App for babylonwood
This is the song of all the trouble you've been bringing,
And all the while, Coyote keeps on singing.
The Player
User Name/Nick: Beka
User LJ: starletfallen
AIM/IM: archangelet
E-mail: beka [at] bekacavanaugh [dot] com
Other Characters: Stefan
The Character
Character Name: Matthew “Mat” Wallace
Character Journal: guardsintheory
Canon: OC (On a Saturday. Sort of. :P)
Age: 25
From When?: After killing a man for Coyote, before deciding to leave his brother.
Abilities/Powers: Mat is an angel. No, not like Castiel - there’s a subspecies of human in his universe that is generally called “angel”, dating back to… well, the middle ages, at least. There are, of course, corresponding “demon” subspecies.
As an angel, he has the following attributes:
-Enhanced speed/reflexes
-Enhanced strength
-Wings (approx 17 foot span, white, with some black mottling on the undersides) that can “fold into his back” - in reality, they sort of exist in a little… pocket of space that is somehow attached to him, and thus are not detectable when he doesn’t have them out. His strength and speed are further enhanced when his wings are out. He cannot fly.
-Physiological differences from your baseline human. His blood is a pearly white (though there is a natural glamour of sorts built into his biology that keeps him looking rosy and, y’know, alive), his heartrate and body temperature are noticeably slower than a human’s, and he breathes in carbon dioxide and breathes out oxygen. Like a tree!
Further, angels have different “Callings”, a psychic geas, of sorts, determined partially from an angel’s innate self and personality (the things that would carry over in AUs, that is), their upbringing and state of life when their wings come in at 16, and their genetics. Mat is a Guardian. This means he has the ability to psychically (and permanently) bond with a single person upon eye contact. This often seems random, but it’s based on psychic archetypes. In the relatively rare instance that a Guardian outlives their Ward, and bonds again, the new bond will tend towards the same general archetype. A guardian tends to be a protective person generally, the instincts to protect are increased exponentially. When bonded, a Guardian can tell where their Ward is at all times, though it tends to be a very general sense under most circumstances. They feel the intense pain and fear of their Wards, and also sometimes the intense pleasure. When their Ward is in danger, their instincts kick into overdrive. Getting between a Guardian and their Ward is a Bad Plan. A Guardian can’t go further than 30 miles (at the absolute maximum) from their ward without serious psychic, psychological, and physical distress. Severing the bond in any way (though generally only death causes this) will send the Guardian into a severe sort of psychic and physical shock that will, under most circumstances, kill them.
Outside his angelic abilities, Mat has some slightly better-than-basic mechanic skills, some computer skills (mostly for digging up information on the internet), and is a really great busboy and passable waiter. He’s had a little bit of firearms training, and knows a relatively good amount about various supernatural things in his universe. He has no wilderness survival skills to speak of.
Power Limitations: He will not be able to bond with anyone.
Inventory:
-1 pair grey boxer-briefs
-1 pair khaki cargo pants with a small hole worn through the left knee
-1 canvas belt
-1 light grey undershirt
-1 old blue and white striped button-up shirt
-1 dark grey coat, obviously well-loved for a long time
-1 pair of white socks, holes in both toes
-1 pair of old black trainers with the soles almost worn through
-1 brown leather billfold, very old, containing:
-1 Ohio driver’s license
-$17 (three fives and two ones)
-12 business cards from various small town mechanic shops
-2 photographs, tucked out of sight. 1 of a family of four (mom, dad, two boys under the age of 12), 1 of the two boys with a teenaged girl.
-1 pack Juicy Fruit gum (with three sticks left)
Personality: On the surface, Mat is you generic socially awkward cutie - he’s shy, he stammers a bit when he’s nervous, he gets nervous relatively easily, he’s kind of incompetent at a lot of things, and he’s a genuinely nice person. There is, however, a lot more to him than that.
Growing up, he was a little more “sensitive” than his older brother Nathan - he didn’t want to play army or throw around a ball, he wanted to read, and play video games that required thinking, or had good storytelling. He didn’t have many friends and was okay with that, being happy to spend his time with the people dearest to him - that’s still true today, though really his only friend is Nathan anymore - they don’t really get to know anyone else well enough. He doesn’t like being the centre of attention and is much happier being in the background of things - working backstage, being the teaboy, the Pepper Potts, the support crew. He is, when he’s confident in himself, very good at being support for the more actively-involved people that he cares about. Unfortunately, he never really developed the confidence that Nathan did, partially because “support crews” aren’t really overly encouraged in most school environments, partially because of his veritable orphaning just as he found out he wasn’t precisely human, partially because he’s so uncertain as to his place in life as an angel because he never had a mentor to show him the ropes - Nathan had a year’s worth of mentoring from their mother, where Mat still doesn’t know that Nathan knew their mother was an angel.
