Rebels & Mutineers is set in modern day New Orleans, Louisiana. R&M is fueled by player's plots and group input.
Supernatural people have always had their place in society, hidden in plain sight or locked away for their own protection. New Orleans, a haven for the strange and mysterious and a magnet for the supernatural.
Established: Oct. 27th, 2018 Recently Updated Posts && Recently Updated Threads
05.11.19
As the community reels from the untimely death of Lucia Lovelle, life has to move on. Primrose readies for the annual Prom celebration! Keep your eye out for a event board and have fun!
02.27.19
It's not too late to vote for February's OTM winners! The winners for January, keep an eye out on your messages for your winner's graphics for your signature. Already voted? Make sure you check out the Mardi Gras event board! Party up, have a good time, and enjoy!
Malcolm knew that realistically, he had no right to be in New Orleans. That realistically, he had no reason to think that he would be able to fix his relationship with Cameron. However, none of this was stopping him from standing in line at a coffee cart for two large coffees and some donuts. He had a bunch of cop jokes go through his head, but pushed them out and tried to think of what the last time he saw his brother and what it was like. It was their father's funeral, and he was pretty sure that his brother was high out of his head during that time. Malcolm took the bag of donuts and put them under his arm, holding a coffee in each hand and thanked the woman running the cart. "Thank you." He said with a tilt of his head and started towards the auto shop that he knew Cam worked at.
He might have done a background check on his brother when he got to New Orleans to figure out where he was and if he was even still alive. Malcolm knew that a big part of everything between him and Cameron was his own fault. It was him who kept away from his brother, who allowed all of the time to pass, and he just wanted to see his brother. He missed Cameron. Walking up the driveway to the shop, Malcolm saw some people walking around with various tools and standing by varying degrees of wrecked cars. Spotting the familiar mop of dark hair, he felt a squeeze in his heart.
"Cameron." He said, holding up the coffee cups. First time he had seen his brother in nearly ten years, cause he was the worst older brother in the world. He got sucked into a relationship with Penny, he focused on his job and his life, and his brother fell through the cracks. There was no amount of coffee and donuts that would be able to change that, but it was a halfway decent start.
"I got you coffee." He said lamely, holding the coffees up for his younger brother. This was going to be the start of a blow up fight, and he knew that he deserved all of it. He let Cameron down in so many ways, he deserved everything that Cameron was going to say to him, and keeping an eye on that tray of tools within grabbing and throwing distant of his brother's hands.
Post by Cameron Gallagher on Dec 10, 2018 18:39:22 GMT
Cameron had accepted the fact that he didn't have a family. In his eyes, he'd lost everyone, and Astor and Aisling were basically holding him together by threads. Every once in a while, thoughts of his brother crept into his mind. He wondered if the man thought of him-- if he ever wondered what he was up to. A small piece of him wanted Mac to come looking for him. He wanted to feel like someone hadn't disowned him. Despite this desire, seeing his brother show up to his workplace was about the last thing he wanted to deal with at the moment.
He heard his name and looked up from the ground, kneeling in front of a car. It had been about a decade, and somehow, he recognized the face immediately. The sight hit him like a bullet to his chest, taking the breath from him. He looked down quickly, attempting to hide the red that was crawling up his face. He tensed, shakily getting to his feet and looking at his brother with wide eyes.
"Malcolm?" he choked out, tears welling up as he brushed hair out of his face leaving a stain of oil across his forehead.
He slammed the wrench in his hand onto the floor beneath him, holding up a pointer finger before turning and going to talk to his manager. He told him that he was leaving, something he was able to do at that point having earned his boss's respect.
He took in a sharp breath, turning back toward his brother and walking over, feeling a thousand pounds heavier. He shook his head, walking past Malcolm and toward the end of the driveway. It wasn't until he was a decent distance away from his coworkers that he turned to face Mac again.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked, trying to stifle the pain in his voice. "You have another brother I don't know about? Because last I checked, we didn't do fucking coffee dates."
