The Breather

Full Name:  Bruno Michael Chavez

Nicknames: Michael, Mike, Mikey Mike, Mickey, Bubbles, Guppy, Dr. Chavez, Chavez

Species: Human

Ethnicity: Mexican-American

Known Languages: English, Spanish, some Russian, ASL

Religion: Roman Catholic

Age: 29

Gender: Male

Pronouns: He/him

Sexuality: Pansexual demiromantic

Occupation: Retail worker (formerly), Serial killer, illegitimate doctor

Eye Color(s): Brown

Hair Color(s): Blonde

Height: 6’ upright, 5’6” when slouched

Weight: 120 pounds

Body Build:  Lean, muscly

Notable Physical Traits: Large eyes, little to no hair, surgical scars on chest

Alternate Forms: None

Faceclaim: None

Voiceclaim: Hector Chavez, Darren Criss (Melon - Beastars)

Phobias: None

Mental Health: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Schizoaffective disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Survivor’s guilt, anxiety, Hypersexual disorder, Bipolar depression, Chronic insomnia

Physical Health: Alopecia universalis, kyphosis, chronic hypotension, heart murmur, emphysema, COPD, asthma, iron deficiency, severe allergies, orthostatic hypotension

Assistive Devices: None

Medications:  Lamotrigine (anxiety/OCD/BPD), Duloxetine (BP, PTSD, chronic pain), Trazodone (PTSD, insomnia), Clozapine (BPD/Schizoaffective disorder, insomnia), Furosemide (iron deficiency), Beclomethasone (asthma), Albuterol (asthma, COPD, emphysema), Sirolimus (transplant rejection), Prednisone (transplant rejection)

Parents: Marina Chavez (deceased), Antonio Chavez (deceased)

Siblings: Olivia Chavez

Partners: Judy Locke (ex-girlfriend)

Children: None

Friends: Dmitry Alehin, Joseph Wilson, Lucas Kumiega

Allies: The Red Room Team, Adam

Rivals: The Noir

Enemies: None

Content warning for mentions of pregnancy, drug use, neglect, kidnapping, child abuse, domestic abuse, implied sexual abuse, violence, and murder.

Born into a somewhat unsteady household with an immigrant mother and controlling father, Michael had a rough start from the very beginning of his life. Bruno Michael Chavez was an unplanned pregnancy and though his mother wanted to keep him, his father was less than keen on having another child. He was born two months early due to his father’s rampant drug use leading to abuse against his mother while she was carrying him. He was born with underdeveloped lungs and an underdeveloped heart, as well severe pneumonia that escalated into neonatal sepsis. He was kept in the NICU for the first eight months of his life, struggling to survive. While he did eventually get to go home, Michael was frequently in and out of hospitals for the complications caused by his premature birth. By the time he was three years old, Michael had to have his first operation for a struggling heart and lungs. After his successful recovery from that, Michael’s younger years proceeded largely without incident. He was an obedient child and well-loved by his mother. His sister was disinterested in interacting with him on account of the fact that Michael had so continuing physical issues. She felt he was “embarrassing” to be around. Despite her attitude, Michael was oblivious and sincerely loved his sister even if she did not reciprocate the feelings. He never truly realized that he was any different from other children and tried to be around others because he disliked being at home on account of his father.

Too young to understand what was going on around him, Michael was largely able to disregard the lack of stability of his family and the disdain of his father towards him. While he tried to get close to his older sister to little avail, Michael ended up adoring his mother and was very close to her. In school, Michael’s teachers regarded him as academically excellent but very concerning socially. His appearance garnered negative attention from his schoolmates and he often found himself the victim of bullying. Because of this Michael became withdrawn once he entered grade school and preferred to sit alone and do quiet things by himself, as he wasn’t able to participate in physically taxing activities for his own health and safety. Outside of school, Michael was a very social child who tried to make friends but ultimately found himself left to impress his mother with his creative mind and aspiration to be a smart doctor that could help people. Though presented with a myriad of set backs, Michael was very resilient and continued to remain optimistic and happy despite the circumstances. That would change after he turned five however.