His father’s death and his mother’s subsequent abandonment really broke something in him. He’s always worried that people he cares about are going to either die or leave him, and that it’ll be his fault somehow, just like it was his fault (he thinks) that his father died. This, on top of his guardian’s protective instincts, makes him extremely protective and a bit clingy of people he’s attached himself to. Unfortunately, because of this, he tends to not let people get too important to him. He doesn’t mind bonding a little, but it’s always with the mindset that they’ll be gone soon, so he doesn’t take them into his heart, with very rare exception.
Because his major source of interaction and basis for most relationships is his brother, he also can be resentful of anyone who he perceives as taking someone he cares about away from him, or trying to do so. Of course, unless said person is actively antagonistic towards him, he probably won’t feel that they’re trying to take someone away from him, and if he and the person start growing apart without anyone antagonising him, he’ll blame himself, even if someone else really did take that person away from him.
Mat is also a very physical person - he responds well to hugs, cuddles, a hand on the shoulder, and so on. He’s generally a bit awkward with people he hasn’t grown close to, but the most sure-fire way to comfort or reassure him is with physical contact.
He doesn’t respond well to practical joking or being made to feel stupid, thanks to Coyote’s love of making him flail, and making him feel stupid and then laughing at him is one of the surest ways to actually spur him into anger. Mat doesn’t get angry very often, and when he does, he tends to bury it, keep it tightly reined in, both because he doesn’t want to call attention to himself and because he doesn’t want to drive whatever few people he’s attached himself to away from him.
Mat was never very assertive or outgoing, but in the nearly 10 years since his father died, he and Nathan have made a point of not interacting too much with people - mostly because neither of them (both unbonded Guardians) want to bond with anyone. Mat’s whole view of life and what he wants out of it tends to revolve around Nathan and making sure Nathan’s happy and safe and that they’re together. Unfortunately, one thing that makes Nathan happy is the trickster Eternal, Coyote, who he’s sleeping with and is very fond of. Coyote, being the embodiment of “trickster”, gets a real kick out of antagonising Mat when he’s around, basically exacerbating Mat’s physical awkwardness and clumsiness, and making his luck just go completely south. (Think a non-fatal version of Bad Day at Black Rock in Supernatural, after Sam lost the rabbit’s foot.) Mat can’t properly hate Coyote for it, because he can’t help who he is any more than, say, War can (though no one wants War around for any reason ever), or a bonded Guardian can help being protective of their Ward. That doesn’t mean, however, that Mat doesn’t dislike Coyote quite a lot, and often declares that he hates Coyote with the “burning passion of a thousand suns”. He resents Coyote for his bond with Nathan, and under his love and devotion to Nathan, he resents Nathan for choosing to let Coyote hang around and not even trying to get him to let up on Mat when he’s there. He thinks Coyote’s a bad influence on Nathan, and wishes they could go back to the significantly less interesting days before Coyote took an interest in them.
He often struggles still with the fact that his mother left them after his father’s death. On the one hand, he’s come to the conclusion that his father was his mother’s ward, and that she only survived because of them but then went a bit crazy because of it and wasn’t in a place to really be thinking rationally about leaving her teenaged sons behind on Mat’s 16th birthday. In that sense, he doesn’t really blame her for leaving, and mostly just misses her, and loves her very deeply. On the other hand, she left, and though his guilt in regards to his father’s death is still almost overwhelming at times, she was his mother, and she abandoned him when he needed her the most, and he literally hates her for that. Though Nathan has effectively (to Mat’s knowledge) decided to pretend their mother doesn’t exist, Mat will sometimes secretly try to track her down, though he hasn’t had any luck so far. If he were to ever find her, even he’s not sure if he’d run to her crying or have to restrain himself from decking her and angrily lay out how much she’s ruined his life.
All the things that have happened in his life have left him a little bitter, though he tries not to make a big deal out of it. His life sucks, but there's people whose lives suck more. Still, it shows sometimes, whether it's a frustrated ramble to someone he trusts or a bit of dry humour or sarcasm. It's worth noting that he picked up a bit of a mouth from his brother - he's not a MacManus or anything, but especially when he's stressed or angry, he'll pepper expletives around relatively generously.
