Laughter

When Tyson laughs, it comes as a soft amused huff or a bark of laughter: shocking and brief, escaping before being clamped down again.

He dislikes how vulnerable laughing makes him. He’ll hide his laughter by smothering himself with his bicep.

His father used to snap at students for laughing during his lessons and at his heirs for disturbing him when he was marking papers or doing research, so Tyson got into the habit of keeping his laughter as quiet as possible and avoiding laughing openly.

Humour

Tyson’s sense of humour fluctuates wildly between a quick deadpan wit coupled with macabre gallows’ humour, smooth as butter flirtations, & awful plays on words and puns.

The latter mostly only comes out with people he’s comfortable enough around to make a fool of himself with, such as his family and old friends. He is a very guarded person with strong social anxiety. It takes a lot of courage for him to purposefully act the fool and to avoid flinching away if someone mocks him for doing so.

The middle one is either for those he’s comfortable with, used as a reflexive defence, or in response to another person’s flirting. He likes making other people smile and flattery is a good way of doing that. He finds flirting fun, so it comes more naturally to Tyson.

The former is most commonly seen, though the full extent of it is usually awkwardly stilted - as much of his words and speech patterns are - until Tyson feels comfortable enough around a person to speak freely.