#🇫🇱🇦🇼🇸🇫🇦🇹🇦🇱 — a roleplay blog associated with coloradohq scribed by rook, he/him, twenty-three. currently housing harrier “hal” brennan (matt bomer)
A STUDY IN hope amidst desolation, connection and isolation, seeking forgiveness, recovery and resilience, the weight of regret, stolen moments of joy, fighting numbness, desire for redemption, the cyclic nature of trauma, the erosion of dreams.
Ayaan always took pride in what the displays at the museum looked like. As one of the Curators, they couldn't stand idly by when they saw a sign that had fallen down inside one of them. Instead, Ayaan climbed behind the little fence there to keep people besides employees out. Just as they were done staking it in, someone came to look at the exhibit. "I promise you, i'm not part of the exhibit....or crazy."
an incredulous expression coloured hal’s features as he watched them vault the barrier, one that faded into understanding touched with relief, “i honestly thought you were going to start throwing tomato soup—like a just stop oil thing,”
if you’re hearing SIX by I WOULD SET MYSELF ON FIRE FOR YOU playing, you have to know HARRIER “HAL” BRENNAN (HE/HIM; CIS MAN) is near by! the 35 year old AUTO MECHANIC has been in denver for, like, TWO YEARS. they’re known to be quite IMPULSIVE, but being ENDURING seems to balance that out. or maybe it’s the fact that they resemble MATT BOMER. personally, i’d love to know more about them seeing as how they’ve got those AXLE GREASE ON WOOLEN SWEATERS, TORN OUT PAGES IN OLD JOURNALS, MUD CAKED ON SKIN vibes. and maybe i’ll get my chance if i hang out around the LAKERIDGE DISTRICT long enough!
tw: heavy substance abuse, brief, undetailed mentions of sa.
it’s nuclear family archetype—his parents are loving, his needs are attended, his wants are indulged when reasonable, his elder brother and he are close. hal grows up with the world in the palm of his hand. he is bright, wants so desperately to work in aircraft engineering, to build and design the jets his brother had his hand in flying.
the exact, focal moment of destruction comes when he is seventeen. it comes with the smell of cigarette smoke, the feel of a coarse mattress underneath him, regret, loss of autonomy. his first love, his first crush, and he is far too drunk to do anything but survive. he leaves pieces of himself there that he has yet to recover in full, loses the ability to feel anything but murk, until—
euphoria, dissolved in a spoon, in the rundown kitchen of a friend of a friend’s apartment. strikes a match in his veins and suddenly the discomfort, the overtightness of his own skin fades. it was an off-switch to the agony he could not put words to, and he lost himself in it, lost everything.
it took a very long time for his parents to cut him off in spite of his obvious descent. his brother—richard—was much quicker to stop enabling him, drew the line when hal refused treatment, but he was their baby boy, no matter how volatile and sick the substance abuse made him.
after they do, hal lives on the streets for several years, struggling to get back on his feet, not entirely convinced being sober is an option for him. he tries to get clean on his own a few times, more than a few, but the numbness that comes with sobriety eats him alive, he knows no other way to feel.
it takes time. it takes hospital visits, it takes almost dying. it takes rehab, relapse and then rehab again. finally, he claws himself to four month sober and catches a flight to denver, to start anew, perhaps against his better judgement.
it’s not aeroplanes, but it is mechanics, and hal proves proficient enough. he works engines, works cars, and there’s peace in that. his apartment is small and lived in, he’s managed to keep nearly clean in the past two years since coming to denver, save some minor scuffs to his record that he manages to wean off of without help.