- █ █ B A S I C S
█ NAME ▬ Eric Belz
█ AGE ▬ 23
█ NICKNAME ▬ Rikkie
█ GENDER ▬ Male
█ RACE ▬ Caim
█ ORIENTATION ▬ Homosexual
█ OCCUPATION ▬ Rentboy, Med School Dropout
█ PARTNER ▬ Bernard Calloway (one of the vampires harem)
█ SLAVE ▬ None, he can't afford that
█ █ A P P E A R A N C E
█ HAIR ▬ Black
█ EYES ▬ Red
█ BUILD ▬ Scrawny, 5"5
█ TATTOOS ▬ None
█ SCARS ▬ None
█ BIRTHMARKS ▬ A mole below his lower lip
█ █ P E R S O N A L I T Y
█ THEME SONGS
█ ▬ O1 How to Save a Life - The Fray
█ ▬ O2 The Reason - Hoobastank
█ ▬ O3 My Demons - Starset
█ LIKES
█ ▬ Being collared, dominated, pushed around, etc.
█ ▬ Being able to help people
█ ▬ Reading old lore
█ ▬ Sweets, especially pastries
█ ▬ Running (marathon training)
█ ▬ Not having to make decisions for himself
█ ▬ Being able to apply his training and skills to be useful
█ ▬ Being bitten
█ DISLIKES
█ ▬ Using his powers as a caim. Never again.
█ ▬ Being a disappointment, particularly to his family
█ ▬ In fact, talking to or about his family. Let's not.
█ ▬ Trying to hold down a normal 9 to 5
█ ▬ Going outside.
█ ▬ Being around people.
█ ▬ Having to talk to strangers.
█ PERSONALITY TRAITS
█ ▬ Naive
█ ▬ Jumpy
█ ▬ Reclusive
█ ▬ Anxious
█ ▬ Prone to panic attacks
█ ▬ Generally very submissive
█ ▬ Brave in situations of stress (not unafraid, however)
█ ▬ Book smart
█ ▬ Strong sense of justice
█ █ H I S T O R Y
█ BACKGROUND
Eric, for all intents and purposes, was bred with a purpose in mind.
Erics entire family had been healers of one sort or another. His mother was a caim with a doctorate who owned a private practice, specializing in therapy for people with mobility issues, amputations, and physical therapy and rehabilitation. His father was a shapeshifter who outstripped his wife by almost a decade in age, and was a prominent trauma surgeon, known as one of the best in his field. They were both willful, powerful people who came from medical backgrounds and families as well. Even the lowest of their cousins were nurses, EMTs, and other respectable medical professionals (well, except Christie, who was an acupuncturist). Eric learned how to program IV pumps for fun before he was ten. He knew how to feel out a vein by thirteen. He could name off most of what you could find in a common pharmacy, how to store it properly, and which substances were controlled by the time he was sixteen. It was a point of pride, for him. Because being a Belz meant something important. Belz meant healing. It meant professionalism. It meant being held to a higher standard than anyone else. His family was wealthy, not because of the right people buying the right land when settlers moved over years and years ago, or because one crazy uncle struck an oil field. The Belz family was well off because they were all well trained, well respected, hard working medical professionals. Unlike so many of the upper crust in Saxon, the Belz fortune had been carved out of lifetimes of hard work and dedication to a cause.
Of course, that didn't keep the family from falling into many of the same patterns as some other posh families. The Belz didn't usually do much in the way of soirees, with the exception of charity balls and auctions for the hospitals. But as an only child to two medical professionals, it seemed only natural that Eric grew up spending most of his time being raised by the family slave. Ennus was a ghoul, a reformed slave who was only twenty when Eric was born, bought and trained specifically to take care of the infant caim. If the slave ever felt any kind of resentment for his situation, he never took it out on Eric, or even resented him for it. When Erics father was trapped long nights working in the ER, and his mother was exhausted from seeing the scores of patients who needed her help, Ennus was the one who held baby Eric close and shushed him, who sang him to sleep and woke up at every odd hour of the morning to console the fussy infant. Ennus was the one who smiled and oohed and ahhed when Eric came home from kindergarten with some mishmash of glitter, glue and uncooked pasta splattered on a sheet of construction paper. Ennus was the one Eric went crying to when other kids pushed him on the playground, who Eric asked for advice during his awkward middle school years. Ennus was the first one Eric came out to, tears in his eyes and fear in his chest at what his parents might think. Ennus was the one who took him, then, hugged him close and assured him that there was not a damn thing in the world wrong with him, and he was certain that his parents would love him no matter what (he'd been right, of course, even if his parents didn't mask their disappointment completely). To Eric, Ennus was just as much his family as his parents were, maybe even more so. So when he got a little older, he couldn't help but wrinkle his nose at the racism surrounding ghouls. Even his own parents had mentioned it (well, as long as you don't end up running off with a ghoul, ha ha ha. What the ********, dad? That's not an okay thing to say. I'm seventeen and I know that.) and, admittedly, there were hardly any in the schools he attended, aside from one or two token ghouls and vampires here and there. But Erics connection to Ennus gave him a different perspective on the entire race issue. But as interested as he was in the social dynamics of the world at large, the oddly prominent racism surrounding certain races and how strange it was, that the system seemed to perpetuate that fear, Eric didn't have time for social justice. He had medicine to study.
