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Damian opened the door and ushered their auditioner inside. They'd seen quite the variety of potential guitarists through the auditions, making the next one feel almost bland with his casual appearance. His polo shirt was the same lighter tint as his skin while his jeans were closer in shade to his darker, shaggy hair, which came down to his ears and had bangs that were haphazardly brushed sideways out of his eyes. He was average height but had some muscle and he carried himself more like it was a professional job interview than a chance to get into a rock band. Made sense. They'd been told he was a computer science major, after all. It sounded like he was smart on top of being rather cute, in a boyish way. But the best part had to be the naming coincidence. "Andy, is it?"
"Yes," the man said, opening the guitar case he'd set on the ground as Damian walked past him on the way back to his seat.
"That's funny, our last guitarist's name was also Andy." He acted like the realization had just dawned on him, as if anyone would be fooled.
"You can call me Rusty, if you want," Andy offered. "It's an old nickname."
Sitting on matching stools beside Damian, Tim and Dan both wrote down the nickname on their respective pads of paper. With rehearsal space time so precious, they'd decided it would be easier to write individual notes on each person and compare at the end of the day rather than devote however long it'd take between auditions to discuss each one.
Damian waved him off. "Andy's fine. We're used to saying it."
"Yeah, at least we won't accidentally call you the wrong name," Tim added, with a grin.
Rather than play along, Andy remained focused. He got settled onto his own stool, guitar ready to go, and faced them with such a neutral expression that Damian wondered if he was hiding that something had pissed him off.
They put him through the same paces as everyone. A cover of one of their songs, a song of his choosing, and general skill checks. Despite the potential nerves or badly taken joke, he did better than anyone else they'd seen yet. He put his two-tone guitar back in its simple black case after being told he was done and carried it as he went over to Dan to shake his hand and say thank you. That wasn't a unique thing out of the people that auditioned, but it did make Damian go back on thinking there might already be bad blood between them. It felt professional yet genuine as he did the same with Tim.
Damian held his hand out as he was approached last. "Thanks for coming in."
"Thank you," Andy repeated. The polite smile he had vanished as their hands touched. In the same instant, Damian felt an ache in his eyes. Blinking and squinting didn't make the strained feeling lessen. He noted that Andy looked like his eyes were bothering him too, then everything started looking different.
Each pound of his heart changed his vision a little further as Andy turned to head out of the room. Things weren't just tones of gray anymore. Like liquid soaking into cloth, something else was seeping into his sight. It was intense, disorienting... colorful. He was seeing what had to be colors.
Dragging his gaze from the newly colored door as it shut, Damian glanced to his side, the ache in his eyes aggravated by the blur of colors that came with the movement. The other two were writing notes on the performance, going through the same motions all three of them had been doing after each completed audition, but, to his excitement, the gray was drained away. Dan and Tim were instead patchworks of light he didn't understand. He managed to jot down "excellent", "professional", and the understatement "good match" on his own notes before looking around the room, amazed. The walls remained light gray, which was a mix of disappointing and calming in a familiar sort of way, while the floor, area rug, instruments, the pen he was holding, and, fuck, even his own hands had all taken on some sort of color.
While trying to examine his hands without looking like a stereotype of a person of drugs, he remembered the second half to the equation. Being able to see in color meant someone had met their soulmate. If he really was seeing color and not hallucinating or having a stroke, then it was because of Andy. Andy must've been his soulmate.
He turned back to the others. It was difficult not to stare as if it were the first time he'd ever seen their faces, though in a way it was. "I'll be right back," he said, managing to keep the urgency out of his voice.
Tim and Dan, unaffected and unaware, gave him an "okay" and a nod without any questions.
In order to keep it that way, Damian was mindful of his breathing as he got up, crossed the room, and opened the door to make sure he didn't appear to be in a rush. Of course he'd tell them eventually, but he wanted it to be on his terms rather than given away by body language.
No one was in the hallway linking the multiple rehearsal spaces together. With the few minutes that had passed, and without having to hide his own hurrying, Andy was probably outside. Maybe he'd already left, even. Damian had to count on him getting slowed down by distractions as he took long strides down the hall in an attempt to close the distance. As he tried not to get too distracted himself, his memory of learning about colors in school came back. He'd thought it was funny before, teaching preschoolers, out of which one in a thousand at best would be able to see them at the time, which colors were which. Yet, that drilled in info was his sudden lifeline to cope with it all. Various examples parroted in his mind like a nursery rhyme never quite forgotten. Grapes were purple. The sky and water were blue. Grass was green. The sun was yellow. Fire trucks were red while fire itself was more orange. Wood was brown or a light brown called tan. Some things were just white, gray, or black though, like snow, smoke, and chalkboards. And Damian's clothes. He knew his clothes were dark and Dan, the only one of them who had been able to see color, had told him they were black, but looking himself over as he walked and having it confirmed was satisfying in a way he never thought possible.
The wood floor was a darker shade so it had to be brown, he supposed. All of the doors matched the flooring and the whole building had the same general appearance throughout, which kept him from being too overwhelmed as he walked into the front room where the walls were lined with decor. It felt equivalent to stepping from a little chatter directly into an obnoxious crowd. The colors of each decoration yelled for his consideration, the room turning into a roar from the sheer amount of them. Tempting as it was to stay and immerse himself in the rainbow of colors, Damian pushed on without stopping to acknowledge a single piece. The doorknob gave a last minute vie for his attention with its shiny, light, off-brown color. Gold, maybe? He thought he'd been told before that doorknobs came in a gold color.
