Da Capo Al Fine | Chapter Four: Crescendo
Title: Da Capo Al Fine
Pairing: Phoenix/Miles
Rating: Chapter 11 is NSFW but no actual buttsex. Rest are all general viewing.
Word Count: 57,345
Synopsis: After years of misery playing in the dingy orchestra pits of Broadway, Miles Edgeworth, professional oboist, has finally been given a reprieve. Having successfully auditioned for the Los Angeles Travelling Symphony, at last he can realise his dream of playing in a top orchestra. However, he is soon to find that he has joined a very eccentric band of musicians...
Chapter Links: Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3 | Ch. 4 | Ch. 5 | Ch. 6 | Ch. 7 | Ch. 8 | Ch. 9 | Ch. 10 | Ch. 11 | Ch. 12 | Epilogue | Commentary
The day of the concert arrived and Miles was up at 6am, having failed to sleep for more than an hour at a time. He made a cup of tea with the strongest blend in his large collection, leaving the teabag in for five minutes and not bothering with sugar because he needed an acrid taste to focus on. Maybe there was something to Diego’s proverb that sharpness of the mind and bitterness of the mug went hand in hand, but he certainly wasn’t about to downgrade to coffee to test it fully. The black tea was enough to chase away the residual fog of sleep, though it didn’t eradicate the memory of jerking awake from the throes of another nightmare.
It had been different from the usual one that marched through his sleep every few nights, but no less unpleasant: concert catastrophes that had fled from memory upon waking. All that was left was a gnawing uneasiness more to do with his solo performance than anything else. Oh, and Appalachian Spring, but that was a chronic worry running through the entire orchestra - one that Miles felt more on behalf of his fellow musicians than for his own parts. They were due at the concert hall at 9 for an all-day rehearsal, and even the night before Lana had been modifying large chunks of their performance of the Copland piece, berating them for this, that or the other. But the ‘click’ Maya had predicted finally happened on the last runthrough of that night, and they had gone home tired but relieved that it was all finally working out. There was still more fine-tuning to do today, though.
In the meantime, he was at a loss as to how to while away the hours before leaving for the rehearsal. He was giving Phoenix a lift to the concert hall as the trumpet-player didn’t want to be reliant on the bus services today, but he wasn’t due to arrive until half eight. It was no use practicing alone, he needed to be fresh for later on, and Classical Radio wasn’t any soother for the nerves either. The Bach Hour just clashed with the bars of his solo playing over and over in his mind. In the end he spent some time renewing the cork grease on his oboe sections and cutting a new reed, then went for a walk to the 24-hour store - though there was nothing he really needed. When he came back with a single loaf of bread, Phoenix was walking up to the front door of his apartment, trumpet case in hand. He was an hour early.
“I thought you’d be up,” he said.
“Looks like you couldn’t sleep either,” Miles countered.
“Yeah,” Phoenix confessed. “Normally I sleep fine, but normally we’re not still perfecting a piece on the day of the concert. Chocolate covered coffee bean?” he offered the packet he was holding to Miles.
“Black tea suits me fine, thankyou. You’ll get the shakes if you eat too many of those.”
“Ah, I’m already going a little crazy anyway,” Phoenix shrugged, eating five at once. “I’ve got the damn trumpet solo from Appalachian Spring going on in my head like a broken record. Do you mind me turning up this early? It was either this or go and busk for the joggers in the park.”
Miles shook his head, unlocking the door to his flat and holding it open.
*
When they arrived at the concert hall some people were there already. Pearl was propped up against the conductor’s dais, fast asleep, and Maya was quietly tuning up in the corner. Maggey was replacing another string on her viola, and Angel was calmly rubbing rosin onto her bow. The twins were putting together the sections of their flutes and cleaning beneath the keys. Dick was dozing in his chair, arms leaning on the tuba between his knees and his head down on top of them, and Jake had his feet up, hat tilted low over his face and poncho draped over his front like a blanket, snoozing.
“Isn’t this supposed to be the orchestra that doesn’t pull allnighters?” Miles said to Phoenix.
