Zimmerman, Sean

[Sean Zimmerman]

Sean Zimmerman
Phasing

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General »

Nickname: Shay (only his family)
Gender: Male
Age: Twenty
Student/Professor: Student
Subject: n/a
Birth-date: September 23, 1992
Birthplace: Baltimore, Maryland
Sexuality: Straight
Face Claim: Gaspard Ulliel

Appearance »

Eye color: Blue
Hair color: Dark brown
Height: 5"11
Build: Toned muscle makes him slender
Scars: Several on his hands and knees and one along his side from when he got into a fight. Several more are on his legs and arms from phasing accidents.
Tattoos: A scar on his left shoulder is all that is left of his tattoo.
Piercings: None.

Personality »

Likes:

• Being in control
  
• Keeping his family safe
  
• Skipping rocks across water
  
• Skateboarding (but he doesn't admit to it anymore)
  
• Baseball (memory of the batting cages)
  
• Scary movies
  
• Dating (casually)
  
• Goofing off with his brother and sister
  
• Science
  

Dislikes:

• Sleeping late
  
• Losing control
  
• His parents
  
• Being alone
  
• Drugs/Alcohol
  
• Sour candy
  
• Always being the responsible one
  
• Liars
  
• Small spaces
  
• Illogical people
  
• Feeling guilty
  

Fears:

• Losing everyone like he lost Paige
  
• Failing his family
  
• Phasing and then getting stuck in a wall
  
• Going back to Maryland
  
• Never having a life outside of his family
  
• Getting close to someone else and having to worry about another person
  

Brief Summary:

Sean focuses his life on schedules and facts. Growing up in Baltimore with five siblings and two over busy parents, he always felt that taking care of the family was up to him. After all, Grandma Gabby wasn't going to do it. Every morning he wakes up at six a.m. and makes breakfast, like he has done since he was young. Then he exercises like he always has, by finding a batting cage and hitting a few baseballs, and even running around the diamond. It's a matter of control. If he doesn't have his schedule, Sean feels as though his whole life will fall apart. Then again, he believes it already has. The day his little sister Paige died was the day that Sean changed from the caring older brother, to the overbearing older brother. Now it's not a job to take care of his siblings, it's his entire mission in life. If he lets up for one second, they'll die, or that's what he believes.

He hates the sheer amount of responsibility that he forces on himself, but he can't give up the control and the pressure that he has dealt with his whole life. Completely focused and driven, Sean is set on making a better life for both him and the rest of his family. Dominic and Hailey won't live in Baltimore forever. Still, Silas Academy is his saving grace, a place where he feels Kato, Hannah, and he can change for the better. He desperately wants to find someone to share the responsibility with, but he can't bear the thought of trusting someone that much. Living in a city taught him one thing, if you want something done you do it yourself. That, and trust no one. He struggles to trust even his family and sometimes allows his distrust to drive a wedge in all his relationships, often leading to resentment.

Often times, Sean is the moral compass. He got out of Baltimore with only a few scars in comparison to the rest of his family. The crime and partying in the city make him sick and he can't stand that his siblings went down that path, but when they're ready to listen, and even when they're not, Sean is all too willing to offer his advice in the situation.

Despite everything, Sean cares deeply for his family and his few friends. He's a happy guy with an easy smile, but he takes jokes more seriously than they're meant and often misses the point of sarcasm. His logical mind is more literal than certain humor will allow. While the miscommunication happens fairly often, he can still take a joke and often finds it necessary to laugh at himself. He knows that the way he and his siblings grew up probably screwed them up for life, and that he failed his brothers and sisters, but he's ready to give it his all to make it better, to the point of changing himself into the perfect role model, or as close as he can get. It's about being an example, even if it means not doing what he loves, or having a real relationship.

Power Description »

Sean's ability to phase allows him to render himself almost completely translucent as he shifts the density of his body to a density lower than the object he's trying to phase through. He has known about his ability for so long that he's able to shift to a lower density at a seconds notice. However, the strain of using his power only allows him to shift for twenty seconds at a time. Any longer and he'll phase out still inside the object, a painful experience that has left quite a few scars. While phasing he has to be careful to maintain the right body density, or he might slip through the floor when he's just trying to walk through the wall.

History »

With parents that were never around, Sean Zimmerman was the self proclaimed man of the house. Although the boy had never felt a particular desire to be the leader and call the shots, he felt like the only one with the weight of the world on his shoulders. The oldest of six children, Sean was used to responsibility, and being the only one who was willing to accept both the credit and the blame. As his siblings grew older, he felt the overbearing need to do what his parents were never around to do, actually be a parent. Although the sentiment was often rejected by his brothers and sisters, he was adamant that they needed guidance and that he was going to have to be the one to give it. With no more experience than a child has, he set out to do what should have never been his job.

At an early age Sean learned that hot meals on the table were rare and that fast food wasn't as appetizing by the tenth time in a row. Setting his alarm on vibrate, and sleeping with it in his fist, he'd sleep restlessly until the buzzing would wake him at six in the morning, dragging himself out of bed to make a hearty breakfast for his family. He'd watch them eat with a satisfied smile on his face, sure that he was making a difference in their lives. After all, what would they do without him?