Outside was an even bigger test of his concentration. Things he had always taken for granted like cars, buildings, and the sky itself had transformed. The sky in particular beckoned, being the one color so far he could be sure on the name of, but after a quick glance he had to stare at the ground to stay sane. He knew the sky's actual color was blue but seeing it as anything other than another type of gray made his whole life feel upended. How did he go that long without knowing what something so vast and omnipresent truly looked like? How was it the first time he saw what color the sky was?
He followed the short path of still gray concrete to the small parking area before daring to look around again. His eyes avoided his own car, as much as he wanted to find out what color it was, and picked out someone standing behind a different car with the trunk open. It was a man, average height but with some muscle and shaggy hair. Andy.
Damian made it over to him before he could get in the car. Though, he didn't seem keen on moving anyway. He was too distracted by the guitar sitting inside its opened case to hear Damian approach.
The case hadn't changed from pure black, nor had the edges of the guitar. But the neck was a light brown, tan maybe, and another type of brown between the color of the hardwood flooring and the doorknob faded in towards the center of its body. He rested his fingers on the odd brown near the pick ups as if the color would vanish if he didn't make sure it stayed tangible. More interesting to Damian, however, were the colors Andy himself had taken on.
While his shirt remained gray, his jeans were a darker blue, or whatever a darker blue was called, and his skin was a color not too far off from Damian's. Not that the similarity made it any easier to put a name to. His mop of hair was another tone of brown, definitive yet different than the slew of others Damian had seen so far. He felt like a explorer cataloging countless new species he barely had the means to describe.
Staring and trying to force the names out of his memory wasn't doing any good, though. "Hey," he started, careful not to startle Andy.
Andy glanced at him, brief and anxious, then turned back to the guitar. Just that flash of the colors of his face was striking. "Hey yourself."
"We should probably talk about this," Damian said after giving Andy a chance, untaken, to say more. He looked at his shoes, thinking that turning his focus elsewhere would help them both feel a little less nervous, but the sudden color of the shoes he wore everyday was just a reminder of the situation.
Letting his hand fall away from the guitar, Andy sighed. "Yeah, you're right." He closed the case before turning around. "So you see it too?"
It was Damian's turn to nod as he continued to stare at his shoes, unable to put a name to their color yet.
A softness came into Andy's voice. "I guess that means we're soulmates."
"Looks that way." Damian straightened up in case he looked upset over the situation by staring down like that. It was the complete opposite, especially when they made eye contact. "Wow, your eyes are so... blue?" He tried, only half sure he was using the correct term but surprise making it slip out anyway. "Like sort of the color of the sky."
Andy took a deep breath like he was about to commit to something he was dreading, then looked up. His expression turned from apprehension to pure wonder as he took in the blue expanse. Damian, too shaken by the sky to look at it again just yet, chose to try to put words to more of Andy's colors instead. The light color of his skin reminded Damian of the tan neck on the guitar but it looked more warm than what he knew was cold wood. Maybe warm and cool colors made more sense than he'd given them credit for. Andy's lips, slightly parted in amazement, were even warmer looking. They remained light as well but in hue they were... not blue. What color were lips, red? No, pink? Light red was pink, right?
After a moment, Andy shook his head, put his fingers over his mouth, and turned his gaze to the ground like Damian had done before. "It's overwhelming," he mumbled.
"It's beautiful," Damian gently countered. "Look at all the things we didn't know were there." He reached for Andy's wrist, bringing his arm out to expose its underside. Though he was about the same tint everywhere, there were subtle differences in his hues. Without color, neither of them ever would've noticed. The streaks of blue just visible below the surface, the pink and white of his nails like paint drops on the end of each finger, the brown strands of hair covering the top half of his arm, it was like being able to see ghosts that had been lurking there the entire time.
Damian glanced up to catch Andy looking over his face instead. Andy took his arm back once he'd been caught, eyes flicking away. "This is profound and all, but I gotta get back home. I need some time to process this."
"Right, right." Damian let his own arm fall to his side before slipping his hands in his pockets. "Well, my commitment is to finding the best guitar player for the band so even with what's going on I can't guarantee you that spot. And I'm not going to bring this up until after so it doesn't sway anyone's opinion," he explained.
Andy's tone matched the sudden professionalism. "Yeah, of course."
"You're the best one we've seen so far though, so it might work out. I'll let you know when we make our decision." Damian shrugged and gave him a knowing half smile. "Either way, I'll be in touch."
"Sounds good. Talk to you in a few days then." Andy returned the smile with a small one of his own. "Thanks again." After a pat on the side of Damian's arm, he closed the trunk of his car and walked to the driver's side. Damian could only let his excitement show through a childish grin to himself. There was another audition left for the day, and a couple more days of them booked up. He had to keep things under wraps until after the best guitarist was selected, then he'd be able to confess to everyone and gush and flaunt his newfound knowledge of colors and all the other romantic cliches he was starting to understand. For the time being, he had to be content with the last glimpse he caught of Andy, his soulmate, driving off as he looked over his shoulder on the way back inside the studio.
Andy ended up being the best one.