WHERE: a bar. i understand this is very descriptive but stay with me.
WHO: OPEN [ @astoriastarter ]
He kept his head down as he wove his way through the small crowd of the bar. He didn’t normally do this-- alcohol did nothing for him these days-- but he was losing it and he needed something, some semblance of normalcy to balance him back out. His past had literally come back to haunt him and he felt himself falling into similar patterns, found his mind wandering down darkened paths he thought he’d left behind in his last life. Taking a deep breath, his eyes honed in on an empty stool at the bar and he headed for it. He was usually standing on the other side of the bar. It felt almost as if he were doing something wrong as he slid into the empty seat. He drummed his fingers against the bartop to expel some nervous energy and nearly jumped at the feel of a hand, a light touch against his shoulder, calling for his attention. He tried to cover up his nerves with a smile, turning, a little stiffly, to meet their gaze. “Sorry,” he said, almost sheepish, “I’m just a customer tonight.”
Lavinia stopped mid-step, as any further movement would cause a collision of their bodies. But would it have been so bad? It wouldn’t be the first time, certainly — two fiery galaxies hurling at each other, divine fire and destruction intertwined. An ending dressed in inevitability, the hunger of death settling in the air.
Yet he was here.
A part of her screamed that it was impossible. He had been beyond saving that night, even by the most powerful healing spells. She had made sure of it. “Griffin.” She held his name between her teeth like a secret that could only be whispered to abandoned churches and the eye of a storm. He should have been dead. But he wasn’t, and as she stared into his eyes, the burning cinders so familiar, Lavinia felt the gnawing instinct to run.
Because whatever power had kept him alive even after the carnage she had created was stronger than her, and she could practically feel it in the space between them, the age old dynamic of predator and prey.
But she didn’t run. She only stepped closer, a hand coming up to rest upon the man’s cheek, tender like the bruises they shared from their past. A corner of her mouth lifted in a ghost of a smile, her voice soft, steady. She supposed she should have felt fear. But fear had never been an option in her life. “Missed me?”
.
It was hard to know exactly what he was feeling, tension rippling through every muscle as she stepped closer to him. It felt as if someone had stuck a white-hot poker down his throat, burning him from the inside. His teeth gnashed together, flexing his jaw as a long dormant part of him began to wake up.
It had only been six years, the first half of which he’d spent hating himself, hating her, hating the world for what he’d become. He had spent the last few years quietly rebuilding, stitching himself back together, creating a life in the spaces of him that had been left behind. This had never factored into his plans.
He held his breath as she rested her hand on his cheek. He was well-acquainted with her velvet touch and the memories gathered at the dam, threatening to breech the defenses and wash him away on their tide. Reid let out a bark of a laugh, his hand winding slowly up her wrist, wrapping around the fingers that brushed against his skin. Too tightly he held on, wrenching her hand away, though he made no move to let it go. Stepping into her space, so close now they were almost touching, he leaned down not unlike a lover as he spoke into her ear. “You have no idea.”
His lips pulled back over his teeth as he leaned back to take in the look on her face. He had half a mind to finish what he’d started all those years ago but even caught off guard as he was, he couldn’t deny that the heat that flooded him now was a lot more complicated than he wanted to admit, even to himself. And then he blinked, stepping back again as if he only just realized they were in the middle of the sidewalk in broad daylight. “What are you doing here, Liv? Come to finish the job? I’m sorry to disappoint you, but you’re going to have to try a little harder next time.” He smiled, a thin, menacing thing. “But I won’t.”
Bright, golden light filtered through the window and flickered across Reid’s face. He fought the instinct to flinch away and glanced down at the ring on his finger, twirling it around several times before shouldering through the doors of the Blood Center and out into the light of the day. He buzzed with renewed strength, taking in a lungful of the fresh afternoon air.
And every muscle in his body stiffened at the scent that rocked him.
