Say You'll Share With Me | Phantom Oneshots

POTOber Day 10 - A Composer, Monsieur

day 10 prompts: writing music/mood swings/Don Juan Triumphant 

~ 

"Papa, how do you write music?"

Erik glanced to his side and smiled as he saw his son looking eagerly over the sheet music on the keyboard in front of him. His dark brown eyes—just like his mother's—were wide and full of intrigue and curiosity, wanting to take in everything that his father was able to tell him.

"Well, it can be a slow process, that's for certain, but I'm not sure if there's exactly an answer to that question," Erik admitted. "The music just sort of...comes."

"Just like that? It just shows up in your head?" Gustave asked with a frown.

"I suppose so, yes. It helps when I have things to inspire me surrounding me; where I'm living, what I'm doing, the people I'm with. Your mother, for instance, or yourself," Erik replied, smiling and poking his son in the side to make him giggle. "You two are certainly my biggest inspirations."

"But what about when you have nothing to inspire you? Then how does the music get into your head?"

"Oh, when I have no inspiration, there is generally no music and that is incredibly frustrating. I'll try not to be in your vicinity on those days; I tend to get very irritable when that happens, my mood changes on a dime."

Gustave laughed again. "I'll stay away, then."

"That would probably be wise, but I have so much to inspire me these days that it doesn't happen very much anymore," Erik replied. "So we should be alright."

"Good," Gustave said with a smile. "What's this song going to be about?"

"What's it about? Well, this one is a love song—inspired by your mother, of course—but I don't have it finished quite yet," Erik said, then gestured to the bottom drawer of his desk just across the study. "There are some finished compositions in this drawer, though, so you can look through those while I work if you'd like."

With a grin, his son sat down on the floor beside his desk and immediately started to sort through the folders containing the various compositions his father had created. Sure that he would be kept busy for a little while, Erik smiled fondly at him and turned back to the keyboard, testing out the bars that he had already written and testing out a few extra notes at the end before he added them to the sheet music, happy with their sound. His son was becoming quite musically inclined and he frankly couldn't be happier. He had already taken a shine to singing and listening to music just like his mother once had, and it was a beautiful reminder of Christine that Erik would cherish for the rest of his life. However, he was beginning to also notice the boy taking more of an interest in composing and playing instruments outside of the piano, which he had already mastered. The parts of himself were beginning to shine through in his son and he was both equally proud and nervous about seeing so much of himself in Gustave, but he supposed all he could do was take it in stride and accept his fate. He would leave his son to his curiosity for the time being, letting him enjoy the simple compositions that sat in that drawer and would deal with the rest of the mess that was Gustave's inherited curiosity later.

A few minutes later, though, his pen dropped from his hand and his breath hitched in his throat when he heard his son ask another question: "Papa, what's Don Juan Triumphant?"

Or perhaps he would have to deal with that mess right then and there.