A/N: So, it’s been almost a full year since I last updated this story. Wow. No real reason for that, save that I am the grand master of procrastination, and started realizing how not-very-good this story is, subsequently making me want to revise and rewrite a lot of it, which I never get around to. (This author note has actually gone through several revisions and rewrites, actually, as I’ve been in progress typing this chapter since I last updated.) In fact, once I finally finished typing this, I revised the author note again.

First of all, I have an ultimatum. Is anyone interested enough in this story for me to try to continue posting? Otherwise, I’m thinking of just taking it down. If I do continue, there shouldn't be another year-long gap between chapters, but I can’t promise for certain that I’ll update very regularly, either.

Originally, part of the reason I was saying this was because I was really started to feel like this story was terrible and immature. And to a degree, it is; I wrote it a couple years ago by now. However, I regained a bit of confidence when I finally typed the last half. I’m not ambitious enough to go back to the beginning to rewrite this, but I’m trying to revise and improve it a bit from here on out. So, if it feels like there’s some information in this chapter that probably should have been mentioned earlier, than that’s because it probably should have.

Wow. Actually finally posting this chapter after so long is a bit of a rush. Kind of awesome.

So, anyone still reading?

Stephan flopped backwards onto the bed of the spare room that Damian had given him to use and sighed. He was decidedly bored. He’d already called his mother, and Damian had disappeared into some part of the rather large house, claiming to have some business to attend to.

Well, Damian had told him he was free to explore the house, if he wanted. That was sure to be interesting. Except that Damian had also warned him, very seriously, to “be careful”. That had kind of worried Stephan, so he was a little wary of exploring on his own. Finally, though, boredom won out, and he got up anyway.

Damian’s house had three floors; Stephan had noticed that from the outside. It was just large enough to get lost in, but not quite large enough to stay lost for any length of time. Or so Stephan judged. Well, he hoped, anyway. The spare bedroom he was using was on the second floor, which seemed to consist largely of long, narrow hallways and small rooms.

The first floor was fairly easy to navigate, from what he’d been able to tell. It seemed to be made up of mostly larger rooms. When he’d first entered with Damian, they had walked through a parlor, and by a large kitchen and a dining room. It had been sort of strange for him; he’d never seen an honest-to-goodness parlor room before. And then the stairs; Damian had led him up a classically fancy, sweeping, mansion-worthy staircase. Being in such an extravagant house felt weird to Stephan, who’d spent most of his life in the apartment he lived in with his mother.

Stephan hadn’t seen the third floor yet, but he decided it could wait until later. There were a lot of interesting looking rooms to check out on the second floor. Besides, he didn’t really feel like searching for the stairs to the other floors.

More or less, he started walking down the hallways, opening doors and peeking in. Some rooms looked normal, or had clear purposes, and were therefore boring. (Though Stephan made a mental note of where the first bathroom he found was, as it seemed like a good thing to know.) There were some rooms that looked quite fantastically interesting, but Stephan was afraid to touch anything in them, so he remained content to keep looking. Certainly, there were plenty of rooms to see.

Some time later, he rounded a corner and was surprised to find himself in a large, wide hallway. It entirely unlike any of the others he’d seen thus far. One of the walls seemed to consist almost entirely of window glass. Thus, he discovered that the house stood at the top of a sloping ridge, providing an excellent view of the forest below. Stephan presumed he was facing the back wall of house. Otherwise, he would have noticed the slope while they’d been getting out of the car earlier. He stood and simply drank in the sight for a good long while. He’d always loved windows. And magnificent views. Eventually, however, he continued on once again, curious to see what lay at the end of the hallway.

When he reached the room that was there, he found himself in an absolute vision of paradise. For him, at least.

It was an enormous room, soothingly and brightly colored, and shaped strangely. Undoubtedly for the sake of acoustics. At least, considering that the walls and corners of the room were lined with what had to be every musical instrument in existence. And maybe some that didn’t quite exist; at least not as far as Stephan knew.

He wondered if Damian would mind… Hopefully not. Because Stephan didn’t have the willpower in him to resist.

He walked along the walls, inspecting the wide range of instruments, before selecting a fairly simple violin. After inspecting it for any unnatural qualities (just in case) he found a block of rosin, used it on the bow, and began playing.

For Stephan, music was the key to another world. One of tone, rhythm, harmony; one in which he could lose himself, forget about reality for a few precious moments. It didn’t even matter what he was playing, as long as he was playing. He could get lost in music while listening to it, too, but nothing could compare to created it himself, performing it, singing it, playing it. He could simply improvise for hours on an instrument he was familiar with, if given the opportunity.

