Chapter Text
“Did you start an entry in your journal, Andrew?”
A question cutting through the dense silence that hung over time between himself and the doctor in the well decorated office. The clock above her head ticks silently away at the minutes, time he was hoping to wile away in quiet after his short barely answers to her inquiries. Fingers thread between each other and release again while he contemplates how to answer this question.
The journal which had been handed to him in their last meeting as a means to access his throat process was carelessly tossed on his kitchen counter back home. When he first had it, he scribbled on the first page, 'This is pointless and I hate it.', but just as quickly he tore out the page and threw it into the trash.
As much as he found the whole activity to be a waste of his time, he was not looking to mock the doctor to her face for what she introducing him to what she deemed 'cathartic activities'.
He wants to lie, he could fill it in next time with an entry that checks off all the marks if she wants to see the proof. Andrew was adept at lying, one must when they lived a life like his, but in these four corners where a trained professional had a careful watch over him he felt cornered within the chair set up across the doctor.
Not equipped with anything that prevented him from getting caught in such a lie he aims for a half truth, “I haven't really... Had anything interesting enough happen to really write home about. My life is boring. You know that... It would have been a waste of paper.”
Did she really know that? With how little Andrew communicated to her he could have an entirely interesting life but would not unveil that to his assigned professional.
Her smile is patient in ways that makes Andrew tense, arises his suspicions on any alternative reasoning to her looking unbothered by his rejection of her activity. Just chastise him for being a failure already, he knew she wanted to. It was easier to just take the rejection he knew all too well rather than sit about stewing in other peoples falsities.
“Andrew, that notebook is for documenting how your day went and how you felt during it. It's not a documentation of escapades, though I suppose that would be fun, wouldn't it?” She laughs lightly but when she gets nothing in return from Andrew, except his usual default dower expression, she clears her throat and continues on, “Ahem, don't stress about what you write just write what feels natural.”
So don't write at all? That seemed the most obvious answer to her suggestions and his uncovered eye sought out the clock again with a grateful breathe seeing the minute hand reaching the end of the hour which he wasted away in relative silence.
Trust was not forged with this woman who was supposed to somehow rewire his brain into not hating living within his skin. He had no faith that sitting in this office being pried and prodded at over WHY he saw his life as expendable as he did.
His workplace insurance were paying for these meetings anyway so in the end they were just a nuisance is had to endure to keep his small friend group from casting worried glances at him and, more importantly, a requirement to keep his job after the incident that incited all this.
He was fine, really, he insisted but no one would listen so she was getting paid and he squandered away an hour of the day.
“Now, I hate to give you homework...”
No she didn't.
“But I would like for you to have at least a couple sentences prepared by our next meeting. It could be about how work ended or about something good you ate or even how nothing happened that day. Just to name a few ideas.” A pause rested in the tense air while Andrew's mind once again went toward its usual machinations.
Left to it, his thoughts reeled; This was pointless. How pointless. Utterly pointless. Why did he have to do this ? He just wanted to be left alone –
“You can always say no, Andrew.” She added in a soothing tone rattling him back into a territory of discomfort.
Familiar anxiety sends a ripple through his body, bolstering him to submit as a means of avoiding that dreaded confrontation that came with refusal. There were few in this world he could outright refuse without using bold face lies in order to manipulate his navigation around any negative responses he could possibly get for saying 'no'.
Which was why he preferred to just NOT interact with people face to face in general. Avoid the whole mess all together.
“That – Yes – That's fine. I can do that.” He stammers out, his eyes darting about only seeking out the circular device, just a few more seconds and he could go. Andrew would be free.
He was observed with a curious gaze that changed into calculation, she picked up the pen that rested on the clipboard and jotted unknown down onto the nearly blank paper. Just as quickly, his file was flipped over to cover up whatever he had written.
What in the world could she be hiding there? It was the first thing she had jotted down this entire session and Andrew's chaotic mind decided to fill in the gaps with his own usual expectations of those around him.
'Anxious freak,' He decides with no proof to this deduction, 'Yes, that has to be it. Why hide it otherwise? She would not be wrong.'
Her usual tranquil demeanor returned and all Andrew can do is stand at the same time as her, ready to make his way toward the door with the one track direction to get home. He does not lift a hand to shake her hand for the day and he is glad she had understood from their first encounter that he never would.
