Howard

Post-WW2 Noir fiction set in late-1947. World War Two has only ended two years ago, and already celebrations of Allied victory have faded into signs that, despite the horrors of two World Wars in less than half a century, humanity is eager to pursue a return to the norm. Veterans and affected non-combatants line society, the functional and the broken. Even as war criminal trials are held, a silent moral panic washes worldwide in the wake of a 'realpolitik' where many more of these monsters who were in charge of or participated directly in such suffering are expected to be accepted back into society.

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Full Name

Howard Rathe-Wreins, Fourth Earl of Solihull

Appearance

Howard Rathe-Wreins looks like a ghost of a greater man, worn down over a frame that suggests he was once stronger and larger. Standing at a fairly average 177cm, with a weight of only 55kg, he's somewhat gaunt. Evidence of extended malnourishment is clear across his frame, like his collarbone and shoulder bones being protruded. His arms and legs are lean and wiry, toned by hard labour. He still looks fairly young for his late twenties as a result of his naturally fair skin and smooth complexion. His back and shoulders are covered with subtle bumps made of hard cartilage from being whipped bloody with bamboo. His hands and fingers are thin and lanky, rough to the touch and pocked with lines from poorly healed cuts. Howard's naturally handsome face is worn from time and torture as well; his cheeks are sunken and gaunt, his eyelashes short and delicate, his eyes are defined by a tired and low set appearance, and his expression permanently detached. A ragged scar that runs along his left temple, normally hidden by his natural hair growth around it. His hazel eyes are dominated by a gentle brown, with a thin blue outer ring around them. His hair is a deep brown, naturally oily, and kept into a fairly regular undercut with a shaggy top. He has a column of thin but long body hair extending from his chest to and across his stomach. His ass is small, boney, and firm. His thighs are slim and wiry, more muscle and bone than anything close to soft. Hard bumps of embedded shrapnel that his muscles healed around can be felt on his left thigh. His penis is thick and girthy, with a bulbous head and a gentle leftward curve. His scrotum is low hanging, with weighty testicles and thin pubic hairs. His pubic hair is left natural, a wiry bush of deep brown around his cock and scrotum. His fashion style is deeply entwined with his time in Burma and British India, adopting a mix of 'London Cut' drape suits and military style, often teaming suit coats, buttoned casual shirts, jungle green military uniform trousers, and green canvas US Army M-1942 Jungle Boots with black rubber soles shined.

Occupation

While not traditionally employed, Howard lives off his military pension and substantial family wealth through business holdings and farmland holdings.

Backstory

Born to a low aristocratic family outside Birmingham in 1914, Howard drifted between two worlds from the start; his aristocratic home life, filled with estates and tales of wars, and the industrial hell of early 1900s Birmingham. His father died when Howard was a child, leaving Howard as the fourth Earl of Solihull. He excelled in school, well liked by his peers, who knew him as easy-going and intelligent, but also for a stubborn dislike of authority and an obsession with revenge. Driven by a desire to see more, he would enter the Birmingham University Officers' Training Corps and come out a second lieutenant. In 1937, he secured a transfer to fill a need for British officers in the Burma Rifles. His familiarity with adapting to different cultures allowed him to excel once in Burma, being able to quickly pick up on the different languages and cultures around him. When the Japanese invaded Burma in 1941, the now lieutenant found himself entirely outmatched against the veteran Japanese soldiers who were masterful at moving across the dense jungle, moving heavy mortars to blow apart defensive positions, then moving in at night to encircle and envelop them. A series of desperate retreats would leave him abandoned and left to the Japanese when the bridge across the river Sittang was blown behind his platoon. For three days, he tried to organize the building of rafts to get the wounded across the Sittang. Their lines were blown apart in the day and by night assaulted at close range, often in hand-to-hand engagements. On the third day, Howard was blown unconscious by a mortar bomb. When he came to, it was to the sound of screams. With his vision blurred, he felt sick, and had a horrid headache, slowly realizing he had become blind in his left eye. With just one eye now, he witnessed Japanese brutality in person for the first time, watching a wounded Corporal having his testicles cut off before being beheaded. Howard and those able to walk were loaded onto trucks and sent into Thailand, where the POWs were forced into slave labor in the construction of a series of railway bridges high in the mountains. Malaria, cholera and dysentery swept in seasonal plagues through the labor camp. Those who would work could die at any time, from sickness, starvation, the whim of an angry guard, or a sudden collapse of bridges they were forced to build. Those who wouldn't or had become too sick to work were strung up on logs and crucified for use in bayonet practice by the Japanese camp guards. When the bridges were done, he and his group were moved to another work camp to begin an airfield, where he remained until 1945, when the camp was liberated by Australian forces. Discharge and release back to civilian life was nothing but a blur to him. He struggled to integrate both with British society and the weather. In the end, he bought an Enfield No.2 Mk.I top-break cylinder revolver and rapidly made his way back to South East Asia and began staying on ships and in hotels. Revenge finally came one night, when Howard overheard that an ex-Kempeitai senior officer and wife were staying in a hotel nearby. In a fit of focused rage, he followed them from the bar to a quiet beach, where, using his revolver, he shot the woman at point-blank in the back of the head, then the ex-officer in the face. Since then, he's felt unable to return home, and began drifting without a plan; from Java, Sumatra, Singapore, Borneo, and Burma.

