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IT’S COLD COLD COLD, COLD INSIDE

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[attr="class","freiwantmid"]CHARACTER FACTION team rocket

[attr="class","freiwantmid"]CHARACTER RANK grunt

[attr="class","freiwantmid"]FACE CLAIM sigma // bungo stray dogs

[attr="class","freiwanttop"]ABOUT THE CHARACTER

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tired eyes / cable knit sweaters / pinching the bridge of your nose / a color-coordinated planner / filing systems / dust hanging in the light / library silence / old book smell / cinnamon and bergamot / white winter hymnal / the end always justifies the means / silk sheets / an antique grandfather clock / reading by the fire / flipping through a card catalog / losing glasses on your forehead / taking work home / tender words / pillow talk / hidden gentleness / awkward small talk / shaky fingers / excitable tangents / the thrill of new discovery / reverence for the old and ancient[break][break]
formal, composed, dogged, icy, cool under pressure, workaholic, even-tempered, stoic, curious, passionate, methodical, routine-driven, calculated, sharp, self-assured, hyper-fixated, devoted, sensual, coy, melancholic, socially inept, brusque, poised, infodumper[break][break]
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at a glance, in passing, or through a window- He is most likely to be found tucked away in corners, and innocuous spaces. Peering around the long stretch between tall bookcases, one might spy him reaching for a book just a hand's length away— willow thin and pale, faded grey eyes fixed in concentration as he rolls up on his toes because his stature of 5’11 is just not quite enough to snag the pesky tome. perhaps he is to be observed in the lecture halls of the university, or in its chilled conservation spaces, picking through old and delicate materials. The styling of academia suits him, posh clothing and a prim Galarian accent. Never once spotted in public underdressed, sleek hair styled neatly in weaving of silver and violet.[break][break]
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cw: chronic illness, emotional parental neglect[break][break]

He’s born into prosperity. Silver spoons for a tiny mouth. Everything that a child could possibly want. But it is also a home like a mausoleum—a testament to the success of the family, but cold and lacking for any sort of real life inside. Albrecht. Synonymous with innovation and power and old money. But the halls stretch like uncrossable rivers until every member is siloed in a territory of their own. And no amount of money thrown at a child for toys and trips and clothes can compensate for a lack of closeness. At least his nanny is kind. She reads to him. It is the first way he learns to love stories.[break][break]

The first time he falls sick, his parents think it’s some sort of pitiful bid for attention. Poor little boy decides he doesn’t like their endless business meetings and tea socials and society parties, so forces coughing fits and feeble behavior for the sake of having their eyes on him. It’s an accusation that quickly falls through. Children are meant to be sturdy and hardy and relentlessly bright, no matter how spoiled or bratty or sweet or loud or quiet. And he is a light that’s so painfully dim. They blame the weak genes that made him insufficient. They blame the nanny too, for being lacking in her care even if she’s shown him more of that than they ever have. She’s fired and that is the last time he sees her.[break][break]

It takes months to feel well again, but even then it’s not a full recovery.[break][break]

For a time, tiny fingers desperately hold onto the thought that if he just keeps trying, wellness will ignite in him like a spark into a bonfire, all at once and enormously. That it will seep into his blood and resonate through his skin like a blessed, incurable toxin; one that he would be happily hopeless to cure with any sort of antidote. It does not, however, stop the furious, hot tears that roll down his face, flyaway hair sticking to wet cheeks full with baby fat, every single time he fails check-up, or he takes ill again.[break][break]

His life becomes an ongoing montage of hospital stays and continued bed rest. Quarantine and sickly sweet medicine and IV drips. Everything blurs together in a haze of sterile medical smell and white walls and scratchy blankets. The best care that money can afford, and yet he always manages to end up sick again. Sickly, inept, failure. Brittle bones and pallid skin. Family photos in a prim little suit but he still appears more ghost than boy when he looks back on the portraits hung in the ornate gallery of his family’s manor. But heaven forbid he be anything but the picturesque child at the tail end of their family line.[break][break]

It’s the only thing he can manage to do right, fluke that he is.[break][break]

He wants to leave and he can’t. There’s no stepping out of the shadows, but there’s also no way to avoid the eyes on him. Little Albrecht, always watched. Always proper and in place. So he reads, and books transport him everywhere he wants to go and can’t. Books keep him company, literature spinning ideas and creating some semblance of life where he’s found none. He wants to write like that. He wants to do this too. But every line he tries to string together doesn’t feel right and he crumples it all up in the end.[break][break]

When he’s older, he can finally get out of that premature tomb. He resolves to be nothing like his family and he runs as far as university. Then a fellowship outside of Galar, away from Hammerlocke. He finds something like home in the university library, among the tall shelves. Row after row of historical documents that sharpen his mind and advance his knowledge until he’s hungry and ambitious for something he can grasp with his own hands for the first time in his life.[break][break]

Except after a while he feels stuck again, spinning his wheels as he tries to rise beyond the name attached to him, without its help. He learns how to use his body to feel something, or maybe it’s more like throwing himself off a ledge full tilt every chance he gets as a way to compensate for all of the ways his body has failed him. It doesn’t matter. The medicine cabinet in his bathroom is still a crammed full pharmacy of the pills he needs to keep himself functioning. A thin, tenuous concept of health.[break][break]

But at least he has his mind and his intellect and his gnawing hunger for more. Love comes along and wraps him up in warm embrace. He finds a light in the dark.. A reminder that he no longer needs to feel hollow, but it drives him to be more, find more, do more by whatever means possible because he has someone to stick around for. He’s no ghost—he’s tangible and he’s solid. he’s real he’s real he’s real.[break][break]