He’s sort of at lost ends in his life other than “being with Nathan” and sometimes “finding Mom”. If they could, he’d suggest settling down in the middle of nowhere where they don’t really have to worry about new people, and never ever leaving. Unfortunately, an unbonded Guardian usually has a sort of wanderlust until they’re bonded, an instinct most likely to help them find their Ward. So neither he nor Nathan is really comfortable staying in one place too long, thus the eternal roadtrip that they’re on.
The recent murder that he and Nathan committed for Coyote does not sit right with him, and he feels like a horrible person, even though he knows back in one tiny logical corner of his brain that Coyote needs to exist in the world, and even though Coyote’s resurrected the man in question. He’s a guardian, and the man wasn’t threatening anyone he was trying to protect, and it just sits so very wrong with him. The fact that Nathan went along with it with so little hesitation, and seems to think they did the right thing, has made him feel like Nathan has finally decided to choose Coyote over Mat. That perceived abandonment on top of the guilt over the murder and the dislike he has for Coyote has him on the verge of deciding to leave Nathan and go it alone, which terrifies him - he’s never been alone like that, and Nathan’s been the only constant in his entire life. However, his fear of what Coyote might goad Nathan (and, by proxy, himself, if he stays) into doing is very close to outweighing that fear of losing the one constant in his life, and being alone. That leaves him on the brink of deciding which fear is less overwhelming when he appears in the Wood.
His lack of confidence in himself and his current lack of support system leaves him extremely open to emotional manipulation as of his entrance into the Wood.
History: Matthew Joseph Wallace was born on Valentine’s Day to a Guardian angel and her husband/Ward. He had a big brother, Nathaniel, and a tiny bedroom in a little house in Coronado, CA, and a pretty much perfect life. When he was five, one of the children of one of the many military families in their neighbourhood, 12-year-old Grace, started babysitting him and Nathan. Grace being a very naturally nurturing girl (who would, herself, become a Guardian when she turned 16), she reinforced all the encouragement of Mat’s parents, and he felt comfortable being less “boyish” than other boys his age come grade school. He adored Grace for all six years she babysat for the Wallace family.
Around the age of 13, he and his best (non-Nathan) friend, Clara, decided to “date”. But after one skipped period spent making out under the bleachers, Mat had to sheepishly admit to Clara that he… didn’t really enjoy it at all for the most part. She looked at him critically and asked, “You enjoyed it when you were pretending I was John Cusack, didn’t you?”
And that was the moment he realised that he was gay. Cliched, maybe, but it was sort of a revelation at the time. However, past the revelation, he didn’t really worry about it too much. If the guys at school started giving him a hard time, Nathan would kick their asses, and as he was even more openly into guys than his less-tough baby brother, they didn’t tend to bother Mat after that.
When his brother turned 16, he got really sick for a day, and then started spending a lot of time with their mom. Mat didn’t worry about that, other than being concerned that his brother was sick on the day.
A couple of weeks before Mat’s 16th birthday, the family was getting ready for a family movie night (somewhat of a weekend/rainy day tradition), and Mat noticed they were out of the ice cream they used for sundaes. Their mom suggested just going without it for this once, but Mat asked their dad if he could please just run down the street and get some, and they’d get everything else ready while he was out. His dad laughed and said he’d be happy to, and headed out into the rain.
About 10 minutes later, their mom started freaking out and ran out the door without even a jacket. Nathan and Mat, both worried and confused (though Nathan less so, unbeknownst to Mat), waited anxiously in the living room, peering out the windows into the storm looking for some sign of either of their parents returning.
Eventually, their mom was brought back by a pair of police officers, one of whom got the non-responsive woman wrapped up in a blanket and one who sat the boys down and told them that their father had lost control of the car somehow and crashed into a tree at an angle that killed him instantly. Nathan was upset, of course, but managed to go about calling a neighbour to come help with their mom, and doing various things that needed doing until the police left. Mat closed himself in his tiny bedroom until Nathan went to bed, then climbed in his older brother’s bed and sobbed himself to sleep. They had always been close, and raised to believe that there was nothing wrong with appropriate physical affection, so it was nothing odd for them, that Mat would do something like that when he was so upset, overwhelmed by guilt and grief.
The funeral was set up for a couple days before Mat’s birthday, by the boys’ aunt, and it was… mostly a blur, to Mat, who was just filled with guilt, grief, and concern for his mother, who was still moving around in a daze most of the time.