Malcolm was the worst brother in the world. He knew that without question. He got himself out of the trailer park, and he never looked back. He thought about his brother all the time. He spent hours agonizing over what Cam could be doing, where he could be. Nightmares of finding Cameron dead on one of his patrols. It was all in the back of his mind. Part of him knew that was why he never got married to Penny. He couldn't imagine officially starting his life with someone, getting married, without Cam there. When he knew that he was going to be a father, all he could think about was his younger brother.
Seeing Cam, he was exactly how he thought Cameron was going to grow up. He never would have guessed the drug and alcohol abuse. Malcolm didn't know what he looked like when he was sleepy in the morning. He didn't know what his brother was like when he was drunk, or when he was having a good time. Malcolm felt the punch to his gut as he realized that he couldn't remember what Cameron was like on any of his birthdays. He missed everything. Cam's wide eyes, the anger in his features, he deserved all of it.
Malcolm nodded when Cameron said his name and saw the tears in his brother's eyes. His own matched, unable to forgive himself that he had allowed so much time to pass between them. The oil stain across his forehead almost tugged a smile on his face. He would have to introduce Cam to some of his latest projects littering his garage.
Ten years and he could still spot his brother. Still knew that Cam was his brother no matter how he might have felt about Malcolm. Cameron walked off to go talk to someone and came back walking past time. Malcolm adjusted the donuts under his arm and the coffees in his hands.
"I'm back Cam. I moved back to New Orleans." Malcolm held out the coffee and looked at his brother. "Hate me or not, coffee is coffee." Cam could have all of his feelings about him, he had his own. He messed everything up, he didn't come back because he missed Cameron, he came back because he couldn't stay in Baton Rogue without being reminded of Penny. New Orleans had the same effect for his parents and Cameron, and there he was. Right back on the same streets and seeing the same lost Anne Rice tourists.
Post by Cameron Gallagher on Dec 10, 2018 19:54:36 GMT
Emotions overwhelmed him. He wanted to be happy that Malcolm was back, that he was practically kneeling at Cameron's feet. But he was too angry over the way he felt, over the way that Malcolm had come to interrupt his life. Cam had been doing fine. He hadn't had a choice in the matter, but he'd grown to be independent. If Mac thought he could come back to take care of Cam-- to tell him what to do-- he was in for a rude awakening.
It took all of his strength not to just keep going, leaving his brother to start his new life alone. But something made him want to hear what Malcolm had to say. He didn't want to throw away the opportunity-- he feared that if he did, he'd never see him again.
He glanced at the coffee, hesitantly taking one of the cups before taking a step back, wanting to keep enough distance between them.
"Why are you back?" he demanded, as if he wasn't supposed to have returned. He avoided eye contact, raising the cup to his lips as his hand shook. Time and needles had covered his arm with scars. "How'd you even find me?" he asked incredulously, knowing he hadn't told his grandparents about where he worked.
"What exactly was your plan-- you want to stand here on the side of the street and reminisce?" Because he sure's hell wasn't about to invite Mac to his home. Home and Mac were two separate entities and Cameron had no desire to bring them together.
Malcolm just wanted a chance. He just wanted to show his brother that he was back and he was willing to try. He just wanted a chance to try. He might be ten years too late, but he wanted to be there for Cameron. The coffee was warming his hand, but he had no desire to have it. His stomach was in too much turmoil for something as acidic as the breakfast blend in his hand. He just wanted to hear that Cameron was willing to give them a chance. To give it an opportunity for them to have the connection again as brothers.
He knew that his brother was grown. That he was a grown man with his own life and capable of making his own choices. He just really hoped that he wasn't putting that same shit in his veins. Malcolm knew that there was no good answer for why he was back. He came back for Cam, sure, but that wasn't the only reason. That lack of utter dedication to his brother was going to cause the rotting pit of shame and guilt grow in his stomach.
Malcolm shifted the donuts in the bag from under his arm to his hand and took a deep breath to brace himself for what he was going to say to Cam.
"Part of it is because Penny and I split and I couldn't stay in Baton Rogue. Bigger part of it is you. Of course." He ran his fingers through his curly hair and looked at his brother. "I've missed you Cameron." He saw he tattoos and scars, trying to squint his eyes the right way to see the same wide eyed little boy who looked at him like he could save the world one day. "Would you find it endearing that I-" he raised his coffee to his lips so he could murmur the next part and not have to look his brother in the eyes, "ran a background check on you and figured out where your w-2 was."
