( Skyler Gisondo / male / he/him ) ā Samuel āSammyā Keels Jr. Ā has been living in Port Leiry for 22. They currently work as a Student of Paramedicine, and are 22 years old. No one is sure if theyāre actually a Human or if theyāre connected to Brotherhood. They tend to be quite Nervous and Rigid, but can also be Helpful and Kind.
Name: Samuel āSammyā Leland Keels Jr.Ā
Occupation: Student, currently on a trial period for membership in the Brotherhood
Age: 22 (September 22, 2002)
Sexuality: He so busy he can't think about this (Bi)Ā
Species: Human
Clan/Pack/Coven?: Brotherhood
Hometown: Port Leiry
Relationship Status: Single
Personality Traits: Nervous, Helpful, Kind, Neurotic, Kind of Dense
INTRO - Tw: Death of a parent, alcoholism, blood & gore
001. Paranoia ran in the family. Prepare for everything, so you can handle anything. Over-prepare, and whatever the world can throw at you, youāll have something to do about it. Control what you can, and try to find ways to handle the fallout of what you canāt. Your mother tried time and again to teach you that lesson, but you only really learned it when she died. She had no control over getting hit by a drunk driver. Her control came in the form of a shoebox in her closet stuffed with letters and a ring of keys to the half dozen safety deposit boxes sheād been stuffing with jewelry in three different banks across town. The money helped keep you afloat, just enough that they didnāt lose the house as your father started slipping further and further into the bottle.
002. Itās hard to be the man of the house when you still wear light up sneakers and aren't tall enough for a full sized skateboard, but you make do. Mow lawns, walk dogs, buy a schedule to write in more lawns and dogs. Write something every hour, because itās the hours with nothing to do that are the worst. Wash cars, paint fences, skate to the station to make sure Dadās leave paperwork is filled out so he isnāt kicked off the force. Learn how to use the stove for more than just pasta, hit the ultimate cliche by delivering newspapers, and pen in a good hour every Thursday and Friday to make sure Dad goes to his meetings instead of wallowing on the couch. Where would he be without you?
003. School friends are just that, school friends. Youāre the guy to call if someone needs a designated driver, if they need help moving a wardrobe, if they need another face in a candid for the yearbook. Youāre good for a quick chat before you step out those doors and have to go take care of something else, even as thereās less to do now that Dadās working again. More time for blank hours on the schedule, and you can't have that. High school comes around, and Everett makes himself an exception. When he goes to Chicago, youāre happy for him, even as youāre left in a town of friendly faces without a friend.Ā
004. Youāre reliable. Youāre the glue that holds things together, a crisis-driven ideas man. When the table flips, you pick up the pieces. Thatās what your father says, in his speech at a graduation party full of acquaintances. When he married his girlfriend, you took up so much of the planning work as best man that he barely even knew what the color scheme was until the morning of, he jokes, and gets a laugh from people who think heās kidding. Youāre a friendly face and some helping hands, so what better to do than work with people in a crisis? It makes sense to stay in town and try to be a paramedic, even when Dad says you can go far with that kind of dependability. Where? Where else could you go?
005. The street lamps are out and thereās blood on your hands as you try to stop the flow of three arteries determined to pour themselves into the gutter. That thing (it was shaped like a person. Could a person do this?) had run when you shouted and threw your skateboard at it, but the victim was still wheezing and bleeding out. Pressure on the wound, try to scream for someone to call an ambulance, but how can that help when the man looked like his neck had been torn out by a wild animal? You donāt know what to do, donāt even know what happened before the victim stopped wheezing and went still.
006. School, work, babysit your step siblings, and dig through the internet about what you saw. Homework, school again, drop off an extra lunch at the station for Dadās coworker who clearly needs a break, and clear out the libraryās nonfiction folklore section. Get the stepsibs to their soccer game, mow a few lawns for the cash, and make a visit to the victimās family that ends in helping his widow pack up his clothes into boxes. Get a lucky break of your own in a book on symbols and runes, and start seeing them everywhere. The Brotherhood doesnāt take recruits easily, but you're persistent, and a trial periodās offered with the warning that it eats people up inside. You don't mind that, not when it fills the blank hours. Not when you can finally get some answers.
