Cold Water

One of the worst triggers for Tyson’s PTSD is cold water over his head.

Cold water is never fun for him, given the hypersensitive nature of the dog bite scar on his shoulder and the dent in his torso, but cold water pouring over his head is especially triggering for the former Lieutenant.

It’s a mix of his most traumatic memories of Sebastian’s attacks during the monsoon in India and memories of being waterboarded, during his time spent captive in Afghanistan and by his former brothers-in-arms once captured after Moran abandoned Tyson to save his own skin.

Dreams

Tyson doesn’t have dreams anywhere near as much as he does nightmares.

The dreams that Tyson does end up having are usually less coherent than his nightmares, fragments of figments rather than the linear - and horrifying - narrative of his nightmares.

Usually Tyson has an easier time trying to remember the sensations of the dream, rather than the events that happened: feeling warm and safe in arms that could only have been Sebastian’s, grass tickling his back and the scent of Kim’s coconut shampoo, or the steady pressure of James perched on his shoulders and the taste of sea spray against his lips.

Only some parts of Tyson’s dreams are coloured by his Synesthesia:

Dreams are varied, though more consistent. If it’s a memory, the colours and maps remain as they were; with some allowance for changes in his emotional response if the memory is adapted whilst he dreams. If it isn’t a memory, then only things that Tyson does remember will get coloured.

For example, if he dreamt that he was walking through a fake building with Jethro, then the building would appear in its ‘natural’ state, whilst his brother would get his normal colour palette.

Nightmares

Tyson gets nightmares every week, often more frequently. This is partially caused by his irregular sleep schedule, though that also helps him avoid some nightmares by not entering a deep enough sleep to properly dream. Stress is also a strong factor.

Generally, Tyson’s nightmares revolve around his memories, chopped up and remixed together.

Words he heard in one context used in another; Sebastian’s threats against another to protect Tyson, instead snarled into his face. Seeing Jethro out cold from a night of drinking in defiance of their father and a blood-soaked kitchen from his own work in the web mixed together into something worse.

It’s rare, and always worse, when once of Tyson’s memories play out directly as they happened. Usually the worst moments of Sebastian’s abuse and the most gruesome jobs that Tyson has carried out for the Moriarty Mirrors.

OCD Fears

Tyson has low-level OCD and though most of his ticks come and go, there are a few that always persist. OCD impulses aren’t random, there is a reason behind the need to perform those actions, even if it isn’t always consciously understood.

• He has to put items back in his bag in the reverse of the order he took them out.

This one is relatively simple to understand. If they go back in exactly as they came out, everything is where it belongs and Tyson knows that whatever emergency he finds himself in, he can quickly retrieve the things he needs.

• He has to have the handle of his mug facing left when he isn’t holding it but others mugs can face any direction.

The exact fear here is hard to pin down, but the reasoning is that he’s less likely to spill things that ways. If things spill, a mess is made and Tyson will get in trouble; a fear from his childhood that becomes exasperated by years of abuse and his OCD latched onto it.

• He has to tie his left shoelaces first, even if it means untying his right.

This one began in his army training years. There was a specific order to do thing. Things had to be done in that order. It just became compounded in his mind to do his left laces first or something bad would happen to those around him; if everyone’s uniforms weren’t perfectly in order, the entire unit would be forced into suicide drills around the training yard.

• He has to use particular towels.

His need for specific towels for each member of the household isn’t as easy to pin down into something tangible, but the general worry is one of unnoticed wounds and blood, the risk of cross-infection, and a need for an explicit system to avoid taking unnecessary risks.

• When being handed a food and drink, Tyson will always take the cup in his right hand and the food in his left hand.

Once again, this comes down to avoid making a mess and which hand Tyson trusts to avoid spilling things. Tyson is vaguely aware of this one, but in a non-specific way. He knows he doesn’t want to get in trouble, but can’t place why or what from.

• When stepping off or out of a vehicle Tyson will always put his left leg out first, despite being right dominant for both hands and feet.

This stems from his fear of vehicles and the control they take away from him, and the time he broke his right ankle as a child.

• When eating from a bowl he stirs clockwise twice, then takes a bite, then stirs anti-clockwise twice, then takes another bite.

Given all of Tyson’s struggles to eat enough food and a lack of appetite, it’s not at all surprising that his most persistent OCD impulses are around food, but there isn’t a direct fear here, other than needing to keep control for intangible reasons.

• He always picked up the phone on an even number of rings.

It can’t be bad news if he picks up on an even number of rings. Tyson doesn’t believe that this works, yet he cannot shake the fear that if he picks up on an odd number of rings the news is guaranteed to be bad.

