Moonlight Sonata

[goodnight_robicheaux]

Goodnight couldn't sleep.

There was nothing new about that, not since he'd come home from the war. In the months he'd stayed at home, trying to keep himself together enough to look after their business interests, Goodnight had suffered bouts of insomnia bad enough that a doctor suggested laudanum to help him sleep.

Most nights, however, he'd come downstairs and played at the piano until he got fed up or tired enough to try to sleep. Apparently someone remembered those habits; when Goodnight found the piano, there was a candle already sitting on it - not lit, but waiting.

Monsieur Lucien does not sleep. He remembered overhearing Anaïs talking to a new member of the household. Monsieur Lucien plays the piano at night; do not be surprised if you hear it. Do not bother him.

Goodnight got the candle lit and set the one he'd brought from upstairs down on the other side of the piano. He lifted the cover and brushed his fingers over the keys, re-familiarizing himself; it hadn't been that long since he played, it had been years since he sat at this particular piano. He knew it would be well-tuned, knew it had been looked after. After a while he began playing the quiet strains of Beethoven's sonata.

Comments

[assassinwithahairpin]

Billy could not sleep. It had been months, long months, since he and Goodnight had slept apart. San Francisco--yes, that was the last time. And after that, they hadn't bothered with the pretense. Even just having Goodnight in the room, if not in his bed, was enough to keep his calm. But not tonight. Goodnight felt on another world.

This house, in the dead of night, felt like the one he'd worked at in Washington. It felt like the master was here somewhere. It felt like his son was. Billy didn't like any of that.

He heard, elsewhere in the house, piano playing. It was on a better kept piano than any saloon upright, and the music was not an upbeat drinking song. Billy rose from bed in his night shirt--borrowed from Goodnight's trunk--and put on a dressing road--borrowed from Goodnight's trunk--and headed down stairs without a candle. He was used to navigating space without too much light.