Relationships

• The Rathe-Wreins Family: He keeps his family in the dark as to his actions, exchanging letters regularly with his mother and sometimes his younger sister in which he lies and claims to be doing humanitarian aid.
• Random associates and NPCs: He gets along with others remarkably well and able to maitain a facade of being a rich expatriate easily. He comes off easily as kind-hearted and polite, a behavior trained as a member of the English aristocracy. In actual fact, he often carefully accesses people as if a potential threat.

Personality

• Traits: Vindictive, Vengeful, Single-Minded, Stubborn, Nihilistic, Passionate, Diligent, Affable, Ambitious, Insecure.
• Likes: His drink of preference is whiskey and coconut milk, with a piece of burnt cinnamon dropped in the glass. He loves the deep earthy tones of unfiltered cigarettes and hashish. He's a fan of bebop, and considers Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and especially Thelonious Monk to be gods of jazz. He enjoys people who don't ask too many questions and simply enjoy their time. He enjoys quiet tasks he can focus on and empty his mind.
• Dislikes: He doesn't like answering questions about himself, and tries to deflect. He is bothered by the fact he lies to his family, and particularly that he is missing out seeing his younger sister grow. He can't stand to see someone shook down or taken advantage of.
• Fears: He may accidently tell someone about the double murder he commited, a secret he's determined to keep no matter what.
• Hobbies: He comes alive at night; crawling from bar to bar, hanging around smoking pipes in hashish and opium dens, sitting on empty beaches and enjoying the sound of the tide at night. He is fond of doing complete tear downs of his Enfield No.2 Mk.I top-break cylinder revolver, and ensuring even the revolver lockwork is in good condition.

Behavior and Habits

• Survivor's Guilt weighs heavily on Howard, twisted by his personality and his silent rage. On occasion he feels guilty when he is happy, shamed for surviving when so many others died around him, and upset ofr being so powerless.
• He became deeply anti-materialist as a result of his time in captivity, having to trade away things he treasured many times to survive, or abandon belongings to lighten his load in order to survive long foot marches.
• PTSD and combat stress reactions weigh heavily on Howard. He exhibits periods of long sleep followed by manic episodes where he stays awake for days at a time. His hands tremor unconciousely at loud crashes or bangs. His thoughts can turn grim and nihilistic easily, his opinions disjointed and disconnected. At times he stuggles with phantom pains behind his blind eye, erupting in waves of nausua and lack of balance. He refuses to eat rice for the memories it brings. He insists on remaining armed and carries his revolver and sixty rounds of .380" Revolver Mk II in cartridge boxes on him at all times outside of his room.
• His body language is careful, almost anxious. He stands at alert out of habit, as if he might have to take off into a trench at any time. He prefers to stay against the wall in room, and is anxious when someone stands behind him.
• He's deeply ashamed to express his needs, and refuses to on principle to be a bother to others or ask for help. He breaks in silence, hiding himself from others in the small moments when he can't handle how heavy his heart is, and the weight of his memories.

Sexual Preferences

Howard prefers his sex rough, casual, and easy to handle. He doesn't get intimate during sex, but handles sex more as a perfunctory event. He values and focuses on getting his partner off, and prefers not to be the focus during sex.

Sexual Behavior and Habits

• He is uncomfortable being emotionally connected during sex, and if pressed or forced, it becomes hard for him to conceal his inner anger. He becomes significantly rougher and brutal as his rage bleeds into his sex.
• He's deeply possessive sexually, even if he refuses to be emotionally connected during the act. He refuses to engage in sex with multiple men or anything close to an orgy, and even wavers at the idea of multiple women. Sights and suggestions of either remind him of the gang-rapes he heard and witnessed Japanese soldiers and officers commit on locals and their Korean sex slaves. Prostitutes make him equally uncomfortable, but more conflicted.

Speech

• Style: He has a brassy medium Baritone voice with a rough timbre.
• Languages: English, Nepali, Hindi, Urdu, Burmese, Malay.
• Mannerisms: He prefers to be direct and economic with his words. He doesn't explain unless pressed, and only says what he feels is important enough to be said. He speaks in poetic and often indirect way.