Two days later, he woke up in the wee hours of the morning on his 16th birthday to the sounds of the front door closing and his mom’s car pulling out of the driveway. Nathan came in, looking upset and trying not to show it, and wished him a happy birthday. Mat didn’t really have a chance to ask more than a couple questions at that point, because the pain of his biology changing and wings coming in (which happens at 16 for angels and demons) started not long after, and basically put him out of commission for the next 24 hours.
After he’d recovered from his wings coming in, Nathan explained as much as he could (without revealing that their mom had been the angel and had been teaching Nathan about being a Guardian), and then packed them both up, bundled into Nathan’s clunker, and left California. Mat hadn’t thought about it, but Nathan had realised that if they were placed in foster care or sent to live with their dad’s family, they’d be “freaks”, because they were angels. So they left Cali and set off on a road trip that lasted for nine years.
They mostly survived working short-term at diners and learning to help out mechanics enough to warrant free gas/repairs or actual pay. Before his growth spurt when he was 17, Mat was also pretty good at panhandling, due to looking younger than he was. But that time passed, and they became… somewhat more legal after Nathan turned 18. Mat learned to drive and got his license in Ohio, thanks to some finagling and barely-legal manoeuvres on Nathan’s part.
And then they met Coyote. Coyote who was an “Eternal” - a manifestation of a concept or archetype - in this case, the trickster. Coyote was handsome and flirtatious and outrageous - he really enjoyed pulling Mat’s pigtails, as it were, but despite that, he and Nathan struck up a sort of quasi-relationship. Mat didn’t like it, especially since it meant actually… having to see Coyote at regular intervals.
And then some sort of special, destined supernatural warrior decided that Coyote needed to be removed from the world. And because of who he was, this hunter/slayer/warrior person could actually kill Coyote. Coyote, not wanting to die, asked Nathan and Mat to kill the hunter. Mat argued, but in the end the brothers tracked down the hunter and killed him, passing his supernatural calling on to the next person who was “meant” to do that job, and who (presumably) had nothing against Coyote’s existence.
They were shortly after accosted by the hunter’s unfortunate Guardian, who demanded he be brought back to life, which Coyote gladly did, now that the guy couldn’t kill him anymore. While neither the guardian nor the brothers realised it, it was their old babysitter, Grace. But they never realised, and the pair left, leaving Mat to deal with his guilt and fear about staying with Nathan if he was going to keep associating with Coyote.
And then, without any warning, he found himself in a strange enchanted forest instead.
First Person Sample: Uh... shit.
Nathan? Coyote, this isn't fucking funny, okay?
...Hello?
Oh crap. Oh crap oh crap oh crap. Okay. Think, Mattie. What do you do when you're lost in the woods? You... stay where you are if you can so that people can find you? Yeah. Or is that the mall?
Fuck. [small noise of freaked out spaz] Breathe. I just... wait. That's the best plan.
...What was that noise? Was that a wolf?
Oh god, I'm gonna die.
Prose Sample: This fic is a bit old, and timeline wise is from after I’m bringing him in, but… Mat is Mat.
“One of these days, I am going to find a way to kill him,” Mat growls as he sits, letting Nate bandage his hand after he burned it opening the radiator too soon after turning the car off.
“No you won’t,” the petite blonde says, tying off the gauze and spontaneously dropping a kiss on the back of his hand. “You’re too much of a softy.”
“Am not,” Mat grumbles, and Nate rolls her eyes.
“Yeah, and he’s not completely crazy about you.”
Mat’s startled silence was punctuated by the sound of the motel room lamp crashing to the ground after he brushed against it, in accordance with the laws of “Mat being anywhere near Coyote”.
“He’s what?” Mat squeaks, and Nate raises an eyebrow, ignoring the broken lamp - they’d paid cash and checked in under fake names - it’s not like they’d be charged for it.
“He’s crazy about you,” she repeats, slowly. “He’s like a little boy pulling a girl’s pigtails on the school playground. He really likes you, so he torments you as much as possible.” She shrugs, seemingly unconcerned by this.
“But- but-” Mat sputters a bit, wordlessly, and then flails massively, thumping his injured hand into the wall and grimacing. “But he makes me miserable! I can’t stand him!
Why does he think this is a good way to get my attention?”
“How should I know?” Nate snaps. “Stop that, you’re going to hurt yourself. Worse than you already have, anyway.”
Special Notes: Um… Mat’s gay, but not really looking for a relationship. Also, he’s not going to know that he can’t bond, so expect him to be jumpy about meeting new people.
