tyler galpin as a nevermore student!au (part two)
part one here. this set of headcanons covers the first part of tyler’s first year at nevermore, including how he met bianca and xavier
he was 14 when he first appeared at nevermore, and it was in the middle of the school year
his sudden appearance was enough to raise a few eyebrows, but for the most part he was good at keeping his head down and playing the role of the clueless kid with no big-shot parents to help him out
he was so good at it, that no one seemed to notice that his arrival at nevermore coincided with the end of the mysterious beast’s month-long rampage in the woods outside the school
well, except for the strange looks he got sometimes from a few of his classmates - particularly the siren girl with piercing eyes, and the legacy psychic boy in his art class
his schedule was pretty straightforward at first - classes with his peers, navigating the school, private sessions with weems to control his powers
not that anyone knew about what he was
weems had warned him not to tell anyone that he was a hyde as one of her conditions for allowing him to join nevermore
hydes had been banned 30 years ago due to their unpredictability, and the school board would have weems’ head if they knew she had allowed another one on nevermore grounds
for the first few months, tyler did everything he was told - he stayed out of trouble, did his homework, and attended every session with weems to learn to control his hyde
weems appeared to be frustrated with how little progress was made, but tyler hadn’t felt that foreign, sickly stirring in his stomach since joining nevermore, so he considered it a win
in fact, he didn’t remember anything about how he got to nevermore except for a girl’s voice calling his name and demanding that he “wake up”
but considering that according to weems, he killed four people including a nevermore student as the hyde, he considered it a blessing that he didn’t remember anything
one thing did worry him - throughout his and weems’ research, they learned that his hyde is vulnerable to being mastered and exploited if he didn’t learn to reconcile with it first
then the nightmares started
his roommate successfully lodged an appeal to be transferred to a different room because tyler’s nightmares kept waking them both up, so tyler was granted permission to have his own room
one day, he was called to weems’ office to see her and the town sheriff, who had showed up at nevermore unannounced
no one knew exactly what went down in that meeting, but the tyler that came out of that office was almost a completely different person to the wide-eyed kid who stayed out of everyone’s way
this version of him picked fights with his teachers, could easily throw kids twice his weight across a room, and threatened to rip the throats out of anyone who even looked at him wrong
he disappeared from classes for the rest of the day, but he ended up trashing his room and a few classrooms
he was later found in the dead of night, in the middle of the woods, on the verge of a transformation
but he was stopped at the last minute… by the psychic boy who he later learned were xavier thorpe, and the siren girl he later learned was bianca barclay
he realised it was the two of them that originally found him and brought him to nevermore
xavier’s psychic visions allowed him to figure out the beast’s true nature, and bianca’s siren song was able to force tyler to “wake up”
the two of them had been tasked by weems to keep an eye on him in case something like this happened again
(and it did)
tyler felt embarrassed and angry when he realised this, and demanded that they leave him alone, something which xavier was more than happy to oblige with since he never wanted to babysit him in the first place
but bianca was a little more hesitant about letting him go because she saw this as an opportunity to suck up to weems
the next morning, the three of them confronted weems and eventually pressured her into allowing xavier and bianca off their assignments
but the trade-off was that the three of them would help weems repair the school’s reputation with the townsfolk via volunteer work, and that tyler would see the school counsellor
they all begrudgingly accepted
although there was underlying tension between the three of them at first, they eventually learned to tolerate each other
the three of them hid away during parents weekend and bonded over their terrible parents, as well as their desire to start anew in nevermore
although everyone knew who xavier’s dad is, bianca and tyler were a lot more secretive over their parents’ identities
bianca warmed up to him first
he confided in her about his fear of his hyde being manipulated, and she confided in him about her fear of accidentally manipulating her loved ones with her siren song
they became best friends after that and promised to watch out for each other
xavier took more effort to befriend - tyler later learned that he almost killed him as the hyde when he and bianca first found him
bianca tells him to leave it - xavier doesn’t let anyone in
(he detects a hint of longing in her voice)
meanwhile in counselling, he begins to unpack the last fight he had with his father, the one that triggered his initial hyde transformation and the one he’s largely learned to block out over the last few months
he doesn’t remember much about the fight itself except for feeling helpless and unsafe, and wanting to run away as far as he could
when his counsellor tried to ask more questions about his father, tyler clammed up and went pale, so she dropped the subject
the following week, weems calls tyler, bianca and xavier in to help her pitch a new initiative to the mayor to help reform the school’s reputation amongst the normies - outreach day
because tyler has known mayor walker since he was a kid, he dazzles in weems’ presentation and easily wins over the mayor
it’s only later that he fully realises the implications of an outreach day
it means that he’ll have to go back to jericho and face his father again
(suppresses urge to write a full fic in this au)