Being touched was a tricky subject for Andrew – contact with another person came with an anticipation for abuse. Or to be tricked into thinking they would not hurt him. They would. Everyone did eventually.
When he looked over his shoulder after their first session and the refusal of his handshake he witnessed her opening his file and making a note within that time too.
He knows, he's a freak.
Giving a noncommittal good bye after scheduling the appointment was done with he moved back out into the outside world of the city. Fingers tucked into the sides of his hood pulling it over his face to hide his sensitive skin from the aggressive sun above. Shoulders dropped and his face tilted down toward the sidewalk enough to see where he was going but not be subjected to invasive stares from the morning city goers.
People looked, stared at his translucent lashes and pallid complexion. Sometimes they whispered to someone beside him, like he was an exhibit at a museum, not beautiful or well constructed, just a strange display people knew about but rarely saw. City people were too busy to give it much thought when he walked past him or even more often than not.
He preferred it as opposed to the slander and fear that came from a small isolated mountain town who once treated his mother as a part of them. One child who appeared differently could earn a communities vitriol when a caring parent took no judgment on their child and chose to keep him instead of sending him away like they wanted.
The noise and bustle of a city with far too many people for his taste was better than living in the backwater town who allowed his dear mother to lose her life to a completely treatable illness.
All because she loved her odd looking child.
His shoulders sagged more and the hood was tucked further over his face, hiding him from the cruel world he was forced to inhabit.
His studio apartment was his safety net, a place where he could pull off the layers that hid a toned but scarred body. No one to look, no one to judge, no one to whisper.
It would have been best to go to sleep right then in preparation his evening shift ahead. Many used the Graveyard shift as a funny little way to describe their evening shifts but for Andrew it was quite literal. The perfect job for someone such as him, tending and caring for the final resting place of the dead and occasionally reporting trespassers with video cameras to the on site security to take care of. Aside from those minor interactions he was left to his own devices.
As much as he enjoyed the peace of his job and to his tired body's dismay he would choose to sit in his computer chair at the face of his laptop and slip into the forum's that had become his world since their discovery.
No one would ever know his true name or face in that online sphere, it was a comfortable place to disappear into and play pretend for a little while. He would only give himself a few hours of sleep before a shift of long manual labor.
Who care when this mortal form of flesh and bone was nothing more than a slowly decaying vessel that was eroding around the pure brilliance of a soul. Formless and without appearance he would be Judged by the Lord worthy of passing through to the Mother he who was ripped from his young hands before either of their time.
This was a temporary stay until the Lord would give him peace finally and he would see Her again.
Tired eyes gazed upon a screen, the form he loathed so supremely begging for the self care that Andrew would not give it.
Nothing would ever change that.
✦✦✦✦
A sound both melodious and captivating reverberates off of the walls of the music hall, filling it with the ethereal tune of the instrument being played by hands who knew it better than they knew themselves. The bow slices through the air, along the strings in rapid creation, its only audience member wrapped up in the craftsmanship of it.
The player's music allowed the viewers to be transported for to a place of the players design. Song was the only thing that mattered as it perfected the structure.
Just as quickly, the magic was zapped out of the room as the violinists arms drop to their sides, stopping the song in its tracks like a train crashing in a head on collision, tearing the listener from the world he manufactured with his song.
A frustrated sigh is what remains in its stead, eyes squinting down at the floor with malice even as hands clapped together in the front row.
Demure in his posture, the blonde gazed up at him waiting for the performer to say anything about the halting of his practice concert, “I do not understand why you stopped. I thought it was rather good.”
“Rather good is not good enough.” The raven hair of the tall figure swooped around him like an enveloping cape as he pivoted in a circle toward the back of the stage. Making a line straight toward the dressing rooms at the back where Joseph already knew he was going to sulk.
A sigh falls from his lips, it was a funny little game one had to play with wording when it came to Antonio's easily distressed temperament over his music. Normally, he was quite the jovial type, while no longer dangerous with his lavish lifestyle he kept an air of friendliness about him that drew others in to languish in his bewitching aura.
Joseph knew all too well he could become childish in his behaviors when the Gods did not award him with the impossibly large request of playing a melody so perfect it would be considered inhuman. Slowly, he stood from his chair taking his time as he sauntered up the stairs of the stage back toward Antonio's personal dressing room.
Inside, Antonio was in his usually huffy place, scribbling away at the papers that covered the vanity and swapping between them as if he could find the perfect song by giving fitful looks at each page of his own written music.