“Well, I think it’s more ‘not being able to sleep much’, than ‘staying up all night’,” Phoenix said, pulling out another six bags of chocolate covered coffee beans from his rucksack and offering them around.
“Heeeeeeeeeey!” Larry yelled as he entered the hall. “Are we ready to wow those punters tonight? We totally kicked butt in that last runthrough yesterday!”
“Shut up, Butz,” Franziska growled from behind him. “You’re disgustingly cheerful and it vexes me.”
“Geez, sorry for breathing, Franzy,” Larry said breezily, sliding into his seat and clicking his clarinet together in a few seconds.
Franziska took up her position behind the array of percussion instruments that had been set up for her, folding her arms and waiting impatiently for the others to get ready. Pearl stirred as Lana arrived and put her stack of scores on the dais. Rubbing one eye the little cellist got to her feet and drifted over to her chair, tuning up with a glazed look in her eyes. Phoenix had something different in his rucksack for her - a can of Fanta.
“Are you the Travelling Symphony’s quartermaster or something?” Miles asked, bemused by Phoenix’s seemingly bottomless rucksack.
“I know what everybody needs to make them tick,” Phoenix grinned, digging out some packets of Snackoos and throwing them to Ema, who gave him a thumbs up sign in return. “Just wait till you’re performing in Moscow on three hours sleep because of jetlag - you’ll be begging me for coffee beans then.”
“Looking forward to it,” Miles replied blandly, wetting his reed.
*
“Much better, orchestra,” Lana nodded with satisfaction. “Much, much better.”
They had spent the latter half of the morning working through Appalachian Spring section by section, and had just run through it in full. Though absorbed in playing, Miles knew the sound they were producing finally felt right. And if Lana was happy, it must sound right from the point of view of the audience as well.
Maya’s stomach growled, loud in the silence.
“I think that’s the cue to break for lunch,” Lana said, face deadpan.
Everyone burst out laughing, and Maya went bright red with embarrassment.
*
Miles only ordered a sandwich in the cafeteria. Performance nerves were knotting his stomach and though he knew he ought to eat he couldn’t manage more than a few mouthfuls of it. He sat with it for a while, watching everyone else at the different tables happily tucking into their lunches and chatting away. Phoenix was right - the orchestra really were one big happy family; bar Franziska and the twins, whose absence was no surprise. The cafeteria they were all sitting in was probably no different to the ones they’d be eating at in various other countries. This time next week they’d all be in Hanover, crammed into a budget hotel two to a room, and the week after they would be in Paris. Two months ago he would’ve found the idea of travelling in such close company a living nightmare. Now, he found he wasn’t so bothered about that side of things - in fact, he was slightly looking forward to it. He had only travelled abroad once in his life, when his father and the rest of the LA Symphony had been invited to London to perform, and Phoenix had said there would always be a day off to explore whichever city they were visiting.
“You’ll be able to expand your tea collection,” the trumpet-player had teased during the morning rehearsal - he had been gobsmacked by the size of Miles’ tea cupboard when visiting his flat earlier. “One from every country!”
But right now there were other, more pressing matters to hand: in five hours time he was to perform his solo, and he still needed to try it out in the hall and judge how best to exploit the acoustics. He prodded the sandwich. The bread was starting to go a bit stale. In the end he offered it to Phoenix, who wolfed it down along with the rest of his large lunch.
“You’re going back to practice your solo now, aren’t you?” Phoenix said between bites, making it a statement more than a question.
Miles nodded, knowing he’d made that intention pretty obvious by not putting his oboe in the storage room with the rest of the instruments. He stood up and grabbed his oboe case. Then he took a breath, and asked,
“Can I have the sheet music back?”
Phoenix paused mid-chew, looking up at him.
“Alright,” he said, opening up his sheet music folder and digging it out, passing it to him. “Lucky mascot, huh?”
“You can’t talk - or did you think I hadn’t spotted the little teddy that sits in your trumpet case?”
“His name’s Taiho,” Pearl piped up. "He was a gift from Mystic Maya... to her special," her dreamy words were abruptly cut off by Phoenix and Maya both clapping a hand over her mouth.