It happened around a week after his birthday. His sister was over at a friend’s house for a slumber party and his mother was in the kitchen cleaning up dinner. His father had begun using the Dark Web to access drugs easier and for a cheaper price, but he was erratic, irresponsible, and in no way cautious about his actions. He was tracked down and in the night, strange men broke into his house to collect his father. Michael had the good sense to hide in his closet as his bedroom door was kicked open. He went unnoticed but from his vantage point, he could see men in masks and dark clothing dragging away his parents. Desperate to save his mother, he rushed out to help her and tried to fight them off but turned tail when he was noticed. He rushed back to his hiding place and narrowly escaped discovery when the sound of police sirens caused his attackers to flee. Michael could not recall any discerning features of the men but he can recall his sister marching up to him after being called home by the police and, through tears, yelling at him how it was his fault their parents were gone, that she never wanted to see or speak to him again, and that she wished he’d never been born.

Michael was transferred to an orphanage and separated from his sister shortly after the incident. His odd appearance and medical history made him unappealing to most families and Michael struggled to form connections with any of the other kids there. He did, however, garner their hatred. Being the smallest and the youngest, Michael quickly became an easy target for many of the other kids to pick on and abuse verbally and physically. Years into his treatment, their unprompted attacks grew more sinister and violating. Michael often reflects on how they would often pull what little hair he did have as the only warning he was about to be swarmed. They began pulling on it hard enough to tear his scalp as they held him down and abused him. He was threatened with serious consequences if he told anyone about what happened. Though Michael disregarded this threat and pleaded with the nuns running the orphanage to listen to him and how he was being mistreated, they ignored his claims. Being a religiously-run orphanage, some caretakers took the claims as his twisted confession of perverse thoughts towards his peers and beat him viciously for it. Michael realized early on that adults would not help him and continued to endure the abuse from all sides until he was twelve. He ended up running away from the orphanage and took residence in a van that he had found abandoned on the side of a back-road. Over time, this van would come to be his new home.

As he got older, Michael continued his studies through public school and became a very clear loner. He spoke very little and preferred to spend hours studying alone in his van. He took up odd jobs to get by and pay for materials, food, and clothes for himself. At around sixteen, Michael felt himself becoming unstable. He found himself unable to sleep and struggling to let go of his past. Visions of dark human-like shadows looming over him and being restrained as he was tortured began to haunt him and he sought therapy to try and help himself. Ultimately, he found that the years of silence had developed within him an elusive but hot temper, as well as several disorders. Both in shock and because he was unable to afford it, he stopped going to therapy and became incredibly withdrawn for several months. It took time but Michael eventually came to terms with his diagnoses and tried to continue with life as normal, purchasing the necessary medications he needed when he could and utilizing text resources to try and develop decent coping mechanisms. Eventually, his academic prowess paid off and Michael was able to land a full-ride scholarship to Princeton University where he intended to continue his studies and become a medical doctor.