• He always buttoned the second lowest button of his shirt, then the bottom button, before going up his shirt and buttoning up the rest, usually ignore in the very top - collar - button.

This is his oldest OCD impulse, a young childhood Tyson worried about failing the family legacy as he dressed himself for school. A way of making sure he looked the part, as though the order he buttoned his shirt would be at all visible.

• He always taps the spine of a book twice before he opened it.

This comes from handling rare, often delicate books in the library at the family manor. A way of showing that he wasn’t mishandling the books, that he was giving them the respect due, that evolved over time into an impulse to avoid punishment.

• When getting into a car he’ll buckle his seatbelt, unbuckle it, then buckle it again.

Compelled by his OCD, he buckled, unbuckled, then re-buckled his seat belt in rapid succession. Tyson wasn’t aware of that tick’s origin point, only that he felt safer knowing the belt wouldn’t stick; memories of a jammed harness locking him in place whilst under fire in the army were too hazy to remember now. [x]

Time and Space

When Tyson is coming down from an anxiety attack or a PTSD episode, he struggles the most with his sense of space rather than missing time.

With his form of Synesthesia, Tyson is used to knowing exactly where he is. That moment where he’s coming back to himself and he has absolutely no idea where he is, is the most terrifying moment for Tyson.

Even before he realises precisely what is wrong, he feels completely off balance when he doesn’t know where he is.

Lost time doesn’t worry Tyson anywhere near as much as it should. He almost shrugs it off. He knows that he gets tunnel vision, so when Tyson doesn’t know what he was doing for an hour or even an entire day, he doesn’t worry. Two days or longer, Tyson will care, but otherwise, he dismisses it too easily.

Autistic Tendencies

Though Tyson is not autistic, it would be easy to misdiagnose the many symptoms he presents from other conditions as Tyson being on the autistic spectrum.

Tyson’s teacher for nursery and reception was certainly under that assumption, due to Tyson’s ‘hyper fixation’ on maps, even going so far as to draw maps over everything he had already drawn. This was instead from Tyson’s form of Synesthesia and his attempts to understand, as well as simply drawing the maps he saw over people and objects.

However, as a child, Tyson didn’t have the awareness to explain that to his teacher or to understand why she was giving him extra attention over his classmates. Though it was ultimately unnecessary, Tyson does look back and appreciate everything that teacher did to help him.

Another way that Tyson can be misinterpreted as autistic is his tendency to ‘pressure stim’. He feels most comfortable when he has pressure and weight against his skin. This shows as almost always wearing multiple layers, regardless of how hot he is.

He can sleep whenever and wherever he needs to, but Tyson feels safest sleeping with his duvet wrapped around him. Even if that means that he melts in the summer.

Patterns

Given Tyson’s extreme attention to detail, his mathematical mind and especially his love for geometrical mathematics, his OCD, his hyper-awareness of his surroundings and army training to fully catalogue those surroundings, his strict conformation to routine to keep control over his life, and a dozen other idiosyncrasies it should not be surprising that Tyson is good at pattern recognition.

A deviation from a pattern, however, is far more likely to catch Tyson’s attention. He will subconsciously take note of pattern wherever he is and file it away for future reference, but they are rarely worth actively acknowledging even within his own mind. He needs to actively be looking for a pattern to consciously call it out.

However, the very second that something even minutely deviates from an established pattern, alarm bells blare in Tyson’s mind. He doesn’t like change at the best of times, and Tyson has been trained by experience to know how frequently a deviation means danger. He’d been the cause for that deviation plenty of times too.

Changing

Though the six months that Tyson spent travelling through the Middle East and Europe on his own, the time between being abandoned by The Colonel and escaping the army & returning to Britain, are largely dismissed - even by Tyson himself - as simply being a time of travel, of transit, those months were truly a different type of transition.

For the most part, it is true that Tyson was running on adrenaline and instinct to survive. And little else. The major touchstones of that point in his life [2011] from his timeline are that Tyson met Lily, he learnt how to fish properly, Lily caused the dog bite scar on his shoulder, and Tyson realised that he’d survived in Germany.

What happened internally for Tyson was piecing back together a sense of self, a sense of being and finding a purpose in living for himself; without Sebastian, without the army. It was during this time that The Soldier began to manifest as a way to protect the freshly former Lieutenant, in a way that could actually be noticed as a change in his behaviour.

It was a time when Tyson was pushed to his limits and survived on his own. He saved himself. One man and his dog; and a broken heart, body, and mind slowly healing. Not back to where they had been before, but into the Tyson we know today.

Broken, yet never beaten.