It was never explicitly stated that Eric had to become a doctor. It was simply... expected. Obviously, his parents weren't some archaic overlords who planned to marry off their son to a wealthy foreigner to strengthen their alliance with a foreign nation. But it was just something that was understood, quietly. Why wouldn't he want to be a doctor, after all? Both of his parents were, and damn good ones at that. He grew up in such close proximity with the medical world, he practically had a huge jump start on his education. He was bright, and clever, and he earned scholarships that his family didn't even really need in order to put him through medical school. So if Eric studied sociology and civil law, that was fine and dandy as a passtime. It was good to be well rounded. But his focus was, of course, on his medical studies. The truth was that even Eric himself really never entertained the idea of doing anything else. It didn't even cross his mind. As he went into college (straight out of highschool at eighteen) his only real dilemma was which branch of the medical field did he want to focus on. He considered going into optometry, cardiology, even considered studying to be a mortician. But he found himself settling into an odd niche - Demonology and Exorcism.
It couldn't be denied that there was a need for more Exorcists in the medical field. In a place like Saxon, teeming with mages and nymphs and other magical races, as well as a cesspool of criminal activity, violence, and drug abuse, it was incredibly important to have trained professionals - caim professionals - to handle the inevitable surges of people suffering from the beginnings of demonic contact and possession. There weren't very many truly equipped Exorcists, much less certified ones. But Eric found himself fascinated by the study of it, eventually deciding to take it on as his major. His classes and practical training on the subject were very intimate, since only a few students even looked twice at the courses. Part of the curriculum was official training on handling his abilities as a caim, and being able to utilize them on a higher level than simple, physical healing. That was the job of Professor Eckhart.
Uriah Eckhart was a beautiful, intelligent, well-centered man in his late fourties. He was a caim, like Eric, who had studied the proper utilization of his abilities, it's applications, and it's historical roles throughout history. He had a lot of one on one sessions with Eric who, naturally, had never needed to use his powers, but had taken plenty of courses and had formal training on how to do so properly. But Eckhart was there to teach him how to truly delve into his potential not only as a healer, but as an exorcist. Eric and his professor spent hours together, drifting from the topic of magical application and energetic conservation, to the social world at large, politics, the issues of the day.... Prof. Eckhart was companionable, educated... accepting and open in a way that many people in Erics life weren't. He was also very married. But that didn't stop the older man from putting one warm hand on Erics leg, or Eric from leaning in just so, and... well. These things happen. And however much Eric justified it (he said they were probably going to get divorced, he was miserable in his marriage anyway, his wife was never home, etc.) part of the younger caim always felt guilty for it. But not guilty enough to stop seeing him. To cut a long story short, Eric loved him, and was convinced that his professor would leave his wife to be with him officially. But, as is usually the case, that didn't happen. Eric didn't take the heartbreak well when his professor finally ended it, but he had no idea how to handle it properly.
During this time, Eric had never stopped his other formal medical training. Just because he was majoring in Demonology and Exorcism that didn't mean he could shirk off his technical studies. He still had to know how to dissect certain organs, how to identify different symptoms, all of the functions of the neurological and cardiovascular systems, and the whatnot. The college actively encouraged students to take whatever medical jobs they could take on before completing their degree, to gain real world experience, gain extra credits, and of course get their foot in the door for possible careers upon graduation.
Well, turns out, the Saxon Prison System always needed more medical aid on hand.
So Eric, glad to be able to do his part to help some of the most misunderstood and desperate people in society (and learn on the job) became one of the medical personnel in the Saxon Prison Facilities. Naturally, he wasn't a doctor yet, but there was still plenty that someone with his amount of medical training could do as an aide. So he did everything he could, helping the paramedics and the technical assistants whenever he could. He saw... well, some things he wished he hadn't. He'd always been able to cope with blood and gore, that wasn't a problem. But the ingenuity, the cruelty with which some inmates came into the medical bay, where some inmates died... it was something he lost sleep over. He knew that he would lose patients when he became a doctor. It was just a fact of life. But he resolved one morning, laying wide awake in his bed at three am, that he would never do anything less than everything he could. He would never shirk away, he would never pull punches. Not when it came to people. That was what the Belz's did. They were a cut above any normal medical professional. He was dedicated, determined. He would never sit by and do nothing.
So when an inmate, Julian St.Jude, came into the medical bay with one foot already in the grave, already mauled beyond belief, bleeding black ink everywhere, unable to accept a blood transfusion, the rest of the staff were prepared to do what they could, but they were already grimly resigned. There was nothing they could do. But Eric had promised. He couldn't, wouldn't, sit back and let a man die when there was something he could do, something he knew he could do, something he had been trained to do. So he peeled off his gloves, put his hands on torn and broken flesh, and for the first time in his life, Eric really truly utilized his healing abilities as a caim.
