- Name: George Lavia
Nickname: --
Age and Birth Date: 32, October 28th
Occupation: Cosco Regional Manager
APPEARANCE
Tall and thin, George is a fairly average looking guy who doesn't try particularly hard to be more than that. Even at the age of 32, his dark brown hair has became peppered with grey, and if he had any sense he'd crop it down into something short and professional -- but he doesn't, instead allowing it to grow into a thin ponytail at the nape of his neck.
His features are angular, with a long and sharp nose and a somewhat narrow mouth that's usually pulled into an easy-going sort of smile. His eyes are a deep, rich brown, with the very start of crow's feet at their corners, and are his best feature, due to the rather thick fringe of lashes and twinkle of amusement in them.
In the past year or two, he's taken to cultivating a neat little beard, kept carefully trimmed close to his face. It softens the sharp line of his jaw somewhat, but also ages him a good five years, since it is at least as touched with grey as the rest of his hair.
His clothing is usually casually professional: khakis or trousers with collared shirts in muted colors or patterns, but no tie. Never a tie, unless he has a meeting, and the top button is always undone. Under his pants, he tends toward black Nikes.
PERSONALITY
George is soft-spoken and gentle, calm and low-stress, an excellent listener who is perfectly willing to talk through other peoples' problems -- but rarely brings up his own. As a result, he frequently comes off as stand-offish or secretive, keeping his own private life in a safe bubble that other people cannot enter. This might be due to his six years spent in the clergy, and definitely stems at least in part to his love of alone-time spent doing crossword puzzles or sudoku, cooking or watching the Food Network.
He might be lonely, living by himself in a two-bedroom apartment with an ancient monster of a black Persian named Carolina, and when it comes to filling the voids in his life, he seems to be completely clueless. Offers to go out to dinner leave him floundering and helpless, the appeal of the known driving him to refuse offers of new experiences, and frequently leaving him cooking for himself at home instead. While much of his staff goes out together on a regular basis, duty keeps him from joining them in their drinking and bonding. When he goes out, it's usually by himself, and he usually ends up in a bar off one side of the highway playing pool with a bunch of strangers, or at Doors, just a face in the crowd.
He is also, beneath it all, somewhat bitter; his life is touched with regret. He doesn't view his younger days as wasted, exactly, but as lost, and sometimes he misses them. His faith is no less solid than it was when he was still a priest, but it is different. It's settled less in words and rhetoric as in simple self-certainty. Living in Irnsquare has made it easier and harder for him to believe in God and the hidden world. On the one hand, the signs are all around him. On the other, they aren't what he expected or wanted to see, not exactly, and he can't quite smother the fanatical obsession for George to study the oddities that live in the city around him.
This includes other people, of course. Once upon the time, other peoples' well being was his business, and it was his job to press. Now, it's not, but he does it anyway. He can't just let someone be. He pushes and prods until they spill their guts or tell him to ******** off. And he bristles at the latter. He's only trying to help...
ABILITIES
George is extremely well-educated, with a strong grounding in theology and classical works, as well as a solid grasp of Latin and several other dead languages. He is also rather good at math, and always has been.
He is healthy, but only because he is unhealthy; genetically high cholesterol plus a peanut allergy leaves him very careful about what he eats, and very conscious of his diet. He is not fit. He's slim, but with just a hint of pudge around the tummy, his arms soft instead of muscled. He's not strong. He's not fast. He has no idea how to fight and will usually succumb to his 'flight' instincts at the sign of trouble.
He is socially capable, but not exactly adept. He can listen, but doesn't really understand how to be engaging, at least not in daily life. In other words, most people find him boring, and don't try a second time to get within his shell. The only time he really comes out of it is within the strange and almost-anonymous confines of the nightclub.
HOBBIES
Sudoku, crosswords -- he loves puzzles and the newspaper, which he reads every day. He cooks for himself, dotes on his cat, and plays pool rather often. George is also at Doors at least once a week but has not, it seems, picked up any of the supernatural oddities the place usually inflicts on others.
HISTORY
This life started when he was 26; before that, George was wrapped up in schooling and Seminary and a focused expansion of his faith. It was at 24 that he began to question himself, and at 25 that he decided those questions were better put to the Church. Uncomfortable with some of the dogma, and perhaps spurred by something more, he abandoned his vows and moved up north.
He'd heard of some of the strange things that passed through Irnsquare in publications, through the church or through word of mouth, and something about the strange, liberal little city appealed to him after a long stint in Virginia. He relocated and took up the first job he could find, and his education and experience made that manager at a rather unexciting wholesale food chain in the city. He rose through the ranks slowly, and due primarily to his absolute lack of goals outside of the company: he appeared to be a lifer, and his employers liked that.
The most important thing that happened in his recent history was about a year and a half ago, when one of Doors's unusual fliers caught his eye. He just poked his head in, the first night, and then retreated uncomfortably from the haze of oddities. It was two months before he went back, this time to have a drink at the bar -- and meet Owen, who looked so much like a demon that it left George gaping and fascinated and maybe just a bit obsessed.
Other than Owen, there are very few important people in his life. There's Carolina, his cat, who spends more time with him than anyone else, but she barely counts. There's Anisha, manager of the local Cosco that used to be his domain, until he was bumped up to regional, and several other of the local managers who he has frequent meetings with. There is another man on his hall, Francis Dellings, who is around twenty-five and strange and sometimes shows up at his door when he's cooking something that smells particularly delicious. They sit and eat and watch TV together in companionable silence.
SAMPLE
He'd know that Irnsquare was strange before he got his lease; it was part of the appeal, part of the curiosity, part of the enjoyment and the point of moving. However, after years of not seeing anything, of chasing after absent rumors and word of mouth, he'd just about given up on seeing anything like he'd been promised.
But here it was. A step down into the dimly-lit nightclub was enough to make anyone believe. He was a tourist in a strange land, was stuck deaf and dumb and staring stupidly at the strange creatures bouncing on the dance floor or lounging near the bar, eyes hunting hungrily for the signs that marked the not-human from the human. He believed in these creatures, always had, and suddenly he was among them...
...and he was scared out of his wits. It left him dizzy, suddenly, and faint, the feeling of delight and excitement sliding out to something awed and panicked. He'd expected relief. A rush of emotion. The solid footing of certainty, of proof in his hands.
Instead he ran.
