Post by Carley on Sept 16, 2015 17:58:11 GMT -8
Alexander Ashton Kearny
Born December 21, 1989 (25 years old)
Graduate student at Shepherd University (medieval history), freelance drummer, "collector" for Nero Dollarhyde
Mother: Rose Greenbaum, living
Father: David Kearny, living
Half-sisters: Cameron and Lacey Kearny, living
Wife: Vivian Kearny, living
( Face: Spencer Smith
Screen name: a moribund usher )
I've read about the afterlife, but I've never really lived.
It's been said that the Kearnys have served death since their days in Ireland, before somebody somewhere up the line moved across the Atlantic to take up residence in Toronto. If you ask Alex, he might be able to remember his grandfather being deliberately vague about having to leave family gatherings early or making excuses for why he wasn't able to pick up his grandson on time. He'd catch Alex's father's eye and look guilty. But considering his grandfather died when he was eight, the memories are pretty vague. Alex does remember that he seemed oddly ready for it, like he knew it was coming all along. Pretty impressive, considering he went young, from a heart attack, out of nowhere.
There was a lot on Alex's plate that year, even without the loss of a relative. His parents were fighting. There were screaming matches in the kitchen, accusations that his father was sleeping with his secretary. He was, but it wasn't until the birth of Alex's half-sister Cameron that the facts came to light. It was in the midst of this that he began to hear whispers in the darkness, see things in mirrors out of the corner of his eye. Though he kept himself occupied and distracted during the day, mostly by taking up the drums, his childhood nights alternated between his mother's screams of betrayal and murmured voices that he'd never heard before in his life, voices that seemed to have no source.
The older he got, the worse it got. Oh, no, not the fighting. His parents divorced, and he began the delightful task of learning to like Alison, his father's secretary-turned-lover-turned-new-wife. At least he adored little Cameron, and Lacey as well, when she came into the world. But those whispers in the darkness? Those apparitions out of the corner of his eye? They became increasingly frequent, until he began to sleep with earplugs and covered the full-length mirror on his closet door at night with a taped-up sheet. What if he was going crazy? What if he had schizophrenia or something? Was he hallucinating?
It took a near-death experience for him to find answers, something that he'd later learn was also traditional for the Kearnys. At sixteen, at a party, he drank himself unconscious in a bet with a friend to see who could handle more liquor. They really should have both died that night, but Alex lived, stopped at the door to the afterlife by a frigid-cold hand against his chest.
I WILL TELL YOU THE HOUR OF YOUR DEATH, AND YOU SHALL NOT DIE A MOMENT BEFORE. YOU WILL BRING ME THE SPIRITS OF THE DEAD SO I MAY SORT THEM AND SET THEM FREE. IT IS IN YOUR BLOOD, AS IT WAS IN YOUR GRANDFATHER'S BLOOD.
And thus began Alex's unwanted career ushering the dead to the great beyond. The proper word, he learned, is psychopomp. Those whispers and visions? They were ghosts, responding to his inherited ability long before he knew he had it. A conversation with his grandfather, now eight years dead, revealed that the Kearny family had been serving death for generations, and that it was always the youngest male in the family who inherited the gift when the previous psychopomp died.
It should have been a cool gig, but it interfered with what Alex truly wanted to do with his life. A few of his friends started up a band, and he was all too happy to be their drummer. They even made it big. Big-ish. Enough to put out an album, make it on to the radio, tour across Canada. But constantly having to ditch practice to go ferry souls quickly took its toll, and although his friends were kind, Alex was quite bitter about having to leave.
It was a good thing he had that acceptance letter to Shepherd University's graduate program in medieval history.
London has changed him, and arguably, it's not for the better. Maybe. On the one hand, he's gotten married, something he never thought he'd do. Vivian di Marco was a ghost that he really should have shoved off to the afterlife despite all of her bitching and moaning about not wanting to go, but she was just too gorgeous to ignore. Death owed him a favor, so he cashed it in, brought Vivian back to humanity and life, and wifed her ass up for good measure. Or at least that's what he tells people. In truth, it was partially because he's become involved in London's sketchy underworld, and Vivian's in on it, and this way they don't have to testify against one another. (It was also because he's completely lovestruck.)