And all the while, Coyote keeps on singing.
The Player
User Name/Nick: Beka
User LJ: starletfallen
AIM/IM: archangelet
E-mail: beka [at] bekacavanaugh [dot] com
Other Characters: Stefan
The Character
Character Name: Matthew “Mat” Wallace
Character Journal: guardsintheory
Canon: OC (On a Saturday. Sort of. :P)
Age: 25
From When?: After killing a man for Coyote, before deciding to leave his brother.
Abilities/Powers: Mat is an angel. No, not like Castiel - there’s a subspecies of human in his universe that is generally called “angel”, dating back to… well, the middle ages, at least. There are, of course, corresponding “demon” subspecies.
As an angel, he has the following attributes:
-Enhanced speed/reflexes
-Enhanced strength
-Wings (approx 17 foot span, white, with some black mottling on the undersides) that can “fold into his back” - in reality, they sort of exist in a little… pocket of space that is somehow attached to him, and thus are not detectable when he doesn’t have them out. His strength and speed are further enhanced when his wings are out. He cannot fly.
-Physiological differences from your baseline human. His blood is a pearly white (though there is a natural glamour of sorts built into his biology that keeps him looking rosy and, y’know, alive), his heartrate and body temperature are noticeably slower than a human’s, and he breathes in carbon dioxide and breathes out oxygen. Like a tree!
Further, angels have different “Callings”, a psychic geas, of sorts, determined partially from an angel’s innate self and personality (the things that would carry over in AUs, that is), their upbringing and state of life when their wings come in at 16, and their genetics. Mat is a Guardian. This means he has the ability to psychically (and permanently) bond with a single person upon eye contact. This often seems random, but it’s based on psychic archetypes. In the relatively rare instance that a Guardian outlives their Ward, and bonds again, the new bond will tend towards the same general archetype. A guardian tends to be a protective person generally, the instincts to protect are increased exponentially. When bonded, a Guardian can tell where their Ward is at all times, though it tends to be a very general sense under most circumstances. They feel the intense pain and fear of their Wards, and also sometimes the intense pleasure. When their Ward is in danger, their instincts kick into overdrive. Getting between a Guardian and their Ward is a Bad Plan. A Guardian can’t go further than 30 miles (at the absolute maximum) from their ward without serious psychic, psychological, and physical distress. Severing the bond in any way (though generally only death causes this) will send the Guardian into a severe sort of psychic and physical shock that will, under most circumstances, kill them.
Outside his angelic abilities, Mat has some slightly better-than-basic mechanic skills, some computer skills (mostly for digging up information on the internet), and is a really great busboy and passable waiter. He’s had a little bit of firearms training, and knows a relatively good amount about various supernatural things in his universe. He has no wilderness survival skills to speak of.
Power Limitations: He will not be able to bond with anyone.
Inventory:
-1 pair grey boxer-briefs
-1 pair khaki cargo pants with a small hole worn through the left knee
-1 canvas belt
-1 light grey undershirt
-1 old blue and white striped button-up shirt
-1 dark grey coat, obviously well-loved for a long time
-1 pair of white socks, holes in both toes
-1 pair of old black trainers with the soles almost worn through
-1 brown leather billfold, very old, containing:
-1 Ohio driver’s license
-$17 (three fives and two ones)
-12 business cards from various small town mechanic shops
-2 photographs, tucked out of sight. 1 of a family of four (mom, dad, two boys under the age of 12), 1 of the two boys with a teenaged girl.
-1 pack Juicy Fruit gum (with three sticks left)
Personality: On the surface, Mat is you generic socially awkward cutie - he’s shy, he stammers a bit when he’s nervous, he gets nervous relatively easily, he’s kind of incompetent at a lot of things, and he’s a genuinely nice person. There is, however, a lot more to him than that.
Growing up, he was a little more “sensitive” than his older brother Nathan - he didn’t want to play army or throw around a ball, he wanted to read, and play video games that required thinking, or had good storytelling. He didn’t have many friends and was okay with that, being happy to spend his time with the people dearest to him - that’s still true today, though really his only friend is Nathan anymore - they don’t really get to know anyone else well enough. He doesn’t like being the centre of attention and is much happier being in the background of things - working backstage, being the teaboy, the Pepper Potts, the support crew. He is, when he’s confident in himself, very good at being support for the more actively-involved people that he cares about. Unfortunately, he never really developed the confidence that Nathan did, partially because “support crews” aren’t really overly encouraged in most school environments, partially because of his veritable orphaning just as he found out he wasn’t precisely human, partially because he’s so uncertain as to his place in life as an angel because he never had a mentor to show him the ropes - Nathan had a year’s worth of mentoring from their mother, where Mat still doesn’t know that Nathan knew their mother was an angel.
