Birthdate: October 29th, 1989 ( 29 )
Gender and Pronouns: Male, he/him
Hometown: Bronx, New York
Neighborhood: Downtown, Brooklyn
Occupation: Bodega Owner
Faceclaim: Paul Wesley
Trigger Warnings: Gambling, Miscarriage.
The Thompson’s are the family they say stories about at the fancy dinner galas. The family that had it all, and subsequently lost it all as well. Thomas John Thompson Sr. was a man of far reach, his brain as quick as his tongue, the man with a solution for everything. He used to be a child prodigy, after all; built off that fame was his law firm and career. His wife, Matilda Thompson, plucked from obscurity because Thomas couldn’t keep his eyes off the waitress who served him at the MET all those nights ago. Their marriage was scandalous, because Matilda was barely twenty one at the time of their engagement, and this marriage happened with the pomp and flair that one would expect from the Thompson’s. Not long after, Thomas Johnson Jr. would be born in the winter of the year, sadly not in a hospital, but in the back of a taxi in Manhattan traffic. And this was the happiest family, but happiness is a shallow word for a genius, because the lack of drive made Thomas mad. Having everything was not enough and he wanted more. Thomas Jr. was five when the Thompson’s lost everything, because Thomas Sr. wanted everything. Greed was the downfall of man, and they were proof. Gambling charges that had turned into embezzlement schemes, the press was all over it and the plot thickened. But the end line? Thomas Sr. was going to jail and the bookies and the police could fight over their assets. Matilda took her young son and fled to th one place where no one would ever chase her; Hell’s Kitchen, her home. The mother and son duo would come to find out that Thomas Sr. had died in prison, the autopsy lost under paperwork, but Matilda knew that he was paying his debt, his last chance at redemption by protecting his wife and son.
Being so young at the time, Thomas Jr., or TJ has he goes by, didn’t remember much of this. His mother however, held a strong dislike for the Upper East Side, who had betrayed her in her time of need, because no one wanted to be associated with a gambler. She worked hard to raise her son, all by herself in a crummy little apartment, and she taught her son that lessons of hard work and how working with his own two hands would get him anywhere in life. And so life went on for TJ; he went to a public school where he had to constantly fight bullies just to sit down at lunch, where life wasn’t like his fancy kindergarten but it toughened him plenty. It hardened his edges, made him rough. He worked at the local bodega like a bouncer; no punks allowed. TJ also grew up to have daddy issues; inheriting his mother’s hatred for the man who was responsible for their destitution, and then all the men Matilda had to welcome into her life just so that TJ could have a positive father figure in the house. But all these only brought more tension, and TJ would either have to fight for his mother, or for himself and it was just bad overall. Defending himself from the punks had turned him into a punk, given him that reputation and made him a well-feared boy in their neighborhood.
He was eighteen when he met a girl. Maybe she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, because this girl, she screamed money and power and all the things that TJ was taught to dislike and destroy. But he couldn’t help but be attracted to her, gravitate in her presence. She may have exuded exclusivity, but she was soft and gentle and TJ wanted to care for her. She didn’t belong in his world, but he wanted her there. Because suddenly, he wanted to be soft. A good person, the kind of person she might eventually like. Too bad she had been searching for him, the bad guy who would show her the real world, shake her to her very core. Too bad she had been looking for the big bad wolf, when all he wanted to be for her was the woodcutter. But somehow, in some strange twist of events, they made it work. TJ had a girlfriend and he was in love and things were working out great. Except for their families; TJ’s mother had strongly disapproved of this relationship. It reminded her strongly of her own relationship with Thomas Sr. and how badly that had ended, and she feared that her son might suffer the same fate or worse. And his girlfriend’s family knew of the Thompson’s, and what had remained of them, and to be associated with the downfall of man wasn’t something they wanted their pretty, perfect daughter engaging in. This relationship should have died right then and there, but TJ was stubborn and he was in love with this girl. In love enough to take the next step with her, to turn their relationship to something more.
A year later, still going strong but she had news for him; his girlfriend was pregnant and the child was his. Obviously. TJ had been blindsided by this revelation, and had taken some time to come around the notion of wanting children. After all, his own unstable lifestyle, combined with the fact that he was only nineteen and had no future to think of, made him hesitant to step up to the plate. But he was a man of honour. Even punks followed a principle, and he was to become a father now, so be it. He’d have to figure out life as an adult a lot quicker now. But this realisation came too late; his girlfriend lost the baby. And this had driven the divide between them a lot quicker. His hesitancy has been the start, and this miscarriage the catalyst. Their relationship went downhill, TJ hurling insults at her to try and mask his own pain and she did the same. They didn’t survive the month; she had left him in the dust with a hole in his chest where she used to reside.
This whole ordeal changed TJ; he grew up but he also owned up. Cleaned up his act, got a proper job and plucked his mother out of the gutters and put her in a nice house. Took over the bodega he used to work at, and soon enough, he owned it as well. The Bronx was his home, it was his livelihood and it was his life. He still thought about her, Thea Lincoln, followed her name in the tabloids and the Gazette, watched her rise and stumble. There was a strange love for children in him; he smiled at babies, offered candy to his neighbours’ kids, tried to be a bigger brother to the wannabe punks. TJ wanted to change and change started from within, right? He didn’t want to that guy at nineteen, breaking a girl’s heart because he wasn’t ready to go all the way with her. He didn’t want to be that asshole anymore, and in a way, he wanted to change to show her that he could clean himself up and be the man she needed him to be. Even though it was ten years too late, she deserved an apology and TJ needed the redemption.
( + ) disciplined, honest, playful.
( - ) abrasive, distrustful, hot headed.