Probably not endearing. If he had to guess, it wouldn't be endearing. "I was planning on starting with coffee and donuts. Then maybe move on to dinner or something?" Hopefully something without knifes? Steakhouse was for sure off the menu.
"I just want to be part of your life again, Cameron." No ulterior motives. Nothing. He just wanted to be around his brother and spend time with him.
Post by Cameron Gallagher on Dec 11, 2018 17:38:59 GMT
Part of him wanted to feel bad that Malcolm and Penny had split, but he wasn't ready to show any sympathy. Not yet. He simply nodded, scoffing as Mac mentioned Cameron being another reason for coming back.
When Mac said that he'd missed Cam, though, it stopped him in his tracks. His eyes lowered and his brows furrowed. "You too." He had missed him, and he could give him that much. At the very least, he could see that his brother was being genuine, that he was trying. He was still angry but he would acknowledge the effort.
It pissed him off, but he couldn't stop the smirk from forming as Mac admitted to being a grade-A stalker. "Jesus," he said incredulously. The guy got points for perseverance, that was for sure. He wondered what Mac knew about his arrests, but it didn't really matter. He hadn't started lecturing Cameron for his life choices-- not yet, anyway. And if he wanted to keep from chasing Cam away, he'd keep it that way.
"I'm not exactly rolling in money," he pointed out, not particularly accustomed to eating out for dinner and not wanting to owe his brother anything. "But I'll take a donut," he muttered, gesturing to the bag.
"You've missed a hell of a lot," he pointed out, his tone still sharp though he was slightly warming up to the idea of talking to him. "Don't come here every day expecting me to drop everything-- I can't just leave work like this." It was okay (barely) the one time, but he didn't want the guy making a habit of it. "You live nearby?"
Malcolm didn't know what to do without his relationship with Penny. She had been through so much with him. She held his hand when his mother died, again when his father did. She cheered for him when he graduated LSU, from the academy, when he became a detective. Now she was gone and the ugliness of the last few months with her just haunted him. He just wanted to be married, have a family, and work on his relationship with his brother. All three were no longer possible, so he would settle on the biggest want in his heart, reconnecting with Cameron.
The smile pulled at the corner of his lips and he hid it with a drink of his coffee. Cameron missed him too. Cameron still looked furious, but he could see the evolution from probably shouldn't be left alone with anything sharp or blunt, to downright not scowling. It was such a jump, Malcolm could barely contain himself.
Malcolm laughed in his coffee cup and tried to avoid Cameron's judgmental gaze of his poor utilization of police resources. "You are not an easy man to find!" He tried to justify and knew that there was no coming back from telling his brother that he was a complete creep.
Yeah I live nearby, how about instead of going out for dinner, I make us something." He would offer to just pay for the dinner, but he had a feeling that it wouldn't go over with his brother. This was the most important moment of his life, and he didn't want to ruin things by messing up his shot at a real relationship with Cam.
Malcolm knew that he did miss a lot. That there was so much that happened in both of their lives. "Wouldn't do that to you." He would have good reasons to come back, and he was most certainly going to make it a habit of seeing Cameron as much as possible. "I mean, if you ever want to come by outside of dinner. I've got a 1942 Chevy I've been working on."
Post by Cameron Gallagher on Dec 13, 2018 3:16:10 GMT
"Aren't you a cop?" he asked incredulously, because tracking someone down who was not a suspect for something sounded a bit illegal. Granted Cam was often a suspect for things, but at the moment he was definitely not.
He raised an eyebrow, thinking about Mac running around a kitchen making Cam dinner. "Didn't come back to NOLA to slip the family fuck-up some arsenic?" Because it sounded like the perfect opportunity, honestly. "I'll come over," he agreed, only because he'd left work and so... what else was he going to do? His day was already ruined regardless, the emotion having planted itself in his stomach.
As much as Cameron didn't want to be interested in a 1942 Chevy, he totally was and his face betrayed him. "No way--" he started, quickly cutting himself off. He didn't want to give Malcolm the impression that he was the least bit interested. He cleared his throat. "Cool." Fuck. He was trying to be angry.
