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@manuel-amador
( Raul Esparza / Male / He/Him ) — Manuel Amador has been living in Port Leiry for 18 years and ONE DAY. They currently work as a disgraced chess grandmaster, and are 48 years old. No one is sure if they’re actually a human or if they’re connected to professional chess circuits. They tend to be quite self-destructive and vindictive, but can also be clever and confident. — ( Bec / CST / he/they / 23 / none )
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a song of ice and fire + our characters pt. 2
@ohhajeong @kevma @howlthorne @manuel-amador @princejaya
who: @manuel-amador . ♡ when: November 1st .
the man is dead, and that leaves only the wolf to prowl about the night, hungry for anything that’ll scream when he sinks his teeth into it. the wolf decides he’s suffered enough, and it’s time to ruin something else- go too far, be devastating, catastrophic. the kind of thing to tilt the axis of the world and set it on fire, using the matches he regretted not setting the warehouses alight with. he’s left a trail of corpses in his wake, little prey animals getting ready to hibernate for the winter, to hide from monsters like him. give it a few months, he’ll be crawling into burrows, waking them up with a greeting between his jaw.
the wolf is still hungry, and he catches the scent of human in the wind. whoever he is, he tastes like alcohol and dust. césar remembers that smell- viejo -but the wolf creeps forward towards it, because he only smells blood, and flesh to bite.
Whatever chunk of his mind thought it’d be cathartic to see the emptying husk of his old home ought to be fired. Or removed. Or— whatever, he was probably killing it right now, along with most the rest of his brain cells.
It wasn’t worth it, but he was stuck here now. Manuel couldn’t even remember how he’d gotten here — there was some blurry memory of pulling into the driveway and slamming a car door, but he couldn’t find any car keys on him, just the key to this goddamn house. A place technically under construction, but he couldn’t be assed to care. It was his damn property. He could go where he damn well pleased, and if he wanted to enjoy its destruction wasted, he’d do just that.
unfortunately for everyone involved, this is the most fun that césar has had all week. from the first moment the old man’s hand had brushed his shirt, he’d been grinning ear to ear, anticipating a violence that feeds him, spurs him on more than food and drink. he gorges on blood, on vengeance, on terror, and there’s only so much starvation he can take.
old man pulls them down, but a twitch of that all natural wolf instinct puts césar on top, and gives them the attention of the crowd. had he been another kind of monster, maybe the bartender would’ve tried to stop him, but he was a cursed, feral lazkano. he’s untouchable. for the moment, he’s some kind of king. somewhere on the way down, the wolf decides he’s had his fill. césar snaps to his feet with one last bout of tipping the scale to manic laughter. “ adiós, viejo. ” césar tips chin like he might with a hat, before departing from the heron club. “ ten cuidado la próxima vez.”
Manuel hits the ground and — fucking hell, he’s not meant for this kind of shit. Everything hurts now, and there’s a dizzying sense of fear that this sonuvabitch might actually kill him.
The other man finds his footing far too quickly. Manuel’s still flat on the floor (he’s definitely bleeding, he’s sure of it). He meets the other man’s eyes more by coincidence, and he really wishes he hadn’t. Something… terrible gleams in the man’s eyes. Vicious and predatory.
He gets back up to his feet on his own, no help from the gawkers surrounding him. They’re all watching him, with an imitation of that man’s smug, knowing expression. Like they’re all in on some secret he isn’t. Manuel slaps a handful of cash down in front of the bartender (probably enough) and hurries out.
Ten cuidado la próxima vez.
He shivers as those words echo back through he head, as he’s impatiently on his way back to his crappy little apartment.
(First, a run in with some crazy woman throwing him in front of some hungry, horrible… thing. Now, a bar fight with a man that seemed more gleeful than pissed to throw him around. Whatever strike was coming third, it didn’t bode well for him.)
END.
@manuel-amador some place where nobody knows your name
There's some live band she's never heard of (and by rights, should probably never hear of again) singing some weirdly off-key cover of Thriller while she sits at a bar.
