[BRANDON FLYNN, CISMAN, HE/HIM ] ever heard about LEE BENNETT? Out here on the road, they have a reputation of being DEDICATED, SINCERE but also NONCHALANT, SELF SACRIFICING, no wonder they’re called THE LONE RANGER. According to local legend, they’re TWENTY-THREE and when they pull up to camp not a soul can mistake the sound of Elton John’s “GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD” following them. Some say they carry A GOLDEN CRUCIFIX AROUND HIS NECK, A NAPKIN WITH HIS MOM’S HANDWRITING, AND A SLOWLY DEFLATING FOOTBALL. and have been traveling with THE COVEN. [ro, 21, she/they, est]
full name: lee david bennett gender/pronouns: cismale, he/him age: twenty-three birthday: july 4th, 1962 astrology: cancer sun, leo moon, gemini rising, gemini mercury, leo venus, taurus mars hometown: elkhart, indiana orientation: homo
𝐀𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐒
fireflies in jars, engraved lighters, flannels in every color, calloused hands, the value of hardwork, cheap cologne and even cheaper cigarettes, listening to football games on the radio, worshipping springsteen, the light above the kitchen stove, distant trains chugging, a dirt smudged face, grass tickling skin, climbing trees with ease, bad handwriting, reading at a third grade level, redneck communism, but not knowing it's called that, treating everyone as family, shaking people's hands, good manners, all american smile, and unspeakable fear.
𝐁𝐈𝐎
tw: religion, homophobia, molestation/pedophilia, drugs.
The Bennett Family were simple folk from a small town in Northern Indiana. Elkhart was the type of town that had high school athlete’s faces plastered on posters around the supermarket. It was the type of boring, dreary town that nobody ever left. The Bennetts lived right outside of town on a farm with every animal imaginable and crops that sprawled further than the eye could see. Their house was small, fixed up with a cellar, a few bedrooms, and one bathroom. Ricky Bennett had inherited land from his father, who inherited it from his Father, who inherited it from his father and so on. It was a family tradition that the eldest son kept up the farm and Lee’s entire upbringing he anticipated that to be his future. However, from the moment his little brother Bo was born, Lee was more concerned with what it meant to be an older brother. Four years his senior, Lee was happy to find a companion in Bo instead of cows and chickens. Even if he didn’t have the words to conceptualize it in 1965, he promised to himself he’d always protect Bo, show him the ropes of just about anything he could, pass on whatever knowledge he had, and most importantly Lee tried to teach him that it was okay to cry.
Lee was always sensitive. Ricky wasn’t around a lot, he mostly kept to himself out in the fields and kept his commentary to grumbles at the breakfast table. So it was mostly Brenda, a stay at home mother with a newspaper advice column, who raised the boys. She didn’t encourage Lee’s sensitivity, in fact, she was one of those catholic types who tried to drill into her boys that if something was bad, they weren’t to talk about it. Sweeping things under the rug with a charming smile was her specialty. But Lee couldn’t help it. He was soft, he was too soft for all of it sometimes he felt. Like a true catholic, even at age 8 he felt such tremendous guilt about it that when he’d go to confessions with his Uncle Joe– or Father Joe as he preferred to be called at church– he would confess this weakness. Lee felt bad, Uncle Joe was always telling him how that needed to be adjusted, that boys were meant to be strong. This spiraled into more visits to his house outside of church. The visits turned into sleepovers. Then the sleepovers turned into Uncle Joe creeping into Lee’s room in the middle of the night. That was one time he refused to cry. Instead, Lee pretended to sleep. It was after that he learned that sometimes in life he had to pretend to get through things. Lee would pretend about a lot of things after that. Loving God and loving girls, mostly.