His father’s death and his mother’s subsequent abandonment really broke something in him. He’s always worried that people he cares about are going to either die or leave him, and that it’ll be his fault somehow, just like it was his fault (he thinks) that his father died. This, on top of his guardian’s protective instincts, makes him extremely protective and a bit clingy of people he’s attached himself to. Unfortunately, because of this, he tends to not let people get too important to him. He doesn’t mind bonding a little, but it’s always with the mindset that they’ll be gone soon, so he doesn’t take them into his heart, with very rare exception.
Because his major source of interaction and basis for most relationships is his brother, he also can be resentful of anyone who he perceives as taking someone he cares about away from him, or trying to do so. Of course, unless said person is actively antagonistic towards him, he probably won’t feel that they’re trying to take someone away from him, and if he and the person start growing apart without anyone antagonising him, he’ll blame himself, even if someone else really did take that person away from him.
Mat is also a very physical person - he responds well to hugs, cuddles, a hand on the shoulder, and so on. He’s generally a bit awkward with people he hasn’t grown close to, but the most sure-fire way to comfort or reassure him is with physical contact.
He doesn’t respond well to practical joking or being made to feel stupid, thanks to Coyote’s love of making him flail, and making him feel stupid and then laughing at him is one of the surest ways to actually spur him into anger. Mat doesn’t get angry very often, and when he does, he tends to bury it, keep it tightly reined in, both because he doesn’t want to call attention to himself and because he doesn’t want to drive whatever few people he’s attached himself to away from him.
Mat was never very assertive or outgoing, but in the nearly 10 years since his father died, he and Nathan have made a point of not interacting too much with people - mostly because neither of them (both unbonded Guardians) want to bond with anyone. Mat’s whole view of life and what he wants out of it tends to revolve around Nathan and making sure Nathan’s happy and safe and that they’re together. Unfortunately, one thing that makes Nathan happy is the trickster Eternal, Coyote, who he’s sleeping with and is very fond of. Coyote, being the embodiment of “trickster”, gets a real kick out of antagonising Mat when he’s around, basically exacerbating Mat’s physical awkwardness and clumsiness, and making his luck just go completely south. (Think a non-fatal version of Bad Day at Black Rock in Supernatural, after Sam lost the rabbit’s foot.) Mat can’t properly hate Coyote for it, because he can’t help who he is any more than, say, War can (though no one wants War around for any reason ever), or a bonded Guardian can help being protective of their Ward. That doesn’t mean, however, that Mat doesn’t dislike Coyote quite a lot, and often declares that he hates Coyote with the “burning passion of a thousand suns”. He resents Coyote for his bond with Nathan, and under his love and devotion to Nathan, he resents Nathan for choosing to let Coyote hang around and not even trying to get him to let up on Mat when he’s there. He thinks Coyote’s a bad influence on Nathan, and wishes they could go back to the significantly less interesting days before Coyote took an interest in them.
He often struggles still with the fact that his mother left them after his father’s death. On the one hand, he’s come to the conclusion that his father was his mother’s ward, and that she only survived because of them but then went a bit crazy because of it and wasn’t in a place to really be thinking rationally about leaving her teenaged sons behind on Mat’s 16th birthday. In that sense, he doesn’t really blame her for leaving, and mostly just misses her, and loves her very deeply. On the other hand, she left, and though his guilt in regards to his father’s death is still almost overwhelming at times, she was his mother, and she abandoned him when he needed her the most, and he literally hates her for that. Though Nathan has effectively (to Mat’s knowledge) decided to pretend their mother doesn’t exist, Mat will sometimes secretly try to track her down, though he hasn’t had any luck so far. If he were to ever find her, even he’s not sure if he’d run to her crying or have to restrain himself from decking her and angrily lay out how much she’s ruined his life.
All the things that have happened in his life have left him a little bitter, though he tries not to make a big deal out of it. His life sucks, but there's people whose lives suck more. Still, it shows sometimes, whether it's a frustrated ramble to someone he trusts or a bit of dry humour or sarcasm. It's worth noting that he picked up a bit of a mouth from his brother - he's not a MacManus or anything, but especially when he's stressed or angry, he'll pepper expletives around relatively generously.