WANTED CONNECTIONS
School friends, fellow hunters who intend to be a good (or bad) influence on a guy who is both very eager to learn and very susceptible to hazing, anyone who might be in immediate need of a paramedic who wants to get that medical help for free, anyone in need of an emergency contact, anyone who wants to mess up a guys life for the hell of it.
Who: @autumnshowell
When/Where: Port Eerie, around 1am
Sammy wasnāt really doing anything people came to raves for. He was here to work, to keep an eye on supernatural happenings and note anything worth noting. Thatās why he wasnāt in a super flashy outfit, why he really wasnāt touching the drinks table, and why he was really just trying to keep his head down.Ā
Everett being here was his lifeline, the thing that kept him from looking too out of place in a crowd of people having fun. Verbena-laced water bottles, confirmation that the watch Ev had picked out for his outfit was silver, and an agreement to meet up at the entrance area and regroup if they were separated were what it took for him to be alright bringing him here after the last supernatural gathering theyād gone to, but he didnāt regret it.Ā
The crowd did win, eventually separating them and forcing him to wander around on his own trying to keep an eye on anything that looked like it might put someone in danger as he made his way towards the agreed-upon meetup spot.Ā
Bingo. A vampire across the room, fangs clear as day, had someone cornered, leaning in slowly for their neck. No time to call Shiv, no other hunter in sight, and no matter what his misgivings were about killing, he had to get that person away somehow. He picked up his speed, elbowing through the crowd andā
TRICK!Ā
While dancing to the music, you step on a set of werewolves' toes and interrupt their careful choreography. They smile at you, but it's not a friendly sort of smile. Luckily, someone shows up at the last minute, scaring them off.
Whoever it was that heād stepped on the toes of, they were tall, glaring at him like they were glad looks couldnāt kill, since that would take away the satisfaction of killing him themselves. At least he wasnāt splitting his energy between trying to figure out how to get out of this and trying to figure out how to reach that vampire, since a quick look at the duo heād spotted before made it clear heād misread something. Which meant the only person here who might end up bleeding was him.Ā
Awesome. Great. Fantastic. Wonderful. So glad he decided to put his time into being here instead of back home handing out candy or letting Everett drag him to a slightly-more-human party where he could force a smile and actually have the room to dance.Ā
He looked around, trying for any opening in the crowd, any gap where he could start running and hopefully lose them.
Sammy is... less than interested in the party elements. He's here because the Brotherhood said it's worthwhile to be here, and he'd going where he's told. Brightening up his night is the presence of his friend @everroy, who Sammy hopes might be able to have a better time than he would.
He continued sliding photos back into order as Sammy talked. It wasā¦ heartening to hear him go on about just wanting to do good. It also made him wonder if Sammy was really cut out for this line of work, butā¦ that wasnāt for him to decide. Thatās what testing recruits was intended for.
The kid spoke passionately, though. Talked about it in a way so painfully genuine, it almost hurt to listen. (That kind of thing doesnāt get rewarded, certainly not in these circles.) It was soā so visceral a reminder of the way his uncle used to speak, ever-concerned about patients or insurance orā¦ anything, really. Finlay remembered, distantly, overhearing his aunt and uncle talking after heād go to bed. Even though he couldnāt make out the words, that tone ofā¦ caring frustration echoed in the depths of his memory.
āIāll reach out and see what I can get of those, then.ā Hopefully some of his Brooklyn contacts were still around ā itād been a good several years since heād spoken to most of them, and dying was a common way to see the contact list shorten.
He tucked the folder of photos away. āItās just a standard surveillance thing. Monitoring a target, tracking a pattern of behavior, verifying theyāve been correctly attached to the cases I have on file for them. It's not very exciting.ā He figured it was an easy no, but it didn't hurt to put it out there.
