.