He’s sort of at lost ends in his life other than “being with Nathan” and sometimes “finding Mom”. If they could, he’d suggest settling down in the middle of nowhere where they don’t really have to worry about new people, and never ever leaving. Unfortunately, an unbonded Guardian usually has a sort of wanderlust until they’re bonded, an instinct most likely to help them find their Ward. So neither he nor Nathan is really comfortable staying in one place too long, thus the eternal roadtrip that they’re on.
The recent murder that he and Nathan committed for Coyote does not sit right with him, and he feels like a horrible person, even though he knows back in one tiny logical corner of his brain that Coyote needs to exist in the world, and even though Coyote’s resurrected the man in question. He’s a guardian, and the man wasn’t threatening anyone he was trying to protect, and it just sits so very wrong with him. The fact that Nathan went along with it with so little hesitation, and seems to think they did the right thing, has made him feel like Nathan has finally decided to choose Coyote over Mat. That perceived abandonment on top of the guilt over the murder and the dislike he has for Coyote has him on the verge of deciding to leave Nathan and go it alone, which terrifies him - he’s never been alone like that, and Nathan’s been the only constant in his entire life. However, his fear of what Coyote might goad Nathan (and, by proxy, himself, if he stays) into doing is very close to outweighing that fear of losing the one constant in his life, and being alone. That leaves him on the brink of deciding which fear is less overwhelming when he appears in the Wood.
His lack of confidence in himself and his current lack of support system leaves him extremely open to emotional manipulation as of his entrance into the Wood.
History: Matthew Joseph Wallace was born on Valentine’s Day to a Guardian angel and her husband/Ward. He had a big brother, Nathaniel, and a tiny bedroom in a little house in Coronado, CA, and a pretty much perfect life. When he was five, one of the children of one of the many military families in their neighbourhood, 12-year-old Grace, started babysitting him and Nathan. Grace being a very naturally nurturing girl (who would, herself, become a Guardian when she turned 16), she reinforced all the encouragement of Mat’s parents, and he felt comfortable being less “boyish” than other boys his age come grade school. He adored Grace for all six years she babysat for the Wallace family.
Around the age of 13, he and his best (non-Nathan) friend, Clara, decided to “date”. But after one skipped period spent making out under the bleachers, Mat had to sheepishly admit to Clara that he… didn’t really enjoy it at all for the most part. She looked at him critically and asked, “You enjoyed it when you were pretending I was John Cusack, didn’t you?”
And that was the moment he realised that he was gay. Cliched, maybe, but it was sort of a revelation at the time. However, past the revelation, he didn’t really worry about it too much. If the guys at school started giving him a hard time, Nathan would kick their asses, and as he was even more openly into guys than his less-tough baby brother, they didn’t tend to bother Mat after that.
When his brother turned 16, he got really sick for a day, and then started spending a lot of time with their mom. Mat didn’t worry about that, other than being concerned that his brother was sick on the day.
A couple of weeks before Mat’s 16th birthday, the family was getting ready for a family movie night (somewhat of a weekend/rainy day tradition), and Mat noticed they were out of the ice cream they used for sundaes. Their mom suggested just going without it for this once, but Mat asked their dad if he could please just run down the street and get some, and they’d get everything else ready while he was out. His dad laughed and said he’d be happy to, and headed out into the rain.
About 10 minutes later, their mom started freaking out and ran out the door without even a jacket. Nathan and Mat, both worried and confused (though Nathan less so, unbeknownst to Mat), waited anxiously in the living room, peering out the windows into the storm looking for some sign of either of their parents returning.
Eventually, their mom was brought back by a pair of police officers, one of whom got the non-responsive woman wrapped up in a blanket and one who sat the boys down and told them that their father had lost control of the car somehow and crashed into a tree at an angle that killed him instantly. Nathan was upset, of course, but managed to go about calling a neighbour to come help with their mom, and doing various things that needed doing until the police left. Mat closed himself in his tiny bedroom until Nathan went to bed, then climbed in his older brother’s bed and sobbed himself to sleep. They had always been close, and raised to believe that there was nothing wrong with appropriate physical affection, so it was nothing odd for them, that Mat would do something like that when he was so upset, overwhelmed by guilt and grief.
The funeral was set up for a couple days before Mat’s birthday, by the boys’ aunt, and it was… mostly a blur, to Mat, who was just filled with guilt, grief, and concern for his mother, who was still moving around in a daze most of the time.
