mckaye, bruce ryan

[bruce ryan mckaye]

BRUCE MCKAYE

full name bruce ryan mckaye
nicknames brucey for the lucky few, mcbatman for jay
type original
gender male
age seventeen years old
birthday july thirteenth
group neutral
clique drifter
grade junior
sexuality heterosexual
occupation student
face claim robert sheehan
alias dollie

persona
selfish, flirty, snarky, quick-witted, quiet, inconsiderate, ambitious, dreamer, lofty, quick-tempered, closed-off, star-gazer, intolerant, quiet, passionate

life
bruce was born in ireland, making him irish, complete with freckles and accent. he's the middle child of michael and jane mckaye, two well-meaning and ultimately uninteresting people. his father is an engineer, his mother is a teacher. both are still living, boring, right? bruce was born in the middle of the summer with a full head of unruly, dark hair that has followed him around his entire life like a cloud. when bruce was born, the mckayes already had an older son, liam michael, who was three at the time and took fondly to the role of being an older brother. for the first six years of bruce's life, and the two were even more inseparable for the next six after that.

the mckaye family welcomed the third addition, a little girl named aislynn mary mckaye when bruce was six and liam was nine. she was another little dark, curly haired baby, just like her older brothers, and the mckaye family was overjoyed for the addition of a girl. liam and bruce grew closer as aislynn grew older, doted on by her mother and father. the boys didn't mind much, though, they had each other and aisy had their parents and they were a happy albeit somewhat segregated family.

shortly after bruce's eighth birthday, things went sour. aisy was a sick baby, having never been particularly healthy. shortly after her birth she had been diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, which required several surgeries and medications. she had her first surgery only a few days after she was born, the second and three months, and the third surgery was scheduled just shy of two and a half years old - right after bruce's birthday. aisy had the surgery and pulled through fine, although she had several medications that she was on for a two year old. aisy was fine after that, for a little while, but the mckayes had become completely different people. jane worried over her daughter all of the time, so much that she quit her job as a teacher and stayed at home to monitor their daughter. robert took on more shifts, as many as he could, to pay for her medical bills.

when bruce was twelve, the mckayes moved from ireland to maryland. robert had been offered a better paying job at a university, to which he would have to commute, but the money was better. aislynn was doing worse as well, and a doctor in maryland had agreed to replace the shunt in her heart. so the mckayes packed up and moved overseas. bruce, who had already had a somewhat strained relationship with his parents for a twelve year old, holed himself up in his room and made little effort to leave it. liam had joined manchester prep and was fitting in extraordinarily. he spent a lot of time doing sports, most likely to avoid the quickly deteriorating household that was the mckayes. robert mckaye was always at work, and jane was always at home with aislynn, who was being homeschooled due to her condition. bruce, when he wasn't at school, was in his room or at the park. he grew socially awkward, prideful. he got into a lot of fights, nothing physical, but teachers were always having to pull him away from other kids that he was insulting. he made kids cry.

bruce was enrolled, originally, in a different school than manchester prep. he spent his freshman year here, but transferred to manchester preparatory for his second year. he laid low for a long time, making a few choice friends here or there, but mostly ignoring everyone. he didn't like the cliques, he didn't like the people, he didn't like the food - bruce was finding it difficult to really like anything other than himself. at home it wasn't that much easier, as anyone who has a younger, chronically ill sibling would tell you, because his parents were constantly worried about aisy or healthcare that robert's job didn't pay for, or medical bills - constant turmoil. liam had graduated when bruce was in his sophomore year, and went out to college on the west coast, far away from his parents. he returned a year later though, talking about how california wasn't for him, and got a job fixing cars in maryland.

bruce spends most of his time lying low at school, away from home and watching the stars, as he has an uncanny interest in astronomy.

roleplaying sample
She wanted to leave. Astrid had attempted to, too. Booking it from the NOMS room, she had made a bee-line for the external doors, which were pretty much mobbed by press people who weren't in the building, so she'd turned right around and hid within the citadel that had been hell ten seconds ago. There was a lobby, which was nice, and a hall with the rooms that were starting to get loud. She'd already seen quite a few familiar faces booking it much in the same fashion she had, which lead her to believe that their questions had probably sucked just as much, if not moreso, than NOMS' had. Letting a brief, frustrated sigh loose, she made her way to a few empty chairs in the lobby, plopping down and sinking low enough that she could rest the back of her head against the top of the backrest. Looking up at the ceiling, Astrid made a mental list of everyone who was probably having a really crappy time of it at the moment. Krys, Dondo, they were she knew, as almost a fact. At least Dondo, then. Dem hadn't said anything about the Bad Kids conference going well, and they weren't supposed to end for another half hour or so, so clearly something bad had happened. Worry gripped her for a second, realization of her friends and their suffering hitting her like a load of bricks. Vance probably wasn't very happy, but she couldn't do anything about him. Things had been... Off. They'd been off since Vegas and Astrid was pretty sure she couldn't fix them. She wasn't very good at it.

Once upon a time she'd thought she was, but she was beginning to think that maybe she wasn't very good at it at all. Maybe she just made things worse, and they were much too nice to tell her otherwise. Either way she gave up, gave up on trying to fix them all because heaven knew it wasn't working. They were all falling apart left and right and the press conference wasn't going to do much other than speed along the process. Force of habit had her making lists though, trying to figure out who might have been asked what. The press wasn't holding anything back, as evidenced by bringing up questions of their pasts, their current lives, their skeletons and everything in between. Maybe Vance had been asked about Ale, or Chance, or Vegas, or maybe even Lauderdale, who knew? She couldn't drag her thoughts away from him, even though she really wanted to. They hadn't spoken, hadn't said a word to one another since that night in Vegas, and it made her sadder than she could remember ever being. She broke her best friend and she couldn't even fix him. That was her job. And she sucked at it. It probably wasn't even Vance, either, but Shar and Charlie and Krys and anyone else she tried to cheer up. Astrid pursed her lips together, letting her eyebrows furrow together in frustration. They could fix themselves, though, because clearly they must have been doing it all these years without her knowing, right? Letting another breath out she hit her feet together, tapping the toes of her Vans together. Maybe she was just like an old car, the kind that used to be a reliable thing and lived a good long life and then, eventually, it just broke down and stopped working. Except her good long life was about twenty years and that was it.

She buzzed her lips together, trying to think of something that wouldn't make her so down. But every day of her whole life, that was all she had ever done. Telling herself nothing lasted forever - especially the bad things - and that, one day, things would be better. For the last ten years and now, now they weren't better at all. They sucked, maybe not as bad but they still did, and she was starting to realize she wasn't even worth that much, as far as keeping everyone together went. She couldn't help Vance or keep him from turning into a total douchebag, she couldn't keep Shar from doing drugs or cutting herself, and she couldn't keep Zeke in the band. Sure, Shar had detoxed and was working on recovery, but that was because of Dem, she was pretty sure. Not her. She growled a little, kicking the heel of her shoe against the floor as she heard yelling from down the hall. Alabaster Sunday. She sat up only long enough to see what the deal was, seeing Kolt coming out of the room with Toby, followed shortly thereafter by Ben and Charlie. She was pretty sure she'd caught a glimpse of Dyl and Braey earlier, too, so did that mean Starlight Revenge was out? Her eyebrows knit together unhappily, her mind not wanting to think about the questions Jameson had probably been asked. Maybe she should go find him? Astrid weighed the option for a moment, not sure how much good that would really do anyway. Standing up, she adjusted the bottom of her annoying capris, fixed her Jim Morrison shirt and stretched, deciding to go find him because he could always make her feel better, without even doing anything.

other characters
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