better love - hozier
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toby william saunders
N I C K N A M E S:
tobe, bee
A G E:
22
S E X U A L I T Y:
homosexual
P A I R I N G:
the fateful
tick tock - walking on cars
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there's something endearing about toby. sure, he's handsome, but he isn't that empty, superficial kind of handsome. there's personality in his grin, even in his eyes when he's trying and failing to keep a straight face. his dark blue eyes are expressive, not just in his happiness but when his heart is breaking, when he's furious, it all shows in those eyes. his brown hair seems to be constantly shifting tones, from a caramel brown in summer to a dark, near black in the depths of winter. it's never tidy, always falling in curls and waves. he tends to cover it with a hat when it's at its worst. the only real styling it ever really gets is him blow drying it on occasion and running his fingers through it to make sure it lies in a semi favourable way. he's tall, standing at 6'2", and looks thin. however, he eats like a horse, eating healthily but eating a lot as well. his style outside of work is always fashionable, always neat, favouring shirts and jackets. he's piercing free but has a small tattoo of a bird above his heart, with a small "x" in handwriting familiar to only him.
astoria - marianas trench
many have a certain impression of what Toby is going to be when they hear his story. an orphan, left to look after his younger brothers and sisters at only the age of 18? it’s a tragic story, and they expect a tragic figure to go along with it. instead, they get Toby. Toby, with his infectious laugh and ever present grin, his bright and bubbly attitude, and his unrelenting generosity. he holds no spite, little anger, and makes the best of what life has given him. he wanted to become a lawyer, or a teacher. instead he spends his days answering phones, writing letters, and keeping a busy office running smoothly. it isn’t what he imagined, but he finds himself enjoying it anyway. it’s a good job, with regular hours, and he likes the people he works for. he’s always incredibly organized, and god help anyone who messes with his systems. he can multitask like crazy, and is seldom found doing only one thing at once.
but Toby isn’t some inspirational, perfect saint. he’s got a temper, and always had, even before his parents died. he’s so used to putting everyone before him that he has no idea how to put himself first. every waking hour, he has to be doing something for somebody else, and he’s always just a few steps from burnout and meltdown. he has a way of doing things, a way of holding everything together, and god help anyone who messes with that. he’s had to hold everything together for so long, and he’s afraid of it all falling apart if he steps away for a moment. as a result, he pushes people away, anyone who might see what’s really going on. he has days when he struggles to get out of bed, but he does it anyway. he doesn’t have much of a choice, he has too much to do. he wants somebody to help so badly but he also doesn’t want them to see how wrong everything really is. not in his life; that’s all perfect, running smoothly, a finely oiled machine. it’s inside that everything seems to be shattering, and he feels like momentum is all that’s holding all the pieces together at the end of the day.
He has an organisation system for literally every aspect of his life. He has partial hearing loss in one ear after the car accident, and despite wearing a hearing aid, occasionally doesn’t notice things to his left. He’s practically fluent in ASL, and was even before the accident. He’s always at least five minutes early for everything.
Toby adores handwritten notes and letters. Starbucks is a luxury and a treat for him, one he doesn’t get all that often. He loves iced tea, especially peach. Watermelon flavored sweets are his weakness. His younger siblings are the most important thing to him. He adores crime dramas.
Caffeine gives him palpitations. He hates people babying him, either after they find out about his hearing loss or about his parents. He’s really not a fan of bananas and banana flavoured things. He hates nightclubs as they’re just too overwhelming to him. He strongly dislikes most reality tv.
He’s petrified of losing the people he loves; they’re all he has left, and he’s done so much to give them the best life he can. He’s also terrified of spiders and heights. Fast, reckless drivers make him extremely anxious, and he hasn’t sat behind the wheel of a car since the accident.
follow your fire - kodaline
Toby’s parents met by chance at a conference. A year later, they got married, and nine months later, along came Toby. His three siblings came along, his sister four years after and twin boys five years after that. They were an extraordinarily happy and close family. Toby adored his siblings, and they adored him. As they got older, they had their arguments, but that didn’t change the fact that they loved each other deeply.
Toby didn’t have any great, deep revelation about being gay. One day he just realized that he was in love with his best friend, and that was it. In some way, he’d known all along, and he was entirely at peace with that. He and (name) had been friends for years and years. He’d had a crush on him in middle school, one that had just persisted and never gone away; it was just that one day he could really put a name on it. They started dating in their sophomore year, and it felt like their life was complete. His parents didn’t blink an eye when Toby said he was going on a date with a guy.
It felt like everything had fallen in to place. College wasn’t going to be an issue as he and (name) were going to be living barely an hour’s drive from each other. He was still deciding what he wanted in life, and he was okay with that. But the decision was taken out of his hands. A drunk driver hit the car he and his parents were in. His parents were killed instantly, and he was left with hearing damage and a number of scars... and three siblings to look after. He used his own college fund to pay off the medical bills, meaning they at least weren’t in debt, and their parents had just paid off the mortgage. But Toby couldn’t go to college. Instead, he got a job, working as a receptionist in a local doctor’s office. He’d always been organized, but here he really came into his own. The hours were regular, the pay was good, and he found himself enjoying it. He taught himself everything he needed to learn in his free time, and was awarded custody of his siblings. Balancing their lives with work wasn’t easy, but he managed it flawlessly. And he was happy.