Soon, he became utterly lost in the music he was creating, losing any and all sense of time. After a span of time he couldn’t even have guessed at if asked, he suddenly realized he could hear another sound, a piano, blending in and out with his improvised melodies. He stopped suddenly, turning toward the sound, thoughts of possessed pianos flitting through his startled mind.

It was with surprise and relief that he found himself laying eyes on not a spectral phenomenon, but a very living and solid Damian, sitting at a stately grand piano nearby, fingers now stilled, looking back at him with a smile that seemed to brighten the red-head’s entire being. Stephan found himself returning the expression almost involuntarily.

“I didn’t know you played,” Damian said after a moment, breaking the blanket of silence that seemed to have descended upon the room with the discontinuation of the music.

“Can you play all of these?” Stephan asked in response, waving a wand in a sweeping motion to indicate the entire room. He wasn’t sure if he expected a yes or a no. It seemed nearly impossible that one person could actually learn to play such a diverse array and quantity of instruments, but then again – this was Damian. Stephan hadn’t known him long, maybe, but already it felt as though there was nothing the other man couldn’t do. The thought crossed his mind to wonder if Damian was actually as young as he looked. But, he’d always heard nothing but amazement that the man had achieved so much despite his age, so probably, he was just that amazing.

“No, definitely not,” Damian responded, laughing lightly. “I’m not quite that amazing. I just… collect them, I guess. Some of them have belonged to my family for a long time, too. I know the basics for most of them, can play maybe a third at least at beginner level, maybe a fifth I can play decently, and there are only a couple, like the piano, that I can play truly well.”

“That’s still amazing,” Stephan returned immediately, eyes widened a little as he looked again at all the instruments in the amazing room. “I can play maybe five of what I see here? I don’t even know what some of these things are, I’m just assuming they’re all meant to play music.”

Damian laughed again, sounding genuinely amused. “I’m not even sure I know what some of them are. But yes, I’ve made the same assumption.”

“Do-” Stephan hesitated, suddenly feeling shy. He wasn’t usually quite so comfortable around strangers; it was actually rather rare for him to become so comfortable with someone as quickly as he seemed to have done with Damian. “Do you want to keep playing?”

Damian’s response was another heart-stopping smile and the start of a new melody that Stephan quickly found himself following.

-

They played for what might have been hours more. Time lost all meaning. Stephan very well might have gone on for hours more, had Damian not suddenly stopped playing.

It took a bit for Stephan to realize there was no more counter tune. Slowly, he drifted out of the musical trance he’d been in. The first thing he noticed was that they’d been there long enough for the sun to have gone down. Then he turned to look at Damian, only to crease his eyebrows in puzzlement at the guilty and slightly horrified expression on the red head’s face.

“What?” Stephan questioned, at a loss.

“Your hand,” Damian said, gesturing. Stephan looked down, and was completely taken aback at what he saw. He’d broken through the calluses on his fingers; his left hand looked like a bloody mess. And it was starting to hurt quite a bit, too. They really must have been playing for hours – he hadn’t done that in over a year.

“I think I got blood on your violin,” Stephan said, grimacing with regret. It was a nice instrument. He hoped Damian wouldn’t be upset –

“Idiot, I don’t care about that,” Damian berated, seeming to regain his composure. “I care that your hand is a bloody mess! The violin’s replaceable, you’re not.”

There wasn’t really anything extraordinary about the remark, but Stephan felt himself flushing all the same. “It’s fine, it’s not like I haven’t done this before -”

“Then you are an idiot,” Damian muttered standing up and stretching a little. Seeing him do so made Stephan start to realize his legs were a bit cramped, as well. And his left arm hurt. And his neck was sore. He was starting to remember why he’d gotten more careful about timing himself while playing.

“I don’t care,” Stephan said aloud, feeling a grin suddenly spread across his face. A familiar sort of post-musical-trance euphoria was starting to settle over him. “That was worth it.”

“Put the damn violin down and come with me,” Damian sighed. He seemed annoyed; more so now than even either of the times they’d been chased down earlier in the day. Stephan’s good mood faltered for a moment as he wondered if Damian was annoyed with him - but really, the investigator seemed more annoyed with himself. Stephan did as asked and followed Damian to an impressive, well-decorated and surprisingly large bathroom. It fit with everything else in the house; Stephan was really realizing how truly rich Damian must be. It must be from inheritance; it was a pretty well known fact that Damian Stanford was descended from one of the oldest and richest families in the area. It was also well known that Damian tended to be extremely fair about prices for his services as a private investigator, especially considering the dangerous nature of his specialty and the fact that he was the only person in the region who would do the sort of work that he did. His success was greatly talked about, but the actual details of his major cases were rarely released to the media, so there was quite a bit of mystery and speculation surrounding him as well, which only seemed to increase his fame and popularity.

