Peter Aramis (Complete)

00I. full name Peter Rene Aramis
0II. canon or original Canon – The Three Musketeers
III. years of age 24
0IV. orientation (optional) Bisexual
00V. social status Middle Class
0VI. occupation NYPD Detective, Bartender

00I. play by Brant Daugherty
0II. body type Some muscle, but not overly built.
III. height 6’1
0IV. eye color blue
00V. description

Peter is one of those people who looks good without trying. This is probably a good thing, as his own appearance has never mattered to him. Generally, he looks well put together, but everyone can tell his clothing isn’t expensive or pretentious. When he’s working, he makes an effort to look a bit more professional, often wearing button up shirts he rolls up at the elbow, jeans without holes in them, and the same worn leather jacket, no matter the weather. When at home, Peter lives in a dark blue wife beater and black track pants, only bothering to shave if he knows he has to go out somewhere, and even then, it depends where he’s going. He’s more for comfort than style in that respect. He hates having things on his feet and often will leave the apartment barefoot, having to turn right back around for his shoes or buying new ones when he finally notices he should be wearing them. He has a slight bow to his legs, due to the fact he grew up riding horses. It’s not physically noticeable when he stands still, but when he walks it gives him a bit of a swagger that adds to the purposefulness of his stride. His right shoulder has prominent surgery scars that he doesn’t hide, but he doesn’t show them off, either. This is how he approaches life – not showing off, but not hiding from it. In a room full of people, he gets noticed. He has a quiet confidence that draws people to him, especially teens and children.

00I. overall personality

Peter is one of those people who has an old soul. He is calm, not one to get excited or upset over things, often calming those around him with his presence. He always seems to have the right advice to offer, lulling people into a sense of well being with a welcome smile and a friendly ear. He listens more than he speaks, and often people tell him things before they realise what they’re doing. However, for all the calmness Peter exudes, he is often unsatisfied with life. He becomes bored with things, constantly feeling like there is something he should be doing, but he doesn’t know what that is. In his first two years of university, he changed his major a record breaking five times. The only things he seems to have found that are satisfying in his life are running himself ragged at the gym, or solving puzzles, but it’s only temporary. Once the fatigue sets in or the puzzle is solved, there is only a brief period of calm before he’s back to feeling unsatisfied again.

He is also conflicted with his faith. This adds to some of his dissatisfaction, if not all of it, because he hates that something he values so much conflicts with what makes him happy. After growing up as a good Catholic, he finds he is at odds with it because of his sexual preferences. Sometimes, he feels guilty about this, wrong in ways he doesn’t like to think about himself, damned even. All of his self-doubt here can be traced back to his mother, who spent months drilling them into his head after he explored his sexuality a little too far. He still goes to church, and he still prays when he needs it, and that is the best he can do.

He’s highly intelligent, but outside of work he doesn’t often apply himself. He enjoys his leisure time, often happy to just play a game of basketball or curl up with a good book because it’s easy, and not a lot about his job is. He isn’t a complicated person, preferring to keep his own life simple. He doesn’t mind complicated people, but he tries to avoid getting caught up in drama when possible. That policy applies to his love life, as well. He isn’t the kind to chase after women or men. He lets bed mates come to him, clearly stating that he isn't looking for anything beyond the night. The kick of endorphins from a one night stand is enjoyable, but that is as far as he lets the relationship go. He has been burned by love and he doesn’t trust easily because of it. Some day he’d like to really be in love with someone who won’t betray him, but it’s impossible for him to know for sure, so it is unlikely he’ll let anyone in without some major therapy first. It has garnered him a bit of a reputation, but he rarely hears gossip about himself, so he isn’t bothered by it.

Peter also has an addictive personality. When he was a teen, he was addicted to prescription painkillers and he lost touch with himself, nearly crashing his life into the ground. He is well aware of the fact that this is his second, if not third, chance at keeping his life together, and works hard to keep himself from falling into pitfalls. As a result, he doesn’t gamble, smoke, drink, or do drugs for fear that any of those things will control him. However, he does allow himself to be addicted to coffee. He is a self-proclaimed coffee addict and this is a strong force in his life, especially since he gets headaches when he goes too long without a cup.

When he is angry, in pain, or upset, Peter becomes quiet. He doesn’t often open up about what’s bothering him, rather shoving it to the back burner in favor of keeping things as normal as possible. Those who know him well can see his emotions in his eyes, even if he’s plastered a smile on his face. If anyone shows concern for how he’s feeling, he works harder to seem normal. He often works off his emotions on the basketball court or on a punching bag. He knows it’s not a healthy way to deal with his emotions, and he would chastise anyone else for it, but he does it anyway.

