I have a Terry McCain headcanon to share: we know he is Irish Catholic, and I see him being superstitious as well. Always making sure to knock on wood, throwing spilled salt over his shoulder, etc. What do you think? And do you have any headcanons about how his background might affect his personality, quirks, or everyday life?
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Oh yes, Terry McCain is a definite practitioner of Old World Irish superstitiousness.
Overall Irishness in general too.
Doesn't even try to hide it particularly, because why should he? Is this something to be ashamed of? Quite the contrary! If anything, he's very much in-tune with his heritage. His colleagues on the force, for example, know all about it, because he's just that forthright about it it bleeds into his professional life, as well as his private one. On Birthdays, anniversaries and holidays they all about just know what to get the Detective and yeah, clovers with four leaves and thematic green ties and scarves for St. Patrick's Day are items frequently passed around the Station (both as an inside-joke and legitimate picks) because there's no way to go wrong with those choices where Terry McCain is concerned. Does his desk end up decorated with a cheesily endearing 'Kiss me, I'm Irish' Leprechaun coffee mug at one point, surrounded by all his paperwork, folders and files? Yeah, possibly.
But, superstitions, eh?
He believes in them as much as he believes in God.
In a left mean hook.
He believes that if his nose itches, it signifies a fight or a physical confrontation to come and he isn't above vocalizing it. 'Don't provoke me,' he'd say 'my nose is itching for it.' Same case with money; if one's palm's scratchy meaning he'll either get some or lose some, but Terry's admittedly infinitely less excited about that one than the possibility of a good punch out.
He believes in Omens. Magpies and bad luck. Crossing forces unseen. Fairies. Curses. He believed in it even as his colleagues got picked off one by one and he proceeded avoiding near death experiences several times in the row. What was that if not a case of luck? Someone somewhere looking out for him, in ways his coworkers weren't quite as fortunate? Of course while he's on the task of vigilantism and taking revenge to those he feels hurt his people these quirks come into practice. He relies on his guns, sure. His fists. His fighting ability. His stubbornness and conviction in going out and fixing things. In what's just and right. But, he goes out into the streets, looking for the down and dirty places of Chicago to take order to all while wearing his shirt backwards under his coat and scarf. You know --- for luck. Just in case. Nobody has to understand it but him. He expects nobody to understand, although he is more than likely to explain.
Very ardently.
Rain at funerals meaning at a departed soul is happy? Terry McCain is entirely likely to quietly stand in front of the cemetery grounds, hands in his pockets, looking for signs of a downpour even as his colleagues get buried and once he doesn't get it and the weather proves to be dry, he internally knows what has to be done; he knows he's got some scores to settle so his friends can rest in peace. Again. Nobody has to get it but him. The same way nobody has to get that he thinks that when you're sent a gift, you're supposed to take it; he trusts in this idea even as he adopts that kitten intended for him. That animal is there for a reason. People of ancient Ireland believed that cats operated somewhere between the mortal and spiritual realms. They viewed them as guardians of the gates of the Otherworld; a link between humans and the Otherworld. That, or he just overall doesn't want to jinx himself by not adopting a homeless cat given to him in a box with his literal name on it and he does purely because he wants to. Because he's a good man as much as he is a man of superstitions and a set of believes all his own.
He may or may have not have attempted the apple test.
You know --- to discover the first letter of his love's name.
Hey? What!? C'mon! He's allowed his indulgences!
Man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.
Might've done it idly, at work, for example, or at the bar afterhours on a weekened, where nobody even figured what he was doing or why. Lunch break at the police force or perhaps McCain leaning on a patrol car, peeling himself an apple idly as a snack, watching out to avoid any skin breakage and create a long strip, trying to decipher what shape the remains resembled and truly taking the letter he saw closest represented in the peel as something meaningful, secretly on a lookout for that special someone with a name starting with a, oh, I don't know, letter C. or a letter S. or a letter O. or a letter B. This could've been a habit he had since he was a very young boy and the habit simply carried on as he aged. If it is nonsense, why have people don't stuff like that for centuries? Why does stepping into a circle of mushrooms (Psst! Fairy forts!) feeling innately wrong regardless where they are encountered? Why does Terry instinctually bypass them even without thinking, out in some park or a patch of soil behind a jazz club after weeks of rain? One doesn't need to be in Ireland to find Old World things. Encounter them in day to day life.
You better believe in ancient magic, because it sure believes in you.
