Synaesthete

by Hypokritika

AU, post Day of the Dead. Things had gone differently when Marquez captured El Mariachi, and Sands got a different sort of treatment under Barillo. They cross paths after the dust settles. Could be preslash if one squints and looks sideways.

1. Chapter 1

A/n: I wrote these first three chapters back in early '04 and then added the other chapters in increments over the next two years. I'm proud to say that this particular fic is finally finished. Yes, I'm a very slow writer. I see this as a continuing learning process, and I'm afraid none of this has been beta-read. It doesn't feel right to poke my beta after such a long absence, so any constructive criticism here would be greatly appreciated. And now I will stop rambling, oh yes I will:3

Synaesthete

Of all the things to happen, he never quite expected this. His thumb lingers on the guitar's sixth string, his other fingers laced between the first, second and third in a careless, staccato would-be chord that never quite comes. His left hand is beginning to cramp, but he can't bring himself to start the song. It sounds wrong, in his head.

He would like to feel the familiar respite of closed eyes and the impression of sleep, but he doesn't have eyelids to lower over the hollows where eyes should have been.

He sees music now. Frameless notes in blues and reds and yellows that melt into each other, and geometric shapes where consonants and percussion reach his ears. It's all he can see, even though he doesn't have eyes to see them with. Not anymore, anyway.

He keeps his head lowered. His Death's Head gaze unsettles the cantina's customers. Waiting for his fingers to pluck the swelling melody from the guitar's strings, he feels an inexplicable tension building in the hollow between his throat and his sternum. He grits his teeth, but the song refuses to come. He doesn't want to force it. He has tried before, and it came out wrong. Unable to see frets and the subtlest quiver of strings, he has lost the ability to make music. Now the music must make him. He doesn't necessarily need the visual reference; he knows each note intimately, each press of finger against guitar neck, the placement of every minute variation in pitch and tone. But he has always equated seeing with control, and now, in the darkness of formless color and senseless shape, the songs must grab him and swallow him whole before he can release them into the air.

So now the mariachi waits, and around him, the world rushes past in a blur of color and shape.