Tressa Shaw has never sat at a bar alone drinking, but something about the concept seems correct tonight. Because her normal Halloween activity is unavailable.
So fuck it. She's hunting. Sue her.
There's a bowl of candy in the lap of a lounging skeleton on the front stoop of Embrace. Next to is a note nobody's listened to that reads, simply. "Take some, but not too much." Because vagueness is true horror. Tressa sits at the corner of an ugly bar with an ugly shelf of drinks behind it and a bartender in a lackluster attempt at a Minnie Mouse costume pouring drinks. The energy's lethargic. Like everyone here's just not feeling it this year. Relatable.
One of them, by the end of the night, will probably be dead. Because them's the brakes.
And then, as she scans, she finds something trigger a click in the back of her mind, and, fast like a blink and quiet as smoke she's shifting her seat at the bar, leaning her chin on her palm and looking a gravelly man up and down. "Holy shit, you're Manuel Amador. Can I shake your hand? Buy you a drink?"
(What's with the costumes tonight? God, people in this town just get weirder and worse as time goes on.)
It's crazy out tonight, but this shit-hole is one of the few quiet places he's been able to find, and he can understand why. He barely wants to be here. But it's the perfect backdrop for someone slowly drinking himself to death in his shitty hometown, forgotten to the ages. Better that than falling prey to whatever creep things waited out in the night.
He's ready to flag down the server for another whiskey, when someone appears next to him. He flinches away, opening his mouth to bitch at whoever's trying to startle him, but-
"Oh, fuck, someone in this shit town actually follows chess?" He turns his head and looks at the woman now next to him. Hadn't meant to say that part out loud, but there wasn't too much of a filter on him these days. "Uh..." Right. Wow, it'd been too long since he'd been recognized. He hadn't put much effort into himself lately. The attention now just made him aware of how greasy and gross he felt. He wiped his palm against his jeans and offered his hand up for a handshake. "Sure, I'll take you up on a drink. Didn't think anyone around here cared about that kind of thing."
there we go. there he is. césar awaits the man’s breaking point with a vicious, hungry smile. a starving shark- a wolf. he wants to watch him destroy himself, and césar doesn’t care if he makes it out with a few scratches for watching him burn. still, the man at the bar manages to disappoint him. likely disappointing the other wolves in this den. if he’s going to put up a fight, he may as well make it a good one.
“ that it, viejo? ” really, he wants to know. all that shit, all that pointing boring little fingers- and he’s going to grab his shirt? come on- even with the man’s hand in his shirt, césar doesn’t shift much. but in his rushed movements, he slides the glass away. the bar light’s glinting against the glass does get his attention. césar takes the glass, and slams it into the side of the man’s head. see how he likes that for all his bitching.
That it, viejo?
He's never really known how to fight back. All this bravado, it's all bark and no bite. Violence shuts him down - maybe it's just always been easier to take it without resistance. It's fucking pathetic, is what it is. He's a coward. God knows how much he'd heard that before. In that split second before it all catches up to him, he burns with humiliation.
Then the glass slams into his head. (God, he's already regretting this, and the pain isn't even registering yet.)
Maybe the blow kicks something loose. Maybe he's just concussed and too stupid to walk away, now. Maybe this is some last-ditch attempt to not die like a total fucking wimp.
He scrabbles to keep his grip as he's reeling from the hit (is he bleeding? he might be bleeding) and hauls the man out of his seat - bringing himself crashing down to the ground too, unintentionally.
Poor guy wretches, and she can commiserate - the way her sniffer works now, half her armory had been like standing in the middle of an exploded perfumery, but she's at least learned to cope now; it's why she keeps a peppermint in her mouth at almost all times.
She doesn't hold on when he pulls away, satisfied; if the Vamp had nicked him, it wasn't the end of the world, and he's not sluggish the way you get when they get you, so, whatever. He's justifiably pissed, too, but like, whatever, he hit her with his car.
The adrenaline fading, by the way, reminds her of this fact of the evening, and she twists her spine, eliciting from it a visceral cracking sound and a groan that's either pleasant or miserable or both, even Cleofe can't decide.