In many ways, it was the most formative six months of Tyson’s life. There were bigger moments and more important changes, but those changes happened over a longer time period as he stubbornly clung to who he was. This change was putting Tyson in the oven for six minutes at 1000°C, rather than an hour at 100°C.

He was still cooling down when he met the Moriarty Mirrors. His flight or fight instinct was still a twitch trigger. When he met Sunshine, The Soldier was often at the helm. A less in control version of The Soldier, with a sudden temper and - even for Tyson’s standards - whiplash-inducing emotional leaps.

By the time Tyson - officially - met Mischief, then CCT(V), he had settled into Tyson. He had less experience within the web, his skills weren’t as refined, and he hadn’t properly settled into his environment yet - hadn’t found his specific niche - but Tyson was recognisable as the loyal Pup he is today.

And on the timeline of his life? That only brings us to June 2012. It was a whirlwind year for Tyson. His entire way of life was shattered and reforged anew within the span of a year, following on from a year on the run with The Colonel that had already uprooted the equilibrium he had fought so hard to establish.

Organising

For Tyson, it is more important for things to be complementary than matching.

His OCD can be a little temperamental about what it will or will not kick up a fuss about, but in general terms, Tyson is more likely to be bothered by something contrasting poorly than something not matching exactly. As with many things, this comes down to how it appears with his Synesthesia.

It’s a point that is repeated many times when it comes to Tyson, but it is a core tenant of who he is as a person and shapes his entire thought process. It’s worth emphasising.

When it comes to matching things together in a complimentary way, Tyson would largely priories thing by colour and pattern; unsurprisingly. After that, when Tyson is sorting something - especially manually - he would go by texture as his next choice.

For Tyson, the least important factor would be shape and size. Those are, however, factors that Tyson would priorities when ordering (rather than sorting) physical objects. Usually, he would go with ascending order of size, from left to right.

Sensory Overload

When it comes to sensory overload, Tyson is the most susceptible to scent and temperature. Sight will get to him occasionally, but touch and sound are the rarest.

Tyson is incredibly vulnerable to getting overwhelmed by the smell of food. He’s a little sensitive towards strong perfumes or detergents, but those annoy him rather than forcing a reaction as the smell of food can.

He doesn’t cope with sudden hot weather all that well. Tyson will be the first to flop down on a cool tile floor and start spooning a slushy. Heat has always gotten under Tyson’s skin easily, and that has only been exasperated by how many awful memories Tyson had associated with hot places.

Since Tyson had learnt how to ‘control’ his Synesthesia, his vision has far less clutter and he finds himself getting overwhelmed less often.

Much like a cat, Tyson can get overstimulated by being touched. Overwhelmed by so much contact, especially after sex. However, since Tyson doesn’t let people touch him too often, he tends to avoid getting overwhelmed by that.

Extremely loud sounds will affect Tyson as they would anyone else and aren’t really a factor in Tyson experiencing sensory overload.

Death

Tyson doesn’t handle death well.

He copes incredibly well, but Tyson doesn’t internalise death in a healthy way.

He wears it like a second skin. He doesn’t let go of the deaths he’s caused. Tyson makes sure that they stick. That his blame lingers like the smell of smoke. Even deaths that aren’t his fault, like Captain Samson, Tyson shoulders - and internalises - the blame almost immediately.

Before they received news that General Clarkson survived Sebastian’s attack, Tyson had internalised the blame for that as well.

Tyson has spent so long doing that, taking that weight, that he’s almost numb to deaths that aren’t his fault; that even Tyson can’t blame himself for. He actually feels better when the guilt of thoughts like ‘why didn’t I prevent this from happening?’ come around.

Crying

Tyson doesn’t cry that often.

He’s good at holding that back and stopping at his eyes watering, but once his control breaks and he starts (truly) crying Tyson can’t stop until he’s empty. Even as a child, Tyson had far too much control when it came to keeping himself silent and presentable.

When crying is a result of intense physical pain or sensory overload, Tyson will ‘pretty cry’. Tears will run down his face, but Tyson will grit his teeth and seem otherwise fine. He knows how to push through physical pain and lock down that emotion. Even after getting shot, Tyson won’t cry.

The type of pain that causes Tyson to cry is the overwhelming type where he can’t survive off of Adrenalin. This mostly applies to the hypersensitive dent in his torso, when he isn’t running off the adrenaline from other wounds or fighting Sebastian, when he’s already under Sebastian’s thumb.

When it comes to sensory overload or a panic attack, Tyson doesn’t know why he ends up with tears on his face, but he knows that he doesn’t sob during them. It’s rare he could draw enough breathe for that during those moments.