0II. strengths

He is a good problem solver. He likes to think and puzzle things out, finding solutions. Coupled with his great listening skills, people confide far too much in him, and he enjoys the challenge of finding a solution.

Even though he has a rocky relationship with his faith, he still believes that people are inherently good and sins can be forgiven. Because of this, he has met very few people in his personal travels that he genuinely dislikes or resents – he doesn’t often let himself think too hard about the goodness of criminals or he would be out of a job. This outlook is one of the reasons he clicks so well with young people – he sees their potential, not their failures.

Peter is very loyal to those he considers to be in his life. He may not trust them, but he will always stand by them, which makes him a good friend. And no matter what, his friends always know they can come to him and he will do whatever he can in order to help them.

III. weaknesses

Peter has a weakness for coffee. The one finery he believes in spending money on is gourmet roasts. If people want things from him, often a cup of good coffee is all it takes. When he doesn’t drink it, he gets headaches and can become a bit short with people.

He doesn’t let people in. No matter how much he comes to care for them, he always holds a piece of himself back. This stems back to the falling out he had with his lover and his family before coming to live in New York City. He wouldn’t be able to take another betrayal from people who know how to hurt him. Aside from his sister, the only person he accepts genuinely cares for him is his uncle. Don spent years working to convince him of this.

Peter doesn’t know when to let a problem go. When he hits a dead end, he gets broody, feeling the sting of failure. He may walk away from the problem for a while, but he will come back to it, even if it’s just to throw himself against that dead end again and again.

And perhaps his greatest weakness is that he considers cooking to be dialling a fast food place. He can put frozen things in the oven and microwave, but he has no concept of how to put ingredients together for eating purposes. He also burns anything he tries to cook on the stove top, even if he is keeping a close eye on it.

0IV. goals

Peter wants to find that one thing to satisfy the restlessness inside him. He doesn’t know what it is, but he’s going to keep trying until he does. Peter also wants to make peace with his faith, but he knows that he will also have to make peace with his mother to do this, so it is a very far off goal. He doesn’t have any long term plans beyond that.

00I. notable family & friends

Father: James Aramis - Rancher, ex-conman and gambler (estranged)
Mother: Yvonne Aramis (Née Benoit) - Socialite (estranged)
Sister: Angelique Aramis (twin) - CPA
Uncle: Don Aramis - Detective, Peter's former legal guardian
Dog: Bazin “Baze” - Peter's best friend - Huskey/German Shepard mix
Gerry Callahan - Peter's first partner and mentor

0II. overall history

Peter was born and raised on a horse ranch in Montana. His father came from a long line of gamblers and won the place when he was 26. Despite all odds, James made the business run better than ever, forsaking gambling now that he had something of real value – a home for the first time in his life. He soon settled down and started a family with an old sweetheart of his, Yvonne Benoit. They had two children – twins, Peter and Angelique – and were a very happy family.

Peter knew how to ride before he could walk, loving the ranch life. He spent every waking moment outside, only coming in when the weather turned too cold. He was raised with his mother's strong Catholic ethics, believing in that there was good in all people, and that outside a few unforgiveable things, not giving second chances was wrong. Because of this, there are few people he's met in life that he genuinely dislikes. He also had the childhood dream of becoming a priest, which pleased his mother to no end.

When Peter hit his teens, he began to feel dissatisfied with the simple life. He wanted what he had, but he also wanted more. He read books and tried every new experience he could manage. He dated girls, as attracted to them as they seemed to be to him, and made a very short and frustrating attempt at learning the guitar to further his wooing abilities. He found the need to be accepted by “the guys” at school, which pushed Peter to take his adventures to the next level. He shop lifted, went bungee jumping, paintballing, joy riding, tagging... In short, Peter had fun – until the fun suddenly ended.

Peter was fifteen when he and the guys took a drive after one of the older boys had stolen liquor from his parents. Everyone in the car was buzzed, and none of them should have been driving. Partway through the drive, the boys in the backseat distracted the driver, causing him to swerve off the road, the passenger side – Peter’s side – slamming into a tree. The accident fractured his shoulder blade, popped his shoulder joint out of place, and broke his collarbone, among other less serious injuries. He had surgeries to fix the damage and had to rest his arm for over a month until it finally healed enough to start rehabilitating the limb. This would leave the shoulder scarred, but he would gain back full mobility. With nothing to do while he recuperated, he read everything in the house, stumbling across a book of puzzles. He discovered a passion for them. Word puzzles, number puzzles, codes…if it had a secret, Peter worked to solve it. The whole experience tamed Peter’s need to be an idiot to be accepted by the guys, and he refocused his attention to working the ranch and solving puzzles. His parents passed the obsession with puzzles off as a phase, hoping he would lose interest in it, but that was not to be the case.