āIāve got work in a few hours, I donāt think I can do a stakeout. Thanks for the invite, though.ā Sammy always appreciated it when hunters offered him chances for information-gathering work, the kind of thing that didnāt involve the sort of moral questions and worries that came with the other side of things.Ā
He picked up his bag as he stood, slinging it over his shoulder. āIāll get out of your hair. Let me know if any of those contacts work out, though! Iām really interested in seeing what other hunters have to say on this.ā
Everett chuckled as Sammy immediately went toddling towards the bathroom, āIāll throw a towel in the dryer so its warm when you get out!ā he called after Sammy. He also pulled a hoodie and sweatpants from the Sammy drawer and laid them out in front of the bathroom door.
It was nice having people over that werenāt just him, there was something so much more satisfying knowing you werenāt just going through a routine that no one really cared if you ever completed.
He was in the process of heating up mac and cheese and making popcorn when he heard the door crack open. He smiled as Sammy entered. Gala had been fun, a lot of fun, but it was nice knowing he and Sammy could always still end up back here. It was nice to know that there was something in life that he could just depend on and he hoped Sammy never thought he took that for granted.
Sammyās limbs felt heavy as he stumbled into the shower, water echoing on the tile as he cleaned up as quickly as he could. The shower wasnāt as much of a wake-up as he hoped, more of the necessary chore between him and getting food and rest, but it helped. The comfortable pajamas and dryer-fresh towel helped even more, to the point that he almost felt like a person when he entered the kitchen and dropped onto a stool, greeted by the smell of popcorn and mac & cheese.Ā
āEv, have I told you how much I love you lately?ā He said, a bowl pushed into his hands. āBecause if I havenāt Iām gonna say it now, I love you so much.āĀ
It wasnāt often that he got this drunk, but having Everett there, shifting the conversation from the gala to anime to his plans for all the leftover fabric from making the suits... It made it all a lot better. Not for the first time that night, he was reminded of just how lucky he was to have a friend like him.Ā
āI have an interest in animals.ā Rylan shrugs. She was sure the man had never been to Graverās but, āI have a sort of homestead farm that I take care of on the island, plus the medicine side of hunting has always kinda been fascinating to me.ā
More than fascinating but Rylan couldnāt get into that. Fred might be dead and gone but the majority of the hunter community wouldnāt understand and Rylanās love of medicine was so tied to her love of Fred.
āWhat about you? I was genuinely surprised to see the order come through, plus your uninked.ā Rylan indicated his arms, āHow does a human get into hunter medicine?ā
āA farm! That explains the vet stuff, I guess itās probably hard to get a specialist to hop on a boat and come help with things if anything goes wrong...ā He looked up from his notepad where he was scribbling down the suggested books. āYouāre not Brotherhood or Fellowship, right? I might drop by, if youāre not against that. I like hearing how other hunters work, and Iād love to hear more about animal medicine overlapping with the supernatural.āĀ
Anyone willing to talk to him about this was someone he was eager to make friends with. Rylan hadnāt even agreed yet, and he was already taking mental stock of what was in his pantry to see if there was enough stuff to whip up a quick batch of cookies to bring with him when he came to talk shop.Ā
āI already do medical stuff, so when I caught a vampire making a guy into a meal, thatās the angle I took it. Iām already a paramedic, Iām... I donāt know, med school is an option? Hunter stuff is starting to factor into everything else I have going on.ā Sammy shrugged. āI donāt know if I have it in me to explore every avenue of this that Iām curious about, but Iām gonna keep going as far as I can until I burn out. I donāt like the idea of there being whole orders about killing supernaturals but not as much about the medical side of things.āĀ
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā the chill in the air and the sound of leaves underfoot always brings with it a wave of nostalgia that gabriel cannot disconnect from hunting. itās strange, sometimes, meeting and being with hunters like sammy, who donāt know it in the same way- for the same length. thereās never been gabriel without hunting- before hunting. thing is, he doesnāt know if itās better one way or the other.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā he hands sammy the folder, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jacket, instead.Ā ā nothing too weird. theyāre sending me ācause my dads knew the area really well. āĀ gabriel takes his hands out of his pockets to rub at his temples, and then he feels around for his keys, grasping the even-cooler metal.Ā ā they caught a wolf turning on camera, so we know who weāre looking for. ā
He ducked into the passenger seat, listening for the little click of the seatbelt and tugging it to make sure it was secure, instinct after years of having to cut down on every other one of his little safety rituals.Ā
āIs it an information gathering thing, or a hit?ā Sammy was never very sure on where Gabe stood in the ideology of hunting, whether he was in a position of killing supernaturals because they were supernatural, or if he was trying to limit it to ones who had done something to prove they were dangerous. From what heād seen and heard, the former was how he was raised, but with Adrian out of town... well, Sammy wasnāt in any place to judge someone for acting a little weird in the absence of their dad. Thatās what heād been doing for the past twelve years, the death just made it official.Ā
Either way, Sammy wasnāt going to be pulling the trigger. Thank you, Brotherhood mentorship rules about first kills. He wouldnāt have to grapple with the issue of having to kill someone unless he was on a hunt with Shiv. Just the similarly paralyzing issue of whether helping someone with a kill counted as killing, and if he was okay with that.Ā
What better way to clear one's head than to take a gamble on smashing it open on asphalt like a big ol' melon?