By the time he was a sophomore, he was the starting quarterback at Elkhart High School. Thanks to the mediocre Senior who got a concussion in Lee’s freshman year, he was able to step in and rapidly gained popularity. He went out on dates with girls, got out of doing his assignments because adults loved him so much, and everyone in town knew his name thanks to that rocket-like arm of his. At first Lee had some trouble adjusting to this new role he’d been placed in. Sure, it was nice when he got a pass on the schoolwork he always struggled with, and it was great always being met with a friendly face. But none of it felt real and more importantly, after sleeping with a couple of girls, he knew that wasn’t real either. Lee remembered to pretend. His anger wasn’t something he couldn’t pretend away though. He blamed his uncle and he blamed God for making him this way. He got into fights on the field and got suspended from his first and only game. Sophomore year was rough, but that summer his sixteenth birthday rolled around and on the Fourth of July he used his money he’d saved from his job at Al’s grocery store to buy the green 1965 Ford truck with the bench seat. Mr.Iverson gave him a good deal and that very same day Lee was driving down to Indianapolis to go to his very first gay bar. He wouldn’t ever forget the loud music and how nobody cared that everyone was different. It was 1977 the first time Lee felt comfortable in his own skin.
The rest of high school continued like a dream. He carried on pretending, he got decent enough grades thanks to favoritism, he kept going to Indianapolis, and he even got into college at Notre Dame because of football. That came crashing down senior year in some kind of cyclical injury to his knee. It didn’t seem worth it to try and play again. But that was fine, college was a pipe dream anyhow. Ricky was getting older and soon enough he’d have to take over the farm. It was also in his senior year that he came out to Bo, who didn’t take it well at all. Lee recalls how he wept and threw up and ached for his brother. After that, they weren’t close, Lee couldn’t keep tabs on him, but he could tell something was up. It was the summer of 1980, a year after Lee graduated high school. He’d been learning how to keep up with the farm in more formal ways for the past year since college was out of the question. It was the great scandal that summer when a local drug ring got busted. He could clock the guilt in Bo’s eyes from a mile away when they talked about it at the dinner table. Immediately, Lee was ready to take the fall. He saw this as a final gesture to protect his brother. Bo was just a kid. He had a whole life to live. And what did Lee have? A busted knee and a farm to inherit? So, he promised Bo that he was going to make it go away. It was the first sincere conversation they’d had in years. Lee had accepted his fate and by the time he pulled up to the police station to confess a couple days later, he found Bo was already there. In the end, he got a sentence that would last him into adulthood.
Unable to live with himself and unable to stand his hometown, Lee took to the road. He didn’t know what he was supposed to be looking for, but he knew he had to look elsewhere. That was about five years ago now. He spent his first couple of summers up in Montana herding sheep so he could get some money for the rest of the year. He met plenty of rubber tramps as he wandered, heard their stories, bought people beers and tried to have conversations. As charming as he was, he never said much, and he never stayed with any one person for long. Eventually, he started traveling home every six months to visit Bo in prison. Once it stopped hurting. He had his routines. For the most part though, he tipped his hat to them and moseyed along. That was until he met The Prom Queen and The High Priestess. They were definitely an odd pair, but The Prom Queen’s kid struck him in a place that he couldn’t resist. It was like he was looking at Bo’s face. He deserved to have a guy around, even if he didn’t doubt that he loved his Mom and the High Priestesses’ quirks. The two have grown on him and Lee couldn’t imagine himself leaving. It isn’t lost on him the way The Prom Queen looks at him, and as guilty as he feels for it, he lets her, Sometimes he even feeds into it, because it’s safer that way. Besides, she isn’t so bad. Lee thinks she’s a great mom and sometimes great company. The High Priestess, he quickly learned, was a package deal. Her religion is beyond his born catholic comprehension, but he appreciates her perspective and her acts of kindness. Lee sees both of them for what they are, and as reserved as he can be, he isn’t so sure he’s ready to leave the pair just yet.
𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐒
Athletics: 3
Burglary: 0
Contacts: 1
Crafts: 0
Deceive: 2
Drive: 3
Empathy: 3
Fight: 3
Investigate: -1
Lore: -3
Navigation: 2
Notice: -2
Physique: 3
Provoke: 0
Rapport: 3
Resourcefulness: 2
Stealth: -1
Will: 2
𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 // 𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓
