Hot. Cold. Wet. Burns.

Every sound and touch was pain. He writhed on rough sheets and begged for the lights to be turned off but they were only be dimmed. Squeaking cart wheels electrified his spine and he quaked with every squalling turn.

So cold. He could not sleep when he was cold.

"How are you feeling this afternoon, Mr. Brodeur? Hmm, you're a little chilled, I'll just-"

At the first touch of the delicate blanket, he screamed. The bed was warmed, but it felt like knives against his torn and sloughing skin. He'd burned his once hand cooking and thought that was agony. Now, nearly half his body was seared.

Something had gone wrong. Something horribly wrong. Oh god, why?

The door opened. Murmuring, people standing over him. Tiny shifts in the air made his flesh crawl.

"Mr. Brodeur, we're going to give you a sedative to help you rest."

…

September 200-

Erik cringed and closed his eyes when the door to his room opened. He'd bounced from rehabilitation to inpatient and back again until his head spun and no matter how many notes in his records, they always managed to make the first two days a living hell. He'd have to reeducate them. Again.

The nurses would chatter as they checked him over, stomp everywhere in their heavy clogs, lock and unlock cabinets and slam them closed with a careless shove of the hip or adjust his clothing before warning him. He could not sleep, and had learned from experience that the auditory hallucinations set in after about a day, and visual after two days without sleep. Erik prepared to unload on the intruder.

Or perhaps… There was no clomping of loud soles, jangling keys, or screeching carts. No bright lights suddenly assaulted him, nor sharp clacking of instruments.

Erik opened one bleary eye.

"How are you today, my friend?" Nadir asked softly.

He trembled at the voice, but it passed. Like everything else. Erik gathered his voice into a croak. "I'm good." His eyes pricked, one more discomfort, and his words came out in halting speech. "It's good. To see you. Dr. Khan."

Nadir tapped his tablet lightly. "And you. The nurses tell me you did not sleep last night?"

"No." His head spun a bit from the sound of his own voice. Could feel himself shaking.

"It is normal to be nervous before surgery, my friend."

"Not my first," he sighed. "Why are you here?" The catch in Erik's ravaged voice was pitiful.

Nadir swallowed. "You were alone, my friend. No one should be alone like this."

"You're alone." Erik could not hold back his tears. Oh god…

A light pat on his undamaged shoulder, a gentle touch that rattled through his bones and left him quivering. "Erik, the surgical team will be here soon. I wanted to wish you luck before they begin pre-op, and to say a prayer for you."

"Please, Nadir, please… I-" The salt would sting later, but the tears flowed.

"Shh, Erik."

In the mad space of his whirling mind, Erik heard a delicate croon. Though no great talent, Nadir was a man who believed that he who sang prayed twice, and here he was, alone and broken, offering up his voice for him. A lonely man, singing through the pain.

He kept his voice as soft as he could, the prayer breaking when he could not sustain the trills so quietly, but it was as honest a supplication for strength and mercy as a man can make.

For the first time in weeks, Erik Brodeur fell asleep without a sedative.

…

December 200-

Something was not right. Nadir Khan frowned at the notes on the screen.

"The graft tissue is struggling, Erik, and you are not gaining weight. Are you eating enough?"

Erik sat firmly on his hands, his torso tense and straining as his eyes roved the stark consulting room. "I eat what I have to. It's on the list."

Nadir checked the handwritten log. By all accounts Erik was nourished. "Your body is not using it. And the tremor?"

Knowing that to not respond would just earn him a full exam, Erik pulled his hand from under his thigh. His entire arm vibrated. "Did I tell you I've hired lawyers? Good ones."

"I'd heard. Any numbness? Tingling or shooting pain?"

"Some," Erik groused and shoved his hand back under his leg with a grunt.

Frowning, Nadir tapped his phone. "I want to order a metabolism screen and nerve conduction test for Erik Brodeur. Yes, I'll hold." Nadir smiled as the hold music came on and put the phone on speaker. He turned back to his patient. "I hope you don't mind. I still like Strauss."

Erik's shoulders had drooped, and he was sitting completely still, staring at the phone. His mouth twitched at one corner, the corner that could still function, and Nadir could swear that it was a smile.

Later, standing aside during the nerve test, Nadir prayed softly for Erik. When the needle touched the nerve, Erik choked on his whimpers but as Nadir listened carefully, he could hear a melody underneath the pain. It wheezed and broke, but it was there.