He took another sip of his coffee, looking over his brother curiously. He still needed to take it in-- his brother had aged into an actual real-world adult. "I thought we were done," he admitted. Like, he didn't expect to see the guy ever again. "I'm surprised you came looking for me." It wasn't exactly a thank you, but Mac was going to have to take what he could get.
"Where are we going?" he asked, gesturing with his hand for Malcolm to lead the way.
Malcolm grinned when his brother made a comment about him being a cop. "Detective now, actually. Sometimes we have a little free time on our hands between cases." He might have run a background check on his brother, but he just looked into the place of employment. He didn't want to read into all of it, because that was for Cameron to tell him about. He didn't want to make bad assumptions about his brother's life based on what managed to get into the police reports.
"You were a little hard to find, guessing changing fingerprints had something to do with that." Assuming that Cameron could even do the same thing that he could. They never shared it, but he hoped that the comment was casual enough to not let Cameron onto the world if he didn't know it already.
Malcolm laughed when Cameron mentioned slipping him arsenic, "I was thinking more just whatever I have tossed in a pot? I only moved in a few days ago." He admitted and felt some of the angry tension ease between them. He knew that no part of any of this would be easy, but it was what he wanted to do. It was what Cameron deserved. They were each other's only living family, and Malcolm wanted to make sure that they could be on at least non-threatening speaking terms.
"Yeah I started it a while back and took a break when the ba-" When he knew that the baby was coming. The night Penny told him he was going to be a father, he had been so excited. He jumped for joy, he kissed her, he knew that it was going to be a good life. Then he told her the truth about himself. She was confused at first, then hurt. After a few days, when he tried to show her that he was going to be a good father in spite of what he was, she told him what she had done. Malcolm supported rights to chose, but it still felt like a shot to his heart.
"I haven't messed with it in a while, figured me and you could take a look."
Malcolm knew that he had fucked up letting so much time go. He missed his parents, he leaned on Penny, he worked towards his career. It broke him to admit that he allowed Cameron to just slip through his fingers. "I'm sorry about that, Cameron. I never should have let so much time go by."
The elder Gallagher started to walked down the street, showing his brother the way to his home. It was still being unpacked, but his car was in the garage, his tools nearly organized, and the basics for life. "I checked in with grandma and grampa, then they told me you ran. I tried to find you, but you're good at staying hidden." He tossed the empty bag of donuts into the garbage and took a sip of his coffee, "I should have tried harder, and I'm so sorry."
Post by Cameron Gallagher on Dec 18, 2018 17:03:26 GMT
The comment about the fingerprints caught Cameron off-guard. He couldn't help but wonder if Mac meant it in the way that Cam took it. He opened his mouth to speak, hesitantly closing it again as he collected his thoughts. "Why would say that?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. He knew he was walking on eggshells, not wanting to make a big deal out of it if he was wrong, but something told him that he wasn't. "I'm pretty good at it-- changing my fingerprints," he admitted, looking down at his hands and smirking.
"And you're living alone?" he asked, because he wasn't in the mood to make small talk with some stranger roommate Mac had met on Craig's List.
Of course, Cameron noticed Malcolm's cut off comment. "Were you going to say baby? Seriously?" That was a big deal. Suddenly Cam realized how little he knew about his brother... and how much he actually wanted to know. "But that didn't end well," he assumed. I mean, here he was, standing in front of Cam with no partner and no baby. Cam probably could have approached the subject with more tact... but that wasn't Cam.
"You trying to get it running or what?" he asked, unable to mask his curiosity for the vehicle in his brother's garage.
When the conversation took another turn, Cam became a bit defensive. He hadn't run off planning to explain himself. He'd run off because he was sick of explaining the motive behind everything that he did. "Yea, and they probably told you all about what a fucking screw-up I am, right?" he muttered, shaking his head at the thought of his grandparents going off after he'd left. He looked around the outside of the guy's house, looking for any excuse to keep from looking him in the eyes.
"I didn't want you to try." That was the point-- he'd put in the effort of staying hidden for a reason.