"Pearly!" Maya said indignantly. "Top-secret, remember?"
Pearl's eyes widened and she looked up at her elder cousin apologetically.
"Uhhh, pretend you didn't hear any of that," Phoenix said hurriedly, and Maya nodded rapidly in agreement. They released Pearl, who made a solemn zip motion across her lips.
“Erm, see you later,” Miles said, looking a little bewildered and then turning to leave.
“Oh, and take this,” Phoenix fished a granola bar out of his lunchbox, sliding it across the table. “You’ll get hungry eventually.”
“It’ll go to waste,” Miles protested, but Phoenix waved it off so he gave in and deposited it in his pocket.
"He looks really nervous," Maya said as he left. "I bet he got even less sleep than we did!"
"He was already up when I arrived at his place," Phoenix said, eating a few grapes. "I don't think he sleeps much generally."
“Do you think he’ll be okay when he does his solo?” Pearl asked. “Oh, I do hope so!”
“I don’t know why he’s worrying,” Maya said, licking some barbecue sauce off her wrist. “He’ll get a standing ovation, I’ll bet my burger on it.”
“Easy for you to say now, but remember what you were like before your first one!” Phoenix reminded her.
“Ugh,” Maya groaned. “I mean, it wasn’t as bad as the one Lana cancelled, but whew, I actually went to the toilet five times before the concert because I was that worried about peeing my pants when I got up in front of all those people.”
Pearl hopped down from her stool to fetch a banana from the fruit basket at the counter. When she was out of earshot Phoenix whispered,
“Maggey told me she had a nightmare before hers in which she fell out of her dress in front of the entire audience. At least you’ll never have to worry about that!”
“Hey, what are you implying about my chest?” Maya threw a bit of onion at him.
“Twenty minutes, you lot, then it’s back to work!” Lana announced as she walked by their table. “And I suggest you eat that burger rather than throwing pieces of it around, Miss Fey, or Mr. Gant may just decide to stop subsidising your lunches.”
“It was justified,” Maya said petulantly, glaring at Phoenix.
“Wright, if I hear you making any more lewd comments about cleavage sizes I’ll make you clean Gumshoe’s tuba.”
“It won’t happen again,” Phoenix assured her emphatically, face turning a little pale at the thought of such a mammoth task.
Phoenix stuck his tongue out at Maya after Lana had swept out of the cafeteria, and had more onion thrown at him for his cheek, to which he retaliated with a bit of sandwich crust. Pearl returned to break up the foodfight, scolding them both for being so childish yet also delighted that they were being so affectionate towards each other. She got a whole piece of lettuce in her face for that particular comment.
***
Miles came back into the auditorium to find that someone had tidied away his music stand. He sighed, climbing the steps onto the stage. Tuning first, then he’d find a stand. He didn’t need the sheet music - strange as it was to be thinking that - but with his nerves this strung having the staves in front of him was a bit of a comfort. His reed was still warm from the earlier rehearsal so he didn’t need to do much with it. Oboe assembled and tuned, he placed it on its stand and got up, looking in the wings to see if his music stand had been deposited there. It hadn’t, which meant a trip down to the storage room. He deliberated whether it was worth the trek, but then he would need one anyway when the others returned. He walked back onstage and grabbed his oboe, not wanting to leave it there unattended, then headed for the back stairs that lead down to storage.
He walked down the dim corridor, counting the doors till he got to the right storeroom. There was light coming from under the door, which seemed a little strange as everyone was out to lunch. Someone had been careless and left it on. He punched in the keycode, turning the handle and entering the room.
Something crunched beneath his feet as the door shut behind him and he froze as he heard a horrible cracking noise to his left, accompanied by the sour thrum of strings. He turned, coming face to face with Dahlia Hawthorne. In one hand she held the shattered remains of Pearl’s cello, its strings trailing across the floor, and in the other she held a large axe. She looked at him with surprise, and he stared back at her in horror, noticing Iris’s body lying face-down on the floor behind her. That was all he had time to take in before Dahlia threw the broken cello aside and lunged towards him, swinging the axe.