Erik was trying to hum Strauss.

…

February 200-

Catabolism, the breakdown of muscle and other tissue, had taken a toll on Erik's body. He was reed thin now but, thanks to the lawyers and a hefty settlement, quality tailoring and fine fabrics could compensate where he lacked. Unfortunately, the wasting had ravaged his face. The skin repairs had held, thankfully, but little tissue remained underneath to cushion his features on one side. It was time to consider alternative plans.

Surgery was ruled out; he was too fragile. And while the skin held well, adhesives were ruled out, and surgical dressings were just not needed anymore.

Which left…

"It is unconventional, but less strange than some elective modifications I've seen."

Erik held up samples. "I want one of each. Make that two."

"They are each custom made, and are not inexpensive, my friend."

Erik did not look up. "I'm about to settle another case," he said grimly. With a disquieting grin he added, "I'm treating myself."

Nadir set the masks aside. "It is not healthy to remove yourself from the world."

Ignoring Nadir's words, Erik held up a mask and stared into the empty eyeholes. It was hauntingly white with a mild, blank expression. A far cry from what was under the dressings.

It was uncomfortable to think about, and Nadir rubbed at the ache that still lived in his chest. Hollow… If he himself was hiding from life, then perhaps Erik should be allowed his mask.

Erik fingered the surprisingly sturdy edges of the mask, turned it around, and held it up to his face. His gaze peered out from the eyehole and Erik was at once calm and unearthly.

Nadir shuffled the papers and gave Erik the forms.

…

March 200-

"Do you still enjoy music?"

Erik stopped his pacing, lightly tracing the cheek of his mask with a thin fingertip. "Of course. You know I minored in music for fun."

Nadir chuckled. "It's a little surprising for an architect. It's not like you had much spare time."

With a shrug, Erik began to prowl Nadir's consulting room again. "I took lessons as a child. I kept up with it a bit after I graduated." Erik clamped his mouth shut. It was the first conversation about music since the accident and it felt like scraping a scab, but it was music. "It came easy. Design, composition, music, structure… it all comes from the same place."

"What place is that?"

Erik's mouth twitched. "Creation. The soul. Spirit. Call it what you will, but new ideas are unlike anything else." His perfect eyes closed and his whole body shuddered. "Sometimes I swear I can feel them."

As Nadir watched in fascination, Erik craned his head to catch the strains of distant music through the open window, his hands drifting up as if he was holding the sound, manipulating it in space. For a moment, they were steady.

…

June 200-

A functional MRI is an intimidating process and an even more intimidating machine. Even the best were huge, loud, and frankly terrifying and then you were loaded into it like a missile. Nadir watched as his reluctant patient, stripped of his only shield against the world, had to be restrained to control the tremors and jarring spasms that threatened to pitch him from the sliding bench.

"I am so sorry, my friend. I would sedate you, but I need to see your mind working without the drugs."

Erik's shaking rattled the bench as the machine rumbled to life. Nadir sent a message for the skin and burn care team to come as soon as possible; the head restraint was going to rub poor Erik raw.

Afterwards, medicated and listing to the left, Erik managed a slurred greeting as Nadir joined him on the consult couch. He grinned lopsidedly and held up the thick file. "I like your work. Light reading, really."

Nadir chuckled. "You are fascinating, my friend. Your records do not do you justice."

Erik's humor was fleeting. "I'll have justice when we own every company that did this," he said coldly. "When will you have some results?"

"I will call you in a week. We should have our results written up by then." Nadir stood and carefully helped Erik off the couch and onto his feet, then fished his keys from his pocket. When he looked up, Erik was swaying to an unheard melody, his arms raised to conduct.

Nadir shook his head and opened the door. "You might even be coherent by then."

...

They met at Nadir's home. As they had been acquaintances first, it was hardly breaking any professional guidelines. Besides, there were exceptions to every rule.

Nadir decided that Erik was the exception to most rules one night after being simultaneously trounced at a third chess game, lectured at over a nuanced view of algorithm driven digital design (you can always tell because the AI cannot know what is pleasantly unexpected versus what is fluid design and that cannot be programmed yet) all while Erik perused playlists on his phone.

Tonight he was threatening to rattle himself to pieces with his nervous energy.

"My friend, please," Nadir pleaded, setting his king down on the chessboard. "Draw breath and allow me to speak."