When dealing with emotional pain, Tyson ugly cries. He has absolutely no poker face for what he’s feeling, but Tyson is good at controlling his emotions. Once that control breaks, Tyson shatters. He will cry until he has no more tears to give and then he’ll be dry sobbing for a while after that.

Shopping

Given his anxiety, it’s not all that surprising that Tyson prefers to do his shopping online and have his groceries delivered as much as possible.

There are obvious exceptions such as collecting his meat from Jeremy’s butcher shop and collecting other pet supplies from his own pet store.

When he needs to enter an actual store, Tyson cannot simply browse without having to excuse himself to hyperventilate outback. He needs to give himself a clear mission to keep himself focused. This also leads to him not going shopping in person until it is absolutely essential to reinforce that sense of urgency to get the job done.

Generally, Tyson will create a map rather than a list of what he needs to buy. Technically there is a mental list of the items Tyson needs to get from each area, but when his anxiety is bad, Tyson can focus on the concept of a map better than recalling a simple list through his panic.

Retrieving things for his pets is always easier for Tyson to do than shopping for himself, then it matters more than himself; who ranks at negative twelve on Tyson’s priority order. This also applies to verses where Tyson is shopping for Sebastian or James as well as himself.

He can walk through a store without batting an eye externally when babysitting his nephew. His anxiety remains, clawing in the back of his mind, but when Tyson has to focus on his nephew’s needs, his own become irrelevant. More irrelevant than usual.

The Soldier

Tyson has the beginnings of stress-induced split-personality disorder. *

The Soldier is a shield for Tyson, it protects his mental state.

As mentioned in his description:

Tyson can avoid stuttering completely and be completely in front of his actions, but only in short stints. After his time with The Colonel Tyson had been damaged physiologically, mentally, as well as physically. He was still the solider he once had been, but only in times of need. In the heat of battle or when medical care was needed The Solider comes out, as strong as he’d been in Afghanistan, but as soon as that need was taken care of he slips away, using the thousands of broken shards of submissiveness Tyson has become as a shield to hide behind.

Tyson has been too messed up to maintain that nature indefinitely. When there was need he could be in control, but afterwards he hid away again. It exhausted Tyson to take on this soldier like nature, but when in need his instincts took over and dropped his shield. That strength was always there and occasionally bleed across when Tyson felt strong enough about a topic, but otherwise it hid behind Tyson’s submissiveness for when it was needed.

Tyson isn’t that aware of this, nor does he know that it is the beginnings of stress-induced split-personality disorder. He knows that when threatened he would be stronger, more like he had been in the army, and that it felt like it wasn’t him doing the actions he had, but he doesn’t know that isn’t just his imagination.

The Soldier is purely instinctual survival, a defence Tyson’s brain has created to protect him from the trauma of his past.

A fragile shield that Tyson can’t choose to wield or lower; often only broken by direct pain that wasn’t accompanied by adrenaline, or after the adrenaline - or conflict - had long since faded. Tyson isn’t even aware of The Soldier, beyond a sudden surge of inner strength and acting on instinct. He has no choice, it’s an instinctual reaction. 

The Soldier is aware of a strong desire to protect Tyson, but doesn’t recognise himself as being separate from Tyson. Though Tyson could defend himself the majority of the time, situations that evoked an unnervingly deep emotional response are more likely to trigger his stress-induced split-personality-disorder than purely physical threats that Tyson has endless plans to survive.

As such, they are rare and The Soldier hadn’t devolved his own full personality separate from Tyson, he was only a piece from Tyson. He existed to protect. The Soldier is very mission orientated, needing a focal point even more than Tyson goes to even exist.

The Soldier doesn’t stutter and he doesn’t bother suppressing Tyson’s Synesthesia. He isn’t bound as tightly to Tyson’s OCD ticks, and none of his nervous twitches appear, but some of his older most ingrained OCD habits happen as simple muscle memory from endless repetition.

* Stress-induced split-personality disorder isn’t an exact medical term, but extracting The Soldier from Tyson’s Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, (Generalised & Social) Anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and other potentially un-diagnosed conditions (insomnia, depression, and eating disorders that may simply be symptoms from other conditions) to understand whether he has Dissociative Identity Disorder or Borderline Personality Disorder is tricky when Tyson refuses to even get treatment for the mental disabilities he’s confirmed to have.

The exceptions would be Chicago!Verse, Cat!Verse, and Veteran AU where Tyson is seeing a therapist with varying frequency and willingness. Chicago!Verse is a resigned allowance, Cat!Verse it’s slowly being broached by Jasmine who is qualified as a therapist to see if he could handle therapy yet, and Veteran AU where Tyson’s counting the days until his obligation to see the army’s veteran therapist ends.

