HEADCANON ft. uncle lincoln braxton tw: blood,violence,knives,hospital,death,grief
summary;
3 years ago, Riley and his Uncle headed out to a suspected shifter hideout (his uncle dabbled in the hunter business which is actually the reason riley took a shine to it too). It turned out to be a vampire nest so the pair weren’t armed appropriately. They used what they could around them and fought for their lives. Barely standing, beaten and bloody, the pair thought they had got them all when two came out of nowhere. The silver knife Riley came in with was driven into his side before it was pulled out, only to slice through his skin from the wound, across his hip and upwards. Obviously, it brought him to his knees. The blood loss was instant and his Uncle was enraged. He tried to fight the vampires to get to his nephews’ side but one of them swung a metal pole into his skull so hard it snapped his neck, killing him instantly. Riley, in spite of the injury that left him on life support for three months, has never forgiven himself. He never even got to attend the funeral with being in a coma so he missed his chance to say a proper goodbye. The what-ifs of it all torment him, his Uncle was also his best friend. Riley recovered from the near-death injuries ( which is part of the reason he now has full upper body tattoos - to cover the massive scars across his body. ) but it took a big toll on his state of mind, especially being an empath, the guilt sometimes cripples him.
Riley, given his condition of low-latent inhibition, has the dire need to do good by people, to be the rescuer, he relates to the emotional pain of the people around him so deeply that it troubles him. So losing one of his own? It hurts him beyond words. Riley tends not to talk about him because of that but he thinks about him every day. When he’s feeling low he plays over what happened again and again in his mind. Almost like he’s trying to figure out if he could have done something to stop it all. They could have been better armed. Prepare for anything, not just a specific creature... Maybe there was a noise to alert him before they attacked? Maybe he could have dodged quicker? People tell him it wasn’t his fault (because it wasn’t) and he just nods and smiles but he doesn’t believe that. Not for one second and it’s that thought that brings him to tears as he slams his fists into the nearest solid wall available. He does all this behind closed doors because he doesn’t like anyone to see how much the event still troubles him, he’s not opposed to showing emotion but he’s so used to playing the hearty irish joker that he’s reluctant to be anything else.