Erik sat back, fingers fidgeting over the pieces. He adjusted the mask, fiddling with the edge as his jaw pulsed in a clench over and over.

"I went over your results with the entire team. The psychologists, radiologists, and surgeons provided full reports and if you're ready, we can go over them now."

When Nadir finished, he discreetly placed a box of tissues on the corner of the coffee table, and retreated into the kitchen. He brewed a fresh pot of tea, and poured a small whiskey, the only spirit in his home, purchased especially for today.

Nadir lingered by a locked closet where a collection of instruments lived in silence. Life had been so quiet for so long.

Erik was reading the file when he returned.

"Protracted moderate catabolism, mild emotional lability, hyper focus, heightened neuro-sensory state with synesthesia-like features and tactile sensitivity," Erik read, eyes roving the text. Then he tapped the papers with a sneer. "Idiopathic tremors resolvable by organized sound and exacerbated by unexpected stimulus."

Nadir handed Erik the whiskey and perched on a chair, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"You're aware that 'idiopathic' is the fancy word for 'I don't know'. That's why it starts with 'idiot'."

"True," Nadir said with a satisfied smile. "But I cannot publish 'I don't know.'"

Erik looked at the whiskey. "And that is the most ridiculous way to describe music I have ever heard."

"Agreed." The tea was excellent. Nadir loved the Assam first flush. "It's just a first draft. Besides, no one said case reports were good reading."

"Good luck getting it published. Nice to know you'll immortalize me as a twitchy head case with a music fetish." Erik took a respectable swallow of whiskey and breathed out through his mouth.

Nadir watched as Erik's jaw finally relaxed. "You're welcome."

…

September 200-

Nadir made himself at home while Erik punched viciously at his phone until a sonata played through the kitchen speakers.

"How was the cocktail party? A triumphant return?"

With his arms rising, fingers flicking in time with the music, Erik drew a deep breath. "I was a spectacle. Today's favorite entertainment. Look! He can walk and talk, even dress himself!" He slapped his arms down to his sides and snarled bitterly. "Almost like a normal person!" He nudged his padded mask. "Why the hell were there so many mirrors? A narcissist must have handled the décor of the office; perhaps a voyeur. They were all so polite and sweet, Nadir. Like syrup. They would touch me and just pretended nothing happened when I jerked away. They just kept touching me! They were just smiling so much and congratulating me."

A clarinet crooned prettily, and his fists unclenched. "They wore masks, Nadir. Bare, smiling faces, but masks everywhere."

Nadir poured his tea. "Then why are you going back?"

The look in his eyes. Oh, it was so sad. "I just want my life back, Nadir. An ordinary life. I want to be normal again. I need to feel normal again."

…

Erik flung his keyboard against the wall and, with his hairpiece tossed aside hours ago, dragged his fingers through his remaining hair. His real hair had spent much of the past year traveling for destinations away from his head. Notably his sink, shower drain, and pillow.

The structural models in his drafting programs were not cooperating. The angles and plots danced on the grid like shape shifting demons. Even his own work swung from the gridlines like children on monkey bars, skittering away and then over his skin like an itch. His work mocked him, his ability to navigate the calculus of design- the precision of the physical—just out of reach.

He pulled at his scalp painfully. What the hell did he need hair for when he could not even make sense of his own damn work?

…

Accounts, spreadsheets, and billing. Half of his time was spent doing the work of an admin.

Though, to be fair, it had taken him more than a week to log into the design system again. If all this meant he would have to throttle down, then so be it. Isn't that what the daytime shows all preached? Live your best life, and find your rewards where you could? Granted, it was crafted and produced to goad stay-at-home moms to buy pink salt or yoga pants and convince the sick and injured to hire the worst lawyers.

Not like his lawyers. Thanks to them he had a new house and Nadir's mosque had a new scholarship program.

With a sigh, Erik tabbed through another column and created a new chart. The business side was a mess and if he was stuck doing this, he was going to do it well. The contracts populated with a few strokes and autofill and he started parsing. Past due, late, pending, and liens. Acquisitions, ongoing arrangements and a series of 'no category'.

Then, as his scrolling reached the speed of blur, a date caught his eye. Not a birthday or holiday.

The date of his first win in court. A contract ended on that day. When Erik chased down the files, the contractor had been one the firm had hired, not him. He hadn't approved of the hire, but it had been over his head at that point.