Pairing: Phoenix/Miles
Rating: Chapter 11 is NSFW but no actual buttsex. Rest are all general viewing.
Word Count: 57,345
Synopsis: After years of misery playing in the dingy orchestra pits of Broadway, Miles Edgeworth, professional oboist, has finally been given a reprieve. Having successfully auditioned for the Los Angeles Travelling Symphony, at last he can realise his dream of playing in a top orchestra. However, he is soon to find that he has joined a very eccentric band of musicians...
Chapter Links: Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3 | Ch. 4 | Ch. 5 | Ch. 6 | Ch. 7 | Ch. 8 | Ch. 9 | Ch. 10 | Ch. 11 | Ch. 12 | Epilogue | Commentary
The day of the concert arrived and Miles was up at 6am, having failed to sleep for more than an hour at a time. He made a cup of tea with the strongest blend in his large collection, leaving the teabag in for five minutes and not bothering with sugar because he needed an acrid taste to focus on. Maybe there was something to Diego’s proverb that sharpness of the mind and bitterness of the mug went hand in hand, but he certainly wasn’t about to downgrade to coffee to test it fully. The black tea was enough to chase away the residual fog of sleep, though it didn’t eradicate the memory of jerking awake from the throes of another nightmare.
It had been different from the usual one that marched through his sleep every few nights, but no less unpleasant: concert catastrophes that had fled from memory upon waking. All that was left was a gnawing uneasiness more to do with his solo performance than anything else. Oh, and Appalachian Spring, but that was a chronic worry running through the entire orchestra - one that Miles felt more on behalf of his fellow musicians than for his own parts. They were due at the concert hall at 9 for an all-day rehearsal, and even the night before Lana had been modifying large chunks of their performance of the Copland piece, berating them for this, that or the other. But the ‘click’ Maya had predicted finally happened on the last runthrough of that night, and they had gone home tired but relieved that it was all finally working out. There was still more fine-tuning to do today, though.
In the meantime, he was at a loss as to how to while away the hours before leaving for the rehearsal. He was giving Phoenix a lift to the concert hall as the trumpet-player didn’t want to be reliant on the bus services today, but he wasn’t due to arrive until half eight. It was no use practicing alone, he needed to be fresh for later on, and Classical Radio wasn’t any soother for the nerves either. The Bach Hour just clashed with the bars of his solo playing over and over in his mind. In the end he spent some time renewing the cork grease on his oboe sections and cutting a new reed, then went for a walk to the 24-hour store - though there was nothing he really needed. When he came back with a single loaf of bread, Phoenix was walking up to the front door of his apartment, trumpet case in hand. He was an hour early.
“I thought you’d be up,” he said.
“Looks like you couldn’t sleep either,” Miles countered.
“Yeah,” Phoenix confessed. “Normally I sleep fine, but normally we’re not still perfecting a piece on the day of the concert. Chocolate covered coffee bean?” he offered the packet he was holding to Miles.
“Black tea suits me fine, thankyou. You’ll get the shakes if you eat too many of those.”
“Ah, I’m already going a little crazy anyway,” Phoenix shrugged, eating five at once. “I’ve got the damn trumpet solo from Appalachian Spring going on in my head like a broken record. Do you mind me turning up this early? It was either this or go and busk for the joggers in the park.”
Miles shook his head, unlocking the door to his flat and holding it open.
*
When they arrived at the concert hall some people were there already. Pearl was propped up against the conductor’s dais, fast asleep, and Maya was quietly tuning up in the corner. Maggey was replacing another string on her viola, and Angel was calmly rubbing rosin onto her bow. The twins were putting together the sections of their flutes and cleaning beneath the keys. Dick was dozing in his chair, arms leaning on the tuba between his knees and his head down on top of them, and Jake had his feet up, hat tilted low over his face and poncho draped over his front like a blanket, snoozing.
“Isn’t this supposed to be the orchestra that doesn’t pull allnighters?” Miles said to Phoenix.
