Marion Wyatt Rothenberg
_{(Yeah, yeah, his first name’s Marion, laugh it up.)}

It’s not really a nickname, but one thing’s for certain; he very much prefers to go by Wyatt, or like, any sort of derivative of it. Just please, please - do him a solid, and never call him Marion. He has no idea what possessed his parents to name him that, and he dies a little bit inside every time he hears it.

29

Male

Boyfriend-for-hire Line cook

Bisexual

Single

Wyatt stands at a perfectly respectable 6’1”, though with his tendency to slouch, he usually appears a little shorter than he actually is. It’s mostly out of laziness, but his posture is terrible; shoulders rolled forward, hands stuck in his pockets. Pretty much the only time he grows to full height is when he feels threatened, and has been known to be truly terrifying when he does so. Fortunately, however, this side of him is not something his friends see very often - though the same can’t be said for everyone else.

That said, the guy’s pretty built, so people are right to be scared when he gets pissed. He’d almost have a swimmer’s physique if he actually put some effort into working out and started cutting down on XXL Burritos from Taco Bell. Still, most days, his career in manual labour keeps him fit enough.

“Accidental Hipster” is probably the best way to describe Wyatt’s non-existent fashion sense. He doesn’t put much effort into keeping up appearances, but somehow, he has a knack for turning his déshabillé to his advantage. When it inevitably gets chilly, he resorts to heavy flannels and/or ugly woollen sweaters. Paired with his positively ancient jeans and work boots, the whole effect almost seems to scream “lumberjack”. On warmer days, he basically dresses exactly the same - except instead of hideous, moth-eaten sweaters from the thrift store, it’s t-shirts and tank tops.

Wyatt seems to wear a lot of jewelry for a guy, though it’s mostly leather and beaded bracelets, steel rings on his fingers, and again, he’s an expert at making them appear noncommittal. Scarves, on the other hand, they’re just not his thing. Years of frigid, Canadian winters has desensitised him to the cold, so the last thing he needs is to go out and buy a scarf he’s never gonna use. As far as he’s concerned, the layers of the shirts and sweaters and jackets he wears are enough to ward off the cold.

Most of the time, Wyatt can be seen with a cigarette between his lips, features set in an easy grin. His steel grey eyes always seeming to glitter with something akin to amusement - about what? Even he isn’t sure, and while he used to be a tad insecure about a slightly crooked front tooth, he’s long since gotten past it. He likes to keep his hair cropped close to his head, with clean shaven being his go-to facial decor, but some days, he gets lazy and gives his scruff free rein.

He does have a few notable scars. One of which is an inch or two under his right eye, stretching from the top of his ear, and another, smaller one cutting vertically through the eyebrow. Both of them were from a fight he’d gotten into a couple years back, where he ended up with the pointy end of a broken bottle to the face. Additionally, the surface of his skin is peppered by a maze of tiny battle scars, most of them souvenirs from past altercations.

To say that Wyatt doesn’t beat around the bush is a huge understatement. He says what he thinks and will rarely sugarcoat his answers to win people over. He’s never uncomfortable; in fact, his boldness often verges on brash and crosses into downright crude, thanks to his lack of a filter. If he likes something, he'll let you know it, and if he doesn't, well, he's never been shy about voicing his opinion in that matter either. Try as he might, Wyatt's never really had the best poker face in the world, and it tends to give him away, more often than not.

While he isn’t purposely malicious, he does have an explosive temper when crossed, and he’s the kind of person who would rather start throwing punches than hash things out. With that taken into consideration, it’s very easy to peg him for a textbook case of Small Dog Syndrome, despite his not at all diminutive stature. It’s more a matter of principle, and if there’s one thing he can’t stand, it’s being talked down to. Of course, this isn’t to say he’s all bad, just that he’s hard to like. He does have a few soft spots here and there, even if they aren’t exactly the easiest things to find.

Yet for all his flaws, he’s never met a boundary he wouldn’t cross, and he’ll go to the absolute ends of the Earth for you if he thinks you’re worth it. Wyatt is, by nature, extremely impulsive, both in the things he does and says. As far as he’s concerned, life’s too short to just sit around and let shit happen. He often states that no one should take life too seriously because in the end, everyone ends up in the same place - even if he doesn’t believe what he’s preaching. At the very core of his personality, Wyatt is kind of a bleeding heart, and he often puts the needs of others above his own.

Born in Canada, or more specifically; Toronto, Wyatt began life in a small, three-bedroom home with his parents, brothers and sisters. The oldest of five children, he was always the most aware of how tight money was, how hard their parents worked trying to make ends meet, and how their every waking moment was spent thinking about how they were going to pay rent the very next week. That, of course, left the young Wyatt to take care of his siblings while Mr. and Mrs. Rothenberg were away, and he was a good sport about it, too - never fussing, never complaining - at least up until middle school, anyway.