Still, it seemed like his world was determined to fall apart. The first time he sunk through a floor sent him into a spiral of depression that nearly made him lose focus of his job: taking care of his siblings. Recovering from the shocking experience of discovering his phasing ability, he found a joint in one of the rooms of the house. Somewhere during his own crisis, his siblings had slipped down the wrong path, and he had been left, uselessly calling after them, with words falling on deaf ears. Livid, he approached his brothers and sisters, but they all denied any wrong doing. Storming out of the house, Sean grabbed his skateboard and went down to the local park. Skateboarding always helped burn off steam, but as he was flipping over a ramp, he caught sight of money passing hands and a package being slipped discreetly into another pocket. Startled, he fell, crashing down on the unforgiving stone, scratching up his knees and giving him a dark bruise along his cheek. What if his brother followed him here, what if his sister did? This must be where they were getting their drugs… It must be…

Now armed with the knowledge of who he assumed was their supplier, he confronted the man. After being thoroughly laughed at and mocked, he was picked up and hauled back to a service room a block down the road. The man threw him inside and locked the door with another slight laugh, saying that he'd be found sooner or later. Shivering from the dropping temperature, he tried to use his phasing to get out, but as he began to slide through the steel door, his ability flickered out and immediately a gash sliced through the side of his arm as he barely managed to slip back out. The walk home was freezing cold, and the blood running along his arm made his vision blur as his body threatened to black out. Finally though, he stumbled back into the house, limbs quaking as he collapsed onto his bed after bandaging and cleaning up his arm. One decision made sleep easier that night; he was never going to skateboard again. If his siblings had gotten into drugs because of him, then he was going to find a way to prevent them from ever having an excuse for being there.

As time passed Sean's stress over his siblings continued to grow. There was always another problem. Sean resented his oblivious parents, who never cared enough to see what was going on with their kids. Kato and Hannah were becoming the problem children, and even little Paige was succumbing to their influences. Paige, who was so sweet and innocent. Paige who smiled with that rare sincerity that made Sean desperate to keep her safe. He just wanted one of his brothers, one of his sisters who he could truly protect, and even she was slipping away. Hailey though, was his saving grace. She didn't need protection, and she'd told him so on numerous occasions, and she was the only one he believed.

With no skateboarding to help him through his stress, he struggled through school and all the teachers began to worry. He was always the bright and inquisitive student with a logical mind, and now he was slipping. It was the high school baseball coach that saw a unique talent, guiding him towards what he really needed, to be a part of a team. He quickly showed an aptitude for the sport, and finally, he felt like he had something that was his, and that couldn't be tainted by any screwed up thing that was happening in his life.

He was wrong. Having been held back a year in high school because of failing a year due to his family induced stress, he was a senior in high school when his younger brother, Kato, was arrested for attempting to rob a convenience store. His world began to crumble beneath him. It had always been the small things that had kept Kato in trouble, and Sean had always figured that eventually Kato would become the man he was meant to be. At seventeen years old, his little brother was in juvie, and it was all his fault. Sean hadn't done enough to protect him and he hadn't done enough to keep him from continuing to make stupid decisions. It wasn't enough that he'd failed Kato though, Hannah was also becoming darker by the day. At school he was in more than one fight because he was trying to defend her honor. But he couldn't defend something when she was giving it away…

Two of the five. He'd failed two of the five… Now the only three that were left were Hailey, Paige and Dominic. Dominic… He knew that his little brother was getting into some minor drug problems, but with Hannah around, Sean was at a loss as to what to do. He was drowning in his own lofty expectations, being crushed by bitter disappointment after bitter disappointment. It was just Hailey and Paige left, and still through it all his parents were always too bitter. Sean was nineteen now though, and he was sick and tired of putting up with them. He wanted to move out, graduate high school and move far away. Maybe he would go to college, become a scientist or a doctor… He wanted to help people, when all his life he'd failed to do just that for the ones he loved the most.

There was one day though, that changed everything. He woke up, feeling the phone buzz soundlessly in his hand. Blearily, he rubbed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair, flipping open his phone to shut off the alarm. Realizing it was only 3 am shocked him awake as the name of the caller flashed across the screen: Hannah. He answered the phone in confusion and immediately terror struck his heart as his sister's frantic voice was sobbing on the other end of the line. There was no rational thought, all he knew is that it took him ten minutes, speeding all the way, to arrive at the rave where his sisters were. Hannah and Paige. He burst into the party, shoving past partiers who were in his way. He didn't care. All that mattered were the two girls lost and alone in a party with drugs, alcohol and drunken idiots. He searched the house top to bottom and finally found them. He found them too late. Hannah was a mess from the party, but it was little Paige, fifteen years old and lying so still on the ground… Paige… Wake up, please. She never did, and he watched, nineteen years old and hollow eyed as his little sister was taken away by the ambulance, with his arm around Hannah, who had been there. Hannah...

Something was shattered and broken inside of Sean from that day on. Every moment he is away from his remaining family, he worries uncontrollably. What are they doing? Where are they? Are they going to get hurt? He has failed them all so many times. But worse, he failed in a way that can never be fixed. So he cleaned up his act and became the model citizen, the role model they can all look up to. He is mister proper, mister polite, mister perfect, mister so fake that he can barely look at himself in the mirror. Despite how much he hates liars, people who he can't trust, he has become exactly that. He says it's for his family, to show them what they should try and become, but somehow, there is an unsettling part of him that just isn't comfortable being himself anymore. What if he screws up again, what if because of something he does, he loses someone else he loves? So he doesn't get close and he tries not to care for anyone else too deeply. He doesn't want another person to protect, another person to lose sleep over…

Thankfully, Silas Academy stepped in and took on the role of big brother, or so much as Sean would let it. If he could keep his super powered siblings in school and in one place where he could watch them, maybe he could find a way to turn their life around. Sean is terrified that his identity is so wrapped up in being the big brother that he'll never be his own man, but he isn't so sure what being a man looks like. Is it working two jobs to feed the family you never see? With his only role model being an absent father, and more than ever determined to never be that way, Sean makes sure he's always there, perhaps more than anyone really wants. He is the tag-a-long that can't catch a hint and the very unwanted and unasked for chaperone.

OOC »

OOC Name: Timestone
Contact(s): pm me!
How did you find us? Magic : o

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