Aaron

Aaron is a historian specialized in contemporary history ~~and musical theatre~~. He was present during the pilk experimentation and believes that **'pilk' should not be included in history books**, as it's something that no one should remember. He tends to be stubborn and grumpy most of the time. He works alongside Xandy, his ~~lover~~ bestie, to eliminate all traces of pilk from history.

Aaron's playlist.

## **Appereance**

##### General

Basil is a young Argentinian man with short brown hair and a white streak on the longer part of it. His height is slightly lower than average. After the Sword Fight with Finch, he presents a scar across his face, although part of it is covered by his mask.

##### Outfit

Aaron wears a black mask that covers the lower part of his face and his neck. No one is really sure how he looks under it. He also wears goggles with two different lenses on the right eye (even when his sight is almost equally bad in both eyes). He wears a waistcoat, an oversized dark coat with a large collar and a half-cape that hangs from his right shoulder. He uses dark fingerless gloves and a belt where he carries a dagger, a gun and a bag. He wears a watch on his left arm, but there's another one under his coat and one in each back of the hand part of the gloves. He also has basil plants on the shoulders of his coat. He carries a bag full of different papers, most of them being about history.

## **Backstory**

##### Life in South America

Aarón R. Basilio was born and raised in Mendoza, Argentina, alongside his twin Alexander. From a young age, he got used to the repression and censorship of the usual coups, although this didn’t stop his love for arts. As he got older, sciences like astronomy and biology caught his attention, some rumors even say he had started working on something called “*Proyecto Invisible”*, but there are no records of it. However, some years later his interests would suddenly change to humanistics, with a high interest in history. His parents were concerned that he’d be targeted by the imminent next dictatorship, but surprisingly enough, for the next years of their life they were not met with any.

##### Brothers and Best Friends

His relationship with his family was mixed. He didn’t exactly get along with his parents, but he loved his brother dearly. They got similar haircuts on purpose to confuse everyone around them, even pretending to be each other sometimes. Only people close to them or who paid attention to detail could tell them apart. They spent most of their time together, pranking their neighbors, playing dumb games together, joking about something called “the herbmind”, talking about the new gossip they heard and getting in trouble. They got each other’s back, and no one would be able to change that.

As the problem kids they were, one night they decided to steal something from a rich person living nearby. The mission was highly planned with terrible hand-made maps and a sign communication system in case they needed to be silent. For them, it was just another game, and they succeeded, although they didn’t steal anything valuable. Instead of stealing money or jewels, they stole a fancy-looking journal that came with a pen. Aarón gifted the journal to Alexander, and Alexander gifted him the pen. Little did they know these simple gifts would become an important possession for them both.

##### Early Years

While he was still in highschool, Basilio grew very fond of the theater, especially musical theater. He started taking classes out of his usual school schedule, quickly noticing he was really passionate about it. Although his parents didn’t support the life-style he was aiming for, he knew he could always rely on his brother.

However, when the time came to decide for a career at college, he found himself in a mess. His parents wanted him to study sciences “for him to be safe” and “to actually win money”. He argued with them for a long time, he wanted to study dramatic arts, but the arguing alone wasn’t enough to convince his parents. During that time he was a ticking bomb full of anger, messing with his performance at the theater and driving his friends away. This problem would become something rather common later in his life. After a while of senseless arguments, he’d finally decide to study his other passion; history. His parents were still not happy about it, but that was his final decision.

Aaron studied history in the public National Cuyo University, where he remembered why he loved it so much. He was almost as passionate about history as he was about theater, making the anger almost fade away. While studying his career, it was obligatory to take English classes, which he did but didn’t pay any attention to, passing with the bare minimum and with the help of Alexander, who had studied English and had a good grasp on it. In his last years of college, he developed a big admiration for his contemporary history professor, who ended up becoming more of a father figure than his own parents.

##### ***Golpe de Estado***

During the seemingly “calm” 3 years clean of coups, the tension in the country continued to grow. Everyone was expecting the next one, everyone knew it would happen eventually. After all, the militia still had some control over censorship and disappearances. With the growing poverty and danger, Alex and Basilio decided to collect money to leave the country as soon as possible. Their first idea was to move to Chile, but the country was already under a dictatorship. The escape became complicated due to the *"Operación Condor"*, as many countries of South America were under dictatorships as well. Both he and his twin came to the conclusion that they’d have to move to a completely different continent, where Alex’s knowledge of English would be really useful.

The coup happened, and to no one’s surprise, it was successful. Luckily, Aarón graduated months before the militia closed the “Faculty of Philosophy and Letters” in 1974, and his brother graduated around the same time from law school. Alex started to work as a lawyer, ignoring the power of the militia and defending people they didn’t like. Aarón tried to warn him about this, for he had seen friends and colleagues disappear to never be seen again. Alexander didn’t listen to him, and they got into an argument, not knowing it would be the last one.

Not too long after, Alexander was leaving the court from a recent trial being followed by his brother when he got shot by someone. Alex stumbled on his feet before he was shot once again, this time in the head. After the initial shock, Basilio quickly kneeled on his side, trying to stop the bleeding or do anything possible to save his brother, but it was too late. He broke down in tears as he held the body of his dear brother close. When he looked up, he saw face to face the man who had shot Alexander. He had broad shoulders, white short hair and he was wearing the uniform of the military. They maintained eye contact for a moment before Aarón closed his eyes tightly and waited for him to shoot him as well. But it never happened. When he opened his eyes, the man was gone.