Two days later, he woke up in the wee hours of the morning on his 16th birthday to the sounds of the front door closing and his mom’s car pulling out of the driveway. Nathan came in, looking upset and trying not to show it, and wished him a happy birthday. Mat didn’t really have a chance to ask more than a couple questions at that point, because the pain of his biology changing and wings coming in (which happens at 16 for angels and demons) started not long after, and basically put him out of commission for the next 24 hours.
After he’d recovered from his wings coming in, Nathan explained as much as he could (without revealing that their mom had been the angel and had been teaching Nathan about being a Guardian), and then packed them both up, bundled into Nathan’s clunker, and left California. Mat hadn’t thought about it, but Nathan had realised that if they were placed in foster care or sent to live with their dad’s family, they’d be “freaks”, because they were angels. So they left Cali and set off on a road trip that lasted for nine years.
They mostly survived working short-term at diners and learning to help out mechanics enough to warrant free gas/repairs or actual pay. Before his growth spurt when he was 17, Mat was also pretty good at panhandling, due to looking younger than he was. But that time passed, and they became… somewhat more legal after Nathan turned 18. Mat learned to drive and got his license in Ohio, thanks to some finagling and barely-legal manoeuvres on Nathan’s part.
And then they met Coyote. Coyote who was an “Eternal” - a manifestation of a concept or archetype - in this case, the trickster. Coyote was handsome and flirtatious and outrageous - he really enjoyed pulling Mat’s pigtails, as it were, but despite that, he and Nathan struck up a sort of quasi-relationship. Mat didn’t like it, especially since it meant actually… having to see Coyote at regular intervals.
And then some sort of special, destined supernatural warrior decided that Coyote needed to be removed from the world. And because of who he was, this hunter/slayer/warrior person could actually kill Coyote. Coyote, not wanting to die, asked Nathan and Mat to kill the hunter. Mat argued, but in the end the brothers tracked down the hunter and killed him, passing his supernatural calling on to the next person who was “meant” to do that job, and who (presumably) had nothing against Coyote’s existence.
They were shortly after accosted by the hunter’s unfortunate Guardian, who demanded he be brought back to life, which Coyote gladly did, now that the guy couldn’t kill him anymore. While neither the guardian nor the brothers realised it, it was their old babysitter, Grace. But they never realised, and the pair left, leaving Mat to deal with his guilt and fear about staying with Nathan if he was going to keep associating with Coyote.
And then, without any warning, he found himself in a strange enchanted forest instead.
First Person Sample: Uh... shit.
Nathan? Coyote, this isn't fucking funny, okay?
...Hello?
Oh crap. Oh crap oh crap oh crap. Okay. Think, Mattie. What do you do when you're lost in the woods? You... stay where you are if you can so that people can find you? Yeah. Or is that the mall?
Fuck. [small noise of freaked out spaz] Breathe. I just... wait. That's the best plan.
...What was that noise? Was that a wolf?
Oh god, I'm gonna die.
Prose Sample: This fic is a bit old, and timeline wise is from after I’m bringing him in, but… Mat is Mat.
“One of these days, I am going to find a way to kill him,” Mat growls as he sits, letting Nate bandage his hand after he burned it opening the radiator too soon after turning the car off.
“No you won’t,” the petite blonde says, tying off the gauze and spontaneously dropping a kiss on the back of his hand. “You’re too much of a softy.”
“Am not,” Mat grumbles, and Nate rolls her eyes.
“Yeah, and he’s not completely crazy about you.”
Mat’s startled silence was punctuated by the sound of the motel room lamp crashing to the ground after he brushed against it, in accordance with the laws of “Mat being anywhere near Coyote”.
“He’s what?” Mat squeaks, and Nate raises an eyebrow, ignoring the broken lamp - they’d paid cash and checked in under fake names - it’s not like they’d be charged for it.
“He’s crazy about you,” she repeats, slowly. “He’s like a little boy pulling a girl’s pigtails on the school playground. He really likes you, so he torments you as much as possible.” She shrugs, seemingly unconcerned by this.
“But- but-” Mat sputters a bit, wordlessly, and then flails massively, thumping his injured hand into the wall and grimacing. “But he makes me miserable! I can’t stand him!
Why does he think this is a good way to get my attention?”
“How should I know?” Nate snaps. “Stop that, you’re going to hurt yourself. Worse than you already have, anyway.”
Special Notes: Um… Mat’s gay, but not really looking for a relationship. Also, he’s not going to know that he can’t bond, so expect him to be jumpy about meeting new people.