She side-eyes. "Feels like it might be a night of firsts for you - first time seeing a vampire, first time hitting someone with your car..."
She stoops, pulling the ashy jacket from the withered pile of man-shaped soot. "Welcome to the secret world, pops. Sorry about your fender." She pulls a wallet free from somewhere, smacking the excess dust and ash from her fingers as she rifles through it for anything that could lead to the next. The guy's voice bites into her attention and she shrugs, standing. "It can be over, but I was serious about breakfast." She tosses him a money clip from inside the wallet stuffed with bills. "He won't need that, take it for the car."
She says vampire again, and he can't stop himself from shuddering. It can't be real - it just can't. He's shaken enough to not bite back at the jab of pops, or to protest to protect his pride as she tosses him a wad of cash. "I..." he coughs, and spits to try and get the bile taste out of his mouth. "Fuck it, sure. Breakfast."
There's a flask in his car calling his name, and it would compliment a cup of coffee so well right about now. "It better be nearby, 'cause I don't trust that thing on the road right now."
he’s looking for it, isn’t he? smells like human and heat and reckless and hunger. and all césar cares to do is watch him dig himself into a deeper hole. maybe another, better wolf would’ve snapped on the man faster, had their teeth buried into his neck, tasting his blood to see if it boils the same way he looks. god knows he deserves it, césar might even be able to seek forgiveness from the bar. if he’s got the audacity to walk into heron club like this, maybe he deserves whatever challenges he finds in the wolves’ den.
his teeth shine a sharp silver, the wolf’s smile pinches at the corner. delusional old man, is he? césar finds familiarity in it, it’s a kind of comfort. “ you think it would make you feel better, to start shit? ” he knocks his head to one side, “ c’mon, don’t you just wanna’ try it? make me shut up once and for all. you drunk enough for that, yet? or you need a few more? let’s get you there, ey? i think you’ve done enough barking. ”
He should back down.
No, he needs to back down.
There's something uncanny about this man here, and Manuel's not the kind to win fights even when he knows what he's getting into. Especially with the way this man is so clearly asking for it, like he can't wait for a chance to fuck him up.
But liquor's not the only thing in his system these days (not after that fucking night, with that- that crazy bitch), and even then, he's had plenty enough this evening to quiet what little sense he has.
(Besides - even if he dies, better it be by his own fucking choice, than some creepy night-thing's whim.)
He slides the glass away and grips a fistful of this asshole's shirt. "I dunno. Why don't we find out?"
"You don't have to be here for them to crawl around, unless you want to be." From what he can gather, this man doesn't exactly want to be here - so keeping all this as smooth as possible for them both will be the best way to go about it. And as pleasant as possible. "You just let me know when's good for you - it'll be a part of the quoting process."
As Manuel talks, Anish scribbles notes on the pad - open up the downstairs, bring everything to modern, clear it all out. They can handle removal - some of the guys might enjoy picking through it for their own places, or to flip and sell it. If the customer's okay with it, he doesn't see why they can't have first choice.
They finish up the outside and wander back towards the front porch, Anish taking a good look at that - even going so far as to stick a knife into some of the pillars to check the integrity of the wood, see how far any rot has gone. "Whenever you're ready, let's check out inside? You can point out all the shit you want gone and knocked down. Show me your vision."
"Great. Whenever you can fit me in soonest works for me," he says. "I've got nothing-fucking-else going on, so consider my schedule flexible." The sooner this is done, the sooner he doesn't have to tie himself to this weird fucking town, and the sooner he can find somewhere better to waste his time.
There's no objection to clearing the place out, thank fuck. He doesn't care where it goes as long as it's gone, and not his problem. He's been without everything in that place for the last 30-odd years, he doesn't give a shit about it now that it's legally his.
Manuel feels a slight creak to the wood as he steps up onto the porch, in the way that old wood floors just do, and it's...
God, he hates this fucking place.