Joseph leans against the door frame, awaiting any dramatically ranted complaints he may have over his own song which habitually followed such outbursts. Nothing comes as Joseph waits at the door, only the sound of pen scribbling on paper ever so often before the mirror. He is oddly silent today, Joseph observes with a quirk of a thin brow.
Joseph leans into the room only far enough to pluck a rose from one of the many vases that decorate the room, all gifts from adoring fans of the violinist with messages of how his music changed their lives tucked in between their thorny stems. A fruitless hope that he would see their written message and be seen by him, perhaps he could even inspired by them.
These loving gifts are invisible to Antonio, he moves past them as if they are another fixture of the room that comes standard with each and ever dressing room. One might consider him ungrateful to these adoring gifts but Antonio's focus since coming back to fame was his music. Only the music.
Everything else came second – relationships, friends, and especially his estranged family were all just distractions from the creation of a perfect violin portion of a symphony.
“You really must learn to be happy with what you have, my friend.” He twirled the rose in his manicured fingers, examining its crimson petals as they danced in the low light of the room, looking as if they were the fluttering fabric of a flowing dress on a ballroom floor, “There are those who would happily throw a man into the river and watch him drown just to have a fraction of the skills you possess.”
“They could if they just practiced.” Dismissively he speaks with a stale movement of his hand waving through the air, still refusing to look up from his work. A assertion which would have destroyed any aspiring violinist if they had been privy to overhearing Antonio speak loosely of his amazing talent.
Antonio was hailed as a genius both in song writing and his performances of the song themselves. Complicated and mystical sounding were used to tell of his music time and time again, a feet which none so far could properly replicate. Many had tried and most had found the fervent way he dedicated himself into the tune to be beyond their capabilities.
Rumors circulated of his family's claim that he had been gifted with an ear toward song since birth, always attentive to the sounds that surrounded him beyond all else. Those were impossibly large shoes to fill and it was why the public accepted him back so easily after he shamed himself so spectacularly. How could one think of the arrest charges when he played a tune that could lull one into a place where all was warm and safe. It was as if the Antonio of the past never existed to the public who could afford a ticket to his shows.
They could forget how he ruined himself but the Violinist himself was not soon going to accept he had taken his penance walk for long enough.
A prodigy could easily look at this story and see him as an idol but the proposed idea by Antonio that they could replace him through practice would have been enough to drive any to madness if they tried. Thankfully, there was no young violinists to be caused dismay here, just a photographer who remained at his door watching Antonio with bemusement.
As much as he could be entertaining in these moments, not even Joseph would take pleasure in watching him tear himself to pieces with his own hands and full into ruin again.
“You are wrong but I know there is no fighting you on it. Just know that this was a performance I shall not soon forget. I would like to see it to its finish like next time, Antonio.” No answer once again, he had become as invisible as the roses. He tucks the rose into a front pocket of his coat, the crimson color to adorn his suit coat like a blood splotch upon the pale color.
“Eh bien, bonne nuit, mes amis.” He speaks with a parting tap on the frame work of the door, knowing there was no more he could do for Antonio when he got into these moods. He turned, walking down the hall with the sound of Antonio's continued writing following him to the exit of the music hall, leaving his friend to wallow in his music related self pity.
He would be the same as ever the next time Joseph saw him he suspected. Chipper and friendly and ready to woo the nearest prettiest face with his presence.
Beyond what Joseph could ever know, Antonio's head lifted as the other disappeared from view around the corner. Waiting with patience for the sound of those heels he used to bolster his height to click down the hall and exit behind the squeak of a stage door opening and with a sound that rang out like a finality, closing behind him.
“Apologies to you, my good friend...” His whispering voice spoke to the nothingness of the room, slipping a hand into the vanity's drawer. Nimble fingers felt until they closed around a medallion hooked to a chain that had been stuffed hastily into the very back, hidden from prying hands that might go seeking valuables in the drawer, “I have things to attend to.”
Had it been a normal piece it would have been cool in his palm, but this medallion was nearly burning hot to the touch despite residing in the very back of the drawer for the past few days now. He rolled it in his hand, looking at the jeweled eye that gazed fixed toward the ceiling.
It might just look like a slightly disturbing piece of jewelry to most but after a few moments in Antonio's hand the eye rolled downward to look at him directly.