At sixteen, Peter`s relatively boring life got interesting again. His father hired on a new hand – Joey Barnett. Joey was eighteen and away from home for the first time, but he was also devilishly handsome and Peter felt attraction to a male for the first time in his life. Willing himself to bury those feelings, Peter took Joey under his wing, showing him how the ranch worked and what he would have to do to earn his pay. Far too quickly, Peter found that he could not control what he was feeling and the burning attraction he had for Joey grew into love. As a good Catholic, it went against his beliefs. This caused an internal conflict Peter couldn’t puzzle out – something Joey took advantage of. He pushed Peter into a heated affair before he could fully consider the consequences, using the younger boy. It went on for a few months until the pair were caught in one of their more tame moments.

Whether he was embarrassed for being caught with another male or scared that he would be punished for corrupting Yvonne's precious son, Joey turned on Peter, claiming he was a victim, and that Peter had pushed him into it. Peter was shattered by the betrayal, silently vowing that he would never again be hurt like that. James wasn't convinced by Joey’s story, more concerned with the fact that his son was a minor and Joey was an adult. However, he decided he was not willing to drag his son through a court case that would no doubt hurt their family more than it would help Peter. James threatened Joey, chasing him off his land with a shotgun, a trail of urine following the boy into the distance. Joey would never step foot on the ranch again.

That was just the start of the family`s troubles.

Yvonne, having found out about the relationship, confronted her son about it. Unable to lie to his mother, Peter told her everything she wanted to know. Yvonne disowned her son, believing he had damned his eternal soul for laying with another man. She ignored his presence, and when Peter pressed for her attention, she was cruel to him, sniping and insulting him. James tried to stay neutral between his wife and son, ultimately not speaking to either of them, which only caused more tension in the house. Peter, already upset over Joey and the conflict with his faith, became even more withdrawn, rarely coming inside or speaking to others. Even Angelique was affected by the tension, spending most of her time drinking with her friends. Unable to stand it any longer and on the brink of divorce, James did the only thing he felt he could.

He took a gamble and sent Peter away.

James’ older brother, Don, was the only member of his family who had never turned to gambling or swindling to support himself. In rebellion to their father and their dishonest lifestyle, Don left for New York City and entered the NYPD when he was eighteen. He became a Detective after five years as a foot patrolman. He had two divorces under his belt, but thankfully no children and a very good divorce lawyer. The brothers were estranged, had been since before James graduated high school, but Don didn`t hesitate when asked to take in Peter. James asking at all was enough to convince Don that the kid had nowhere else to go.

Peter was less than thrilled. His first few months living in New York were not easy. He refused to get to know Don, only interacting with the man when it was absolutely necessary. He was enrolled in school, and he did attend, but he didn’t participate or complete assignments. When he wasn’t at school or at the apartment, Peter spent long periods sitting in the closest Catholic church, trying to figure out what he believed and where he was going in life. He finally came to the conclusion that he liked sex. He liked both men and women. He still believed in God, and he still believed in having faith, but he felt that his preferences were not accepted, thus he was not accepted. He was on the outside looking in, but still felt he needed the comfort of being in a church, of hearing the words and singing the songs, even if they weren’t for him. He attended mass once in a while, often stepping in on occasions when he felt low in spirit, but no longer took blessings or practiced confession.

Don finally decided that he and Peter had gotten off on the wrong foot, and he needed to do something to really make him feel at home. Knowing there was no way Montana was going to fit in his apartment; Don brought home the newest member of their little family – Baze. Dropping the puppy on Peter`s bed, Don declared that he was in no way responsible for him, so Peter could either step up and take care of him, or end up cleaning up after him. Peter and Baze bonded instantly and Peter saw it as a sign to give New York a chance. He began to participate at school and even got conned into joining the basketball team because of his height (he became a strongly left-handed player, his damaged right shoulder barely handling the abuse of playing the sport). He finally bonded with Don over sports and puzzles, becoming quite close to the man as he got to know him better. Peter often went through any work Don brought home with him and Don gave up trying to keep his nephew out of his cases – puzzles, as Peter referred to them – instead engaging the boy as much as he could within the confines of their living room by changing names, dates, and swearing the boy to secrecy. Don already saw the potential in Peter as a detective and mentored his curiosity.

