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&& the basics
full name: knox garrett wallace
age: thirty-seven
gender: cismale
birth date: september 5th, 1987
hometown: detroit, michigan
occupation: online poker player
sexuality: heterosexual
neighborhood: downtown
&& the breakdown (tw; death, addiction, drugs)
As Knox was born, there was every reason to believe that he would go on to have a wonderful, successful life. His parents were loving beyond belief, giving him and his two sisters everything they could ever ask for. And for awhile, Knox believed that the world was his. He was a good kid, kind and caring, the brother that would go out of his way to do anything for Gio and Cali...and then reality hit and life came to topple every expectation he'd ever held.
When his sister was kidnapped, everything changed. He lost one of his best friends in the world in Giovanna and, perhaps even worse, his parents ceased to care. Life was no longer about what the future would hold, but about what the past took away from them. As a young boy, he struggled with it. It was hard to process why his parents were no longer attentive, why Gio wasn't coming home, why he no longer was at the center of a happy home.
By the time his parents took their own lives, Knox had become a shell of the happy, carefree kid that he'd once been. He'd become meaner, crueler, and even before they were gone had begun acting out. Shunted to his aunt and uncle's home to live at a young eleven years old, the coldness of their house wasn't lost on him. At first, he stepped up, did what he could to protect both himself and his younger sister from the abusive household, but it wore him down. Day after day of living somewhere he wasn't wanted, Knox was looking for any way out.
Unfortunately, the way out that he found wasn't much better. At the age of fifteen, he fell in with a group of friends that would become like a new family for him. They let him stay over, helped him escape from the reality of his life. At first it was all innocent, drinking and having a good time, but before he knew it, he was sucked in to a situation he hadn't seen coming. The guys were involved in a drug ring, something that they pulled Knox into after awhile. With his charm and good looks, it was easy for him to get away with things they couldn't otherwise.
By sixteen, he was entrenched in it, and rather than fighting it out anymore for his sister, he made the choice to leave. Packing up, he left without another word, joining the rest of the guys to make it happen in life. Or so he thought. What had seemed like a good opportunity at the time only led him down a darker path. Selling turned to using, turned to years lost faded by the drugs he was pushing out to the world.
With the drugs came money, something Knox had known very little of since his parents passed. With money, however, came more bad habits. He found himself out at parties, gambling, making bets, everything that came with the territory of his life as a dealer. After one too many bad nights at the table and more debt that he knew what to do with, Knox once again needed a way out.
A friend of a friend managed to help him out of the city and away from the heat that was on him, landing him in Boston as he grew into his later twenties. Swearing that he was going to do things differently, Knox got himself into a rehab facility and started working at a real gig on a fishing boat. It was only a few months before he found himself right back where he started, dealing and using. Years flashed by before he finally found himself in a position to want to do better.
When Knox met Orion Blakewood, things changed. He saw himself in the younger man, saw someone that needed the help that he never got for himself. In a way, it was also his way of atoning for leaving his own younger sister behind. If he could help Orion and stick by his side, he hoped in some small way it would balance out the wrong of abandoning Cali. Knox started to make amends again, putting himself back into rehab to try to do better for himself so he could do better for Orion.
The better version of himself only lasted for so long, however, before things changed again. When Orion left Boston for Kismet, Knox instead found himself moving somewhere bigger, the draw of a big city too much to pass up. Knox found himself in Los Angeles where his life got away from him again. He found himself using again, gambling again, taking part in backroom poker games for more money than he'd ever be able to repay.
After a worrisome overdose episode, Knox found himself making the move to Kismet Harbor to be around Orion and start another attempt at putting himself through rehab. It only lasted a few weeks, though, and before long he was right back to Los Angeles and all of the troubles that had been plaguing him now for the better part of his life.
Two years later after several attempts at rehab and attempts to hold a steady job, Knox was in an untenable position. Unable to repay some of his debts, Knox was beaten down, threatened, and left for dead by one of the loan sharks that had his name. The fear finally bringing him to some level of reality, Knox knew it was time to make a change, to find the life that he'd been running from since the day he left home. It was time to find his family. Knox didn't know what to expect, but knew that there was nothing left for him in LA either. Staying would only bring about the inevitability of his past catching up to him. He's just packed up his things and moved to Kismet for good this time with the goal of reconnecting with the family he'd left behind so many years ago.