“Well, I think it’s more ‘not being able to sleep much’, than ‘staying up all night’,” Phoenix said, pulling out another six bags of chocolate covered coffee beans from his rucksack and offering them around.
“Heeeeeeeeeey!” Larry yelled as he entered the hall. “Are we ready to wow those punters tonight? We totally kicked butt in that last runthrough yesterday!”
“Shut up, Butz,” Franziska growled from behind him. “You’re disgustingly cheerful and it vexes me.”
“Geez, sorry for breathing, Franzy,” Larry said breezily, sliding into his seat and clicking his clarinet together in a few seconds.
Franziska took up her position behind the array of percussion instruments that had been set up for her, folding her arms and waiting impatiently for the others to get ready. Pearl stirred as Lana arrived and put her stack of scores on the dais. Rubbing one eye the little cellist got to her feet and drifted over to her chair, tuning up with a glazed look in her eyes. Phoenix had something different in his rucksack for her - a can of Fanta.
“Are you the Travelling Symphony’s quartermaster or something?” Miles asked, bemused by Phoenix’s seemingly bottomless rucksack.
“I know what everybody needs to make them tick,” Phoenix grinned, digging out some packets of Snackoos and throwing them to Ema, who gave him a thumbs up sign in return. “Just wait till you’re performing in Moscow on three hours sleep because of jetlag - you’ll be begging me for coffee beans then.”
“Looking forward to it,” Miles replied blandly, wetting his reed.
*
“Much better, orchestra,” Lana nodded with satisfaction. “Much, much better.”
They had spent the latter half of the morning working through Appalachian Spring section by section, and had just run through it in full. Though absorbed in playing, Miles knew the sound they were producing finally felt right. And if Lana was happy, it must sound right from the point of view of the audience as well.
Maya’s stomach growled, loud in the silence.
“I think that’s the cue to break for lunch,” Lana said, face deadpan.
Everyone burst out laughing, and Maya went bright red with embarrassment.
*
Miles only ordered a sandwich in the cafeteria. Performance nerves were knotting his stomach and though he knew he ought to eat he couldn’t manage more than a few mouthfuls of it. He sat with it for a while, watching everyone else at the different tables happily tucking into their lunches and chatting away. Phoenix was right - the orchestra really were one big happy family; bar Franziska and the twins, whose absence was no surprise. The cafeteria they were all sitting in was probably no different to the ones they’d be eating at in various other countries. This time next week they’d all be in Hanover, crammed into a budget hotel two to a room, and the week after they would be in Paris. Two months ago he would’ve found the idea of travelling in such close company a living nightmare. Now, he found he wasn’t so bothered about that side of things - in fact, he was slightly looking forward to it. He had only travelled abroad once in his life, when his father and the rest of the LA Symphony had been invited to London to perform, and Phoenix had said there would always be a day off to explore whichever city they were visiting.
“You’ll be able to expand your tea collection,” the trumpet-player had teased during the morning rehearsal - he had been gobsmacked by the size of Miles’ tea cupboard when visiting his flat earlier. “One from every country!”
But right now there were other, more pressing matters to hand: in five hours time he was to perform his solo, and he still needed to try it out in the hall and judge how best to exploit the acoustics. He prodded the sandwich. The bread was starting to go a bit stale. In the end he offered it to Phoenix, who wolfed it down along with the rest of his large lunch.
“You’re going back to practice your solo now, aren’t you?” Phoenix said between bites, making it a statement more than a question.
Miles nodded, knowing he’d made that intention pretty obvious by not putting his oboe in the storage room with the rest of the instruments. He stood up and grabbed his oboe case. Then he took a breath, and asked,
“Can I have the sheet music back?”
Phoenix paused mid-chew, looking up at him.
“Alright,” he said, opening up his sheet music folder and digging it out, passing it to him. “Lucky mascot, huh?”
“You can’t talk - or did you think I hadn’t spotted the little teddy that sits in your trumpet case?”
“His name’s Taiho,” Pearl piped up. "He was a gift from Mystic Maya... to her special," her dreamy words were abruptly cut off by Phoenix and Maya both clapping a hand over her mouth.
