everything is cased in verglas. distorted, crystallized. you’ve been frozen in bleak hours surrounding the great tragedy of your life, and you can’t see past them. maybe there is no beyond. maybe you’re meant to live in the haze of your wasted potential, grieving for what you’d never become, too rigid to sprout wings and become anything else. a damned soul who tasted freedom only to be cast back into the maw of the beast you thought you’d escaped. you get comfortable in the suspension of your story, the fragments of this nightmare. the only proof that you’re alive are the plumes of your breath on the cold air.
// one day, something warm will thaw you. or it’ll burn you alive.
✝ STATS ✝
full name: gage warren mercer.
age: 26.
d.o.b: august 7th.
zodiac: leo sun, aries moon, aries rising.
occupation: youth hockey coach, ice technician & all-arounder at frostbite stadium.
hometown: cardinal hill, wa.
current residence: cardinal hill, wa.
time in cardinal hill: been back about 5 years from alberta, canada.
species: human.
sexuality: straight.
faceclaim: dacre montgomery.
(tw: addiction, injury, allusion to child abuse, domestic violence)in focus: failed home-town hero syndrome. gage grew up in cardinal hill and pretty much had the world handed to him on silver platter, and as a kid, he was determined to make something of himself, to go further than his parents, to make his mother proud and outgrow his father’s mean shadow. his family was wealthy and owned the frostbite stadium, ensuring he grew up on the ice. in no time, he proved his ability as an aggressive skater, and by the time puberty hit, he was a brutal competitor on the youth hockey league. his father was incredibly tough on him, forcing him to run drill after drill, overcoming injury and fatigue, pushing back fear and stomping out doubt. it was a crude sort of courage that manifested from all of that oppressive input, but it was unbeatable. he was a wildfire. and more importantly, he loved hockey. being on the ice was exhilarating, and there was nothing he liked better that sailing over it. it was freedom.
by the time he got to high school, everyone was already paying attention to him. girls, teachers, coaches, rival high schools, state colleges, and even canadian universities. after winning state with his high school hockey team, he was offered a full ride to alberta university to play with the golden bears.
college was never a huge challenge for him; he was always sharp, and he could get by on a high b average without doing much at all. a lot of it was because he was smart, a survivor, a sponge for information, but some of it was because he was good at getting his girlfriends or friends to help him write papers or cheat. because he was good at charming his professors. he learned at a young age that people tended to like doing things that made him happy. only a fool wouldn’t wield that sort of power, right?
junior year came, and his knee was totaled in a mid-season game. in one second, he lost everything he’d ever wanted. that’s when everything started closing in on him. he lost sight of what was in front of him, and the only thing that helped were the painkillers. they made the reality of what had happened fell away. and as strong of a person he was, as capable as he was, the grip those pills had on him were stronger, in the end. unable to return to hockey, unable to focus on his grades, with no future in his sights, he lost his scholarship & left university.
whatever sort of person he had been before, he’d crystalized into something bitter after that. the world took something from him. his future, his dream, who he was, the thing he loved the most. moving back home and facing his father was akin to walking into hell. the conversation was vicious and ended in violence. for a year, he crashed on random couches in cardinal hill, chasing pills. his mother eventually intervened and helped him to get sober, offering him a job at the stadium if he could keep his act together.
since then, he’s just been existing. years of sobriety and regaining his parent’s trust have granted him more responsibility at the stadium, and he makes enough to afford a little mortgage on a cabin near the water. the only thing that brings him happiness or focus is the youth hockey team he coaches. everything else is just background noise. everything else is just time in the box.
✝ HEADCANONS ✝
he drives a gold datsun 280z. it’s his pride and joy. second only to the zamboni.
gage is the guy that entices the girl home to piss off the guy that beat him at pool, but ends up falling asleep before actually hooking up.
his third space is the pool hall. beer, cigarettes, and some competition — what could be better?
he greatly admires musicians and loves seeing rock shows. the energy makes him feel alive.
most weekend mornings, he fishes by himself on the little lake by his cabin.