"Yeah, let's go." He unlocks the door and pushes it open, heading into the house. Once the contractor's inside with him, he starts gesturing around the living room. "See, like any of the furniture and shit, that all can go. I want the carpeting out of here. Curtains out, it should be be something lighter. And some actual overhead lights in here, I hate this just lamps bullshit it's got going on right now."
This is... a relief, actually. Every single little thing he's hated, it can go now. He gets to change it. He gets to wipe away every shred of evidence of the shitty not-lives lived out in this shitty not-home, and no one can do a thing to tell him otherwise.
He crosses through into the dining room and waves a hand around. "I want this opened up to one of the rooms - probably the kitchen. It's cramped as shit in here, there's no point in it being its own room."
Cleo steps back as the vampire hits the floor, watching as it grays and stiffens before the slack of death sets in, layers of ashen skin then muscle and bone flaking off until the thing's little more than a vageuly shaped piled of crumbling gray-whte.
She kicks through it gently with her boot, shaking some of it free from her toe with a look of disgust. "Nope." The sounds of human retching catch her attention, and her chin tips up as Cleo watches Manuel try to process. It was dumb and reckless, maybe, but the hunter's wolf blood is an active deterrent to a panicked vampire - human blood had been useful to sweeten the pot, if nothing else.
She moves to him, unsure of how much had happened when she'd been flung, and she grabs his face turning hims face this way and that to inspect for bites. "He get you?" She lets go, standing and offering a hand with which to pull him up. "First time?"
Nope.
A real casual fucking way to have his world shattered, for sure. Something is dead beside him (maybe? it looks more like a pile of ash now). Something tried to kill him. He—
He catches a whiff of whatever gross metallic perfume she doused him with and retches again at the scent, but manages to compose himself after a few seconds. Then she grabs his face and moves him, and he’s humiliated at the fact that he doesn’t have the nuts to break loose. Get you, what the fuck does that mean?
Echoes of the word vampire kick something loose in his brain, and as she drops him, he’s hit by how close of a call that really was. If this were real. Which it can’t be. Because vampires don’t exist, and this was all just some — just some weird fucking prank, or whatever.
He stands up, pointedly rejecting her assistance (standing up got harder at some point in the last decade, but he’ll be fucked if he gives this woman anything else to make him look worse than he already has). “I’m fine. The fuck you mean, first time? First time being, what..." Manuel stops himself as the implications nudge at the back of his mind again, suggesting things that just fucking are not possible. "I'm fine. Is this... over?"
Ha-Jeong blew out through her front teeth, such a human sentiment, to think one had trained themselves beyond tells. Everyone had tells, even if yours was a completely straight face. Which this man did not have.
His game style was erratic but with the way his eyes flicked up each time as if to revel in whatever reaction she would have to his chaos told another story. He was watching her hoping she’d fall to the assumption that these moves were without forethought. She didn’t always use the middle strategy but with a player like this she kept it up fortifying her pursuit as she went.
She wasn’t sure how long he had taken dancing around her bishop before he realized she had set herself up to be able to castle even with the amount of pieces she still had on the board or the stance her Queen had just taken. The taking of the bishop had been superb, but what would he do now.
Okay, the chick's smarter than she looks. Not the worst approach, but Manuel's not undercut by her prevailing competence. He loves setting traps on the board, and as she reveals her skill, he adjusts to compensate.
She wants to castle? He's ready for it. The move is open to her. The noose is tightening around her king, slowly but surely. (Swap with an expendable piece, it won't save you in the end.)
The queen is a touch more troubling, but he's got options no matter where she moves. Wherever she goes, she'd better watch her step. His queen, he's not worried about - she's a powerful weapon, and he wields her accordingly. Some might get overzealous, use her at any given spot, but Manuel finds little strategy in using an atom bomb when a dagger will do. He needs her in the arsenal, and he's got potentials running in his brain finding any chance this woman might take to go after her. Right now, they would all come at a heavy personal loss.
She might be good, but he. is. better. He has to be. He's staked everything on being the best, and he's pulling no punches here.
