Fantasia

LXXXVI

He felt his own heart slowing down as Brett's breathing got deeper, his sniffles less frequent and his body against Eddy heavier by the minute. Funny, how the former panicking person became sort of a comfort for the taller.
"You alright?"
A small nod against Eddy's shoulder.
"Good..."

After another minute or so, Brett loosened himself from Eddy and drew a sleeve over his face for damage control. 
"Sorry for freaking out...", he mumbled, eyes cast down and even Eddy could see in the dark how uncomfortable Brett felt.
"I guess, counts as preperformence jitters, adapted to the weight of the importance this concert holds", Eddy tried to lighten the mood.
It worked. Brett chuckled a bit, his shoulders going up and down.
"Just... being backstage with all the preparations and stuff, it kinda makes me anxious."
"Does it remind you of your concertmaster days?"
Finally, Brett glanced at him. Eddy was glad that Brett's pupils seemed to have stablelized.
"It does, sort of", Brett admitted, "but on the other hand, it's so different. I'm here with you and that giant changing room where we chose our suits? That's a whole other level! And then the fact that we don't know how our stage's gonna be like, the audience... and the reason we play. I mean, before I did it for a living, because it was my job. It started off differently, but it became a torture for me, as you know. Now I really feel passionate about the piece we're going to perform. Not that I wasn't passionate about the music we played in the SSO, but this is different. The pressure is different. There are no critiques, hopefully. No newspapers ready to tear us apart when we mess up. This one's just for me. For us. And yet, it's the most important performance I've ever given and probably ever will give."
"You feel ready for it?", Eddy asked carefully, hoping, no, praying inside Brett would be okay.
Brett's gaze, however, was unwavering now. Gone was any kind of fear or doubt that had tormented him before.
"Better than being stuck here for the rest of my existence, right?", he shrugged with a small grin.
Eddy's expression matched Brett's. "For sure!"

As Eddy and Brett stood there, smiling encouragingly at each other, a small, regular sound caught their attention.
"What is that?", Brett furrowed his brows, head turned in the dircetion of the click.
"Sounds like a...", Eddy began, stepping towards the source. Brett followed him suit and Eddy guessed they had made it to the center of the back of the stage, when they found themselves standing in front of a giant, simple clock.
Brett pointed at it. "Why is there a '20'?"
"Where?"
"There where normally '12' is. On the dial."
Eddy squeezed his eyes half shut so he could take a better look. Brett was right.
"Huh?", he made, his voice reverberating through what felt like whole the hall.
"You reckon it'll tell us when to go on stage?"
"Maybe? But how do we know what 'time' it wants us to? And why is it in 20?"
"Beats me..."
"Maybe that's the time of this universe?"
"Could be. Like fourty hours a day?"
"Apparently so."
The second hand, which was responsible for the sound they'd caught before, ticked and ticked and ticked. And then, Brett inhaled sharply, grabbing Eddy's left elbow almost brutally.
"There! The red dots on the dial!", he exclaimed, his index finger dancing in-between two places. Eddy moved a bit closer while some part of his brain took a note on how bad his eyesight had gotten. There, slightly above fifteen and shortly before twenty, those red dots were visible. It didn't take long for Eddy to realize that they only had a few minutes or whatever the time measure here was left, before the long and shorter hand would reach these points.
"Let's just do it. Go out when the time has come."
"Yeah", Brett agreed, letting out a breath.
Eddy turned to his best friend, his free hand holding Brett's shoulder. "You'll be fine. I'm sure of it."
Brett nodded, looking at Eddy. "Thank you, for being here with me."
"It's been my biggest pleasure."

There were no more words they could or needed to exchange. Simply a performance laid in front of them, possibly bulding the bridge Brett needed to get out of here, to finally, finally wake up again after his deep, more than six months long slumber. So they stood there, their fingers silently dancing across the fingerboard of their instruments while they watched the hands of the clock crawl forward, slowly but surely aligning with the red dots marking that crucial point in space and time, which would change the course of their lives for sure. Either way.

The resemblence between Eddy's heart and a metronome gone crazy grew the closer the black of the hands and the red of the dots got. While his nervousness rose to an all time high, the NYCC competition excluded, because nothing would ever be as bad as those two hours waiting for the finals to start, Brett appeared to get more quiet, his eyes were closed, his breathing deep and slow.
And then, at last, the time had come. Brett and Eddy looked at each other as the hands aligned themselves with the red dots. A nod, a small, but firm hug and they walked on stage with sure strides.

The light out there was crazy, all golden, blue and red at the same time and then changing between those colours the next second. Eddy couldn't see if there was an audience or not because of all the spotlights blinding him, but he knew the instant he'd stepped out of the black curtains, that it didn't matter one bit.
They positioned themselves in the middle of the vast, elevated floor, a few meters left between them. Eddy caught Brett's eyes and only discovered fire, certainty and passion. A small nod, an intake of breath and off they went.

The melancholic, pained melody instantly filled the room and their hearts. It sang, lamented over the pain Brett and Eddy had gone through, making Eddy's eyes burn. He kept them closed though, sunken in his performance and ensemble playing with Brett, who brought out his first so effortlessly and musically Eddy couldn't help but marvel over his skill. The theme evolved into the faster, lighter bit, before the piece let them fly, soar, leaving all the suffering behind. When they reached the climax, nothing but red light enveloped them and the meldoy pierced through the hall, the dream world and their hearts.

In the changing room, the mirror burst, coating the suits in a five meter radius in a glittery, dangerous layer.

In a hospital room on the eighth floor of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, the electrocardiogram of a certain young, comatose man lying on the bed flatlined, the continuing beep however not waking up the other young man sleeping right next to him, his head propped on his arms just beside the now liveless body of his best friend...

A/N: Sorry guys for the late upload :'-). My backlog ran out some time ago and now I have to write the chapters as I publish, which can become challenging when I'm very busy with managing every day life, basically. Thank you for all your patience!