The Crocodile

The world hadn't actually ended, it just seemed like it. Dwayne has to keep telling himself that sometimes, between long nights at the radio, on his endless rounds of the yard perimeter and all the hundred little things that their new home (for now) required to keep running. The world was running on duct tape, spit, and baling wire, limping along, but it *was* still turning.

They'd come pretty damn close, but it wasn't quite over. They were the ones left and that meant they had a lot of work to do.

And maybe most importantly...Josh had officially Survived.

It was hard to believe how many weeks has gone by, but he'd *lived*. Some days were still a little shaky, but the traces of fever were completely gone. The wolf had won, and Dwayne's desperate last-ditch Hail Mary had actually *worked*. Somehow, that made everything right, when he could roll over and watch his mate asleep, warm and well and *alive*.

Now all that was left was for him to get used to the Change, to figure out what kind of wolf he was going to be. There was no going back, but it had saved Josh's life, kept Dwayne from having to go through this hellish epilogue of a world alone, and that alone was worth it... Even if he had any doubts at all that Josh could handle the Change. There would be some acclimatization, some trial and error... That was why Zach was keeping his distance and Rhys spending nights in the little caretaker's cabin... But it would pass.

Josh would have a mate, and a pack, and he would get used to it, given a little time. Dwayne was sure of that, even though the approaching full moon gave him nerves. The first change could be tough, and Josh... He was still recovering.

So Dwayne did all he could to keep things running.

It was a given that things could go to hell at any moment. In this business, in life in general. Dwayne was used to that. Right now, though, it was just amazing how completely and thoroughly...and quickly...it had all gone. Not just the world ending- strangely, Dwayne was coping with that part, if just because he wasn't thinking about it much except in generalities and To Do lists.

It was the personal side of it that was killing him.

They'd made the decision a long time ago, and Dwayne was pretty damn sure that it was the only reason the he could actually go through with it. Even his wolf had balked, at the idea of bleeding their mate, if not for the knowledge that it had been a coin in the well. Turning him had been Josh's very last chance to survive this, and Dwayne had to remind himself of that with every bite and tear.

Things after that felt like a blur. Decisions made on the fly, adapting with each new crisis. Arguments and sacrifices and melancholy goodbyes, and that had brought them...here, for whatever it was worth.

This house that was their new HQ for however long they needed it, until things either improved or didn't. It was a nice place- good construction, nice and isolated without being completely out of reach of town. The caretaker's cabin and generous garage gave them options, and the generators meant they had power for at least a while longer. It was actually, under the circumstances, pretty damn close to the best they could have.

It would be a good home for them, if Josh pulled through. Not just surviving the fever and Change, but...surviving as Josh. Which only time would tell.

Dwayne sighed, and rubbed his hands vigorously over his face and beard. Rhys had gone back down to the living room to sleep for the night, and that meant another long vigil.

Dwayne hates this part of the act. He's pulled just about every con in the game at some time or another, some of them enough times to do them blind without a moment's warning, but this one? It never gets easier, even with the amount of trust involved.

Art items, money, contraband luxuries of all sorts, even drugs and weapons? Sure. Humans? That's one thing he can't stomach.

Next to him, Mira is just as calm as he is, probably calmer because she knows the lock on her silver collar has a quick-release that will let her get it off in half a second.

She's the quickest shifter he knows, maybe because she was turned so young. She's still too damn young... But that's what makes this work so well. The fact that she can do this without losing her shit. After all she's been through she can do the job, control her wolf, and still be rational, reliable, able to have a life outside the perversion and submission that defined her teen years? It's kind of amazing.

She can hold her own, both physically and emotionally, and he can control her if things go bad. Combined with his middle-aged, refined demeanor? They make a good team, and the pack has a lot of faith in them for taking down yet another slave dealer.

He still hates it. But he smiles anyway, genial, professional, and harmless in spite of the huge boxer's build filling out his tailored suit, copper-penny hair and beard trimmed close and neat and not showing even a hint of gray in spite of his forty-five years. A middle-aged businessman, not even a bit out of place in an upscale hotel where a little money buys a lot of discretion.

And the slender young brunette with him? Well, everyone has their indulgences, and all it takes is the right price.

Character Info
Real Name: Dwayne MacCauley (PB: Kevin McKidd)
Codename: The Crocodile
Age: 45
Unit & Position: Neverland, heavy infiltration engineer

Backstory:

Unlike many mercenaries, Dwayne started out with a fairly normal, average lower-middle-class upbringing, with very little of note except for, in high school, a talent for "The Chem Lab Teacher Isn't Watching" and "Abusing Metal Shop For Fun and Profit". While his younger brother seemed dedicated to getting into every kind of trouble he could manage, Dwayne got through high school with only a couple of misdemeanor charges and stern warnings, being more of a mischief-maker than a serious malcontent.

He even had plans for actually progressing after high school. His natural knack for tech led to Dwayne joining the Army to pursue a career in engineering, with the intention of getting his education paid for via his enlistment. An eight-year tour got him his training and a solid background in combat engineering, and as he'd always planned, he left to return to the civilian life without massive amounts of debt hanging over his head.