She's got an address, she's got a phone number, but the idea of using either one makes her guts curl up inside her, all knotted and tangled. She couldn't even drink her smoothie on the way here, and there's always room for a smoothie, right?
Fred knows she's gonna have to bite this bullet eventually, but it's all so sideways now. Because, originally it'd had just been... 'hey, remember when monsters burnt our life down and took us apart from eachother?' but not it's like 'hey, remember when monsters burnt our life down and took us apart from eachother and also like, rawr I'm a big scary wolfman. Woman. Wolfwoman? Werewolf, she supposes."
Help.
She rides a manual in a casual fishtail, blissfully unaware of the surroundings save what's right in front of her. Movement flashes in her eyes though, and she kicks herself to a short stop, stumbling off her board and, as she trips along, gets a front row ticket to watch some guy eat shit a few feet away from her.
"God damn!" she sputters, arms spread, trying to box in the scene. "You good?"
It's like a solid seven on the ten point oof scale, enough for her to wince as she pads over, lifting an untied converse up onto the curve as she leans in to offer a hand. "Damn, I'm sorry. I totally didn't see you. My bad."
Ow. Itās been a while since he last ate shit so badly on his board, long enough that he couldnāt really remember the last time heād had to feel his nose for any breaks on his own instead of having a sparring partner look it over for him.Ā
āYeah, no, thatās...ā He shook his head, blinking slowly. No little dark spots in his vision, nothing beyond the regular headache of smacking into a tree, thankfully. āThatās on me, I should have watched where I was going.āĀ
He took the offered hand, taking stock of his ability to balance. No unsteadiness, no swaying. Seems like he was fine. His fingers brushed over his face one more time, drawing away to see if they were suddenly red, looking down at the absence of any blood on his shirt. āI donāt think Iām bleeding? No harm done, just... ow.ā
Autumn's jaw clenches, but she doesn't miss a step, or let herself react. Immediately, though, she feels her stomach lurch, feels her spine chill, the hairs on her neck standing up. She thinks of the hiker. Thinks of why Jude Grigsby is dead. Her fingers scratch idly at her hair. "That sucks," she says, morose. "Sorry to hear that, that... that really sucks."
She's trying not to look to hard at him, because she probably looks guilty. Maybe. His turn to ask then, though, and at first she has this instinct to clam up - but, well, it's easier to talk to one uninvested stranger than a dozen or so of them, and so she takes a deep breath. "My uh... my best friend, last month." She doesn't say how, because what would that lie even look like? Animal attack? Hunting accident?
Animal attack. She thinks of miss M's expression, the way it felt when somebody knew what that really meant in Port Leiry. When it means you.
"Sucks losing your dad. Especially when it's... random like that. my dad died... god, I was nine. Just... had a backache one day, went to the hospital, and was dead that night. I'm really sorry you've gotta go through that."
