the same story

[puppydogheart]

Tyler was born the only child to Aidan and Jane Kee. Aidan, a struggling fisherman with a tendency to drink too much, often took out his frustrations by physically abusing the sweet and docile Jane. Even from a young age, Tyler quickly learnt to see his father as a threat, and developed an incredibly close relationship with his mother, rarely okay with leaving her side. However, sometime shortly after he turned five, he began the strange behaviour of talking to the local dogs. His mother considered it harmless at first, but soon found Tyler doing it more and more, and worse, the dogs seeming to respond, often following Tyler home. Despite frequent and increasingly desperate attempts to discourage the behaviour, Tyler stubbornly and obliviously persisted, even beginning to pick fights at school or play truant when he was bullied for being a freak. With the pressure from the school and no way to stop Tyler's seemingly delusional behaviour, his mother eventually couldn't cope any more, and took him to a local psychiatric hospital, abandoning him there. While he was only taken in for roughly 24 hours - long enough for the hospital to contact the local police in an attempt to have him returned home - the experience was enough to have Tyler develop the understanding that he needed to hide his behaviour. While he didn't stop talking with dogs, he made sure no one would see him. With the dogs being something of a lone outlet for Tyler's more positive qualities, this soon had the effect of making him quieter and more withdrawn in general. His antisocial behaviour didn't stop, nor the fights he'd get into at school, but with the more freakish element removed, as he grew up he was accepted readily into the city's gang culture. His mother, while truly wanting to believe her son was normal again, never really believed the change - nor could she accept it as something good. Tyler grew colder and more isolated, and Jane let him, the previously close relationship between them wearing thin. The first night that Aidan returned home drunk and raised his hand to Tyler instead of Jane, Jane did not make any attempt to step between them. Tyler was thirteen years old. At sixteen, Tyler had missed more school than he'd attended, and was a rising star in East Hill, the city's more unstable and violent street gang. With a reputation for a cold, furious temper, Tyler was rarely confronted, but often had bruises on him anyway. The way he saw it, at least his old man wasn't beating his mom anymore. But Jane didn't feel the same, and she had never been the strongest. The years of guilt finally cracked her. One night in February, she cleaned the kitchen, the bathroom, and the living room. Then she meticulously ingested a full bottle of sleeping pills, arranged herself neatly in bed, and went to sleep. Tyler left Land's End and did not look back. He travelled most of the way across the country before he ran out of money, and his attempt to steal more found him landing in trouble with a local gang - and eventually, when he discovered they were a loose collection of boys with abilities like his own, earning his place amongst them and taking on the name 'Tyke'. Tyler will most likely die at twenty-two, a gang related shooting on a street corner that will also see two other boys dead.

-------------------------------------------------------

Tyler is in many ways a product of the various hardships he's experienced throughout his life - the same as many of his peers. His behaviour could be (and was, for a time) that of the classic belligerent youth, rebellious street punk. His mother's abandonment, however, and the subsequent break in his relationship with her saw all of the aggression and confrontational crassness start to press down, tight and contained. Tyler is quiet, his natural speaking volume barely above a whisper and his words rarely offered, but this is never a matter of shyness or uncertainty. Anger still fuels him in many ways, but it's been driven down into his bones, pressure making it sharp and solid. He gained a reputation in the streetgangs he rolls with for his unpredictability, for a violent rage that was never truly expected of him, though his temper is not a matter of snapping when pushed too far - simply waiting for the right moment, showing an intelligence for dealing with scenarios and problems that many of his peers lost in bullheaded, hair-trigger actions. The truth of it is that Tyler has been hurt many times over since he was a child. His anger and reticence is from being betrayed, abandoned, and though he's developed many anti-social behaviours because of this, at the root he takes the blame upon himself - truly believing himself a freak, a bad person, a fuck-up. Tyler is dog-loyal to those he loves, will not give up on people and takes failures in as deep scars, but cannot see the good qualities in himself.