He dug in his bag and pulled out a hard drive.

…

November 200-

"You need help, my friend."

Erik scoffed, scrolling through a series of playlists. "What I need is another drink and more storage on my phone."

Nadir moved the bottle from Erik's immediate grasp. "No, what you need to a re-evaluation. Time has passed, you have adapted. You may need to consider…" Nadir paused, trying to approach carefully. These were treacherous waters for anyone, let alone a man with an explosive temper. His eyes drifted to Erik's unsettlingly bare walls.

"Consider what? Spit it out, I just downloaded a new recording of Meyerbeer's Dinorah."

With a deep breath, Nadir looked back. "You should consider a change of lifestyle. Maybe a career change."

Erik was still. "Architecture is my career. I've written books on modern design. It's my life. Hell, I advised you on your house."

Nadir shook his head. "While I appreciate your skill, it is not your life. It is a job, one you are not happy with."

"It pays."

"You don't need the money."

Erik smiled darkly. The edge of the mask did not hide the cruel twists his tortured flesh made. "No, I don't. Did you know I won another settlement?"

"The building inspector?"

Nodding, Erik continued, "And their parent company." Erik's grin fell, and he lightly set his hand on Nadir's arm. It was such a rare thing, for him to reach out. "Nadir, I promise, I'm not done yet."

Nadir tried to speak, but could not form the words. Time had not softened his pain, or his friend's judging by the cautious touch on his forearm.

Instead, he allowed Erik to withdraw and take the bottle once more. Nadir sipped his tea. "When will you be done?"

Lead crystal makes interesting sounds when the rim is plucked. Erik grinned at the sound. "Would you say negligence or intent is harder to prove?"

"Is this a medical or legal question?"

Erik smiled. "Legal. And depending on what my lawyers find, the question may turn to one of intent."

With his teacup in hand, Nadir left the kitchen and joined Erik in the living room. "Do not do this for me," he said stiffly. "For yourself if you wish, but I will not have this hanging over me." At Erik's trembling, Nadir softened. "My friend, I would not have it oppress you, either."

…

Nadir Khan was not one to call in favors. It reminded him too much of his upbringing, where you had to know the right people to even walk the streets. And if the right people changed, you could have a great many problems on your hands. It went without saying that they changed often.

He and his wife had fled as swiftly as they could, hoping his medical degree and her connections outside the country would be enough to land them safely somewhere, anywhere, with some security. His darling Rookheeya… her reputation alone had been enough to keep them housed and fed for more than a year.

They traveled on her cello strings from Germany to France, then on to London. Finally he'd managed to find a position in America and she was happy to settle down, take a quieter position teaching and play in the local symphony, holding master classes at the university where she was beloved by students and faculty. Nearly fifteen years ago, when her belly touched the cello, she and said it was a nice way to give their son his first lessons. They had made a magnificent duet.

Her students rotated through her quartet. She mentored them and introduced them to other performers and she was never without a venue. Invitations arrived regularly for her to perform, but she always put her students first, and her colleagues knew and respected her for it.

So it was with a lump in his throat that Nadir Khan reached for his phone and called in his first favor to the university he'd tried very hard not to think about for more than a year.

…

May 201-

It took a hideous amount of effort, but Erik Brodeur managed to don the regalia and attend his department's pre-graduation celebration for new doctorates. Despite the department's efforts, and Nadir's protests, he refused to attend the graduation.

Erik had heard the music, he told them, and if the ceremony organizers had any sense they would have expelled half the orchestra and then strangled the soloist. If she insisted on belting out of her range, she might as well get a preview what the nodules would feel like for reference.

After the accusations of just being 'mysterious' and the disastrous aftermath, Erik chose to focus less on performance and more on composition and invention. It also happened that he was intimately aware of vocal structure and training, having painstakingly recovered his own instrument over the last two years. He wrote music and coached the handful of students brave enough to see him regularly for lessons. They learned quickly to stand at his left.

Only a handful. He couldn't handle more, and by the time he was nearing graduation, he was turning away more than he taught every semester.

…

While he had not made many friends in the program, Erik had taken some interest in a few with more analytical backgrounds. He had no time for those who relied solely on inspiration, but he was infinitely patient with those who worked through the problems, puzzling out pieces from instrument to arrangement to lyrical phrasing. Nadir wondered more than once what it would look like if skyscrapers could be built of music.