Malcolm shrugged a little when Cameron asked him why he would say something like that, "I mean, sometimes people can do some pretty amazing things. I think a lot of them are here in New Orleans." He said causally, they had lived there for so long, but being back was amazing. When Cameron admitted to being good at changing his fingerprints, Malcolm knew that they were both skinwalkers, "Me too, must run in the family."
Malcolm nodded when Cameron asked if he lived alone. It was a little lonely, but after so many years of living with Penny, he didn't want to get a roommate.
Malcolm nodded when Cameron asked about the baby, "Uh yeah, but don't worry you're not going to be an uncle any time soon. Penny found out about my changing fingerprints and decided that she didn't want to have a kid who could possibly do that." He explained, looking ahead at the sidewalk, "It's what broke us up."
He grinned at his brothers interest in his car and nodded, "Yeah I'm working on getting it running, and then I just gotta find a body shop to get it looking as gorgeous as I want it to."
He turned into his house and walked up the steps as Cameron became defensive, "They started to and I hung up on them. I didn't want to hear what they had to say cause I figured you would tell me about it when you were ready." He unlocked the door and motioned for Cameron to be able to go in first, "Even when I did that background check, it was just for your place of employment. I figured whatever was in there was something you would have reasons for or would explain on your own terms."
The house was still in a lot of boxes, but he had a couch, a tv, his kitchen table set up. His garage was exactly how he wanted it, because he had priorities.
Post by Cameron Gallagher on Dec 20, 2018 4:16:22 GMT
It must run in the family. Cameron scoffed. "Mac, it does," he pointed out, shaking his head. To confirm, he held up a hand and very gradually changed his skin tone to a darker shade. He'd never even thought about it being hereditary... because he hadn't exactly had a lot of time to talk to his parents about it. Now he wondered what other relatives of theirs had been born with the ability. He frowned, glancing toward the ground. "Dude, I was so scared when I found out." It would have been nice to have someone to talk to, but he didn't know who to reach out to. He'd had no idea what was happenign to him. It had been hard.
He actually got pretty upset hearing about why Penny had left. It made him angry. Not just for Malcolm, though he was feeling for his brother quite a bit, but also for himself. Since finding out about the ability, Cameron had spent most of his time around people who knew what skinwalkers were. What would happen when he met new people now... new normal people? Howwould he get close to someone without telling them? Was there even an appropriate time to share that? Probably not, but then... keeping it from someone important wasn't good either.
"Fuck her," he said, for the first time in a decade openly taking his brother's side. "It shouldn't matter." And anyone who couldn't handle the reality of what they were... Mac could do better.
He found his fists clenching as he walked through the doorway. "I have nothing to tell you," he snapped. It wasn't true, of course, but Cam had no intentions of "coming around" to telling Malcolm what he'd been up to... how he'd been living. "You'll make friends with the police department. They'll tell you plenty. You can laugh with them about that lowlife druggie, Cam Gallagher on your lunch breaks."
He looked around at the abundance of boxes because it was easier than looking his brother in the eyes. "I mean... what do you expect me to tell you? Did you see something you didn't like?" Because it seemed like he already had something in mind that he needed an explanation for. "Or do I just look the part?" Maybe Mac hadn't actually seen anything.
Malcolm couldn't believe when Cameron admitted that he was able to do similar things. His brother was a skinwalker too. Watching Cameron change his skin to a slightly darker shade, he mimicked his brother and did the same to his hands. The slightly dark pigment flowed from his fingertips and stopped at his wrist. "When did you find out?" Malcolm asked, changing his hands back and shoved them into his pockets.
It wasn't because he was abusive, or harsh, or worked too much, or too little, it was because of who he was deep down and fundamentally as a person. He was a skinwalker. Nothing could change that and he was going to be that until the day he died. His child could be a skinwalker, could also not gain the ability, all that mattered was that whoever he was going to fall in love with next, if there was going to be someone else, he would want to make sure that he was with someone who knew what his ability was and accepted it.
"Yeah." He said with a sigh, he didn't want to admit that he was mad at Penny, but he was. "It mattered so much to her, I begged her to reconsider, to give me a chance, and she didn't want anything to do with me. Visit to Planned Parenthood later, and we had nothing keeping us tied to each other anymore."
