broken

Name: Brett Raymond Trent

Age: 36

Gender: Male

Type: Wakings - Commons

Appearance:

With short dark hair, blue eyes - Brett doesn't take very good care of himself. Shaving is something that only actually happens when his scruff has grown long enough to threaten a beard and only because he hates having a beard, but he can't be bothered to shave every day by a long shot. Usually the only time he ensures he's clean shaven is when it's required for the job, and then he looks very uncomfortable about the fact. Brett is not a guy who looks at home in a suit. Tall (6'1) and broad shouldered, he's a powerfully built man and cuts an imposing figure - he gives off the strong vibe of the hired heavy, which is mostly the point, given his position. If he'd smarten up a bit and stop being so reluctant about his appearance, he'd probably get further within the family, but he appears to have no interest in doing that.

Brett was involved in the library fire thirteen years ago and, as a result, has been left with severe burns to his body. Burn scars run around and up the whole of his left calf, up the outside of his left thigh and lap across both his stomach and back. He also has scarring to his chest which creeps up onto his neck. The edges of the burn scars are visible above the collar of his shirt. Brett has got quite a few tattoos as well. The most obvious being a large dragon design on his lower right arm, together with an artistic rendering of a bird over a bowl of flames on his upper right arm in a native american style (though that is almost always covered by his shirt). On his upper left arm he has a large vine-like design. He also has one or two other designs. The only ones which are generally ever visible are the ones on his lower arms, however. Brett is quite happy to walk around with his shirt sleeves rolled up, but he is extremely conscious of the burns across his body and keeps them covered the best he can. The scars severely affect his body image and whilst once he may have been confident about his appearance, he is no longer.

Personality:

These days? The term 'miserable bastard' comes to mind. He's not the most sociable of guys unless pushed, though he's capable of it. He's actually capable of being funny, witty even - though he has a very dry sense of humour and a strong natural bent toward sarcasm. Most of the time he actively tries to avoid conversation though. He's prickly and defensive and will often try and purposefully offend in the hopes that the other person will just fuck off. It takes effort to even want to get to know Brett and he seems like he's just waiting to take offence. He also acts much dumber than he actually is these days. He finds it useful for his continued well being that he be considered as little more than muscle.

Before everything went down, Brett was easy going, humorous and comfortable with himself and with the world. He was active and eager and always ready to help and figure out people's problems. He believed he could fix the world and everything in it. He was an idealist. He wasn't the kind of person to let another's problems drift, or not be there to help. He was always ready to do things, or there to talk through an issue and try and actively find a solution. Letting shit drift just wasn't in his makeup. He was also a great guy to spend a night out with - rather too up for a night on the town, he loved a drink and had a large circle of friends. Or, so he thought.

He looks back on that now and considers that he was naive at best, but more likely just a plain fool. He realised that the people he'd trusted, couldn't be trusted. Or, at least, some of them couldn't, but his anger at everything was enough that he cut ties with everyone (or, everyone that didn't cut ties with him first in disgust at what they believed he'd done). He tarred everyone with the same brush. Deep down inside he knows that the job might only have involved one or two cops, but he doesn't know how far it went, or who to trust, so, for Brett, his new mantra is 'trust nobody'.

That was a couple of years ago now and his attitude hasn't improved and he has an entirely depressed outlook on life, though he is not being treated for this, having not approached a doctor for treatment for depression - he just deals with it and figures it's just who he is now. Since everything went down, he has resigned himself to the fact that his old life is gone. He was screwed over so thoroughly that there's no getting back to who he was, and if he tried, he'd end up dead by someone's hand. And Brett's a survivor, at the end of the day. Taking steps that would inevitably lead to his death would be unthinkable - he's not a coward, but he's not entirely insane either. Mostly, Brett would like it if the world would just leave him the hell alone.

City History:

Brett Trent joined the police force at 18 - it was all he'd ever really wanted to do. His early life hadn't been easy, but then again, whose had? His parents both died when he was younger and he ended up living with a maiden aunt in one of the darker parts of the city. Money was always tight, and the lure of crime as a way to make easy money was always there for the local kids, but Aunt Claire always kept him firmly on the straight and narrow. Very firmly - she could be a formidable woman, for all she looked like a harmless old biddy. She was always getting on though, and she passed away when Brett was nineteen.

He'd learned well from her all the same, and Brett was one of the very few cops in the force who was totally and absolutely on the straight and narrow. Brett was never on the take, never in the pockets of any other parties, and it did his career no good at all. There was never any direct proof, but Brett knew in his heart that the reason behind his being passed over for promotion time and time again was because he wouldn't play the game.