The maker lab, outfitted with ever-newer and more sophisticated computers and 3D printers, had been a frequent haunt for Erik. To the dismay of the entire department, he toyed with his old drafting work with new fervor and purpose.

Erik gifted the 3D printer plans and a song written especially for his original six-string violin to Zadir Amini, a brilliant young Iranian musician and engineer. Nadir paid for the high resolution grade resin. The music department grimaced and subsidized the engineering department's shockingly high 3D printer usage fees, only too happy to see Erik leave their facilities.

…

November 201-

It made Nadir Khan smile that, even in the digital age, so much creative work still burst into life as scribbles. Stacks of staff paper heaped by the piano and a powerful computer, waiting to be formed into something greater. The problem was not the stacks by the piano and computer, but rather the ones by his couch, bed, and in the bathroom. And little really progressed beyond that.

A melancholy string of notes rose from the piano across the house and floated into the kitchen. Nadir saw the melody he was hearing scribbled across some staff paper on a stool in the kitchen. Were the place not covered in a layer of creative detritus, it would be a rather sleek kitchen. It resembled the resident: highly functional, and barely used.

The same series of notes, at once gorgeous and haunting, varied in their emphasis, then repeated. A lonely, unsustainable composition.

"You are drifting again, my friend," Nadir called across the house. He cleared sheets of staff paper away to make room for the kettle.

The keys shouted a discordant protest. "You're not jamming my head into an MRI again just because I'm stuck on something." The echo of approaching footsteps came from the hallway.

"No," Nadir agreed, and sprinkled tea into the pot. "But you don't have a schedule, and you don't interact anymore. It's important, Erik. It's normal."

"I don't have normal," Erik spat as he settled his mask into place.

"When did you last get up before eleven?"

Erik tilted his head in that unsettling way, his clear eyes full of dark mirth. "Morning or night?"

The kettle beeped and Nadir breathed the steam as he filled the tea pot. Erik purchased it years ago for his sole use and it saw as much use as his own at home. "You are squandering yourself. You have a lot to offer."

"Aren't you the one who said I didn't need the money? Oh yes, then I went and got a doctorate. For fun."

Nadir turned from the coffee pot and slapped his hand on the counter. Erik jumped, his fingers skittering over the staff paper.

"Yes, damn you, I did say that," Nadir shouted. "And now I don't need the money either, but I still work. And when I leave work, I leave work. I see people and I live my life. It's not an exciting life, but it's mine. But you, my friend, you could have such a life! But you stay in your house, dress in fine clothes no one sees and compose music no one hears."

"Take care, Nadir," Erik warned.

"I've been trying! For eight years I've tried to take care of you, but you do not make it easy. As your doctor, business partner, and as your friend!"

"Which one is it now?" Erik snarled. "Are you worried about your studies or your investment? Because no one can care about this!" He lifted the edge of the mask, exposing raw, distorted twists stretched over sharp bone.

Nadir's breath caught in surprise. Erik never exposed his face anymore. Even his forearms stayed under folds of pressed cotton and linen. With a sigh of the long-suffering, Nadir set his hands flat on the counter and hung his head. "Is it so hard to believe?"

"Of all people, you should hate me the most," Erik sneered as he curled into himself.

So they were here again. Erik's carousel ride of guilt over things he had no control over but blamed himself for anyway. Things he could hardly even remember. Self-hatred for a failure that was not his, thinking the outward reflected his sins.

Nadir lifted his head, vision blurring. "I don't. I cannot."

Erik deflated, his intensity suddenly dimming. Too-thin arms clawed at the air, scraped at the staff paper, and finally wrapped around his suddenly fragile looking torso as the tremors overtook his spent anger.

Nadir circled the counter and, ever so lightly, set his palm on Erik's sharp shoulder. The joint popped as a fresh spasm radiated through him. "You have my devotion, as a friend." Nadir said softly. Weary and aware of the years of pain Erik had suffered, Nadir returned to a stool and held his head in his hands. "Erik, I just… I want you to consider something. A trial period, perhaps."

Erik paled, and the pages he had managed to gather slid from his grasp. The raw edge of his quivering lip turned a lurid shade of red as his teeth raked into it. "No tests. No needles." He swallowed and clasped his hands together to cover the increasing tremors. "A new drug? Therapy?"

"No, my friend," Nadir chuckled. "Teaching."

...