It shouldn’t have been so familiar to him. It belonged to another lifetime, a dull, muted version instead of this sickly sweet that tugged at his insides and washed over him like ice water. It wasn’t possible. And yet--
With remarkable speed, he turned on his heel and chased after it. Curiosity, he told himself. It was only the need to know that propelled him forward. Some long, dormant part of him was waking up, rounding a corner as the scent grew stronger. His hands were fists at his side, his body shaking. He felt alive in a way he hadn’t in many years.
And then he saw her. An echo of an unpaid debt, the brutality of their last night-- the scent of her wrapped its warm fingers around his throat. Several long strides was all it took before they were face to face. And there she was. His brother’s murderer. The woman who still tormented his nightmares and ruled his dreams. His lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl. The part of him he’d thought had died at her hand was suddenly resurrected with startling ferocity.
Age/Date of Birth: Twenty-nine (34)/November 22, 1985
Preferred pronouns: He/him
Species: Vampire
Occupation: Bartender
Place of birth: Pasadena, California
Neighborhood: North Valley
Length of Residency in Astoria: 3 years
(under the cut you’ll find a lil summary of my trash boy, Reid. tw: murder, violence, brief mention of suicidal thoughts)
Reid was born to a young mother who wouldn’t have known responsibility if it punched her in the face. As a result, he was forced to grow up quickly and shoulder the burden of the parental role while his mother, well meaning as she was, fell into a pattern of bad habits. Mostly her choices in men.
When Reid was 13, she gave birth to a second child. A son, Sam. Reid was in love, easily filling the role as the parental unit his life had been molding him for. He’d once dreamed of being a pilot-- of flying away from their two-bedroom apartment and seeing the world. Those dreams were shelved as Sam became his center focus.
Instead of going off to college like he’d planned, he stayed at home, taking any odd job that would have him and supporting his little brother. Reid filled the support role, one that no one asked him to shoulder himself, but one he was happy to take on anyway.
Reid fell in love. Sam graduated high school. While life hadn’t taken the shape he’d imagined as a kid, he was happy. He allowed himself to be happy.
That happiness came to a screeching halt when the police showed up at his door. Sam, it seemed, had found himself caught up in something. And he’d paid the ultimate price for the part he’d played.
Reid blamed himself for not knowing, for being distracted, and when the trail to his brother’s murderer ran cold, the police threw in the towel on the search. It sent him into a spiral. Reid had never had a life of his own, it had revolved implicitly around his family, so his sole purpose became finding out who’d taken his brother’s life. It isolated the few people that remained in his life and when he refused to give up the search-- something that had become nothing short of obsession-- they left him to it.
Eventually, his relentless searching put him on the right track. It led him to a woman, a witch, and he hatched a plan. No longer the soft, gentle man who had given up his dreams to support his brother’s, he’d become a man incensed, obsessed. It was all too easy to be charming, to fall into her charms as well. Days he spent imagining how it would feel to kill her. Nights he spent losing himself inside her.
Lines began to blur and he found himself making excuses as to why he hadn’t gone through with it yet. He felt like he was losing a battle with his own sanity and before he could lose his nerve, he set the final step of his plan into motion.
He thought he’d catch her off guard, thought it would be quick and painless. But she was faster. As she drained him of his life, peace found him and he welcomed the idea of eternal sleep.
But then he woke up with thirst of a new kind.
He didn’t accept this new lifestyle easily. He contemplated ways to end his soulless existence. And then fate stepped in in the form of another vampire. Reid didn’t understand, and likely would never understand, why someone would go through so much trouble for him. But over time, he began to learn what it meant to live for yourself. He was encouraged to move to Astoria, to find more people like him, and begin the grueling process of stitching himself back together.
So he did. It took several years to rewire his brain, and he still struggles. He still feels the raw absence of his brother and the lack of vengeance for the woman that murdered him.
But now he’s putting the work in, trying to figure out who he is when he’s not living his life for anyone else. He took a job as a bartender to sort of force himself out of his comfort zone and work his way back into the real world. He’s doing alright.