He finally made sergeant at 23 and things seemed to be going okay when he was called to the fire at the library in the middle of the night. Everyone was on hand, there weren't enough firefighters to control the blaze and everything else. It was just chaos and Brett ended up inside the burning building, because they knew people were still inside. He was helping out a woman and her daughter when the flames shot up. Brett barely made it out alive and he sustained severe burns down the left side of his body which kept him in hospital for weeks and led to months of recovery. When he returned to duty, he was given a medal for bravery and services to the city - a medal which he now keeps in the back of a drawer in a blue, velvet-lined box. The scars he's been left with are enough of a memento of that night.

He found out after the event that the woman was the wife of one of the higher-ups in the DiGiovanni family (though he never really put it together quite how high up that was). He was offered his own personal 'reward' by the family when they offered him a job that he couldn't refuse. Or, rather, a job that someone who wasn't Brett couldn't refuse. And refuse he did. And so he was given his own silent present by the Don - the word was put out that Brett Trent was to be left alone (though Brett does not know this). He wasn't to be helped out at all, but he wasn't a target. And that lasted for the next ten years, but there were no more promotions for Brett after that and he got quietly shifted around departments for that time. There was always a 'good reason' why he was moved on, his colleagues always seemed honestly sad to see him go, but he was aware that he never seemed to get settled anywhere. He was just too much of a good cop, in the most literal senses. He was very good at his job, but he wouldn't turn a blind eye to things either.

There were no more promotions for Brett after that and he got quietly shifted around departments for the next ten years. There was always a 'good reason' why he was moved on, his colleagues always seemed honestly sad to see him go, but he was aware that he never seemed to get settled anywhere. He was just too much of a good cop, in the most literal senses. He was very good at his job, but he wouldn't turn a blind eye to things either.

Brett kept a positive outlook on things. He knew he had a reputation as a straight as a die cop and he was proud of that - he didn't care if it made him enemies, he didn't want those types of people as friends anyhow. He maintained the rather naive assumption that it was only a minority of cops that were bent anyway.

It was getting on for three years ago now that he was brought into his captain's office and presented with an offer. He was needed to go undercover, to infiltrate the mob. They needed someone who could be trusted implicitly, and everyone knew that Brett was straight. That Brett could be trusted. He was the guy who was needed, though that fact as well was the problem as well as the solution. But, this job was a big one, and that success in this would mean the downfall of one of the main crime families in the city. The stakes were high, but the payoff was huge, and Brett went for it - and the drastic steps that had to be taken to implement it.

Everyone knew that Brett Trent was a straight cop, and a lot of people on the street knew his face, so there was no pretending to be someone else. He was far too well known. And so a plan had been formed - Brett would publicly and openly 'go bad'. Very few other people knew about it, the real tale was kept incredibly hush hush - that way nobody could be leaned on for information, nothing could be leaked. The plan would be watertight, and when it was all over, Brett would be the hero and the true story would be known. In the meantime, his cover would be simply that he'd gone over to the mob, sick of years as a low level cop with no prospects and wanting a slice of the bigger pie. Brett went with it and it was arranged for him to steal some vital evidence implicating the O'Malleys in a recent job, together with a large amount of cash from the evidence locker. It was also arranged that everyone would know he'd done it. It was enough to get him through the door, and enough through the door that the mob would protect him from any police backlash. He was offered a job, of course, and things started. What Brett didn't realise was that shortly after he went, paperwork relating to his assignment started to quietly 'disappear', and the few people who knew his real purpose started getting special kinds of attention.

It had only meant to have been for a short while, a few months at most and, after the third month, Brett was struggling with thing, starting to strain under the pressure. What he was seeing, what he was doing - it needed to end, and one night, it seemed that maybe it was going to.

He caught wind of something - that there was going to be a meeting with one of the Konovich's informants in the police force. This could be it - this could be the key. he didn't get a name, but he knew it was someone heavily involved - someone in deep. Someone who could name names, give details. Someone who, if caught, could topple everything. And more than that? they were Brett's ticket out of there. Brett arranged things so that he could be present at the meeting, hoping that he would recognise the cop.

But, when he got to the meeting, the cop there was his captain. Brett to this day doesn't know whether Captain Hardy was actually an informant. On his bad days, he's convinced the guy was - that he was involved in the set up from day one, that he probably even orchestrated it. Brett had trusted the guy - Brett had believed he was as straight as he was.

