far away !

tws : organized crime, guns.

finley had a life path set out for him since he was little, but not the same sort that most career-driven families create for their children. the nieves had made something of a name for themselves among the criminal sort, never particularly high-ranking or respected but simply so deep-rooted in that world that it would be impossible to discount their importance.

when finley was growing up, he didn’t think much of this. his family wasn’t wealthy from their occupation but they weren’t struggling either--- their stresses didn’t come from money, but instead from the constant agitation that came alongside their profession, the worry over arrests and betrayals and enemies with vendettas. they kept locks on their doors and a gun in the hall closet and called this normal, so finley believed it to be.

he was raised into the lifestyle in such a seamless way that he didn’t even really realize it was happening at first. finley was taught things that he assumed to be commonplace ; how to hold his keys in his fist like a weapon, or keep his heart rate steady through a lie detector test, or fire a gun with wicked accuracy, or read when someone wasn’t telling him the whole truth.

his family was big, and it was tight-knit. finley didn’t have any direct siblings but he had cousins that were all around enough that it might as well have counted, a constant tangle and overlap of relatives passing through their guest room and crashing on their couch and vanishing for days at a time when trouble caught up to them. the nieves bloodline was a tangled network of stepmothers and grand-nephews and third cousins once removed--- when someone new showed up in his dining room for breakfast and claimed their relation, finley knew better than to question it.

the gravity of their family business didn’t come to weigh on finley for years, but when the realization hit it landed like a semitruck. he was fifteen, and while he’d heard cautionary tales of relatives who’d been caught by police or bitter rivals, he’d never seen it unfold firsthand until then. if asked about it now he would only have the vaguest things to say for any of it--- shapeless memories of hiding under the bed as someone broke down the door in the next room, a knife in the wall from a missed attack from the pissed-off intruder, the sirens that came flooding in from the street, the man who got a good look at his face before being pulled away at gunpoint. finley had never felt unsafe until that point, as his parents had always assured him that they’d never let anything bad happen to him, but with both of them suddenly gone and arrested, that peace of mind had dissipated. there were people who knew him, who expected things of him, or who hoped to see him hurt simply because of his last name, and finley wanted none of it.

at age sixteen, he bolted. he’d seen where his path was steering him, and he wanted no part of it. so he took his name and a few stacks of bills from beneath the bathroom sink, traded them in for a half-dozen aliases across a handful of fake ids, and set out running.

he doesn’t like to settle for long. he rarely stays anywhere for more than a few months at a time, as he finds it’s harder to keep up with any fake history the more people there are around to question after him. because of this, he is also very hesitant to get close to new people--- as a sort of self-defense, a necessity, and a habit.

while his real name is finley nieves, it’s very rare that anyone actually knows those two for him together. the nieves are not famous by any means, but they do have enough of a widespread reputation to be known among a few circles that finley would prefer to stay distanced from. on his lease he is listed as finley weaver, and that’s likely the name most of the others around the complex would know him as. he has countless aliases he cycles through for security, and will adopt and drop new ones as he sees fit, but he has his favorites--- often ‘weaver’ for a last name, and ‘alexander’ as a first.

it’s likely he’s told everyone else a slightly different story as to how he ended up where he is. all of them are lies, to some degree, and none of them explain strange scars or the ease of which he can pick a lock or the tenseness in his frame when someone gives him too dirty a look. 

uhhH honestly i have a lot more to say about him but this is already long as hell, thank you if you have read this far

tldr ; son of a crime family up and runs one day, spends the next few years flipping through fake names and identities and never landing anywhere for long. seems normal enough in passing, a pretty easygoing type who’s willing to share cigarettes and meaningless conversation, but probably has strange things to notice--- the sort of person that you would be surprised to know keeps a handgun by their bed, one that probably shouldn’t be asked about.

i have a couple super vague connection ideas, a list i’m hoping to expand on more sometime but for now here are just a handful :

anyone who has met him in the past, even in passing, especially if he was using a different name then than he is now.

a closer friend or romantic interest that he can be kind of hot and cold with, cause he’s honestly pretty good-natured but he can go quiet really fast when he realizes that he’s probably just going to up and disappear again soon.

fwb !!!  hookups !  ill-advised one-night-stands !!  he’s here for it and so am i, what can i say.

someone he feels weirdly protective of ?

a neighbor who’s probably seen some weird shit.

anyone who is suspicious™ cause honestly he can be a little sketchy.

someone who just helps him relax--- that can either fall under that hookup umbrella or something totally platonic, who just gets him to not mope around so much or just worry less about always looking over his shoulder.