Fill: Challenge #83 (DW - Blue Rain AU)

[shivver]

I'd love to say that what Jon says here is how I feel, but I'm even more emotionally silent than he is.

Jon regarded her with an arched eyebrow. "What's so funny?"

Donna grinned at him, tapping the paper hanging from the refrigerator by a magnet. "So typical of us. Here's 'eggs' and 'bread' in my loopy scrawl next to 'spaghetti' looking like you typed it." He coloured and she hastened to reassure him. "It's so you. You're always so neat and precise."

"I'm an engineer," he stated as he shrugged. "Straight lines, perfect circles, right angles."

"Not at all, Ears. Remember, I'm secretary for the team. I've seen 'em all. I can barely read Anna's writing, and Tom, I won't take anything he's written down. I send him back to type it up himself." She ran her finger along the words on the paper. "You're the only one with beautiful handwriting."

Shaking his head, Jon stepped forward to catch her hand and draw it away from the shopping list. He held it lightly between both of his. "It's not beautiful. It's neat. There's a difference. I've never cared about beauty. I just wanted to be able to read what I wrote, so I practiced."

She smirked. Jon always devalued his own performance. "That's tosh. I've seen your drawings, you know."

"Then you know they're all engineering drawings," he countered. "I can draw you a pretty nice icosahedron, but I couldn't draw a person or a plant. I wouldn't even know where to start. The visual arts baffle me."

Donna couldn't refute that. The only human figures she'd seen in his drawings were made of sticks, added for visual scale. "I guess your manifest powers are pretty fitting then, being a musician and all."

"I've thought about that. Maybe, though I haven't noticed a correlation between powers and previous predilections in any other primes." He glanced over at his violin, secure in its rack on the wall, next to the music stand. "I've always been drawn to music, though I still lack that emotional connection."

"It runs in your family," Donna pointed out. "They're all excellent musicians."

"They are," he agreed, "though it's more than that. To me, music is an experience, you know?"

Donna frowned. "Well, so is art, isn't it?"

"Not really, not to me." He tapped a finger on his chin as he thought about how to explain what he meant. "I can appreciate a pretty picture, certainly. The Mona Lisa's gorgeous and yes, I remember when I first saw it, because we went to Paris as my father's anniversary gift to my mother. I was eight at the time. But I remember it because the trip was singular. The Mona Lisa was only a tiny part of it, and honestly, I remember less of the painting itself and more of being jostled by the crowd around it.

"But music is different. Music is an experience in itself. I remember the first Proms my father took me to. They performed Symphonie Fantastique, and I can still remember it, play it in my head if I want to. I'm probably hearing a more recent performance, but it still takes me right back to the Royal Albert Hall."

He gazed off into space for a few breaths more, still soaking in the memories of the grand chamber and the orchestra, then smiled down at Donna with a shrug. "But that's just me. Music travels along with me in life. Art is only incidental."

"That's fascinating," Donna murmured. "It's not the same for me, but I see your point. Music brings back memories for me, too. Every time I hear Come on, Eileen, I picture Pauly Watson belting it out at the top of his lungs at Susie Mair's birthday party."

Jon laughed. "Not quite the Royal Albert Hall, but close enough."

Comments

[romanajo123]

Oh that’s lovely!

I need to read all of Blue Rain. But I love the details like his neat handwriting or the Proms.

( and I started humming Come on Eileen ! 🎵)