[ Verso has a low, gravelly voice that feels like velvet gliding over rock: appropriate for what Gustave assumes is a life spent dedicated to the arts and performance, to making his audience fall for him. His fingers travel idly over the keys, plucking out a scale that leads him higher and higher and closer and closer and even if Gustave were to try to shift out of the way — he does, a little, self-conscious and unsure — it still leaves them with shoulders pressed together and Verso's arm stretched out, almost belting him, and Verso's extraordinary voice low and very close to his ear.
He's only human. He'd dare anyone in his position not to feel... something at the contact, at the question that's almost but not quite a murmur, as though he and Verso are sitting in two of those seats down below and the man has had to lean close to speak low into his ear so as not to disturb the performance. ]
I assume all artists are some variety of starving. Besides that...?
[ He pretends to mull it over, give it some thought, before giving a small shrug that pushes his shoulder against the other man's. ]
Lucky guess.
[ And then the pressure is gone, inches of space between them once again, and he feels strangely untethered and conscious of the coolness of the air where only a moment ago there had been solid warmth.
This question deserves real consideration, and he gives it, thinking for a long moment as his glance drifts back toward the hands on the keys. Surgeon's hands, artist's hands; his own are dexterous and used to precision work, and the things he creates are beautiful in their own way, but he has no idea how someone can coax so much emotion from such mundane elements. Music, he supposes, is its own kind of magic. ]
Can you play me a happy memory?
[ Something to offset the wistful melancholy of the piece he'd chosen before, maybe. Or maybe Gustave would just like to see him smile again. ]
no subject
He's only human. He'd dare anyone in his position not to feel... something at the contact, at the question that's almost but not quite a murmur, as though he and Verso are sitting in two of those seats down below and the man has had to lean close to speak low into his ear so as not to disturb the performance. ]
I assume all artists are some variety of starving. Besides that...?
[ He pretends to mull it over, give it some thought, before giving a small shrug that pushes his shoulder against the other man's. ]
Lucky guess.
[ And then the pressure is gone, inches of space between them once again, and he feels strangely untethered and conscious of the coolness of the air where only a moment ago there had been solid warmth.
This question deserves real consideration, and he gives it, thinking for a long moment as his glance drifts back toward the hands on the keys. Surgeon's hands, artist's hands; his own are dexterous and used to precision work, and the things he creates are beautiful in their own way, but he has no idea how someone can coax so much emotion from such mundane elements. Music, he supposes, is its own kind of magic. ]
Can you play me a happy memory?
[ Something to offset the wistful melancholy of the piece he'd chosen before, maybe. Or maybe Gustave would just like to see him smile again. ]