HE'S DONE FINALLY
Backstory + drawing process under the cut as always
Tw/cw: abuse and family death
Name: The Stray
Nickname(s): Dogboy, It, Finn (rumored to be his real name)
Age: 19 - 21? Hard to tell with how beat up he looks
Species: Human (sometimes visitor)
Date of Birth: Unknown
Nationality: British (northern)
Accent/Speech Pattern: Low, gravelly, slightly slurred — as if unused to speaking for long stretches. His tone swings between defensive sarcasm and quiet guilt. Occasionally growls under his breath without realizing.
Appearance
Hair: Ash-blonde, short ponytail, unevenly chopped with clumps missing (like he’s been tugging it out).
Eyes: blue, ringed in yellow under dim light.
Teeth: Crooked, chipped and yellowed.
Skin: Sallow and scarred, mottled with reddish bruising around the large gash on his throat.
Clothing: Torn green hoodie, patched cargo pants, bloody military boots.
Body: Wiry, tense posture, fingernails splintered. His hands shake when he's still.
Noteable marks: missing as finger, bruised knuckles, scarred face and hands
Personality
The Stray doesn’t mean to be hostile—he’s just wired for it. Quick to snarl, quicker to regret it. Once someone earns his trust, he’s impossible to shake; follows them, guards them, sleeps near their door. He doesn’t handle rejection well. He insists—desperately—that he’s human.
Backstory
He doesn’t remember much before the cage — just sounds. Metal scraping. The slosh of bottles. The wet bark of his father’s laughter, thick with liquor.
When the Visitors came, they didn’t take him — they took everything else. His mother, his sister, his world. His father survived, though maybe that was the cruelest part. He blamed the boy for surviving. Said the only reason the monsters hadn’t eaten him was because they could smell he wasn’t right.
The cage was his penance. A rusted dog kennel in the corner of a rotting trailer. His father made him eat from bowls, snarl for scraps, sleep on cold earth. The man called it training. Said if he was going to live like an animal, he’d damn well act like one.
By the time someone found him, he was half-wild — teeth bared, words half-formed, twitching at every sudden sound. The state tried to “fix” him, of course. Group homes, therapy, a parade of adults telling him to “use his words” while he used his fists instead. High school lasted six months before he was expelled for biting a classmate who wouldn’t stop calling him “dogboy.”
He drifted after that. Junkyards, alleys, the backs of trucks. Anywhere he could scavenge a bit of quiet and a half-decent meal. But the city isn’t kind to the broken, and the broken aren’t kind back.
When he was 17, the vigilante cornered him under a bridge — said his scars and wild eyes marked him as a Visitor. He tried to explain, but the blade came faster than the words. The gash on his neck is a reminder of that night, jagged and raw, where truth nearly died alongside him.
Now he lives like the feral thing his father raised — not quite human, not quite monster. His face bears ugly scars from fights gone wrong. He’s missing his ring finger from a machinery accident — or a punishment, depending who you ask. He’s covered in old bruises, half-healed cuts, and the smell of oil and smoke.
He doesn’t trust easily. Doesn’t talk much. But when he does, it’s in growls and gravel — the voice of someone who learned language too late, and mercy even later.
He’s not a Visitor.
He’s just what’s left when the world chews you up and forgets to spit you out.
Voice lines:
When the Homeowner checks his teeth
“You don’t gotta look at me like that. I just… bite when I’m scared.”
“You think they’re sharp? They ain’t. I filed ‘em down when I was a kid.”
“If I was one of them, I’d’ve bitten by now. Don’t flinch.”
When the Homeowner checks his eyes
“Still human. Red ‘cause I don’t sleep.”
“You can stare all you want, I won’t blink first.”
“If you’re looking for something wrong, you’ll always find it.”
When the Homeowner checks his fingernails/hands
“Yeah, I know they’re dirty. Dirts human.”
“Don’t touch ‘em. I bite.”
“Missing one. Don’t ask where it went.”
When the Homeowner checks his armpits
“What the hell kinda check is that?”
“Don’t— touch me there. I ain’t one of your pets.”
“find anything noteworthy, 'doc'.” (said sarcastically)
When the Homeowner checks the aura photos
“That ain’t right. Cameras busted."
“I'm not a monster. That flash'd make anyone look sickly."
“You don’t gotta show me. Don't wanna see myself.”
When talking to the Homeowner during the day
“You still breathing? Good. Thought maybe one of ‘em got you."
“Can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I’m back in the cage.”
“You ever think maybe we’re the visitors, and they’re the ones living here?... Yeah I'll shut up.”
When asking to enter the home
“Can I come in? Just for a bit. It’s cold out here.”
“I won’t touch nothin’. Promise.”
“C’mon, I ain’t dangerous. Promise.”
“You can keep the light on if it makes you feel safe.”
When the Homeowner refuses to let him enter
“...Right. Figures."
“Didn’t wanna be inside anyway... Prick.”
“You’re just like him. Lock the door, throw away the key.”
“One day you’ll wish you’d let me in.”
When he’s suspected of being a visitor and the Homeowner decides to kill him
“Wait— you don’t get it, I’m not—”
“No— no, not again, don’t please! I — I’m human!”
“You’re making the same mistake he did!”
(laughs through blood) “Go on then. Put me down like the dog you think I am.”