Basilio rushed back home out of panic and desperation to communicate the news to their family. He was having a panic attack, and his parents didn’t help with it, blaming the death of his brother on him and only making it worse. They knew the military would come after them now because of their closeness, and in their eyes, all of that was Aarón's fault.

##### The Escape

Aarón got the ticket to *(insert country where the pilk war takes place),* possibly never to return. No one knew he was leaving but his parents and the history professor he admired. He had to travel to Buenos Aires, where he got aboard, and as the ship sailed away, he looked for the last time to the land that raised him and yet took everything away from him.

During the trip, he refused to talk to anyone unless it was necessary. Some streaks of his hair started to become white out of stress. He’d look at himself in the mirror and immediately see his brother in his reflection. It broke him down every time he saw it. He resorted to using a mask to cover the inferior part of his face, and he cut his hair short to make it as different as he could from the previous one. He was almost unrecognizable, and that was probably for the best.

##### A Strange Foreigner

Once the ship arrived, he was warned by the sailors of the ship about “mad science” and being extremely careful with the people he met, even advising him to go back to Argentina. He ignored them, assuming they were just horror stories to scare children that were lucky enough to become popular amongst adults. When he got out of the ship, he quickly noticed his mistake. With his poor knowledge of English, he could barely make his way in the new city. It is yet unclear how he managed to make a living for the first few weeks.

With his broken conversations, he noticed how people seemed to struggle with the pronunciation of his names, thus he decided to stick to their english equivalents “Aaron” and “Basil” to avoid confusion.

##### Unexpected Friend

Eventually, he met Xandy, another historian who shared his passion for the subject. He was glad he could finally make a friend, but there was a problem still: the language barrier. The two historians overcame this by communicating through a mix of Spanish, French and English. As they became closer, Xandy decided to help Basil improve his English.

Not too long after, he met the scientists Robert and Jamie. They became friends as well, often causing general light-hearted chaos together. Everything seemed to be going even better when he met Michael, another fellow historian, at the library. He quickly grew fond of him, sharing most of his afternoons with him and reading books together.

As the days went by, he started to wonder what he truly felt for his closests friends; Xandy and Michael. He tried to ignore it for the longest time, he thought what he felt was what every man would feel for his companions. There was no way he liked boys romantically anyway. He later met Finch, and although not becoming as close as he had been with Michael and Xandy, he still considered him to be a great friend. And last but not least, he met Henry, a person who was clearly as interested in history as he was.

After Michael left the historians, Aaron felt heart-broken. However, he could understand why he did so, he just hoped he’d be safe wherever he went.

Sadly, the good times wouldn’t last long. And after an inner-joke turned into an actual experiment, everything would go downhill for him, and the people who were unfortunate enough to be close.

## **Post-War**

##### Haunting Past

As the tensions calmed down, Basil finally had the time to reflex on what he had done. His blood would forever be stained with the blood of the people he had once considered friends. He realized how hypocritical he had been, how he had been acting like the ones who repressed the people back in his country. At least Xandy was still at his side, but it wouldn't last. One night he passed out of exhaustion over his desk, and when he woke up, he noticed Xandy wasn't anywhere to be found.

Since the disappearence of his bestie, Aaron had started to visit the shore they used to visit regularly. It had a peaceful, yet melancholic and nostalgic feeling to it. Most of the times he'd break down in tears imagining how different things would've been if only he had known better. He wasn't sure what had happened, but he was certain it was all his fault.

Basil became a reserved and sad person, often avoiding interaction at all and only leaving the library to visit the shore. Of course, with no source of income, he was eventually kicked out of the house he was living in. Seeing that he had nowhere to go, he resulted to his last option.

(TBA)

## **Quotes**

> *"ROBERT DROP THAT SHIT."*
>
>

-Basil to Robert during Pilk Experimentations.

> *"Wait, Aaron, you're a historian, this is a historical event!"*
> *"It's not!"*
>
>

-Jamie and Aaron during Pilk Experimentations.

> *"I'm burning every historical proof that this experiment ever existed!"*
>
>

-Aaron about pilk

> *"Why do you care?! I'm dangerous! I caused a war! I hurt everyone around me, hell the people close to me left! Just- ... I... I'm sorry, I'm really sorry- I didn't want this to happen-."*
>
>

-Post-war Aaron

## **Trivia**

* Due to English not being his first language, he often carries a dictionary to understand the conversations. This also tends to lead into miscommuniaction.
* He'll refuse to show his face to anyone unless he's really close with them. *Really* close.
* 85% of the bibliography he carries in his bag is in Spanish, aswell as his personal journal, investigations and most of his plans. That way, he makes sure the Scientists wouldnt understand the papers. However, he owns a different journal written in English with only some words in Spanish, just in case someone in his homeland read it. That journal is now lost, being that Aaron realized he was never going back. However, he lives in fear that someone would find it.
* He carries the pen his brother gifted him everywhere, although it broke in the middle after the Sword Fight.
* After the war, he has tried to rebuild the relationships he once had. Although, even if he tried as hard as he could, he knows no one would trust him again. And he cant blame them.
* Basil has burn scars all over his body, mostly noticeable in his hands.
* Aaron feels extremely guilty about the events of the war and it's consequences, but he's too much of a coward to do anything about it.