Malcolm looked over his mail, tossing it on the table and was a little taken aback when his brother said that there was nothing to tell him, and that the police officers he would work with would tell him plenty about Cam. "If you think I'll let anyone refer to you as a low-life druggie in front of me, you are sorely mistaken, Cameron. Give me a little credit, you're my family."
Malcolm looked at Cameron and tossed his keys on the side table, "Cause I knew you were getting fucked up before I even left here. You were high at dad's funeral, and I can only imagine what else you've gotten into. I don't know anything about what you've been into since I saw you at Dad's funeral. I told you, I just looked at your w-2 to figure out where you worked." Like that made it better.
Post by Cameron Gallagher on Dec 28, 2018 22:44:18 GMT
trigger warning: mention of parental death and drug abuse
Cameron stared at Malcolm's hand as if the idea of changing his appearance was entirely new. He'd done it so many times himself but seeing it on his brother made it all too weird. "Pretty soon after Dad died," he admitted, feeling the words hit him in the stomach as he spoke them. It had been a long time since he'd allowed himself to acknowledge it and now he remembered why he'd held off for so long. It hurt. He could feel the color draining from his face. "I looked in a mirror and saw Mom. I thought I was fucking crazy," he said, tears rolling down his cheeks as he finally lost his composure. He still thought he was crazy sometimes.
"I'm sorry. That's... that's such shit." He didn't even know Penny and it shocked him. Despite his feelings about Mac, he knew that the guy was the epitome of the perfect husband and father. For anyone to give that up for something that was virtually risk-free... Cam would never understand it. Mac was careful and responsible and moral. He'd never use the ability to get himself into any trouble, not intentionally. Penny had to have know that, if she knew anything about him. Apparently, it just didn't matter. They weren't human. So why treat them like they were?
"Give me a little credit, Cameron, you're my family." "You don't get to pick and choose when that's true," he said, his eyes cold and narrowed. After Mac had left Cam for so long, Cam didn't think it was that unreasonable for him not to expect Malcolm to defend him.
"Yea, okay? I was high," he yelled, remembering the funeral like he'd attended it earlier that morning. He hadn't been high enough to wash the pain away. His voice lowered again after the outburst. He didn't want to be angry-- he was sick of feeling angry. "I couldn't deal with it anymore, and some guy I used to work with said that heroin would make me feel good," he admitted, mentally preparing himself for the judgment. "And he was right. It did."
He couldn’t believe that he never thought that there was a genetic connection between his skinwalker ability and his brother. He never thought that he could have that additional connection with his brother, and he never thought that maybe Cameron was as scared and confused about it as he was. “I was in college when it happened for the first time. Got the flu, but like times a million. I thought I was going to die. I looked in a mirror, and I saw mom too.” He remembered being so scared that he had lost his shit, until his roommate found him and explained what happened to him. His roommate had been a shapeshifter, and told him everything he needed to know.
Malcolm knew that it was shit, but he didn’t want to admit it. He didn’t want to get angry about all of it, because getting angry meant that it was real. That she really did leave him because of who he was. That she really got their baby scraped out of her and vaccumed out because of him. “It is shit, but no matter what I say or, how hard I work, or how angry I get, it won’t change the fact that I should be celebrating my child’s birth soon, and instead he’s a pile of cells in a Planned Parenthood dumpster right now.” He snapped, knowing that there was no changing what happened.
“Neither do you, Cam.” He snapped back, Cam wanted to sit and pretend like Malcolm abandoned him, that might be true, but he could have tried. It wasn’t like he vanished off the face of the planet. He tried. He tried so much that it hurt and he checked in with the grandparents that Cam ran away from. “You weren’t the only one who loved them, Cameron.”
Malcolm knew that he had been high, he wasn’t stupid. He had seen the track marks, he had seen the glassy look in his eyes, “Shooting that shit into your arms, it won’t make them come back. It won’t fix things to how they were before she died, Cameron.” He said, sitting on his couch and looked at his brother. He just wanted to know that his brother had been alive and that they could try to make things better between the two of them.
He knew that they would never been good, just better.