Alex Camille
- City Gangrel -x- Montreal -x- Paris -x- Chicago -x- San_Francisco -P- The Gangrel History of Paris
Sobriquet: Mr. Camille (strangers), Alex (for his lovers, friends and childe)
Appearance: Alex exudes and air of tragedy. He is sullen and avoids eye contact for fear that other vampires will see the compassion and regret in his eyes. His brownish hair was thinning as he approached death, and he looks thin for his build. His skin still bears sores and scars from his infection.
Behavior: Alex always avoids eye contact. He tries to hide, even from himself, the pain he has caused others. He firmly believes that the Sabbat were right in that their immortality was a blessing; for him especially, it was the road to atonement and the renaissance of his morality. Alex is now more human than he has ever been, and the Sabbat has ceased to be where he belongs. Chicago sounds nice, though he has heard great things about San Francisco and Paris too.
History: The stereotypes of a gay lifestyle are, sadly enough, often embraced by gay men. Alex came out faster than he could handle and bought in the whole mentality of gay life, including its worst misconceptions. He confused his need for stability with sexual yearning and frequented bathhouses to compensate for his emptiness. Within a year, he had contacted AIDS. Alex proceeded through the typical stages of coping with a life-threatening disease. Denial came first, and he continued his sexual activities.
Anger came next. Embittered towards a community that he believed was responsible for his affliction, Alex began sleeping with men in an effort to infect them with the virus. He did it all, sex in washrooms and saunas, quickies in alleys and porn theaters, and cruising in the streets and parks.
As the symptoms of his disease worsened, Alex hid in the comfort of his anger and resorted to S&M. Alex's partners rarely returned after their initial encounters, and his reputation attracted the attention of Sebastien. He heard of Alex through a local BBS that catered to the gay community.
After finding Alex at one of his bathhouse haunts, Sebastien spent an entire evening exploring the young man's body and psyche. Alex was, in Sebastien's opinion, prime material for his coven.
It was after Alex became Sabbat that a curious thing occurred. Spared death through the Embrace, he saw the people die whom he deliberately infected. He saw the pain he caused. While Sebastien laughed off the entire matter, Alex could not. He had regained his humanity.
Thereafter, he secretly helped the gay community by acting as its guardian angel, he watched over it, and ensured that Sebastien's pranks never got too brutal. He even took to patrolling the parks and streets. From that time onwards, he began to look for a way out of the Sabbat, although an opportunity wouldn't present itself until near the end of the twentieth century.
In 1997 the Cardinals of North America called for a renewal of Sabbat faith through the act of crusade, Sebastien was among the first to volunteer his pack, the Queens of Mercy as champions of the cause. The Queens joined together with several other packs as they prepared to besiege the wester city of Denver, said to be the resting place of a thousand year old Toreador. In Denver, the pack found plenty of action and barely escaped the Mile High city with their unlives. Although, they did return with a few newly created and proven Sabbat, Ward McGovern was among them. Ward had been Embraced by Alex at Sebastien's insistence, to prove his loyalty to the pack and cause.
No one was more surprised than Alex when Ward emerged from the creation rites first. His adjustment to unlife was smooth, too smooth, perhaps and he bore a unhealthy attachment for his sire, above and beyond the vinculum. But he struggled with Sebastien's inhuman cruelty and wasn't willing to accept any of the paths of enlightenment. Sebastien gave Ward until the pack returned to Montreal to start acting like a real Sabbat and it was then that Alex knew his time to leave the Sabbat had come. When the pack came under assault from Camarilla enforcers, Alex fled and took Ward with him.
For a time they traveled without a specific destination in mind, but eventually, they decided to try their luck in Chicago. That move didn't turn out to the taste of either Alex or Ward and within a few years they were headed westward once more. They made Los Angeles their home for several years, fitting in better among the anarch baronies than they had in Chi-town. Ultimately, L.A. was simply too violent for Alex's growing humanity and Ward, ever faithful, suggested San Francisco.
Fog City seemed to agree with them, and like a pair of vampires from Gothic literature, they settled down and built a beautiful haven and adding to their joy, they made a third vampire for their 'family'. Jessenia Cabello was a runaway, drug addict and street-rat that tried to pick Alex's pocket. After scaring her away, he followed her home and saw the desperate life that she lived and how she paid for the drugs that she couldn't live without. Over the following months, he watched her and took Ward to watch her. Finally, after months of trying to 'help' her by leaving food she wouldn't eat and antibiotics that she didn't use, he realized that he couldn't accept the inevitability of her death and Embraced her.
The city's new prince, Sara Anne Winder would likely have staked Alex and his new childe out for the sun, if she hadn't been embroiled in the midst of civil war that would ultimately compel her to join the League of the Night. Rather than kill both sire and childe, she accepted the life-long services of Ward McGovern as her faithful agent provocateur in return for sparing his sire and sibling's unlives. The power of the League ultimately drove out the anarchs and the Camarilla, but the new feudal-militaristic society proved incompatible with Alex's blossoming humanity and rather than become further involved with the new sect, Alex took Jessenia with him to Paris to start over. While he had begged Ward to come with them, his first childe refused on a matter of honor, he had after all given his word. But Alex continues to receive letters from Ward on a monthly basis and he still hopes that they will be reunited.
Recent Events: For the last few years, Alex and Jessenia have lived in the City of Lights, finding a safe and somewhat comfortable life among the European Toreador. That is until recently, when Alex spotted a pair of men in Elysium who held an uncanny resemblance to his childe Ward. Now he covertly seeks to find out who they are and why the so resemble Ward, but so far he has been hampered by a Giovanni called Germano who seems to constantly interfere in his investigation.
