Preface

Take Five
Posted originally on the fanfiction.lol at https://fanfiction.lol/works/573.

Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

Real Person Fiction (RPF)

Category:

Hetero (F/M)

Fandoms:

The Dave Brubeck Quartet, Jazz Music RPF

Relationship:

Paul Desmond/Audrey Hepburn

Characters:

Paul Desmond, Audrey Hepburn, Dave Brubeck

Additional Tags:

1940s, 1950s, Smoking, Jazz music, Angst, Awkwardness, Blushing, Embarrassment, Plot without plot because im dumb, Mutual Pining, Requited unrequited love, Unresolved romantic tension, Other Additional Tags To Be Added, Other characters not mentioned in the tags, Cross-posted from Squidgeworld Archive

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-09-21 Words: 360 Chapters: 1/?

Take Five

by Dave_Brubeck

Summary

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ Cross-posted from Squidgeworld Archive ☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

---

As Dave, Eugene and Joe are all making confused noises at Paul's sudden appearance, thinking that he won't be at rehearsal today, Paul immediately slams a piece of music sheet in front of Dave and says to everyone,

"Stop gawking at each other and get to working on the piece." And before anybody could even start, Paul is already playing the first line of "Audrey".

OR...

Paul Desmond falls in love with Audrey Hepburn, she falls in love with him but they both think that their love for each other is not mutual until it's too late for them to know if the other one feels the same way as they do.

Notes

I'm both in pain and am crossposting this at school I HATE MY ENGLISH TEACHER I HATE HER I HATE HER I HATE HERRRRRR AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHDJEUDHJOFUDHSOFJDGDJSKFHDH

Chapter 1: Flashback

1948

¸¸♬·¯·♩¸¸♪·¯·♫¸¸¸♬·¯·♩¸¸♪·¯·♫¸¸

The 23 year old Paul had been listening to some random shellac record of Benny Goodman as he looks through all of the forgotten and untouched magazines and newspapers that he found while he is sitting on the floor with his knees touching his chest. 

While skimming through the newspaper, skipping some pages, he stops at a specific page... A photo of a ballerina. Right under the photograph is presumably the ballerina's name, "Audrey Hepburn".

To Paul, she looked like the definition of beauty, the sun to the world... 

... 

To Dave, and all the other band members in The Dave Brubeck Quartet, she seemed like a normal, regular ballerina. 

"I don't understand, how can you not feel any type of love or feeling when you look at her--" Paul defensively says but then gets interrupted by his band member, Cal Tjader. 

"Thats because you are the only person in this room to be a lovesick fool for some unknown woman that someone saw on a newspaper once." Cal says, crossing his arms exhaustingly from having to argue for nearly 15 minutes with persistent-that-Audrey-will-make-anybody-fall-in-love-with-her Paul just about some random photo of a ballerina printed on a newspaper. 

"Dear God, can we please continue rehearsing for our upcoming performance instead of wasting all of the days just talking and arguing endlessly without leaving any actual time to genuinely rehearse?" Dave (Brubeck, there are two Dave's in the octet) cuts in but suddenly hears somebody else argue on the other side of the room so he turns to the direction of where an another argument is coming from, "wh-- Stop bickering about something the whole rehearsal, you two can do that at home!!" Dave yells at Bob Collins and Dick Collins who were arguing about something but now after hearing Dave snap at them immediately stopped. 

Paul huffs in slight distress mixed with frustration frustration as he drops the small piece of newspaper into his opened saxophone case, not on the sax itself, before picking the alto saxophone up and preparing it for rehearsing as Dave has went to the other side of the room to scold the two previously arguing brothers. 

Afterword

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