Brett never got to find out one way or the other. He'd turned up late for the meeting, waylaid by one of his superiors and he walked in to a confrontation between Captain Hardy and the only other guy there, one of the family's hit men - and just in time to see them draw on each other. He watched as Captain Hardy went down, shot through the heart, dead instantly. The hit man refused to talk about it - telling Brett in no uncertain that it was none of his business. Brett helped to get rid of the body that night and then, the moment that he was let go, went back - seeking out one of the few people he was aware knew the truth. All in all, he'd only ever had the names of three people who knew. The first one of those was dead - had died two days after Brett's assignment started. The second, was missing and had been for over a month. The third was the biggest blow of all. The man stood on his doorstep, at 3am and told Brett, right to his face, that he didn't know what the guy was talking about, and how dare he. It was that conversation that brought reality crashing in - that he'd been screwed over, that there was no way back. And now, if he tried, he'd also be implicated in the murder of his captain.

Brett had been left in a situation where to try and get out would be a death sentence - and the one thing Brett had never had was a death wish. Looking at everything, having worked things out, Brett knew that he had to have been betrayed by one or more of the people in the department. He just didn't know who. Or how far it went. He knew that if he was stupid, he'd end up dead. There was no going back. He wondered, at some times, whether the set up had been meant to teach him some kind of a lesson - the ultimate punishment for the straight cop. or maybe they all thought that he wouldn't be able to live with it. Maybe whoever'd done this to him thought that he'd kill himself or get himself killed trying to go back. One thing was clear though, he'd been set up so that if he stayed where he was - pretended to be the cop who'd thrown it all in to work for the mob full time as everyone seemed to believe, then he'd live.

He hated it, but he did it. He became what he'd been set up to be, and he's been doing it ever since, working directly for the O'Malley family as one of their thugs. He plays the act, he plays the game. And he's still alive because of it. His act is flawless - everyone who he's ever known now believes that the straight cop finally broke. There's a small part of him that still clings onto the thought that maybe, one day, he'll find a way to bring it all down. That maybe he can do what he was originally meant to do - collect enough evidence to destroy the family. Oh, he has plenty of evidence these days, but he has no credibility. And more than that - he has no idea who he can trust. Nobody he can give it to. What's more, the moment he went over to the O'Malleys and the Syndicate, Don DiGiovanni's order about holding back from him ended. The DiGiovannis and their associates now consider any debt to Brett paid and paid in full - it's open season on him, just like everyone else.

The only time he has strayed from the role he's taken on was in the rescue of Eris. It hadn't been planned - he'd been given the job of cleanup crew. She'd been meant to be dead already, and his job was just to make sure that her body got dumped in the river, then she'd wash up somewhere downstream the next day and the police would record it as a mugging. Only, she wasn't quite dead when he found her. Sure, he could have dumped her in the river anyhow, but Brett was no murderer (okay, he's killed a lot of people, hurt even more, but he, himself, does not consider himself a murderer - it's a Thing. he doesn't like it any more than you do). Instead of dumping her body, he took her to a backstreet doctor he knew and paid the guy most of what he had stashed away to take her in and care for her. And to keep quiet.

That had been meant to be the end of it, except it appeared that Eris was a fucking pain, and Brett found that he was being called back on a regular basis, which brought him into reluctant contact with the woman herself. And that was how it went, until the day that the doctor 'disappeared'. And he seemed to literally disappear. Brett tried asking around as best he could, speaking to contacts, but nobody knew anything about what had happened to the guy. Wanting to get her out of the place, Brett took Eris in. It was a less than ideal situation, and stresses were running high between the two, until Eris took the decision into her own hands and left.

World History:

Brett was a forestry technician, wildland firefighter and volunteer search and rescue in Mt Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. Or, well, he had been before an accident left him paralysed from the waist down. Brett had recently been discharged from rehab and was facing a new life in a wheelchair when the coma hit. Brett has never been able to fully accept his paralysis, which is why his city appearance allows him to walk again.

Note: Brett's real-world self suffers with very bad claustrophobia.

Special Skills and Abilities:

Brett is a practical man and he's domestic in a fairly male way. He's good with plumbing and household electrics - mending things that are broken. He's also lived alone for nearly 20 years and he's an okay cook, as long as you like basic, filling food. He doesn't do 'fancy' anything. Due to his jobs, he's a good shot with a variety of weapons and he's pretty good at unarmed combat as well, though again, nothing fancy. He can throw one hell of a punch though! He's also got first aid training - some of it official, some of it picked up on the fly, like nobody ever formally taught him how to put in stitches, but he's had to do it enough times over the years to be good at it now.

