⸺ 🦬 greetings, buffalos ! walking around campus, sporting his brother's battered brown aviator jacket, covered in patches we’ve spotted RICHARD 'RICHIE' SLADE, a twenty seven year old who contributes to our thriving community as a RADIO OPERATOR. according to our intel, they’ve been around the sanctuary for seven years and what we know about him, aside from the fact that they don’t agree with the decision to close the gates, is that if he's heard a song even once he can remember all the lyrics and he hoards music like it's gold, he loves tinkering with any kind of thing, taking it apart and putting it back together again, you can find him often playing with the younger kids and telling them wild stories. )
PINTEREST • MUSINGS
NAME: Richard 'Richie' Slade
AGE: 27
BIRTHDAY: 19th April (Aries)
GENDER: Cis man
PRONOUNS: He/Him
SEXUALITY: Bisexual Disaster
OCCUPATION: Radio Operator
HOMETOWN: Clearfield, Oregon
HEIGHT: 5"10
FATHER: Graham Slade †
MOTHER: Jolene Slade †
SIBLINGS: Rachel Slade ?, Benjamin Slade †, Christopher James Slade †
humming incessantly, drumming your fingers on every available surface, shit-eating grins, the soft blink of comms tower lights, ugly and sometimes vaguely offensive graphic tees with holes in the hem, falling asleep in the car and getting a piggyback into the house, draping yourself over seats dramatically then peeking to see if anyone is watching you, a companionable arm slung around your shoulders, a sure hand hauling you out of windows to sit on cold roof tiles, razz jolly ranchers turning your tongue blue, neon lights reflecting off wet asphalt, the half-cool touch of a chain dangling from your lover’s neck against your racing pulse, grinning through the pain so hard you bite your tongue until it bleeds, a dusting of freckles, your nose turning pink in the cold.
ɪ'ᴍ ᴀ ꜱᴄʀᴀᴡɴʏ ᴍᴏᴛʜᴇʀꜰᴜᴄᴋᴇʀ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴀ ᴄᴏᴏʟ ʜᴀɪʀꜱᴛʏʟᴇ. ɪ ꜱᴀʏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡʀᴏɴɢ ꜱʜɪᴛ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ʀɪɢʜᴛ ᴛɪᴍᴇꜱ.
PRE-OUTBREAK
richie was the third of four kids, benny was four years older than him, rach born the year before that.
by the time rich showed up, his parents had done their time trying to figure out good ways to raise kids and basically just left him to it. he had everything he needed technically but he only rarely saw his parents a couple of times a week. neglect felt too strong of a word. unless he was getting in trouble, he basically didn't exist: so he decided to do what any thirteen year old starved of attention would do. become a problem.
richie was into all the hoodrat shit: stealing from the corner store, throwing firecrackers in the supermarket and mailbox baseball. he swore at teachers, then just made fools of them when he got too much detention. plausible deniability was richie's best friend.
he had a few friends but bullying was a problem, his nose was broken three times in two summers. he was skinny, lanky kid with bad teeth who didn't know how to fight but he never knew when to back down, yelling vicious your mother jokes till he saw stars.
then cj was born. the very epitome of an oops baby, long after the slades had ever intended to procreate. instead of ceej getting the same treatment as richie had, he was the baby of the family who could do no wrong. rich didn't hold it against him but his relationship with his parents continued to deteriorate, looking at the coddling and attention he'd never gotten. that they were capable of the whole time but chose to deny.
the only thing that stopped him bombing out of school was rach, who was basically his surrogate mother and went to bat every time he made something explode at the science fair. she recognised that he was smart and talked to him like a person rather than a problem-creating idiot until she turned eighteen and moved out for college.
so what if his parents couldn't appreciate him disassembling the toaster and putting it back together, they just got annoyed there was no toast one morning. he was a debate team loser, an av club loser who did the sound tech for the musical every year. the one thing richie did otherwise was run track, he was no good in a team but give him a pair of headphones and a wide open space and he could run for miles. quick as a whip.
rich was a good big brother, way better than being a little brother. he'd carry cj around, explaining everything he wanted to know without talking down to him, played pretend games and did the different funny voices for characters in his bedtime stories.
got diagnosed with adhd, shocking absolutely no one. has learned to live without the meds he was on in the years since it all ended.
