Ab Antiquo

Posted: **Tue Nov 26, 2024 10:11 pm**

B A S I C S

⬒ N A M E
Kellan Padraic Driskoll |

⬓ A L I A S
Driskoll | Broccoli | Strawberry |

⬒ L I N E A G E
The Matsuda lineage |
Your lineage runs as follows: Carrot and the master vampire Hiram |

⬓ D A T E S
Born in Murphy Village, South Carolina on October 12th, 1989 to Cormac and Gwenyth Driskoll |
Moved to the outskirts of Ravenblack City in 1997 |
Joined the Matsuda family via Carrot on July 14th, 2022 |

⬒ E T H N I C I T Y
Irish-American Traveller |

⬓ S P E C I E S
Vampire |

P H Y S I C A L I T I E S

P E R S O N A L I T Y

⬓ S K I L L S
Durable; able to withstand hardship or adversity, especially withstanding prolonged stressful effort or activity. |
Charismatic; outgoing, energetic, and likable; exhibiting a compelling charm that attracts others. |
Honest; forthcoming with the truth and not liable to lie in most circumstances, even about uncomfortable topics. |
Physically fit; trained to perform with optimal strength and performance, not easily prone to fatigue. |

⬒ S T R E N G T H S
Authentic; true to one's personality, values, and spirit; regardless of outside pressure to act otherwise. |
Affectionate; readily expressing fondness or tenderness to others who are emotionally close. |
Protective; willingness to defend others against harm of all types, even at the expense of one's own well-being. |
Thoughtful; prone to be absorbed in dreaming, a consideration beyond the surface. |

⬓ W E A K N E S S E S
Hot-headed; quick to temper and slow to quell heated emotions such as anger, jealousy, fear. |
Possessive; tendency to want to capture all of another's love and attention, to unhealthy degrees. |
Relentless; persistent pursuit of one's own desire, sometimes oppressively so. |
Self-deceptive; convincing one's self of a misbelief, resulting in acting in ways one would not if aware of their true motives. |

⬒ V I O L E N C E
Accidental kills: ten |
Purposeful kills: thirty-four |

Posted: **Tue Nov 26, 2024 10:20 pm**

R E L A T I O N S H I P S

Posted: **Tue Nov 26, 2024 10:29 pm**

t h e S T O R Y s o F A R

"Welcome to my cage, little lover
Attempt to rearrange with you, baby
Still don't know your name, miss honey
Let's go up in flames, pretty lady

I wait on you inside the bottom of the deep blue"

"Bottom of the Deep Blue Sea" by Missio |

⬓ T Ú S
"Fuck you, Kellan!"

The words echoed across the storefront's glass windows. Lacy trailed behind him, her voice shrill. The louder she became, the faster she marched after him. Every few steps, her shorter legs closed the distance so she could reach out and slap his back.

"Fuck you, you piece of shit," she continued to scream. "You stupid piece of shit. I hate you!"

Kellan glanced inside the gas station. Ciaran laughed, leaning against the counter mid-purchase. Lochlann stood at the glass doors with his little hand on the push bar. As short as he was, he stood on his tiptoes to see over the cigarette and beer posters blocking his view. Even Desmond--level-headed and patient--grinned from his position with his arm around Morwyn's shoulders.

Of course, his family enjoyed the shit show.

Everyone seemed to be. Faces he recognized from the village all turned their direction to watch. This sort of spectacle was not uncommon here; not in their part of the world.

"Face me like a fucking man, you pussy!" In three years, he'd learned these were her favorite insults: pussy, piece of shit, fucking loser. Ciaran told him it was a right of passage. He also told him to stop fooling around with 'that Buffer girl.' Their eldest brother, Rowan, told him to stop fooling around with all the Buffer girls. But, then, he was always more perceptive.

"I'm done with this shit, Lace," Kellan called back to her. He couldn't allow himself to slow down. Not yet. If she caught up, her hands would be slapping his face next. "Call for your ride, Daddy's girl. I told you, we're fucking over. I meant it."

With each hit, her gold bracelets jingled alongside the cheap one he'd given her two years ago. Each slap was another reminder that they were miles from Lacy's part of town. Miles from where her father pulled up to their suburban home in his Lexus. Miles from where her mother set the table with decorated placemats for their herb-crusted salmon dinner. Miles from that old gas station, where the smell of old gasoline and sun-baked rubber tires stung his nose with nostalgia.