Weaknesses:

There's no doubt about it, Brett hates his life. He always had a very definite moral compass and for the last few years, he's had to go against that on an almost daily basis. And there is no light at the end of the tunnel for him. He either lives this life, or he ends up face down in the river with a hole in the back of his head. He's not naive - he knows very well how the game is played. This has had several effects on the person he was and is. Firstly, he's suffered with growing depression over the last few years. No, it's never been treated, no he's never even put a name to it, but it's there. Some nights he has difficulty sleeping, and even when he doesn't, Brett gets irritable very easily and lashes out at the slightest thing (though this tends to be verbal only - he reserves physical violence for situations where it is for some reason or other necessary).

His experiences also mean that he doesn't trust anyone anymore. He used to trust people easily, but he learned his lesson there. He doesn't know how far things went when he was fucked over, but he's not taking any chances either. He doesn't trust you, and he's not going to. Even people he knows very well, he's just waiting for them to turn on him, no matter what evidence to the contrary he's given. It's not fair on those people, but as far as Brett is concerned, when has life ever been 'fair'?

Brett has no wish to be liked, or to be your friend. He doesn't even like himself, so he doesn't feel the need to ingratiate himself with other people. He's blunt and rarely, if ever, employs tact, though he is capable of it. It's possible to consider his attitude these days as some kind of act of rebellion. He's very much a 'take me as you find me' guy - and he seems determined that you will find him an asshole. He is an anti-social person. He tries to chase everyone away, stating that he'd prefer to be left alone. This attitude of his has been complicated lately by the fact that he's set up to go into a business that depends upon him being able to have a public face. He's going to need to at least be able to play nice with some people, but that goes against the grain of his natural instincts: he's not sure how well he'll do with it.

Brett played his role for so long now that he believed that was all that there was. The part of what pushed him to rescue Eris, was his small piece of denial that he had truly and totally become That Guy. The events that followed after that have changed him in small ways. His desperate cling to some part of who he once was helped him start on the road back to that and stopped him from becoming the guy he was pretending to be. He now no longer believes that he's become that guy, that the cop, the good man, is well and truly dead. But that brings with it its own troubles. Because he's also learning that he's been locking himself away for far longer than he thought. His issues don't just stem back to three years ago and the O'Malleys, but start with the library fire, the burns. He's discovering that he's not only been suppressing his emotions, but he's pretty firmly locked them away. He has great gaping holes in his accessible reactions to things, and even if he wants to feel certain emotions (such as happiness and joy), he simply can't. He is, in fact, broken.

Brett has had a low self-esteem and horrific body image for years now, in relation to his burns. He keeps them covered at all times and avoids being seen in any kind of state of undress with anyone. He can't see how anyone would find him attractive and cannot let himself go in an intimate situation without twisting things to fit the few ways he can get around his own issues.

For Brett, there is no Plan B. There is only the plan. He can't plan for contingencies. If a plan fails, then he'll come up with another plan, but he can't come up with another plan before that first plan's failed.

Strengths:

He's bull-headed and stubborn, which is something that he's managed to turn to his advantage. He doesn't let things go and he'll make things work, somehow (as long as his depression doesn't trip him up and send him into a funk).

Family or Connections:

Connections: was a cop in the ECPD until 3 years ago, then started working for the O'Malleys. Since the o'Malleys were taken down, he's set up an escort business with Eris Stockard that runs out of a building uptown.
Eris (he calls Julia): the woman he decided not to let die.
the back street doctor who went missing (open for someone to take!)
Ginger: His neighbour for years before he moved.
The girls at the Kitten Club (where he used to sometimes work as a bouncer on the stage door)
There is also, theoretically, a cop out there somewhere who knows the truth about him but hasn't been seen for 3 years now (possibly dead).
Jackson: Old friend from the force

Residence:

He used to live in a small pokey apartment near the park, but has since moved to an apartment off the offices of his business in an uptown building. The apartment is small, with only one bedroom, but it's fairly nice and the building itself is fully staffed (doorman, concierge, lift attendant etc)

Career:

18-33 - Police Officer
33-36 - Mob Heavy
These days - runs an escort business in partnership with Eris Stockard.

PB: Brian Austin Green

Other Information:

Brett's handwriting font can be downloaded here!