ɪꜰ ɪ'ᴍ ᴏꜰꜰᴇɴᴅɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴇᴍ, ɪ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴍɪɴᴅ. ᴍᴀʏʙᴇ ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴀʟʟ ꜱʜᴏᴜʟᴅ ʟɪꜱᴛᴇɴ ᴛᴏ ᴍᴇ, ɪᴛ ɪꜱɴ'ᴛ ᴀʟʟ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ꜱᴇᴇ.
POST-OUTBREAK [ FAMILIAL DEATH TW ]
everything went to hell in a handbasket while their parents were on vacation, benny became the resident adult, stepping into the role with none of the grace of rach. rach had gone to school in washington, out of state, they lost contact with her that night.
their parents were at a conference in boulder, with no plan and the neighbourhood eating itself alive, benny started them on the worst roadtrip ever.
benny passed over their grandfather's aviator jacket, sherpa-lined and meant for high altitude it kept him warm. it still does, it's rare that you will ever see richie without it.
three years in and richie wakes up in a cold sweat, a gut feeling filling him with uncontrollable unease. something is wrong. cj is curled into a comma shape, rich bracketing him. he can't hear benny breathing.
[ FAMILIAL DEATH TW ] it's clear that benny was trying to fight it. tears crawling down his cheeks as he jerked back and forth like a wild thing, trying to contain the infection as it told him to rip richie apart. a bit of richie died that day, killing his big brother and it never came back the same.
they'd been in colorado a while but stumbled across a group. their dad was alive but richie resented the fact that he hadn't tried to come back for them and remained where he was the entire time. graham liked fishing and hunting, he'd taught the boys all he knew about gathering for themselves, starting fires, finding water sources. rich never did find the time away from cj to ask what happened to their mom.
a few people who were here seven years ago know that richie first arrived with his father and cj, they had an explosive argument about joining the group as rich wanted to stay but his dad didn't trust them. cj, overhearing their dad say it was a bad place sprinted back out into the wilderness. graham followed. richie hasn't talked about it since.
survived most of the early outbreak by using his long cultivated free-running and bouldering skills to get up high and find places to hide. his hoodrat tendencies stuck with him, he still knows how to hotwire a car.
[ weapons tw ] doesn't like firearms and gets skeeved out when asked to hold one, he has a metal baseball bat, a crowbar and a machete. that's enough for him.
isn't anywhere near well educated enough to teach kids but loves to make sure that they get to be kids, even at the end of everything. sometimes he gets in trouble for having too little of a filter but kids like him, he doesn't try to make them feel small.
grows weed, has a little plot that he tends to, would like grow lamps to keep growing year round but gets that it's pretty costly in resources. gives this to people who need help sleeping or with pain.
sad clown, every emotion needs to be masked with humour otherwise what is he? are you not entertained? i must entertain the masses etc etc. actually feels everything very deeply and is sensitive as fuck. trust ISSUES
surprisingly good at his job, knows when it's okay to have a bit of a laugh and when to get serious. very good at keeping track of patrols, guard rotation and scavenging beyond the walls.
always cold, always ramming a beanie over his ears, rarely without fingerless gloves and drowned in various layers.
Qᴜᴇꜱᴛɪᴏɴ ᴛʜᴏᴜɢʜ, ʜᴏᴡ ᴅᴏ ɪ ʟᴏᴏᴋ ᴛᴏ ʏᴏᴜ? ᴀᴍ ɪ ꜱᴏ ᴛʜɪɴ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴀɴ ꜱᴇᴇ ᴛʜʀᴏᴜɢʜ?
WANTED CONNECTIONS - TBA
im sorry my brain is dripping out of my ears
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