It was the sound he made, standing on the street corner with his violin in hand, that made Adam fall in love with him. His head cocked to the side, his lips open and inviting the red strands of hair to fall from head to stick to mouth. His hands gently strumming the strings, first G, then D… a deep sound that clung to the inside of Adam's skull all day so that later he would find himself humming it while he picked out fruit in the market.

The Violinist didn't have eyes, closed as they always were, while he played at the corner of Jackson Square. He didn't need eyes, Adam already knew what color they were: green. Like his own, a deep shade that blended well into the pale skin, the dark hair. Their species all had green eyes, jungle traps that led into the dark of their mind.

Once, when Adam left some money in the open Violin case, the Violinist stopped his playing until he had backed away. His fingers then played again, finding the places on the instrument that Adam longed to hear. A small smile forming on his lips, his tongue would dart to grasp at the hair. It seemed the man would tease forever before another glimpse of inside were produced; the opening of his mouth, the flaring of a nostril.

Sitting hours at a time across the street until he thought he would go mad. The music driving nails into his head, crucifying him to the back of the bench with each thrust of the Bow, Adam would sweat and squirm in the shade as the Musician played on. Then leaving, running to escape the delirium of noise, he would turn the corner and listen back for the Violin, but would hear nothing. The man would always leave, and by the time he turned back around the case, and wood, and flesh were gone; vanishing into the pavement.

Adam knew little tricks such as these - to withdraw your energy so that one could blend in with the surroundings. It was fun to play at dinner parties when one wished to escape from a busy gossip on his or her rounds. Better more to play when in public, popping in and out, darting from the corner of a human's vision. But it infuriated him further when one of his own kind, the only he had seen in nearly fifty years, and one that he had supposedly fallen in love with, did it to him.

He would sit in the dark of his apartment, and watch through the lace curtain the blue-shadowed night as it fell asleep across his floor. Thinking about the Violinist, the Musician who takes his breath away at each glance. He lays, vertically to the floor, his short hair cradled by the carpet, his lips stitched together like two pieces of twine, held and vibrating to the summons of the Violin. He never before knew such love, such devotion to a man who he had never met. His stomach fluttered inside when he thought of him, and tears blinded his vision when he so much as imagined losing him.

It was night after night of these horrible visions, waking hours without sleep that brought him again to the darkness once more. He began to walk as he did in the past of old Italy, crossing the streets and watching the human's converse with each other. His thoughts always of the man he loved, he would find himself staring at the place where just hours before the Violinist had stood, and played his hypnotic trance. Sobbing on the hot pavement, his arms wrapped tight around his chest, and his life slipping out of his eyes in so many tears, he would call out to the earth and to the night to help him find his love.

Every night he would imagine that the Violinist would appear at his door, his case in one hand, and his heart in the other. Adam imagined that one night he would awake, and there he would be, the Musician, his love. His red hair slightly greasy, his face so worn and old, but with those green eyes that care so much, and stare so deep into his heart. Adam would bring him down slowly, through the half shadows of the night, on top of him, and then they would kiss. Instantly they would meet, like two lost souls, lip upon lip, and find each other through the fabric of skin. It would last until the Violinist took hold of his shirt and pull it over his head.

They would lay like two animals, protective of each other; the female guarding her child, the male guarding his mate. Life would pass them by until neither could tell the night from the day, or the sun from the moon. They would find only a green light, from the reflected light of their eyes.

But it never happened as such. Adam would often go back to the scene, and cry again for the man he never touched. The Violinist would appear less often, and more sorrowful, as if he carried a greater burden than Adam. They knew each other, and played games no longer; Adam would sit on the curb, next to him, and he would play.

And then one day, only Adam would sit on the curb, alone and without him, until the last day passed by his ancient breath.