"Oh, you're done?!" she questioned. With a fresh burst of passion, she raced around him. Like any man talking shit after too many beers, she lifted her face toward his. Her pouty lips sneered at him. Even in her anger--or especially because of it--she was beautiful. Beautiful with her summer blonde hair and rich girl rebellion. She stood chest to chest with him--or, rather, chest to stomach--and grappled his arms so he didn't walk away. "You're done now! So you can go fuck Heather behind my back? Yeah, I bet you're fucking done, you piece of shit. I'm done! Go back to your trashy family, you--"

"The fuck did you say?!"

Morwyn shoved her way between Kellan and Lacy. One moment his forearms were in a vice grip. The next, Lacy's blonde hair was tangled in small, scrappy fists bearing the marks of busted knuckles from previous fights. Morwyn moved cat-like, predatory. She dragged Lacy to the asphalt with one hand and wailed at her face with the other.

When the police sirens called down the street, the Driskolls were gone. Morwyn kicked at Kellan and Desmond's shins, but no one there would ever say it had been her. Such was their way. |

⬒ L Á R
The cold had a way of seeping into the bones in the visitation room. It clung to the concrete walls and the pale blue paint that did little to cover up the rough texture underneath it. It chilled the old four-corner metal table Kellan sat at, his arms at rest underneath in his lap. Even the chair's thin, plastic cushion sat cold under his ass, offering no relief.

Desmond sat across from him. Kellan watched his brother work his bottom lip between his teeth, picking at a piece of dead skin that stubbornly held on. When he didn't lift his head to meet his eyes, Kellan looked instead across the room. An overweight guard in his forties sat atop his rolling chair of a throne, comfortable behind a partition of plexiglass. He eyed Kellan before breaking his attention to toss a command at another guard. The guard stalked the visiting area to interrupt a crying wife leaning over the table to kiss her husband.

The closest thing to warmth in the room was the soft voices beside the two of them. They spoke of hope, change, and the future.

Kellan cleared his throat. "How've you been?" he started.

His brother raised his face at last. The corners of his mouth remained downturned, not unlike the creases in the corners of his eyes. Though Desmond was only a handful of years older than Kellan, the dusting of age, five children, and stress began to show through. He wondered if his own eyes looked as distant.

"How do you think I've been, Kellan?" Despite the edge to the words, his voice remained level, if scratchy. The center of his eyebrows dented at the question before relaxing. Kellan watched him reconsider the argument, watched him work his jaw against whatever he would say next. He gave him the silence for it. "I'm tired..." Desmond said, at last.

Kellan glanced down into his lap. He scratched at a phantom itch on the back of his hand, scrubbing his fingers over the knot of a couple of faint scars. "Morwyn was going to come," he offered. If Desmond was surprised, his expression remained impassable. "Did she talk to you?"

"Yeah." No wonder. "I told her not to. I'm sure she'll come another time."

A chair moved back from a table. An older woman with streaks of gray in her hair smiled at her seated son before walking out. She'd been there before Kellan took his seat, her wisened hands folded patiently on the table between her and her loved one. Once the exit door closed behind her, the guard leaned down and secured the man's wrists in handcuffs. Together, they left the visitation room with the guard escorting from behind.

"Yeah, I'm sure..." Kellan offered. Morwyn took visitation days more seriously than church on Sundays. Without fail, once a month, she went through the rigorous process of being searched, questioned, and studied to sit at that very table. "What about the kids?"

"No." Desmond's clipped edge returned--jagged and unforgiving. Before Kellan could open his mouth to respond, his brother silenced him. "Da's dead, Kellan."

The cold air circulating the room lifted goosebumps along his exposed arms. Or, maybe it was the freezing hot flash of shame. The longer his brother stared at him, the deeper the burn became until it ignited him from within. He wasn't the first Traveller to pull a stint in state prison. How many guys did he know growing up that ran in and out of jail like an old home? Guys their older brothers used to know. Guys their Da' used to know--used to have beers with on the porch when a game wasn't on.

"His funeral was two weeks ago," Desmond continued.

A couple of years, at most. Guys would be out in a couple of years and find their wives had been waiting for them on the outside. They didn't go in for twelve years. They didn't spend their entire twenties behind bars.

"Anyway, I thought you should know, but this is the last time I'm coming here." His brother stood from the table, not bothering to push the chair in. Kellan watched him go, Desmond only pausing long enough to add, "If Morwyn wants to see you... that's on her."