āIt... yeah, it sucks.ā He wasnāt going to correct her, say that it wasnāt random, that whoever had done so much damage it passed for an animal was fully conscious and aware of it. Logically, he knew there was a good reason to not go around telling humans about the existence of the supernatural, even if his instinct was to talk to everyone he knew as if they were at the same level of awareness he was.Ā
There wasnāt a good way to put into words whatever his mix of feelings was. Maybe talking it out in a group would help, but something told him that he probably wouldnāt be ready for that for months. Not until he got some more answers than questions about what had really happened. Whatever his feelings were, it was like someone had taken the time to hold him down and x-acto it out of him, leaving nothing but the outline of what he knew had to be grief, but was just... empty.Ā
My best friend, last month. The idea of it was making his chest twist up inside. Whatever empty feeling he had about his dad, whatever mess of resentment and hope that had been forced to a halt with his death, it was all so much more complicated than the uncomplicated way friends loved eachother. That wasnāt a pit of confusing bullshit, that was a best friend. He didnāt even know what heād do if he lost his.Ā
Yes he did. Sit down on the couch and never get back up, just like his dad did when his mom died. He really didnāt like the idea that heād end up doing the very thing he resented his own dad for, though, so that thought was going into a box that was locked in another box and tossed into the back of his brain to never be touched again.
āIām sorry. Thatās... thatās rough. How did it happen? If you don't mind me asking.āĀ He regretted asking as soon as he said it, feeling the shift as he stepped to far. He was curious, sure, but she wasnāt volunteering that in the group and she wasnāt volunteering it now. "You don't have to answer that. Sorry."
Sammy is much better about it now, but he really doesn't like being in or operating cars after the crash. He knows the motorcycle is more dangerous, but in terms of getting places he can't go with his skateboard, it's probably the best option for him. I don't think he'd realized how much being in borderline fight-or-flight mode while driving was messing with his ability to do it safely until he's actually driving something that doesn't freak him out to that degree.
Autumn's sweater sleeve, hiding most of her hand, drifts up to her face, rubbing some of the seemingly endless fatigue from out the dark circles beneath her eyes before she laughs, a tired, nearly mirthless thing. "I should probably say no," she says, wry smile blooming, mitt of her sweater-paw waving him off, "I tend to eat my feelings."
As if Aria hasn't had to basically stand guard to make sure she's keeping fed the last few weeks.
She recognizes the look on his face from the one she's seen in the mirror - barely keeping it together, either out of pride or shame, or maybe some secret third thing, who fucking knows in this city?
Aut bends down to zip up her pack, resurfacing with a question as she idly thumbs back towards the meeting room, still trickling out its stream of would-be healers.
She parts there, for a second, until it becomes obvious they're going the same way, and eventually she just can't help herself;
"So uh, what're you in for?" She asks with another light scoff of sarcastic laughter, as if she hasn't watched him say nothing just like her for multiple sessions now. Why she expects him to open up to a random stranger, she doesn't know.
āFair enough.ā He zipped up his backpack, slinging it back over his shoulder as he ripped open the candy bar, taking a bite.Ā Ā
They walked together for a moment, that awkward silence of strangers who didnāt know where the other might be going, only to turn out to be heading the same way. He stopped at his chair, shrugging off his bag to pull on his jacket as she asked him a question.
āOh, uh...ā Groups were a lot to handle. Sitting there with people he knew had their own battles, it felt like he was trying to put his own issues onto them. The point of these things was to help lessen the load, divide the feeling into parts and have them eased by knowing that others had sympathy and similar struggles, but when he thought about speaking, it never felt like he was dividing it. Everyone was getting the full serving of the organized chaos that was his life, and it just made him feel worse. āDead dad. Animal attack.āĀ
As always, the lie from the police report seemed to catch in his throat as he said it. No evidence of foul play. Fuck off. He understood the Brotherhood's need to keep a case from opening, that the PLPD wasnāt equipped for a supernatural murder, but it still felt wrong. āIām really only here to stop my step-mom from worrying.ā
If anyone asked him, he was pretty sure she should be the one in the meetings instead of him, but he wasnāt going to say that to her face. She was clearly doing anything she could to keep things together, there was no way heād turn a genuine attempt to help him around on her like that at a time like this. āHow ābout you? Unless you donāt wanna talk about it, I know you're in the same boat as me with the group stuff.ā
The group itself is bullshit. She's been coming here for a couple weeks now, mostly off the back of Aria insisting she needed some sort of unanchored outlet for her feelings.