WANTED CONNECTIONS
(I hope to have a better, more thought-out wc page up at some point, but my intentions =/= follow through. I’m open to all the things, so if you have an idea, just throw it at me. we still out here figuring out who Reid is so this is the barest bones list my one braincell could come up with)
mentor - the vampire who picked him up and dusted him off and set him on his new life path in Astoria. could have ulterior motives, could just be too nice for their own good. i’m good with anything
mom friend/s - I imagine that Reid has baby bird with a broken wing syndrome and attracts the kind of people that like to fix broken things, so give me a few of the mom friend types. he’s never had anyone take care of him, so it’d be a fun dynamic.
neighbors, coworkers, enemies, frenemies, a one night stand that got awkward, LISTEN just throw anything at me, i will t a k e i t.
What are the reasons why you’re still living in Astoria? What makes it home to you?
Reid drummed his fingers against his lap, a humorless curve to his mouth that might have been a grimace if he hadn’t been better at schooling his features. Did they have to start with the hard questions first? “I had… a bit of a difficult assimilation into this lifestyle. Starting over was…” He paused to weigh his words, to line them up just right. “Starting over was necessary. And I’ve found that it’s easier when you’re surrounded by people that understand.”
He blew a breath of air from his cheeks as he reached the second part of the question– the part not so easily answered. “I’m still figuring out exactly what home means. But I suppose it’s the chance to explore that in Astoria that makes it as close to home as it can be for me.”
How would you describe your relationship with others? Are you close to your family?
The half-smile slipped and he blinked down to his hands in his lap. So they hadn’t started with the difficult questions, then. Or perhaps this interview had been specifically curated to touch on all of his weakest points, to poke and prod at long-festering wounds, to find boundaries and barrel past them to the raw and ragged truth beneath the surface. “Like I said, it’s been a rather difficult transition for me, and I’m afraid my social skills might have suffered a bit the last few years. I did recently take a job that requires a lot of social interaction, though, so it’s something that I’m working on.” When his smile returned to his face, it didn’t touch his eyes. “But, uh, growing up, it was just me, my mom, and my little brother. So, yeah, we were a pretty tight-knit unit. It’s just me now, though.”
What’s something about your past you could share with others?
Would ‘nothing’ be an acceptable response here? He thought probably not, but a wry smile tugged at the corners of his mouth anyway. His mind strayed, as it too-often did, to the glint of a blade against the hollow of a throat, to the hesitation, to the delirious desire for revenge. To the last agonizing second when he’d welcomed death only for death to abandon him. He blinked. “My mom was very young when she had me and we struggled to stay afloat my entire life. I had to grow up quickly. I had to learn how to be resilient in ways that most people don’t even have to consider. I don’t know, that might be worth something to someone.”
Please elaborate on any violent circumstances you may have been involved with in the past.
His memory recalled fingers tangled in chocolate tresses, his lips a fiery caress against her skin. An obsession that had raged like a forest fire– wild and out of control. A blade tucked into his belt, hungry for blood. He thought of endless nights, plans he’d find reasons to put off, lies he told himself as he lost himself in her. And then, that last night when she had been faster, when endless night had rushed in, when he’d accepted the peacefulness of death. A relief. And then he’d woken up.
“My little brother paid the ultimate price for getting involved in things that he shouldn’t. I’ve seen the devastation of violence firsthand. I try to honor his memory by choosing peace.”
What are your weaknesses and strengths?
It was a fair question, he supposed, but he couldn’t help but feel protective over the answers to it. They left him feeling exposed in a way that was uncomfortable, in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time. He scratched at the back of his neck as he pretended to think about the answer. “For my strength, I’d say my drive and determination. When I get focused on something, I have to see it through to the end.” He pressed his lips together, a joke shared with only himself. “As for my weaknesses? I don’t know.” Dark hair and whispered gasps flashed through his mind. Snippets of fingers curled into fingers, of teeth and nails and hunger. He clenched his fists together. “Probably the same thing. I don’t know when to stop.”
Your thoughts about supernatural beings.
“I never used to have an opinion before. They were just part of the world I grew up in. Being one of the many now, I don’t think my opinion has changed much. It’s not my business what you are.”