The exit door closed behind him. The guard hovered next to Kellan's chair, waiting. He gestured for him to scoot back, handcuffs ready. "Driskoll," he barked. "Let's go." |

⬓ A N O I S
They always leave out the menial tasks from vampire movies. The filmmakers never linger on the time it takes to do basic things: showering, dressing, traveling, and pleasantries that mean nothing with people that will never matter. The storytelling never mentions the work that goes into surviving the first hundred years. There were never any key frame montages for the slow build of success that goes into making a lineage what it is.

If they did, Driskoll wondered how many untold hours of footage from his movie would show him waiting in the front seat of a luxury sedan doing shady jobs for men that would sooner rip the throats out from their clients than work with them.

Jahleel--distant, focused, controlled--occupied the passenger seat. A mutual disinterest in any conversation settled between them. Instead, they both flicked their thumbs across the screens of their phones. The passing of cars spoke for them. Not so long ago, they would have been making jokes about Kiichi's nose up Roque's ass or Teddy's obvious crush.

The car sat unmoving on Malaise Street. Frost licked at the corners of the windows without hindering their line of sight. Every half hour, one of them glanced up to make sure. Was the entrance of the townhouse visible? Was their client still inside? Nothing else mattered. After all, that's what Hiram paid them for.

When was the last time you slowed down to look at the stars?

"Look alive," Jahleel said.

Driskoll looked up from his phone--from the words Katerina wrote. He imagined her voice asking the question, of what it would sound like. When was the last time you slowed down to look at the stars? The two of them, side by side in the darkness, the endless universe staring back at him from her eyes; the hint of a smile. He liked the way her smiles sounded.

Sudden peals of laughter echoed from the sidewalk and chased the sweet lilt from memory. Two women in their early twenties stumbled off the stoop of the townhouse. Their feet dragged on the dirty sidewalk, their high heels dangling like accessories. One wound her arms tight around the other for stability. Behind them, the lively music of a party drowned out the inside joke he couldn't hear.

"Take us to Sanctuary," one of them said--kind, polite, able to hold her liquor well from what he could remember. She clambered into the backseat and scooted behind him. Her sister tripped in next to her--clumsy, sloppy, always giggled too often at everything Jahleel said.

Jahleel closed the door and returned to his seat in the front. He cast Driskoll a look, one they shared and understood as if weeks of conflict hadn't passed between them. The two of them were little more than glorified, undead chauffeurs to the daughters of some weapons company CEO. Or something like that. Gunpower princesses and their vampire escorts.

That's what people paid for in Ravenblack City. They didn't want assassinations when death was so abundant. One wrong dark alleyway and the problem would likely take care of itself. They wanted life. They wanted their heirs and their legacies to protected from people--things--like him. They wanted protection from people like the Matsudas. From people like Hiram and Roque, who made men pay their fortunes to keep their children from being on the nightly news.

These people--the ones that made too much money to spend--put money in fires that fueled their own nightmares.

And they were happy to watch him drop their loved ones off so long as he smelled like them, dressed like them, acted the part. They were happy so long as he kept people like Morwyn--loud, unapologetic, ruthless--away. Even Desmond--mortal, fragile, proud--had no place in their world of control.

How could he disagree? Desmond didn't belong in it. Desmond belonged at home, helping kids with homework. Desmond belonged with Morwyn in the quiet safety of the village. But they weren't. None of them were there anymore. His brother was bearing his neck to his vampire wife like it might be the last time.

It will work out, Kalika said--warm, familiar, certain. She wore her unbridged honesty around her like a protective cloak. It never failed to put him at ease. It's complicated, but it will work out. One day, it might be you and your siblings that's all that's left.

The car pulled off Malaise and headed for Kraken Street. The laughter from the backseat made it so neither Driskoll nor Jahleel had to say a word to each other for the rest of the drive. One red light blended into the next until the sedan pulled into the private lot behind Club Ukiyo. Jahleel got out before the Driskoll could turn the engine off, leaving him to ascend the inner stairs to the upper office alone.

The neon lights danced along the walls in tune with the thrumming music. The beat pounded--rapid, racing. It surrounded him. It dulled his senses. It masked the drumbeat of fierce hearts waiting for him in Hiram's office.

"Kellan," a voice greeted him as he entered. Hiram Matsuda leaned back against his personal bar--arms crossed, at ease, pinpoint stare like that of an animal. He faced two occupied chairs. Rowan and Ciaran turned sharp to look his way.

Driskoll swallowed against the lurching of his stomach, the squeeze of his chest.

"You have visitors," Hiram continued. "It's nice to finally meet the Driskoll brothers I've heard so much about." |

Posted: **Tue Nov 26, 2024 10:30 pm**

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