Really, he could charge whatever he wanted and people would find some way to pay it. In Stephan’s mind, it spoke volumes for Damian as a person that he was well known to never charge more than his clients could reasonably afford. Also, he would take a wide range of cases, from the extremely dangerous and important to minor, run-of-the-mill things; as long as he felt it was within his jurisdiction. Stephan wondered idly how his own case ranked.

All of these things Stephan knew about Damian before meeting him. One thing the gossip and reports never talked much about, however, was the man’s personality. Stephan had heard rumors that Damian Stanford was a serious and stoic person, but that didn’t seem to describe the friendly, open person Stephan had seen so far. In fact, the man’s casual friendliness was probably what had caused Stephan to warm to him so quickly.

“Sit down,” Damian said, gesturing towards a long counter with two sinks and a long mirror above it, as he rummaged through a side closet that seemed well stocked with medical supplies. Stephan complied, hopping up on the counter. Damian pulled out some things, dumped them next to Stephan, and then started to wash the blood off his fingers. Something about Damian’s surprisingly gentle ministrations to his hand made Stephan start blushing furiously. He turned away, staring at the mirror, confused by his reaction. He was glad Damian seemed entirely focused on his task.

To distract himself more than anything, he asked, “So, do you often bring clients back to your house?” After he said it, however, he realized he was pretty curious about the answer.

“No, definitely not,” Damian answered distractedly. “You’re the…” he hesitated a moment, apparently thinking on it. “Second. Third, technically, but second to stay overnight.”

Stephan blinked in surprise. Somehow, he hadn’t thought it was all that unusual. So, then... “So, then, am I just special or what?” he made his tone light, but was honestly confused. And still blushing, unfortunately.

“Apparently,” Damian answered grimly. He was mostly finished washing away the blood; once cleaned, the wounds on Stephan’s fingers didn’t look too serious, although Stephan remembered with resignation that it would be at least several days before he could comfortably. “The woman after you is extremely powerful and dangerous. There must be some reason she wants you. She never does anything without a reason, and usually one that’s beneficial to her and quite the opposite for anyone else involved.” Damian put some kind of antiseptic on the wounds and started bandaging the tips of Stephan’s fingers with some kind of gauze material. He paused in his actions for a moment, looking up at Stephan with a very serious expression. “ It’s fair to warn you, I truly think you’re in serious danger, if she’s after you for something.”

“Who’s ‘she’?” Stephan asked hesitantly, feeling a chill run through his veins at Damian’s words and expression.

After a long pause, long enough that Stephan had begun to wonder if he’d answer at all, Damian responded heavily, “Someone I’ve dealt with in the past.” He shook his head slightly. “A vicious, sadistic, narcissistic bitch who is unfortunately rather too powerful for anyone else’s good. I’ve been hired on cases involving her before, and she is not someone I enjoy dealing with.”

“I’m sorry,” Stephan said impulsively, staring hard at the counter he was still seated on. Damian had gotten something of a faraway look in his eyes, but Stephan’s words seemed to pull him back to the moment, and an expression of surprise flickered across the psychic investigator’s face.

“Sorry for what?” he asked, sounding taken aback. “This is my job. One of the reasons I do this is to make sure people like her ruin as few lives as possible. And hopefully don’t get what they want, since in her case, it can’t be a good thing.” Damian’s gaze turned speculative. “There must be some reason why she wants you, specifically. Do you have any idea, any at all, as to why?”

Stephan resolutely shook his head negatively, growing slightly uncomfortable under Damian’s piercing gaze. He stared intently at his bandaged fingertips instead. It looked like he had dipped them in a layer of cotton or something. It was odd.

In reality, Stephan had a very, very good idea as to why this mysterious woman might want him. Damian’s stare suggested he suspected Stephan was holding something back. For a long moment, Stephan seriously considered telling the man before him. It seemed as though Damian was trusting him quite a bit, especially in letting a virtual stranger into his own house, and Stephan knew already that he pretty definitely trusted the other man. He also knew that he was really starting to like Damian as a person – but that was exactly it. That would make it so much worse, where there was something to lose. He just couldn’t. “I really don’t know,” he said aloud, stronger than he felt.

Damian studied him for another unbearably long moment, but finally seemed to relent and accept Stephan’s answer. “All right then,” he shrugged his shoulders and straightened from his half-kneeling position. “So, what would you like to eat?”