“ just curious, amigo. ” flames- easily excitable enough to be coaxed into wildfire -flicker across césar's eyes. mostly, it’s just an answer to a question he already knew- césar can smell the human on him, and most monsters aren’t this coiled up. he can hear his fingers tightening around the glass, actually, his gaze darts toward the sound, before landing back on the human’s face. every man in the world with as little as ten more years under his belt shouldn’t remind him of his father, but césar thinks that’s just the gift that comes with being someone’s son. he wonders what this man’s anger could do with just a little more teeth behind it, something to get his blood really pumping.
“ whole bar’s full’a shitheads like me, bark a little louder and they’ll start sniffin’ you out. ” still, he thinks it’s funny that- out of the two of them -this man is convinced césar's the one picking fights. “ rough day at work? you get your ass kicked? or are you always … like this? ”
His fingers creak against the glass, and condensation drips down his palm. It does little to cool the heat burning under his skin. He’s always had a short temper, and it’s just been worse lately — it always is when he falls back off the wagon.
“Rough day at work?” Manuel mimics. He lets out a derisive snort at the idea of working — even when he wasn’t on leave from the chess circuit, he’d be hard pressed to call anything he did work. “Oh, yeah? You think I’m just gonna chat about my day with any asshole trying to start shit at a bar? Jesus Christ. Fuck off already.”
(It’s bait, and a piece of him knows it — but there's still a thrill in sinking his teeth in, even if it's going to fuck him over fast.)
✔️
✔️ Merits
“I’m a loyal man. What can I say? I wasn’t the one to walk out. Shows what I get for thinking I could even trust anyone.”
✔️ merits
“Merits? I’m a goddamn genius, how’s that for a merit, huh? My brain works too fast. I mean, it’s great for puzzles and problem solving and strategizing, but since I don’t have the patience to get some dumb fucking degree, chess is about all I’ve got to use it on. Don’t pretend like I’m just blowing hot air here, people eat up this shit when it’s Sherlock Holmes.”
Penelope can’t help the soft chuckle that escapes her lips when the man asks what the point of the cats are. It’s not mocking, or condescending—just genuine enjoyment at the thought of getting to open up a whole new world to someone.
“The cats are the whole point, actually,” she began, her tone light and friendly. “You know how animal shelters can get really crowded and noisy? Not exactly the best place to see a cat’s true personality. Most of the time they’re horribly stressed out.”
She gestured with her chin toward the cat lounge—a large section of the cafe separated from the main seating area by a floor-to-ceiling glass wall and sturdy double doors to prevent feline escape attempts. Inside, ten cats relaxed and played among an abundance of toys, scratching posts, and cozy hideaways. A little paradise.
“So places like Cool Beans started popping up,” she continued, returning to the counter as she finished making his cortado. “We partner with local shelters and rescues to give the cats a better chance. Plus,” she slid the cup toward him with a bright smile, “Its calming for people too. You should see this place during midterms season.” She laughs softly, speaking from experience. “Not everyone lives in a place that will let them have cats—dorms, apartments, those sort of things— so they come here for a drink and a little dose of happiness in a purring package. The cats get socialized, the customers get cuddles, and sometimes someone finds their furry soulmate. It’s a win for everyone.”
A touch of pride crept into her smile as she spoke—yes, it sounded like a sales pitch, but the joy behind it was completely real.
He didn't know that about animal shelters, but he had admitted enough ignorance in front of a youth today. Maybe it made him a terrible person, but he’d never spared a thought for the animals. Even as he looked into the glass room of cats, he couldn’t fully comprehend why. Why did anyone want a fuzzy little beast crawling around their home and making sounds?
“Uh…” he took the cup and took a sip, the coffee hitting his hungover brain just the way he needed. “I guess that makes sense. Thanks.”
With that, he headed away from the counter, settling into a seat somewhere as secluded from other people as he could get. He fiddled with his phone as he drank, sparing the occasional glance over to the room of cats.
It's like the shadows shoot a bullet out of a gun at them;
Vampires scare the piss out of her - for all the terror of a werewolf - speed, strength, the sheer size of one under the full moon - a vampire is no bigger then either of them, give or take a foot, and they move like a blur, they lay traps. A werewolf's direct, a vampire's sneaky.