When he went to ask Nero Dollarhyde for a job, he was thinking he'd offer up his cooking skills to work in his restaurant, the Clockwork Cat. But at a fairly imposing six-foot-one, with a drummer's arms and a chip on his broad shoulder and a serious case of resting bitch face, Alex made a perfect, ahem, "collector" for the crime lord. Don't let that sunny smile and those brilliantly blue eyes fool you. He has a body count. It's growing steadily. He's a one-stop shop, in a way, beating the life out of you and then ushering your soul away.
It's life. It's a living. It's not what he would have chosen for himself, honestly, but he's happy enough. Now if only he could convince Vivian that she would make a decent mother...after all, somebody's going to have to take over the family pyschopomp business when his time is up.
There was a lot on Alex's plate that year, even without the loss of a relative. His parents were fighting. There were screaming matches in the kitchen, accusations that his father was sleeping with his secretary. He was, but it wasn't until the birth of Alex's half-sister Cameron that the facts came to light. It was in the midst of this that he began to hear whispers in the darkness, see things in mirrors out of the corner of his eye. Though he kept himself occupied and distracted during the day, mostly by taking up the drums, his childhood nights alternated between his mother's screams of betrayal and murmured voices that he'd never heard before in his life, voices that seemed to have no source.
The older he got, the worse it got. Oh, no, not the fighting. His parents divorced, and he began the delightful task of learning to like Alison, his father's secretary-turned-lover-turned-new-wife. At least he adored little Cameron, and Lacey as well, when she came into the world. But those whispers in the darkness? Those apparitions out of the corner of his eye? They became increasingly frequent, until he began to sleep with earplugs and covered the full-length mirror on his closet door at night with a taped-up sheet. What if he was going crazy? What if he had schizophrenia or something? Was he hallucinating?
It took a near-death experience for him to find answers, something that he'd later learn was also traditional for the Kearnys. At sixteen, at a party, he drank himself unconscious in a bet with a friend to see who could handle more liquor. They really should have both died that night, but Alex lived, stopped at the door to the afterlife by a frigid-cold hand against his chest.
I WILL TELL YOU THE HOUR OF YOUR DEATH, AND YOU SHALL NOT DIE A MOMENT BEFORE. YOU WILL BRING ME THE SPIRITS OF THE DEAD SO I MAY SORT THEM AND SET THEM FREE. IT IS IN YOUR BLOOD, AS IT WAS IN YOUR GRANDFATHER'S BLOOD.
And thus began Alex's unwanted career ushering the dead to the great beyond. The proper word, he learned, is psychopomp. Those whispers and visions? They were ghosts, responding to his inherited ability long before he knew he had it. A conversation with his grandfather, now eight years dead, revealed that the Kearny family had been serving death for generations, and that it was always the youngest male in the family who inherited the gift when the previous psychopomp died.
It should have been a cool gig, but it interfered with what Alex truly wanted to do with his life. A few of his friends started up a band, and he was all too happy to be their drummer. They even made it big. Big-ish. Enough to put out an album, make it on to the radio, tour across Canada. But constantly having to ditch practice to go ferry souls quickly took its toll, and although his friends were kind, Alex was quite bitter about having to leave.
It was a good thing he had that acceptance letter to Shepherd University's graduate program in medieval history.
London has changed him, and arguably, it's not for the better. Maybe. On the one hand, he's gotten married, something he never thought he'd do. Vivian di Marco was a ghost that he really should have shoved off to the afterlife despite all of her bitching and moaning about not wanting to go, but she was just too gorgeous to ignore. Death owed him a favor, so he cashed it in, brought Vivian back to humanity and life, and wifed her ass up for good measure. Or at least that's what he tells people. In truth, it was partially because he's become involved in London's sketchy underworld, and Vivian's in on it, and this way they don't have to testify against one another. (It was also because he's completely lovestruck.)
When he went to ask Nero Dollarhyde for a job, he was thinking he'd offer up his cooking skills to work in his restaurant, the Clockwork Cat. But at a fairly imposing six-foot-one, with a drummer's arms and a chip on his broad shoulder and a serious case of resting bitch face, Alex made a perfect, ahem, "collector" for the crime lord. Don't let that sunny smile and those brilliantly blue eyes fool you. He has a body count. It's growing steadily. He's a one-stop shop, in a way, beating the life out of you and then ushering your soul away.
It's life. It's a living. It's not what he would have chosen for himself, honestly, but he's happy enough. Now if only he could convince Vivian that she would make a decent mother...after all, somebody's going to have to take over the family pyschopomp business when his time is up.
