#task001;

HISTORY:

Most of his early life, Montgomery could never say for sure what he felt, wanted, or believed, and that was all thanks to Cecilia Rose. The woman was a con artist, an independent empath who had discovered early on exactly how to best use her gift for manipulation. It might’ve been a lesson passed on from her own mother, but Montgomery was never allowed close enough to that side of the family to say for sure. Those gifts were the reason why a man like Nathan Lacroix, someone possessing old money and substantial power of his own, fell in love with her in the first place. His feelings for her blinded him to the fact that the woman he brought into the family was of a crueler bent than the wandering free spirit she tried to appear.

The rest of his family wasn’t so easily deceived, but if there’d ever been hope of Nathan listening to them, it was destroyed once Montgomery was born. Tying their families irreversibly together, giving her a taste of that power and prestige that she craved for herself. It was the reason she pushed her only child harder than the seemingly indifferent statue that was his father, the man never really having space in his heart for anyone other than the woman he married. Regardless, neither of them tolerated imperfections or failures, and the night his powers manifested was perhaps the only time he ever saw anything like pride reflecting back at him. Waking from a nightmare to find his bed levitating off the ground.

He tried to do as he was told, even if it was rarely good enough for either of them. Outbursts of any sort weren’t tolerated, his temper kept firmly in check by a mother who didn’t hesitate to use her powers and manipulate her own child into something more docile. Slips in control of his abilities meant hours spent practicing, forced to repeat the same exercise over and over again until it was second nature.

It wasn’t until he left home for college that he became aware that for all his striving to please his parents, she had turned him into something broken, something flawed. He didn’t understand his peers, he didn’t understand the fluctuation of human emotion or behavior, when his own had always been kept firmly under control. Simply having that awareness was cause for greater frustration than he’d felt before. He didn’t need either of his parents to push him towards a medical field, it was the part of human nature he understood best. The simple, physical aspect of breaking a body down into its parts.

For everything else, he learned halfway through his bachelor’s that there was a pill for it. When his workload got too heavy, there was one to keep focus, another to help him relax, one to substitute the sensation of happiness. It became his new crutch, his favorite form of self-medication.

He was twenty-three when his father died, killed in a home invasion that he didn’t know enough of the specifics of. His mother didn’t want to talk about it, no one else had been there that night. Even at the funeral he didn’t need his mother’s influence to keep his emotions suppressed. He didn’t feel anything, not even his grief, but all of his life was an exercise in faking the proper reaction.  It was only after he was gone that he thought both of them had served their purpose to Cecilia, and when he came to that conclusion he resolved never to go home again.

It was an easy thing to achieve, and eight years ago he took the opportunity to do his residency in Sacred Heart. He left behind his family and friends without a second thought, transferring from New York to the Asphodel chapter of the Endine House. He made it his new home, a degree in pathology the best way he knew to make himself useful to his community. Striving just as hard to make himself useful for his house, half hoping that it could serve as enough of a stand in for familial affections.

HEADCANONS:

Appearances are extremely important to him, not solely in a physical sense but how he portrays himself and how people regard him.

Following this, Montgomery isn’t prone to any great displays of emotion; he almost never loses his temper, even when he’s in pain it’s handled with a clinical efficiency. He doesn’t like anyone in Asphodel seeing him drunk or out of control, if he feels the need to try and cut loose he’ll drive to New Orleans for the weekend and go bar hopping there.

For a brief time he was dating a man in New Orleans, but his lack of attentiveness and his unwillingness to allow him anywhere near his life in Asphodel made him convinced that Montgomery was cheating on him and broke it off.

He is not out yet about his sexuality, preferring to keep it hidden like most things regarding his personal life.

He chose pathology for two reasons; the first that it felt like something more technical, the second that he doesn’t have to maintain appearances for the dead. He functions as a medical examiner and coroner when necessary, offering reports to the police and the Magistrate if the death looks to be caused by one of the gifted.

CONNECTIONS:

He often works in the coroner’s office so anyone associated with the hospital, law enforcement, and possibly the magistrate he has likely worked with.

He has been in Asphodel for eight years, and makes it a point to know anyone who might be considered a major player, or present for a similarly long time.