Unanchored is right, too. She hasn't spoken yet, has elected not to. Because what would she even fucking say?
Hi, I'm Autumn. I killed my mom by being born, but my dad didn't want me to grow up knowing that so he took me to his wife he was cheating on and ditched me with her when he died out of nowhere. She hated me. I wound up eating her last year to save myself from killing and eating this other lady I kind of thought of as a better mother. She hates me now too, because, oh yeah, I'm a werewolf. I can't stop thinking about what people taste like. My friends are all dead or gone, and it's mostly my fault.
Probably wouldn't fly, even with it being Halloween in Port Leiry.
But there's something to listening to braver people lay their guts out. What it is, she doesn't fucking know. She doesn't even know if it's helping or if she just likes microdosing other people's bullshit. Either way, she's spent another session saying nothing and trying not to look like she feels like this is stupid, and she'd spent a minute or two haunting the table with a paper plate full of stale cookies and a cup of too-hot, too-burnt coffee. Aria will be here soon to pick her up, but in the meantime, Purgatory. The coffe's actually turning her stomach, so she opts for the vending machine out in the hall.
Which just stole her money.
"Mother... fucker!" She says, and she shakes the thing uselessly for a moment before she starts hitting the return button, which basically ignores her.
She's suddenly aware though, of eyes on her.
"Oh, fuck, sorry. Uh... don't... use this one, I guess. Or do."
Grief meetings were a sort of compromise heād drawn up in his house.Ā
He was falling into a routine, the kind he called efficient and his step-mom called robotic. Nights are spent in Everettās guest room, days at work, school, and whatever else heād planned for himself to try to keep his hand busy and his brain quiet. The grief group was yet another one of her attempts to make him take some time to process things without turning it into chores or his meticulously scheduled āfree timeā.Ā
He hadnāt spoken up. How could he?Ā
Hi, Iām Sammy, I never got to tell my dad to his face how much he let me down before he got himself murdered by a vampire. Now Iāve got to figure out how to handle the whole Brotherhood watching and waiting for me to go kill the man who did it when I donāt even know if thatās something Iām capable of. Not to mention all of the logistical shit that goes with a sudden death, the absolute nightmare of seeing my little siblings go through all of this grief for a man Iām not sure deserves it, and, cherry on top of this whole messed up sundae, I havenāt been able to get a word down in those stupid letters I keep writing to my dead mom that I really only do because itās just my sad little crutch when I want to complain into a void about how I canāt move on from how things were years ago.Ā
Even in a group designed to talk through that kind of complicated mess of feelings, it was too much. It was all too much. When the meeting ended, he all but ran out the door, only stopping when the fresh air hit him and he realized heād left his jacket over the back of his chair. Sammy took a minute, breathing in the crisp outdoor air after so long in the stale meeting place, before turning back in.
Only to see a woman hitting the vending machine, cursing it out. Someone else who sits in these meetings, doesnāt speak, and leaves quietly.
Not so quietly. She hit the machine one more time before noticing he was there and addressing him.Ā
āIām okay on snacks.ā He said, before slinging his backpack forwards on one shoulder to unzip it. These meetings were kind of shitty for everyone, no harm in trying to be nice. āIāve got a candy bar, if you want one? Since the machine took yours.ā
Who: @freedom-mercer
When: October 9th, 9:00am
Where: Impala Pikes Skate Park
It was important that he at least tried to go out and do things. Hobbies and whatnot, for his sanity. He wasnāt going to get anything by sneaking around, trying to learn everything he could about vampires as if that might help him in what he knew heād have to do.Ā
He wasnāt learning as he skated, but he was still thinking. His mind wasnāt going to quiet down like this, it just got more productive when he had a mindless thing like this to do.Ā
That was part of why heād come so early, a weekday morning when the park was near-abandoned, it limited the chances of him mindlessly slamming into another skater while his focus was elsewhere.Ā
Not completely, though. He hadnāt heard the other person, headphones blaring as he landed a gazelle spin, was just about to drop down the ramp into the bowl, and almost slammed into the only other person there. He swerved automatically, away from the person and away from the bowl, wheels catching one of the little raised curbs and hitting a tree face-first instead.Ā
who: @sammykeels . ā”
where: b-hood gathering of one kind or another .