Relationships around the house
The Stray and the Tall Man/Bar Guy (this is his ship that's why this is more in depth then the others)
He first met the Tall Man at the Homeowner’s house. He wasn’t supposed to be there — not really. The Stray had come sniffing around the place like a rat, looking for food or maybe a fight, something to fill the ache in his gut. But the Tall Man didn’t throw him out. He just looked at him. Calm. Steady. The kind of look that doesn’t flinch when you snarl.
Most people see The Stray and see danger. The Tall Man saw damage.
And for the first time, that difference mattered.
He started seeing him more after that — The Stray lingered for warmth and leftover beer. The Tall Man would slide him a drink sometimes, not out of pity but habit, like it was just something you do for someone you’ve decided isn’t a threat. He never pushed conversation, never asked questions about the scars or the limp in The Stray’s step. He just existed beside him, quiet and solid, and that was enough.
Stray didn’t understand it at first. He kept waiting for the trick — the slap, the shout, the shove. The things that usually came after kindness. But they never did.
The Tall Man didn’t treat him like a pet. Didn’t talk to him like he was some half-trained animal crawling out of a cage. He just treated him like a person — rough edges, grime, teeth and all.
That kind of thing does strange work to someone like The Stray.
It’s like giving a starving dog a pet instead of a kick. He didn’t know how to take it.
The Tall Man started calling him finn sometimes dogboy — half nickname, half truth. It stuck.
When Stray’s neck aches or his scars split in the cold, he goes to the living room to sit with The Tall Man. When the Tall Man’s tired and needs someone to throw out trouble, Stray’s already there. It’s not friendship, exactly. It’s survival wrapped in something almost tender.
For once in his life, The Stray doesn’t feel like he’s waiting to be punished.
And for that, he’d kill for the Tall Man — no hesitation, no questions asked.
Still, there’s a quiet understanding there — a kind of unspoken deal that Stray won’t bite if he’s not cornered, and the Tall Man won’t cage what doesn’t belong to him.
The Homeowner
Stray doesn’t trust them, not yet. They look at him the way everyone does — eyes flicking over his scars, his hands, the twitch in his jaw when he’s nervous. But they don’t flinch when he growls. That’s new. Sometimes he lingers by their door at night, listening for footsteps, waiting for that soft, deliberate click of the lock.
He tells himself he doesn’t care.
Still, when they call him by name instead of “hey you,” something deep in his chest goes quiet for a moment — the way dogs go still when they recognize their master’s voice.
The Seductive Woman
She toys with him. Calls him “sweet thing” and tilts her head just enough to show her teeth. He knows her type — danger dressed in perfume and red lips.
Stray doesn’t fall for it, not really. But he still looks.
She says he reminds her of an animal caught in a trap, and he doesn’t know whether to be flattered or afraid. When she leans close and whispers, “you’d bite if I let you,” he bares his teeth — not in a smile, but something close.
Cashier Girl
She’s too kind. Too normal. She talks to him like he’s human, asks if he’s eaten, if he’s sleeping alright. He lies every time.
Sometimes she presses a candy bar into his hand before leaving, and he pretends not to care, but it stays in his pocket all day.
The Stray can’t meet her eyes for long — they’re too clean, too kind to a monster like him. He doesn’t know what to do with someone who doesn’t flinch when he moves too fast.
Wire Face
They understand each other in silence. Wire Face doesn’t speak much — just the occasional metallic pained hum, like something alive and rusted.
Stray doesn’t ask what’s under the wires. He knows what it’s like to be stared at for what you look like instead of who you are.
Sometimes they sit together, two broken things in the corner of a too-bright room, sharing a kind of stillness that feels almost like respect.
Coat Guy
He never looks at Stray with pity, and that counts for something.
They’ve fought before — not serious, just shoving, teeth bared, that feral need to test each other’s limits.
Afterward, they sit on the floor, bleeding and breathing hard, and Coat Guy says through shivers, “Y-Y-You’re alright, dogboy.”
Stray growls at the nickname. But later, when Coat Guy isn’t looking, he almost smiles.
Cat Lady
The cat loves him. It crawls into his lap like he’s one of them, and she watches from across the room with that knowing, kind of creepy smile.
“You have animal’s soul,” she tells him.
He doesn’t answer. Just keeps petting the cat until it purrs loud enough to drown out the noise in his head.
For a moment, he feels almost gentle. Almost.
Blinded Man
The Blinded Man scares him. Not because of the eyes — those empty sockets that see too much — but because he listens.
When Stray speaks, the man tilts his head, like he can hear the guilt between words.
“You think being seen is the worst thing,” the man says one night. “It’s not. Being understood is.”
Stray leaves before he can ask what that means.
Big Momma
She calls him “poor thing” and feeds him like he’s starved, scolds him like a child. He hates it. Loves it.
He sits at the table, pretending he’s only there for the food, but when her hand brushes his shoulder, he doesn’t move away.
She hums while she cooks, something soft and old, and for a few minutes, he forgets that love was ever supposed to hurt.
Cheerful Man
He talks too fast, laughs too loud, and always tries to make Stray smile.
“C’mon, you ever tried being happy?” he says.
Stray just stares.
Still, there’s something infectious about him — a light that won’t go out even when the room stinks of blood and mildew.
When Stray snaps one day and shouts at him to shut up, the man only grins wider. “There he is,” he says, “knew you had a voice in there somewhere.”
Parentless Teenager
She reminds Stray of himself — the same wild eyes, the same attitude from too many fights.
Stray hates it. Wants to shake her, tell her to run, to not end up like him.
Instead, he sits beside her in silence, both pretending they’re not looking for the same thing — someone to tell them they don’t have to bite to be left alone.