FullName:Â Marco Gabriel Santos
Nicknames: Santos
Age & Birthday:Â 37 years; July 25th, 1986
Occupation:Â Sous Chef at Alvaro's
Preferred Pronouns & Gender: he/him; cis-male
Sexuality:Â Heterosexual
Hometown & length of time in Siesta Keys:Â Houston, TX, & twenty-seven years
Neighborhood:Â Southside Village
Family:Â Carlos and Maria Santos (grandparents), Juan Santos (younger brother), Gabriela Santos (niece)
PINTERESTÂ |Â CONNECTIONSÂ |Â PLAYLIST
Trigger warnings: parental death tw, crime tw, breaking and entering tw, child abandonment tw
Marcoâs mother died when he was pretty young. From that moment, his little brother, who was just two, pretty much became Marcoâs responsibility. Their Dad really struggled with providing for his sons, but when Marco was about 10 years old, he got a job that would finally allow him to pay the bills, but would require him to travel a lot. So he sent Marco & Juan to go live with their grandparents in Siesta Keys. Shortly after moving to Siesta Keys, Marco met and befriended the girl next door. They became best friends and remained so for the rest of their childhood.
Marco worked really hard to be the best that he could be at⊠everything. He studied hard, practiced any and every sport he played as much as he could, even worked as hard as he could at being the best big brother. He wanted to make sure that by the time he graduated from high school, he would have several options to ensure he started making enough money to help his family out. But his brother didnât have the same goals as Marco and after falling in with the wrong crowd when they were kids, continued on a downward spiral that kept getting him into bad shit
After graduating from high school, Marco managed to get a scholarship to a world famous culinary school in Orlando. His time in Orlando made him realize that cooking, and simply being in a restaurant environment, were his passion. The eldest Santos thrived while he was there. When he left, he asked the girl next door to keep an eye on Juan, and with the physical distance from constantly looking over his shoulder for his brother, he was finally able to focus and really thrived while in Orlando. When Marco graduated, he got a job working at a restaurant there. He planned on staying in the city, at least for a couple years and working his way up the âladderâ so to speak. But after receiving a frantic call from his grandmother about how out of control Juan had gotten, Marco packed up his bags and moved back home, feeling like his brother had been and always would be his responsibility
Over the years, Marco has worked at different restaurants in Siesta Keys, until about 8 years ago, he finally got his big break and landed a job at Alvaroâs. Despite how bad things were with Juan, Marcoâs professional life, at least, seemed to be doing pretty well. Then, things got turned upside down six years ago when Juan got one of his flings pregnant. From the moment his niece was born, Marco fell head over heels. Gabriela, named after Marco in an effort to show how much Juan appreciated his older brother, became the single most important thing to him and for that first year she was alive, Marco took care of her just as much as Juan did.
Five years ago, things came crashing down when Marco caught his brother breaking into someoneâs house in a wealthier part of town. With Juan already having several priors on his record, Marco went in after him to try to get him to leave, afraid of the repercussions his brother would face if he were caught. A silent alarm was triggered & before they knew it, the cops arrived. Not wanting his brother to miss out on all the time with his daughter, who was just a year old, Marco took the blame so his brother could escape & was arrested in his place. Because it was his first offense, Marco only received 7 years with a chance of getting out on good behavior. He got out after 5 and is now on the path to getting his life back, including trying to adopt his niece who heâs learned his brother basically abandoned after he went to jail.