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā gabrielās not always the best companion, nor friend, but he excels at observing. maybe he got it from his sister, who spoke their shared language that gabriel was used to picking apart the details of. he noticed how she carried herself, creases between her eyebrows when she was frustrated, the pull of her mouth when she was amused, but didnāt want anyone else to know. of course, gabriel always knew.Ā
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā but he doesnāt even really need to read into him to know whatās happening to sammy. everyone already knows that part, and gabriel doesnāt deserve to make the comparison between them, he doesnāt have any innocence left to measure with. somewhere, once, gabriel had known what it felt like to lose a father. for some fleeting moment between the bullet and the violence, gabriel had known the grief.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā he doesnāt know what to do with that, itās just true. ā sammy, " sammy stays behind after the gathering ceases, the same as gabriel. so he knocks his head in the direction of his car, holding up the file- the assignment heād gotten.Ā " wannaā go for a ride? ā
Life was becoming an exercise in routine. College classes didnāt take up nearly as much time as school had the last time heād been in this sort of funk, a zombie pulling himself out of bed from obligation to obligation, finding what little solace he can in whatever scheduled hobby heād picked out for himself between them. Brotherhood meetings were one of the obligations that pulled at strings within him, now, a newfound focus that was different from that earnest, eager interest he had before.Ā
He really hated that he could tell he was getting jaded, but didnāt know how to stop it.Ā
There was a window of free time after every meeting that he never knew what to do in. An hour between the hunters dispersing, and his self-imposed curfew, when it was too dark out to do anything he usually liked to do, and everywhere else was closed.Ā
So when Gabe offered something to do, he jumped at the chance to tag along on the assignment, something to do to fill the empty hour. āSure. Whatās this one?ā
Who: @death-becomes-him
When: September 28, 9:48pm - The Memorial Service of Samuel Keels Sr.
The service was 47 minutes, almost exactly.Ā
He was glancing at his watch as the pastor (Priest? Father? He could never remember what the exact terms were here.) spoke, as he stood and gave that exacting eulogy, as he stepped down from the podium and his fatherās coworkers started coming up to speak about him. Beloved father, husband, friend. Fond stories from people who knew him well enough to have those memories, but not well enough to know why Sammy hadnāt had any to tell from before his step-mom and the twins had moved in.Ā
If Everett hadnāt been there to lean against his side, quietly nudge his shoulder to pull him out of the funk he was in, he might have just zoned out for the rest of the ceremony. He wouldn't be able to forgive himself for that.
Not for missing the speeches and the slideshow and whatever else was going on. He had his own way of mourning, and none of it involved sitting in a room of people who only had good things to say about his father. That was for his stepmother and the twins, the people he cared about who didn't need to know any of the bad stuff when they'd lost someone who had only been good to them. The ones who deserved to keep whatever good memories they had instead of the complicated mix of things he'd been dealing with.