In school, he struggled, both academically and socially, though if he had to be honest, he saw that shit coming from a mile away. As his grades slipped, his frustration grew, and soon, he began to take his anger out on the people around him. There were too many things about him that could be picked on for his liking, and so he grew louder, more boisterous and was forever throwing the first punch in a fight. You had to be living under a rock to not know his name, in fact. And Wyatt loved every second of it, no matter how many times he was sent to the principal’s office, knuckles bruised and bleeding.

Everyone was divided when it came to Wyatt - you either loved or hated him, and oddly enough, he was okay with that. It put him on the map and gave him the attention he craved; the attention he lacked. Back home, his father would yell, and his mother would cry, wondering just what happened to their good, little boy. It was a good thing the principal claimed he had so much potential, if only he “channeled his energy appropriately” - whatever that meant.

It didn’t take him long to discover the world of drugs and alcohol, something he’d always been lurking on the edges of, wanting and waiting, patient like a predator. For a while, he was satiated with rolled-up joints of marijuana and tiny tabs of LSD, but deep down, he knew he wanted more, and he was always, always searching for the next high. Where did he get the money, you ask? Well, he knew better than anyone else where his mother had some squirrelled away, and it was easy enough for him to swipe a Benjamin or two while she wasn’t looking. For the first few times, he felt like shit, like he was the absolute scum of the earth, but people could get used to anything, and pretty soon, he realised that when you were looking for your next fix, nothing else mattered.

Unsurprisingly, Wyatt managed to get himself thrown out of high school - courtesy of a rather unfortunate incident where the P.E. teacher had found him cooped up in a toilet cubicle, high off his mind. He was sentenced to four months in a juvenile detention center, though it was quickly extended to twelve due to bad behaviour and unwillingness to rehabilitate. Once he got out, however, his parents were quick to turn their backs on him, and he was no longer welcome at home. With nowhere else to go, Wyatt stayed with a friend for a while, though even that fell through, eventually. But when a person gets desperate, ideas on how to remedy the situation begin to take root.

His first attempt at theft was a success, and so were the few that followed. Wyatt stole car parts, tearing engines apart and pawning the components whenever he could. It was risky, he knew that much, but how else was he going to sustain his drug habit? He knew the path he was going down, and an image of himself lying dead in a pool of his own vomit kept popping up in his head as he snorted line after line, but he wasn’t going to stop, not until he got caught, at least, and he was careful about it, too - up until he wasn’t.

That fateful day, Wyatt didn’t manage to escape. He must’ve gotten cocky, didn’t even think to look over his shoulder as he hunkered down to take apart a 1987 Camaro. Before he could even think to run, he felt the cool metal of handcuffs snap closed around his wrists, and with a whirlwind of yelling and frantic struggles, he found himself getting hauled off to the local police station.

Charged with drug possession and grand larceny, Wyatt spent the next eight years of his life in prison. Now, he’s not going to lie and say that his time in the slammer wasn’t that bad, because it was fucking terrible. Even when he kept his head down, avoiding trouble the best he could, he thought he was going to go crazy in there. The gruelling day-to-day, talking to the same people, staring at the same walls - not to mention the withdrawals that plagued him during the first weeks, it was downright maddening. But if he was going to be honest, that was exactly what made him resolve to change for the better, so that he would never have to come back to this shithole ever again.

It seemed like an eternity, but Wyatt got out right on schedule, quite unlike his time in juvie. Integrating back into society was a task easier said than done, especially after having spent nearly a third of his life in prison. He got used to the dirty looks potential employers shot him when he mentioned his criminal record, even if they made his blood boil something fierce. From then on, it was a long, looong string of rejected job applications, punctuated with the occasional success, though they never did seem to last as long as the failures.

Of course, that was up until a couple months ago, where he managed to snag himself a line cook position at a restaurant downtown. Apparently, the management didn’t give a shit about his time in prison - as long as he could dice onions and various other vegetables, he was hired. Sure, it’s not the most glamorous of jobs, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, and the best thing about twelve-hour work days is that he’s too tired to think about anything when he gets back home.

Expelled from high school two months into senior year.

His seventh birthday, when his mother baked him a cake to celebrate, and his two younger brothers were there. It sticks in his mind, after all these years, and Wyatt still remembers it as one of the happiest moments of his life.

About two weeks into his prison sentence, when the withdrawals were at their worst. He was curled up on a cot in the infirmary, drenched in sweat and shaking like a leaf.

November 10th, 1986

Scorpio

No.