During his first winter in New York, Peter’s shoulder began to act up with the wet cold – much different from the dry cold of Montana. The cold seemed to seep into his shoulder and cause it to ache painfully. After seeing a doctor, Peter moved up from Aspirin to prescription pain killers. Before he knew it, he was popping the pills like candy, even when his shoulder wasn’t bothering him. He quickly became addicted to them. Peter’s gym teacher was the first to notice, and Don went through another rough spot getting his nephew weaned off the pills. Because of this substance abuse, Peter’s body developed an intolerance to even mild painkillers. To deal with the pain, he developed a system of using heating pads, ice packs, scalding showers, and sees a message therapist regularly.

Despite his addiction, Peter graduated high school a few months before his eighteenth birthday, heading off on a basketball scholarship to university. He bounced between majors for two years before deciding on a degree in Kinesiology with a minor in Psychology. He wasn`t sure what he wanted to do as a profession, but he liked knowing things, and they were two degrees that centred specifically around that. Mainly, he wanted to solve puzzles. Don encouraged him to join the NYPD, and since he had nothing else in mind, Peter applied. He passed all the entrance requirements easily. Because of his upbringing, and Don’s connections, he spent his first year as a mounted patrol officer before he decided to become a detective. As he was not interested in departments like homicide or theft, Peter was placed so that he dealt with young offenders, many of whom were invovled in gangs. To better relate to these young people, he established the routine of playing basketball with them at the neighbourhood youth centre, mentoring teens on the court in hopes that they wouldn’t end up in his prescient as offenders.

To help pay off his debt from university, Peter also obtained a bartending licence. He liked the socialization factor and that people could open up to him without worrying that he was a cop. While bartending, he meets and enjoys the company of people who are from all walks of life, not concerned over whether they are criminals or not.

His life keeps him busy, and as long as he is busy, the sense of being unsatisfied is easier to ignore.

0III. Sample Post

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack

Flip flops. There was nothing more embarrassing than walking a perp in when your shoes were making slapping noises against your heels. The purse snatcher he’d nabbed on his way to the station was even snickering under his breath, well over being embarrassed by being taken down by a man whose shoes kept the beat of every step he took. Peter wasn’t bothered by that. Let the little pissant snicker. He’d have nothing to snicker about once he was in holding with the real scum of society. Maybe next time he’d think twice before trying to take a purse from an old lady, at least on Peter’s route to work. It was a shame though. The thief was barely older than Peter himself. If he were a couple years younger, then Peter may have been able to knock some sense into him about doing things like this as an adult. Sometimes that’s all a kid needed – someone to acknowledge they were alive with a spoonful of harsh reality. When they were this old, it didn’t matter if you forced buckets of reality down their throats.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack

Peter winced at the noise. He needed to stop forgetting his shoes. That was all there was to it. Too bad that was much easier said than done. He’d tried everything. He’d left sticky notes, he’d tried looping them by the laces over the doorknob. Heck, he’d even tried keeping a pair by the main entrance of the apartment building, but they always not-so-mysteriously seemed to go missing. Nothing worked. The kiosk on the corner was making a killing in sales with how often Peter needed to stop and buy something to wear, running far too late to turn around and go get his own. Usually, he went for the quieter slippers or crocs, but today all the salesman had were bright yellow flip flops with green and brown palm trees on them. The cheap plastic that snuggled between his big toe and the other toes was already starting to hurt. He was looking forward to putting his work shoes on. At least he was smart enough to have a pair waiting in his desk drawer.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack

The flip flops sounded even louder in the prescient, slapping against his heels, and echoing against the linoleum floor. The booking officer only raised an eyebrow, but he always had been a man of few words.

Peter’s partner, on the other hand, started laughing the moment Peter entered the office. God, if he didn’t know the man as well as he did after eight months of working together, his pride may have been hurt. As it was, Gerry needed things to laugh at. How the man had spent ten years in violent crimes and could still get out of bed in the morning was a testament to how much the man deserved to laugh. Peter would do what he could, no matter if it was at his own expense.

“Let me guess...They were all out of men’s footwear.”

“Hey, think what you will, but yellow is manly.” He flopped down into his worn brown chair, reaching to pull off the right sandal with a hiss, exploring the abused area with a gentle touch. “Shit, my thong gave me a blister.”

His partner sputtered into laughter again and Peter shook his head, holding up the flip flop. “Really, Gerry? All it takes is the word ‘thong’ to get you started? You’re as bad as the mook I threw into holding.”

Peter smiled slightly as his partner kept chuckling. Oh, the day was off to a beautiful start – blister and all.

SYR INTEGRA of CAUTION 2.0 created this, modified by Yols with Shakespeare lines.