For most circumstances, The Soldier comes from the beginnings of stress-induced split-personality disorder. However, to provide a distinction to those verses where Tyson is willing or unwilling seeing a therapist, The Soldier instead comes from Borderline Split Personality Disorder.

The verses where The Soldier plays a stronger role/has a slightly different stresser are Bioshock AU, MassEffect!Verse, and Earth!Verse; respectively, a side-effect of the Blind-Faith plasmid, potentially caused by the surgery on Tyson’s L2 implant, and the side of Tyson with complete control over his mutation.

The Soldier does not exist in the following verses: Army!Verse, Hogwarts AU, and all three Orphan AUs: Child!Verse, Child!Verse2, & Teen!Verse.

Redundancy

Ageing out of usefulness isn’t the only way that Tyson could find himself becoming redundant within the web. Injury is a much more likely cause in fact.

A physical ailment could sufficiently reduce his usefulness, but Tyson knows that there are ways to work around almost any physical disability if he had to and - as mentioned in the other headcanon - Tyson’s usefulness to the web isn’t dependant on his physicality.

An injury to Tyson’s mind or memory would be a death sentence. Tyson is useful because he is a strategist and a mathematical prodigy. He is a genius. It’s easy to forget that with the number of stupid decisions he makes, but Tyson has a genius level intellect. He had three Ph.Ds under his belt by age seventeen.

He can follow the Moriarty Mirrors logic and - almost always - match them blow for blow. There are times when they get ahead of him and times when Tyson has to break down their chain of logic much slower than they would wish, but Tyson is kept around because he can follow along if given time and can provide actual input and challenges to those ideas.

If Tyson lost his ability to learn as quickly as he does, if he lost his ability to debate - mathematics, physics, grand plans for the criminal empire - with the Moriarty Mirrors, Pup would be gone. He would still be loyal and a great guard dog, but Tyson would become any other hound at their heel.

Not their Pup. Bright, argumentative, and loyal to a fault.

Tyson would survive losing a limb. He would find a way to be useful and adapt the ways he worked if he lost the use of one of his senses. Losing his mind would break him. Not only would Tyson lose one of his few reasons for self-worth, Tyson would lose his place at the Moriarty Mirrors side. Not immediately, perhaps.

He would still have use as an attack dog and a trophy to hold over The Colonel, that no matter what Moran doesn’t get to take what is theirs. And for a time there would be a hope of Tyson recovering his memories and his mental capacities, the Moriarty Mirrors would be willing to invest in getting their Pup back, but eventually, he would be put down.

A loyal hound that had given all he had to give and deserved a painless death. Poison in one of his cups of coffee, no longer having an immunity built up and antidotes prepared from his game of trading poisoning attempts with Sunshine.

Lights

Though he is most definitely a night owl when sleeping on a more regular schedule, Tyson takes great comforting in having light around him.

When trying to avoid the Colonel or escaping the police, Tyson keeps to the shadows to avoid detection, but even having a street light in his peripheral vision is incredibly soothing for Tyson. He doesn’t even need it to illuminate his area, just for it to be nearby.

He finds it much easier to sleep when there is a light on and he’s less likely to devolve into a panic attack if he wakes from a nightmare with some light around. Usually, this means that Tyson will put his phone on charge, on one of the shelves above his bed, and keep it locked open and bright.

He keeps a blue lamp in the bedroom cupboard of his apartment.

The walk in cupboard has several shelves and two racks to put clothes on. There is always a spare shelf encase anyone stays over. The clothes, shoes, bags, and accessories that Tyson keeps in his cupboard are here. Tyson uses the cupboard as a ‘den’ to hide himself away in when he has PTSD episodes. Tyson’s den was a place for him to retreat when he had episodes of PTSD or was just generally distressed. The floor is covered in pillows, quilts, and blankets and any other items in the cupboard are hidden behind large sheets that hang down from hooks in the ceiling. This is so that when he goes in there with an episode nothing he sees can trigger him because all he’ll be able to see was a white sheet. The only items in the cupboard that he doesn’t hide behind the sheets are a teddy-bear that used to belong to his mother, now deceased, and a lamp that emits soft blue light. The sliding door has a bolt lock on the inside.

For all his fear of fire, when he was on the run with Sebastian through Afghanistan, into Pakistan and then India, Tyson appreciated the light the fire provided much more than its heat. The light giving them away was always a risk, but with a Dakota Fire Pit, the flames were out of sight whilst providing a reassuring pool of light for Tyson to watch.