Even this one, even with the lily extract drawing out instinct instead of rationality.
Cleo yanks Manuel back, spins him really, and her grip loosens, sending him flying the most important direction - away - and taking the vice-grip of vampire strength on her own shoulder before she feels the floor leave her feet and she sails through the air, back slamming against the wall and then her side slamming against the floor.
It's all she can do to scramble onto her feet, breathless and her vision starry, reaching for the stake and bolting on instinct after the vampire as it closes on her bait.
As quick as the vampire is, so-too is the scuffle. Blinded by hunger and repulsed by her wolfish scent, the vamp's about pick Amador up and bend his neck when it stutters, its grip flexing and then loosening, a sharpened tip of rosewood lifting a tent beneath the front of its hawaii-print shirt.
It goes slack and collapses, its flesh already starting to pallor and gray over. Cleo doubles over to catch her beath.
Manuel hits the ground away from the scuffle and stays down — abandoning all plans to get up in run in place of that fear paralysis (and the pain, he doesn’t have to wait til morning to feel that ache). He’s going to die. This is how he dies, at the hands of some horrifying hungry thing.
It grabs him by the collar and lifts him with startling ease. This is really it, this is how he dies—
He hits the ground again, and something falls next to him. He doesn’t prop himself up quite yet, just stays collapsed against this disgusting alley floor and tries to breathe. It’s not working great, though, and when he tries to pull himself upright, the movement mixed with the sudden drop in adrenaline makes him retch. He’s on his hands and knees, vomiting whatever’s left in his stomach onto the ground before him. When he can finally sit up, leaning away from the mess, there’s the slightest tremble to his figure.
“That—“ he stares straight ahead of him. “That was… fake, right?”
Please, his mind is screaming, please let there be some excuse other than ‘that really happened’. He doesn’t know what it is, besides her having thrown the word vampire around, but that can’t be true. It can’t be real.
typically, it’s rare that césar pays any attention to the other patrons of the heron club. his nose picks up the familiar, catch-all scent of wolf, and sometimes someone in particular catches his attention- someone shiny, or brave, or when a little lamb happens to wander into the den. ever the predator, but half sleeping, it takes quite a lot of jumping and shaking to catch his eye. usually, it’s better that way for anyone else, but césar likes playing chase. people-watching, or something. something else to think about besides rotting husks of brothers, grief for something that hasn’t happened yet.
there’s a stuffy guy at the bar- the very end, like he’s hiding. not quite lamb, is he? but not a wolf, which makes for an old, jaded sheep. it’s kinda’ funny. césar knows humans could be here, even in a bar full of dogs. but half-wild, and raised warwick, it’s easier to imagine that the world revolves around them, and that this sheep at the end of the bar is a rare sight. the wolf doesn’t approach him, exactly, but he does slide in next to him and manages to piss him off in the process. césar laughs. funny, funny, funny man.
“ watch it? ” still smiling, the edge of a giggle curling in the corner of her mouth. “ oh, acere, are you watching? ” the closer that césar leans in, the more he catches the scent of human. plain, boring, but he’s a human that doesn’t know to watch his mouth around those with teeth- and that is interesting. “ you ever been here before? ”
It’s an automatic reflex to lean back as the other guy leans in — he hates it when people try to get close to him, and it’s just weird that so many guys default to that sort of thing.
Manuel should really be more careful here. He’s been made keenly aware of his subpar physical fitness, and the decade-plus he has on this guy only worsens the odds for him. But what the fuck does it matter? Now he knows, he could be the nicest, most annoyingly bright and cheery piece of shit to walk the planet, and all it would take is someone getting a bit peckish to wipe him off the face of the planet. Who fucking cares anymore?
“The fuck does that matter?” He curls his fingers around the glass on the counter. “God, don’t tell me you’re one of those assholes that acts like they own the place. Some of us just want a damn drink without some shithead like you picking fights.”