That was a terrible decision.
Every caim is different, just like every mage is different. Everyones powers have their own quirks, their own ways of manifesting. No amount of training could have prepared Eric for the practical aspect of his particular brand of healing. He'd gotten all kinds of instruction on how to properly sieve memories, how to sort them from your own thoughts and personality as you went to properly filter them out later. He had been trained on how to minimize taking in physical sensation. He had been trained on how to do everything right. But Eric was the caim equivalent of a sponge, and Julian was the patient equivalent of... well, a bucket of inky chum. Putting the ink mage back together took a lot of healing. Eric had never experienced such excruciating pain in his life, nor had he ever felt such pure and unadulterated fear. Eric got more than just the horros of what had brought Julian to the medical bay, and everything that implied (which was plenty bad enough for the both of them). He got a good chunk of most of Julians life. When he was done screaming and Julian was stable, the first words out of his mouth were asking after the others - Where did Odin go? What happened to Leon?
For a solid week Eric was put under surveillance because he earnestly believed that he was Julian St.Jude.
The come down, when it did finally come, was incredibly confusing. It was frightening, and terrifying, and he had no idea which parts were him - the caim, Eric Belz, studying to be an exorcist - and which parts were not him - Julian, avid abolitionist, inmate, willing always to be last, to be least. He wanted desperately to know why Odin left him - no, not him, Julian - and to see if Leon was okay. He had to be. They promised.... but no. He'd been too thoroughly compromised, and the prison felt that it was in everyones best interests, given the severity of the damage Eric had clearly suffered, that Eric not return.
Eric sank into a deep and spiraling depression, much like the ones he studied in his demonology courses. He couldn't sleep through the night. He constantly questioned whose thoughts were in his head - his own, or Julians. Everything that Julian was or had been was tangled up into him, and there was no line dividing him and Eric. Ennus came to look after him, and the look on his face when Eric flinched away from him at the sight of sharp teeth... you'd have thought someone had ripped the older ghouls heart right out of his chest. Eric couldn't help it. He felt terrified of Ennus, his one safe person in the whole world. Guilty and ashamed, Eric withdrew from his school. Further ashamed by his apparent failure, he withdrew from his family and from his Ennus as well. He tried to join the workforce, managing a very shaky stint as a waiter while he tried to cope. It was difficult. He frequently had to disappear into the back of the kitchen to have a panic attack alone, and even when he was home, he had dreams. Dreams about hiding in a strange garden with a fairy. About trying to hard not to make a sound while Odin.... about teeth. About Hale. And the most ******** up thing was, they weren't all nightmares. Perhaps in a convoluted attempt to redirect the pain, his psyche turned the scenario on its head. Eric started to seek out older men to abuse him, to bite him. He ended up embracing the change - the shame and the humiliation was easier to bear than the fear, the hurt, the pain. He didn't want to be Julian. He wanted to be Eric. Julian wouldn't ever... but Eric would. ....right? Wouldn't he? He wasn't sure.
After a time, Eric came across a topic on one of the message boards he used to make, ah... connections, with older men. He wound up getting into contact with a vampire named Bernard Calloway. Being able to quit his job and get away from other people was more than enough of a draw, and upon actually meeting the vampire, they seemed to be a good fit. And it was simple as that. Eric has been living under the vampires roof ever since. He started attending weekly therapy (because he was made to, really, by the professionals he had to see after the incident) to try and cope with what happened, and maybe separate Julian from himself, but he knew that it wasn't really possible. The line was long gone.
█ ABILITIES
▬ HEALING TOUCH
Ever since his healing of Julian, Eric absolutely refuses to use his abilities as a caim. His natural disposition practically pulls a persons thoughts and memories and feelings into him, to an extreme degree. Had he been given more time to do practical practice, he might have learned his own ways to circumvent this, but as it stands he likely will never try to. That said, Erics healing is incredibly clean and professional. His magic is completely painless for his patient (since he takes all of it into himself) and he is able to expertly re-set broken bones, repair muscle, and knit torn flesh back together with little more than thin, pale scars at worst.
▬ MEDICAL TRAINING
While Eric refuses to use his powers, he doesn't at all mind keeping all of his medical expertise in his back pocket. He was never able to complete his doctorate, but he's incredibly useful to have on hand during any medical emergency. He knows first aide, how to set broken bones, stitch open wounds, treat infections, and handle most emergency med. And, out of habit, he does usually keep a very well stocked first aid kit on hand.
▬ THE EXORCIST
Eric never got a chance to try his hand at the physical practice of his major field of study - exorcism. However he has studied all of the technical points, the execution, the technique, the symptoms and signs. He is able to rather accurately conclude whether or not a person is suffering from a true demonic influence and he knows, in theory, how to go about using his powers to expel the demon. However he would likely be incredibly hesitant to try it himself, given his past with using his powers.
█ EXTRA
-- His voice claim is Kuraiinu
