new carrd baby
alfred bester wants close family but never figures it out
One of the main themes of Deadly Relations is Alfred Bester desperately wants family, but he either never realizes it, and/or he can't trust enough to develop such a connection, or it's taken away from him. All while constantly saying that the Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father (irony!).
The guy has Trust Issues after the Cadre Prime child abuse (thanks grandpa Vacit!) and years of his boss actually being out to kill him.
As a child, he gets Bey as his father, until the Psi Corps Director had him killed.
Walters telling him about how great his rogue parents were and that they loved him hurt him so much, he repressed hard enough to lose use of his hand.
As a mentor, he likes Byron a great deal, despite everything about the kid screaming he's not cut out for the life of moral ambiguity, ruthlessness and vigilante murder that Bester wants to pass on to him.
Byron is kind, oblivious, and guileless. He's safe. Everything Bester wants out of a family member without realizing that's what he wants.
Really, all Bester had to do was adopt him and stop pushing him into field work/vigilante gang initiation killings.