But Dwayne found that leaving the military for the private sector might not have been as great an idea as he expected. The job market was a lot less welcoming than he'd been promised, and after months of bad luck and frustration, Dwayne found out something else, thanks to some of his brother's shady connections: crime does pay. A LOT better. While Dwayne had been pursuing his military career, his younger brother had been doing his best to get his hands into every possible criminal enterprise he could, and when his brother's crew needed someone to handle the 'breaking' part of a B&E heist, Dwayne's brother came to him for 'just this once'. Dwayne reluctantly agreed. If he couldn't keep his brother out of a life of crime, at least he could ensure that things went smoothly and keep him out of trouble.

However, Dwayne proved to be good at it, and his cut of the payoff was better than he would have made in months at a legitimate job. A few months passed and in spite of Dwayne's protests that he wasn't going to do it again, he found himself hooked on the adrenaline and the easy profit, and when the callback came for another heist, this time directly to him instead of through his brother...Dwayne decided that he had found his new career. In a very short time, he'd started building a reputation, moved on from small local jobs to the international market and never looked back.

Unfortunately, over time, things became rocky with his brother. The two stopped working together fairly early in Dwayne's career, when Dwayne proved to be the more successful of the two, and his brother became bitter. A few years before Dwayne was approached by Grimm, there was an ugly incident over some diamonds that his baby brother tried framing Dwayne for. The rift never healed, and the two of them haven't spoken since. Dwayne lost touch, but suspects his brother is in prison right now.

Nearly twenty years in the business has given Dwayne time to sharpen his abilities in safecracking, structural analysis, demolitions, and a variety of electronics and general equipment and tools know-how that go along with the more technical aspects of infiltration, and combined with what he's learned in the military, it's given Dwayne a solid set of useful skills to draw from.

It was on one of those international jobs early in his career that Dwayne first ran into Frank McCabe, in a dust-up over some Columbian emeralds and a government covert op that very nearly landed Dwayne in a federal lockup. That was their first meeting and somehow, the two have just not been able to shake each other since. Hook is, depending on which incident you pick (and there's been plenty), part of the reason that Croc almost wound up in prison, or the reason he's NOT, and there's been a few times that Croc's returned the favor. It's been a bizarre back-and-forth for them for nearly two decades now, and perhaps some kind of bizarre karmic thing that they run into each other yet again in Grimm.


Also, Croc...might have had something to do with the bomb that took off Hook's missing fingers. It wasn't intentional, but due to bad timing and a bunch of other factors, Hook wound up walking into one of Croc's doorbusters just as it went off. Croc was actually horrified to find out that he'd used a little too much explosive compound and that someone had been caught in the blast, but with Croc and Hook's constant war of pride, neither of them will admit that the accident was really both their faults.


Personality: Earns his nickname just on the grin alone- the Crocodile is trouble waiting to happen. Off-duty, he's a joker, friendly and cheerful (if occasionally a smartass), and enjoys his work entirely too much, which might be a little disturbing to some bystanders when combined with his somewhat offbeat sense of humor. Croc enjoys messing with people, which is probably why he took to the whole criminal lifestyle more easily than he likes to admit.

However, in spite of his eccentricities, Dwayne knows when to put aside the bullshit, and is intelligent and focused when on the job. He likes being respected for his competence, and has spent most of his nearly twenty-year career refining and expanding his skills. Like a lot of techie types, he suffers from "I can make it better!" syndrome and will spend hours at a workbench tinkering with something if he thinks he can fix or improve on it, and when presented with a problem, will attack it tirelessly until he finds a solution.



Reason for joining?:

The newly rebuilt Neverland needs someone skilled in the heavier aspects of infiltration, such as explosives and safecracking, and Croc fits the bill. He was approached while between crews, laying low after a particularly big haul, and offered a position, which didn't take Dwayne long to agree to.

Croc is aware that he's getting older and starting to slow down a bit, and is thinking very much about retiring to a nice beach somewhere. As opposed to, say, a federal prison or some shitty little third-world lockup somewhere due to a 'misunderstanding'. Agency work isn't ideal for him, but it's stable, and he's set himself a goal he plans to follow. He's seen way too many crooks like himself come and go, and plans to eventually get out of the game rather than pushing his luck until it breaks.

Croc plans on a new, clean identity and a nice, quiet retirement someplace warm at the end of his Grimm contract.



Character: The Crocodile
Unit | Position: Neverland | Infiltrations engineer/techie
Height: 6'2"
Weight: 220
Build: Burly
General appearance/style of dress: Red hair trimmed short, blue eyes, facial hair tends to vary, and built like a walking wall in a plaid shirt. He's in his mid-forties now but still in good shape, and tends to dress casually in khakis or jeans. He's got a few scars visible, but most of them small and the sort that you find on guys that spend a lot of time working with their hands.


** Note: Application has been approved by Methy (Hook's player) for shared background stuff**