The atmosphere of the room shifted in an instance, the door to the dressing room blowing closed as if a gust of wind had come in from a nonexistent window barring him inside with the inky darkness that collected against the wall behind him.
No, that was wrong. If a person had opened the door to look within they would see nothing against that wall, the shifting shadows were empty from the wall but had a comfortable home within the mirror, standing over the shoulder of his reflection. Bending reality to its whim it stood behind his reflection only, a raspy chuckle wracking what could be called a figure.
“Have you given my proposal some thought, Violinist?” It spoke as if it was calling him by the very name he was born with, “You must have given you have called me to you. I do hope you are not wasting my time. I'm VERY busy, as you well know.”
The coin like piece rested on his the base of Antonio's fingers, pushing it to the first and second the medallion toppled over his fingers and was sent back once again to his pointer. He snatched it off of with his other hand, staring at it intently.
“You are asking me to take the lives of four people.” Antonio reaffirmed, glancing up at the being within his mirror, wondering if his intense venture into perfecting his music had just driven him entirely mad. He would hope his mind would right itself if his own driving passion was guiding him toward ending lives with no purpose but the vision did not even falter in the slightest.
If this was a hallucination, it was a damn strong one.
What counted as the forms shoulders lifted up in a shrug, “In the grand scheme of things it really is not a big change to the world. Four people to perform music that would change the world under your fingertips? Your songs will change history with my guidance, Violinist. You want that don't you?”
Antonio stared back into his own reflection, his eyes looked so hallow from where he sat. He wanted that and he did not speak for their being to know this was so.
“Besides, you wont entirely be the one acting it out... Just pick out those most befitting of their roles and I will give you not only the talent you so seek but a muse so inspiring you will hardly need to think when you write.” The voice sounded more akin to a sales person attempting to convince him toward an over priced used vehicle rather than a monster asking him to select human beings for the slaughter.
Friendly, convincing, but a level of menace underneath it all for their own gain.
“I'll remind you of the terms and services before we begin, friend. I'm one for my fair deals after all, ahem...” The voice changed, deepening as it echoed all around him, challenging Antonio to question to power it was withholding underneath its chatty demeanor. It rang out and surrounded him shaking the walls and Antonio to the core.
“ Bring me the souls of these four,
The one most deserving of a fate barred from heaven,
Bloodied hands hidden behind the tricks of man,
A blind eye that led to a fate so cruel,
And a being most divine, they bare no words to describe them. ”
An eyebrow raises, these descriptions were just vague enough that any judgment passed on someone Antonio found particularly egregious could fit at first the first two descriptions. That was when his eyes flitted down to a newspaper article that sat folded over on his vanity nearly tipping off the side.
A despicable filing of a court case covered only few pages within the newspaper of a young woman who took a man to court for an attempted assault. Due to having a lawyer who made an air tight case through technicalities, despite having an anonymous witness who saved her from the near attack the assailant got away Scot-free for his crimes.
A photo of the woman's face buried in her father's arm concealed her face from photography as she appeared to be crying into it but the man's face was very clear. Partially burned but one eye clearly glaring in the direction of the very much free man who tried to bring harm to his daughter.
The figure chuckled from behind the glass, sensing a decision had been made the speaking voice returning to its cocky tone, “Well... That was fast wasn't it?”
It reaches out toward him, inky fingers piercing the mirror and coming to be on his side of reality. The mirror pools around the wrist, rippling like it had come from a body of water, “Do we have a deal?”
Antonio stays fixed on its dripping shadowy fingers, the twitch of them showing it was difficult to even remain on this side of the realm. Antonio's own face is distorted through the rippling of the reflection, unrecognizable with his eyes and hair disconnecting from forehead and high cheek bones.
He looked like a monster as the King of all Sinners offered him a hand to shake.
“We do.” He answered, grasping the hand to shake but as palm meets palm, cracks formed in the mirror as a substance the same dark shade as his hair leaked through. They became taut like wires and shot out gripping at it and spinning through it.
He wanted to scream but no sound emanated from his throat. Needle like pain sprouts from his skull as the thin pieces of darkness implant like new strands of hair and his eyes tear up from the pain.
He swears he is going to black out when just as quickly... It's gone.
An unsteady gaze brings his eyes back to the mirror and for a moment his dark eyes flash crimson. His hair looks just the same, the things that had made them a part of him assimilated, but for a second the strands look to move on their own, as if someone was parting their hand through it slowly.
“Let's get to work then, my Violinist.”