A regular Jekyll and Hyde
Matthew hasn't always been this fucked. He knows that. There was a time when Matthew Blake was a moderately happy, fairly mentally stable violinist who played for quarters in the park when he wasn't doing something else. With a ratty shared flat and a battered old violin to his name and a penchant for getting into relationships with the wrong sort of people. But life was manageable and it made sense and most days he could claim he was happy.
How that dumb kid watching over his shoulder on the way home through the city and sidestepping beggars and children in the subway had grown into this thoroughly fucked over man was an over-complicated story buried under a thousand different tabloid speculations. The Violinist with out a tune. Only two people knew the story behind his elaborate tattoo. Only one person cared about the history behind an empty violin case and the ice in crystal blue eyes that so easily caught and captivated the curious.
And that was just fine. Matthew preferred it that way. He built up a twisted tower of lies and truths that built a man who had never existed and deposited him right into a leather-covered throne and an office far enough away from the world to shut it out and appear to still remain in it.
Music had been everything he wanted, then it had been everything he needed. Now it was just all he had. Matthew held on to the notes that mattered and everything else became just another chord of some one else's piece he pretended to care about.
Someone had told him once, back when things still mattered, that there were stages in every piece of music, and every chord of life. Stages you were supposed to go through in some organized manner and then get over yourself and move on. Because shit happened to everyone. No one ever had it easy, perfect or happy. Life was a series of ups and downs and you either gave up or chin-upped through the downs until your luck shifted.
The problem with that was, Matthew never believed in luck. He never believed in fairytales or fate or destiny. There was just life. And you either lived or you died, and the quality of life depended on how well you kept ahead of everyone else. The difference had been, he never used to care how well he did. He cared about the music. It didn't matter if he was playing alone in his flat at night because the sirens on the city streets kept him up, or if he was on a stage performing for the masses for a payday. The music was what mattered. Not the people, not the money, and certainly not whether or not he was ahead of the crowd.
When Lawrence found him, Matthew was some country kid who ran off to the city. And it wasn't the usual tale. There was no sob story, none that he'd ever tell. He wasn't running from home or a troubled past that haunted him. He wasn't looking for fame and fortune. He was just looking for life, change, something new. Always something new.
And while he was never the doe-eyed optimistic youth, he was young and fresh and relatively unworried with the world at large. Unhurried to make anything of himself more than the cash to put food in his mouth and a roof over his head.
Life never 'goes to plan'. There is always a plan. Not everyone realises they had one, until it decides to go a new direction. And nothing spoils a simple plan like fame and fortune. Lawrence dragged Matthew into a world he had never known he wanted to be a part of. Bright lights and gorgeous music that twisted it's way into his blood like an aphrodisiac until he was drugged with it. Enamoured and blind the way only young love could make anyone. Not with a person, but with a life he had never known he could have.
Music consumed him. He'd always been a natural talent. He had taken to the violin like a great chef to a kitchen, or a gardener to the soil. He could turn out a melody uniquely his own with a twist of the wrist and a slide of the bow, and not once touch the notes that danced across the sheets of his middle school orchestra. But the city lights, the impressive venues, and the endless possibilities laid before him sparkled diamond bright and like many foolish young artists he dove into it, headstrong and whole-hearted. It was a new world of music, and Matthew leapt into it, willingly following where he was guided and taking the advice of the first person to ever give him a purpose. A goal to work towards.
He barely paid notice to other people, to after-parties and propositions, to the glamor and charm that tried to drag him loose. It was no wonder no one delved too deep into the life of the strangely talented young violinist. No one knew where he came from, where he'd learned his skill. He was a mystery that was just uninteresting enough to avoid the claws of the ever hungry media. He was just a violinist, with a skill and a talent that caught ears, and an attractive face that caught eyes.
While his peers and the young musicians his age partied and fell in and out of love, did drugs or became famous, he hovered on the line of the media's radar and worked unendingly on the creation he had never intended to bring to life until whispers in his ear and light directional shoves planted the idea in his head. He spent hours of days of weeks of months on a single idea. Inspired by love, not of the man who had him under his thumb, playing his strings like a well-tuned violin, but a love of the music itself. Mostly untainted by anything else. When his Symphony was finished, bright and beautiful in crisp black ink in it's newly penned finality, he regarded it with the sort of blind love they write books about.
He was unschooled in the world of modern music, too little known to be regarded with any real interest in the world of composition. So when Lawrence offered to help him turn a stack of neatly printed pages into an auditory masterpiece with his contacts and sway, Matthew leapt at the chance without hesitation or concern. To get to hear that Symphony, his creation, in it's entirety, the way it was meant to be heard was an opportunity he would give anything for. At least he thought he would give anything for it. Until 'give anything' became 'give everything'. Including his one real creation.
There is a tattoo, inked in Brandeis Blue in Matthew's skin. A permanent stain that dances up his wrist to trail a winding curve across muscle and skin, all the way up his arm, across his shoulder, and over his chest to end with a certain finality just along the side of his neck. An endless reminder of a young musician's greatest creation, and worst mistake. A beautiful and stunning symphony of painfully foolish decisions and blind trust.
Tabloids would write of love lost between musicians. Of a tragic young love ripped apart by the competitive nature of the music industry, that no one outside the world of music really cared about mere days later. But the tabloids always got the story wrong. Not just because the well-known and talented artist who came out on top easily twisted and turned the tale to one that benefited him in every possible way. Not because the shattered fragments of wood and resin had connected with skin over a life stolen, rather than a lover's quarrel.
But because the 'tragic love story' had never been about two young musicians in a surprisingly cut-throat industry.
It was about the violent murder and warping of a young violinist's love of music.
In a studio in the city, there's a violinist who crashed his career in a lover's quarrel and put his talents to use pairing labels, orchestras and symphonies with artists and composers, instead. He's a distant but friendly seeming music consultant who made a name for himself in spite of his beginning. He has money and he's popular with the music industry. His life a surprising success. His talent at the job nearly unquestioned. That's what most people want to see. The Matthew Blake most people meet. A mass of lies built around truths that is just uninteresting enough to stay off of the media's radar.
In that same building, there's a slightly unstable sadist with anger management issues, locked away behind a carefully organized facade of control and charm, who decides the fate of young musicians when he isn't busy doing something else. With an expensive apartment and a big office to his name and a penchant for getting into relationships with the wrong sort of people. But life is manageable and it makes sense and most days he could make it look like he was happy.