Together Let's...

When Jack walked into the house to be greeted by the high-pitched screeching of a keyboard, he knew that he was in for some trouble. He couldn’t quite figure out what song it was, or what direction it was coming from, and that resulted in him stumbling through the house with his hands over his ears.

Not once did he think to just call out to his boyfriend, but who would’ve been able to think straight with that… that sound assaulting their senses?

It was in the living room, the first room that Jack should’ve figured to check, where Alex was found. The younger was sat on the couch with an electric keyboard placed on the table before him, small pieces of tape clinging to the edge of the wood and Alex’s fingers periodically lifting one up to press it down against a key. If he looked closely enough, Jack could make out different letters on each.

“What are you doing?” he shouted over the noise once he realized that there was no way the younger would noticed his arrival on his own. Alex jumped upon hearing his partner speak up. His hands immediately retracted from the keys as he smiled widely.

“The next thing on the list,” he said, voice a bit too loud, “is to learn to play piano. We don’t have one, but my great grandpa had a keyboard that he left to my mum. I had her bring it over. I figured that it’d be easiest for us to learn if I marked which key was which. So… here I am.”

Jack moved forward to sit on the couch as well as Alex continued his mini-speech. It was as he was looking over the different buttons and knobs on the device that he noticed one that said volume… and that it was turned up as loud as possible.

“Did you not once think to, y’know, turn it down while you did that?” Jack asked, his hand lifting to push the switch down to the lowest setting he could. Alex blushed.

“I was just hoping to finish it up before you got home… but since you’re here, do you think that you could finish putting them on? They’re all in order from left to right, so you just have to move them from the table to the keys. My mum brought the books with the music over, but I left them in the kitchen. I’ll be back in a minute.”

With a quick kiss, Alex was standing from the couch and making his way from the room. Jack watched his retreating figure for a second before he was doing as instructed. Only a handful of keys were left to be done, and in under thirty seconds, there was nothing left for the older man to do but fiddle with the different knobs and buttons.

In the kitchen, the Briton was busily searching for the booklets his mother had delivered earlier that day. She had brought them in and set them down, but when she’d done that, Alex had been carrying in the keyboard from the car. He hadn’t noticed where she’d—and there they were, hung up at eye level on the fridge by a magnet.

The papers were snatched up quickly before he set off toward the living room once more. Only, instead of seeing Jack waiting patiently, he could hear… he could hear Beethoven’s Für Elise. It was quiet, due to the volume having been turned down, but it was distinguishable. Even if he couldn’t hear it, he could clearly see that Jack was getting into it.

“I didn’t know you could play,” he remarked as he moved through the room to sit next to his partner. Jack jumped in much a similar manner as he had before, and a blush rushed through the elder’s cheeks.

“Oh, well, it’s nothing, I was just, I, uh—” Jack rushed out.

“Play it again, from the beginning,” Alex prompted, and the older man cleared his throat before doing as told. Amazement and adoration shown through Alex’s features as he watched on in silence. At the end of the song, he couldn’t help but applaud and lean over to press a kiss to his boyfriend’s cheek. “Teach me now!”

“Okay,” Jack said as he sat up a bit straighter. He thought better of it, though, and manhandled Alex into his lap before positioning their fingers over the keys. “Just… press whatever you want.”

Alex, confused as ever, did as told and pressed a handful of random keys. To his astonishment, Für Elise poured from the speakers on the sides.

“How is it… what?” he spluttered. His fingers didn’t stop moving as he turned to face the elder.

Jack gave a shrug. “If you’d spent any time at all looking over what all these buttons do, you’d realize that this one up here in the corner? Yeah, that one? If you press it and then pick a song, all you have to do is press a key for the song to play.”

“That’s cheating!” Alex whined as he finally found it in himself to turn and pout.

“That, dimples,” Jack said, pushing a kiss to down-turned lips, “is called common sense. Now, what should I play next? Maybe a little Mozart?”

Alex didn’t even say a word as he stood up and moved from the room, pout still stretching his lips and arms crossed stubbornly over his chest.

Jack, in a last ditch attempt to lighten the mood, called after him, “You’ll be Bach.”

That night, he slept on the couch.