"Pearly!" Maya said indignantly. "Top-secret, remember?"
Pearl's eyes widened and she looked up at her elder cousin apologetically.
"Uhhh, pretend you didn't hear any of that," Phoenix said hurriedly, and Maya nodded rapidly in agreement. They released Pearl, who made a solemn zip motion across her lips.
“Erm, see you later,” Miles said, looking a little bewildered and then turning to leave.
“Oh, and take this,” Phoenix fished a granola bar out of his lunchbox, sliding it across the table. “You’ll get hungry eventually.”
“It’ll go to waste,” Miles protested, but Phoenix waved it off so he gave in and deposited it in his pocket.
"He looks really nervous," Maya said as he left. "I bet he got even less sleep than we did!"
"He was already up when I arrived at his place," Phoenix said, eating a few grapes. "I don't think he sleeps much generally."
“Do you think he’ll be okay when he does his solo?” Pearl asked. “Oh, I do hope so!”
“I don’t know why he’s worrying,” Maya said, licking some barbecue sauce off her wrist. “He’ll get a standing ovation, I’ll bet my burger on it.”
“Easy for you to say now, but remember what you were like before your first one!” Phoenix reminded her.
“Ugh,” Maya groaned. “I mean, it wasn’t as bad as the one Lana cancelled, but whew, I actually went to the toilet five times before the concert because I was that worried about peeing my pants when I got up in front of all those people.”
Pearl hopped down from her stool to fetch a banana from the fruit basket at the counter. When she was out of earshot Phoenix whispered,
“Maggey told me she had a nightmare before hers in which she fell out of her dress in front of the entire audience. At least you’ll never have to worry about that!”
“Hey, what are you implying about my chest?” Maya threw a bit of onion at him.
“Twenty minutes, you lot, then it’s back to work!” Lana announced as she walked by their table. “And I suggest you eat that burger rather than throwing pieces of it around, Miss Fey, or Mr. Gant may just decide to stop subsidising your lunches.”
“It was justified,” Maya said petulantly, glaring at Phoenix.
“Wright, if I hear you making any more lewd comments about cleavage sizes I’ll make you clean Gumshoe’s tuba.”
“It won’t happen again,” Phoenix assured her emphatically, face turning a little pale at the thought of such a mammoth task.
Phoenix stuck his tongue out at Maya after Lana had swept out of the cafeteria, and had more onion thrown at him for his cheek, to which he retaliated with a bit of sandwich crust. Pearl returned to break up the foodfight, scolding them both for being so childish yet also delighted that they were being so affectionate towards each other. She got a whole piece of lettuce in her face for that particular comment.
***
Miles came back into the auditorium to find that someone had tidied away his music stand. He sighed, climbing the steps onto the stage. Tuning first, then he’d find a stand. He didn’t need the sheet music - strange as it was to be thinking that - but with his nerves this strung having the staves in front of him was a bit of a comfort. His reed was still warm from the earlier rehearsal so he didn’t need to do much with it. Oboe assembled and tuned, he placed it on its stand and got up, looking in the wings to see if his music stand had been deposited there. It hadn’t, which meant a trip down to the storage room. He deliberated whether it was worth the trek, but then he would need one anyway when the others returned. He walked back onstage and grabbed his oboe, not wanting to leave it there unattended, then headed for the back stairs that lead down to storage.
He walked down the dim corridor, counting the doors till he got to the right storeroom. There was light coming from under the door, which seemed a little strange as everyone was out to lunch. Someone had been careless and left it on. He punched in the keycode, turning the handle and entering the room.
Something crunched beneath his feet as the door shut behind him and he froze as he heard a horrible cracking noise to his left, accompanied by the sour thrum of strings. He turned, coming face to face with Dahlia Hawthorne. In one hand she held the shattered remains of Pearl’s cello, its strings trailing across the floor, and in the other she held a large axe. She looked at him with surprise, and he stared back at her in horror, noticing Iris’s body lying face-down on the floor behind her. That was all he had time to take in before Dahlia threw the broken cello aside and lunged towards him, swinging the axe.