No, the part he wouldn't have forgiven himself for was if he'd zoned out and missed the nagging feeling that heād seen the priest before. It didn't click until the man was only a few feet away, approaching to give whatever empty condolences and offers of guidance people tended to give at these sorts of things. Ā
āYou were there when I found my dadās car.ā Not a question, not an accusation, just a statement as he shook the priest's hand. āYou waved at me.ā
āItā¦ā he sighed. āWell, yeah, when you put it like that, that's kind of how morality works for everyone. There's not just some evil switch that flips the second someone turns, but there's a lot of complicated factors that make it easier for supernaturals to be... violent, in ways that are a lot more rare in humans. Humans don't tend to have bloodlust or a predator's instinct to hunt people. There's a lot of instincts that come into play that are hard to control, easy to listen to, and tempting for people already looking to do some damage. When you see some of the things that come up in this line of workā¦ā It doesnāt make him nauseous to think of it ā heās got a stomach of steel after everything heās seen. But itās still not pleasant. āFamily massacres, shredded remains after a full moon, mass murder, itā¦ itās worse to believe everyone chooses how they handle being supernatural, that there's not something that changes when someone turns. A lot of the worst is intentional cruelty, butā¦ people can lose control. They can do terrible things without meaning to. Things theyāre sorry about. Itās unfortunate. They can want control and still not be able to grasp it. Itās still up to us to take care of anyone who proves to be a threat, whether or not they meant for it to happen. At the end of the day, itās about the greater good, and sometimes the greatest good we can do is taking out someone that can't control themself.ā
He started shuffling the photos back into a stack, idly sorting them into his idea of a correct order as he continued speaking. āI donāt have a lot on biology. Sociology, you could probably piece together plenty from all the field notes Iāve got, but Iāve never sat down to dig through those. Iāve got some files from some autopsies Iāve sat in on, though, and I, uhā¦ā
(Was it worth bringing it up, if he wasnāt sure it would go anywhere? Or really, was it worth the possibility heād bring his auntās attention back onto him?)
āIā¦ it would take some time to get in touch with the right people,ā he said, haltingly, āand I canāt guarantee Iād turn up anything, butā¦ my uncle was a doctor, and Iā¦ know he had his door open to the Brotherhood when he was around. Donāt know if he dipped into anything more supernatural than that, but someone back in the Brooklyn branch might know if he kept files on anything relevant. If youāre interested.ā As he started sorting through some of the vampire-bite photos in the stack, he paused on one particular photo now at the top of the sorting pile. Nineteen years on, and he still knew so little about how deeply the ties ran between the man who'd raised him and the group that'd given him purpose again. Normally he liked answers, needed them, but... a more stubborn part of him didn't want to know just how much had been hidden from him.
Finlay slid the picture into its place in his order, and looked back up at Sammy, finally. "If you've ever got questions, you can ask me anything. Or if there's files or pictures of anything, just ask. I've built up a pretty big personal collection, and I've lived a lot of places, so I think I've got a pretty varied range." He stacked up the newly-ordered photos and closed them back up in the file. "Like I said, those are copies, so you can keep them for reference if you want. Otherwise, uhm..." Was there supposed to be more to training? "If you've got other plans, you're good to go. I've got a stakeout tonight that you're welcome to tag along on, though."
The mention of Fin having some medically inclined contacts got his interest. āThat would be great, yeah! Iām just having trouble with the fact that so much of this medical stuff Iāve found works off an assumption that everything will fundamentally still operate in a human way and that anything that is different is the outlier and marker of someone being supernatural instead of actually ensuring that the human assumptions are correct. I get that hunters arenāt really supposed to be thinking about more than just killing them, but it is still dangerous to operate and try anything medical with someone if you are working off of such a huge assumption."Ā
"Even non-supernatural bodies arenāt as uniform as common medical knowledge would lead someone to believe, and the introduction of a whole new, largely unstudied factor makes it sort of ridiculous to try to work off of treating someone as Human Plus." He continued, not even looking at Fin anymore as he continued to talk, starting to pace a bit. "It feels medically unsound to base everything around them being fundamentally the same and only studying the major known differences when there could be a thousand smaller differences that could mean life or death in situations like allergic reactions or specific medical procedures, even if I get people thinking itās tedious or pointless to work from a point of less assumptions.ā
He was rambling again. He stilled the hands he hadnāt even realized he was waving as he spoke, taking another step and stopping to turn back to Fin. āI mean. Yes, I would very much like that, please and thank you.āĀ
He reached over to help finish stacking the photos, before stepping back to scribble something down in his notebook. āA stakeout? What for?ā He probably wouldnāt go, not when he had homework and chores and a thousand other responsibilities, but he was still curious.