During his sophomore year in Princeton, Michael met his first girlfriend. Judy Locke was a girl his age studying the same major as him. The two clicked and immediately they realized that they shared a love for many things, including a high-sex drive and a sense of morbid curiosity. However, Judy turned out to be very vindictive and cruel. She berated Michael constantly and pushed him around. She demanded sex from him even when he tried to say no, encouraged him to smoke in spite of his physical illnesses, and encouraged him to stop taking his medications for his mental illnesses. Her influence on him began to affect him emotionally, academically, and physically. Michael was hospitalized due to congestive heart failure and lung issues as a result of smoking. He was in the hospital for sixteen months before he was lucky enough to receive a heart and double-lung transplant. Upon returning to school, he realized that he couldn’t continue things with Judy and decided to break things off after five years of hell. Judy swore that she would make him pay and Michael thought nothing of it. Just a semester before Michael was scheduled to graduate, he was expelled from Princeton University for possession of marijuana. Though Michael insisted he’d never smoked marijuana on account of his lung condition and tried to explain that his former partner was an avid user of the drug and was setting this up as revenge for breaking up with her, he went disbelieved. Michael was convicted and while he was found not guilty in court, his absence and the conviction alone was grounds for Princeton to expel him and have his scholarship revoked, and he was fired from his part-time work-study job. Now in a crippling amount of debt, off his medication, jobless, homeless, and struggling to feel some semblance of control over his life, Michael found himself growing desperate and angry. He found himself depressed and often spending hours driving around aimlessly at night until eventually, he spiraled. He spotted a hitchhiker on the side of the road and was overcome by an overwhelming urge to suddenly due intense harm to the individual in order to regain some sense of control. In a moment of weakness catalyzed but his untreated illness and mounting stress, he snapped and killed the person. He lured the hitchhiker into his van, gagged and tied them, stabbed them numerous times, and then dumped them in a ravine a mile off the highway. The body was not found for months and he was never implicated.

Despite the immense guilt he felt after the murder happened, he also felt some very sick sense of satisfaction. Killing became the way he dealt with his demons when his pills ran out and he felt overwhelmed by everything. Crime became his outlet and eventually, his main source of income as well. Having learned about its presence from friends in college, Michael turned to the Deep Web, acquiring forgeries for multiple different degrees in his name and exploring multiple sites that detailed murder and how to get away with it. In his unstable mind, Michael was reminded of the rush he had felt when he’d killed his first victim and the guilty pleasure it had granted him. His lust for blood became too strong and he received the desire to kill again. Fitting himself in a hoodie, surgical gloves, and a mask, he went on his first organized murder as a serial killer- a careless person he had tracked through the Deep Web. From there on, he began harassing them with phone calls using a rerouted number and stalked them for hours before killing them. This pattern would continue on and become his MO for his acts. Michael targeted people using the Deep Web unprotected and hitchhikers, with an emphasis on members of the former group with clear intentions to do harm. His main reason for this was to try and offset some of the guilt he felt using killing to cope. Eventually, he encountered the Kidnapper one night while stalking around a target’s home. The two were both reasonable and neutral, completing the job and making idle banter before forming a tentative alliance. He eventually joined the Red Room Team and was later sought out and “persuaded” to join Adam’s Big Bad Ensemble, much to his dismay.

After moving cities, Michael applied to work at a hospital as a doctor by day to decrease potential suspicions surrounding him and put his medical knowledge to good use fulfilling his dream of being a doctor. Unfortunately, he was never formally put on payroll due to his appearance and essentially works as a volunteer doctor at a hospital but refuses to say anything about it out of fear of being caught with forged degrees. Though he is now back on his medications, Michael still experiences violent urges and tendencies during his occasional psychotic breaks and cannot curb his craving for blood entirely. All of the money he makes is through Adam’s games and what he can steal off the corpses and homes of his victims, and a majority of it goes towards debt that he may very well spend the rest of his life paying off.

Recognized by his companions as a laid-back clown with an outgoing attitude and charming personality, Mike is the poster child of the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover” in every sense of the word. Used to receiving comments about his appearance, Mike often uses this to his advantage by frequently making jokes about himself in a light-hearted tone to make people see him more as an approachable goof than a creepy bald guy living out of his van. Knowing about the inner workings of the human mind, Mike plays on this knowledge to get people to like him and make connections. Though the reasons behind him appearing so friendly seem a bit morally gray, Mike sincerely cares for people and tries to help wherever he can whenever he can, hence him working in a hospital. He expects no thanks in return and is even fine with not receiving pay for his work. It serves mostly only as a coverup, but also to help Mike fulfill his childhood dream of being someone who can help others, and due to the events of his life he has only become more motivated to achieve this goal and actively prevent people from going through the horrific things he was forced to suffer. However, there is another side to this seemingly stringless philanthropic perspective, and it is what lies beneath this surface that is cause for concern.

Mike’s humorous personality and desire to constantly help others serves as a mechanism for escape. He uses self-deprecating humor to stop others from asking him deeper questions about himself and it affects his perception of himself in an unhealthy and negative way. He often uses jokes to distract himself and others from potential issues pertaining to him and is insistent on helping the people around him so he does not have to deal with his own problems, even if it means overextending himself. He has a chronic fear of facing the things that have been done to him and believes that in confronting the issues, they may very well consume the last few bits of control over himself and his life he feels he has. He believes he has to prove to everyone that has ever hurt him that they were wrong about him. He’s a people pleaser that yearns to be praised and yet feels he doesn’t deserve it. Mike fights with himself to feel like has some semblance of control over himself and his actions. He fights to believe that he is a good person– just a little damaged. Mixed with this belief is the fact that Mike has severe trust issues. His abuse has led to him finding it incredibly difficult to talk to others more personally or let people into his life without suspicion that they may hurt him. This is also part of the reason why he refuses to enter relationships and the thought of commitment scares him. Topping it all off is Mike’s firm mindset that his issues are just that- his issues. His and no one else’s. His circumstances in life led to him realizing early on that no one was going to help him solve his problems, so if he got himself into trouble he’d have to be the one to get himself out of it. He does not wish to burden anyone else with his careless mistakes and insists on making things right all by himself. This warped sense of pride has led to many hungry, sleepless nights for the Breather, which in turn have fueled the deepest and darkest layer of shattered mind.

Beneath all of the more conscious and emotional drivers behind his actions, Mike’s trauma has caused severe mental instability over which he has little control. The desire to feel some sort of control in his life paired with being pushed to his limit by past experiences has caused him to develop violent subconscious tendencies. These tendencies manifest themselves in psychotic episodes that are often the result of him becoming overly stressed and forgetting to take his medication at some point in his busy schedule. In addition to this, he has culminated a twisted love for violence which he acts on in an attempt to control these outbursts. It is what he considers a guilty pleasure to use his smarts to track down Deep Web lurkers and clueless hitchhikers with which to unleash his mounting frustrations. As guilty as he ends up feeling later, Mike can’t help but get some sadistic pleasure out of stalking, hunting, and killing people to satiate the burning desires of the monster deep inside of him. He cannot control it and he cannot help the carnal joy he feels from killing, so he can only pray for forgiveness in an attempt to ease the burden on his soul and lighten the knife he carries in his back pocket at all times. In recent times, he has found himself being approached by Adam and his cult. He receives payment in exchange for helping in hunting particular game targets provided to him by his contractor. Though he’s not particularly fond of Adam, his posse, or his methods, Michael stays for the money to try and pay off his college debts.

Micahel tends to travel a lot but when he’s not at church or in his van and on the move, he’ll often crash with Dmitry and Joseph, stocking up on food to go, doing his laundry, and checking in with his friends to have fun for a little while before he heads back out into the world to fend for himself and hopefully make a bit of cash in the process. He’s distinctly recognizable by his big brown eyes, oversized hoodies, surgical mask that he keeps on at all times for allergy reasons, and his large dog, Lukas. If you’re really in the loop with him, you might know to go check an abandoned house out in the suburbs overrun by weeds and foliage, and if you head down into the basement you’ll find Mike’s experimental laboratory where he creates new drugs and experiments on tissue samples (and sometimes himself) to find new cures for diseases.

DISLIKES: Overly proud people, greedy and manipulative people who take advantage of others, law enforcement and authorities, people who hurt others for their own gain or for no reason at all, sharks

Supernatural / Fantasy Verse - Cry Wolf 

When people think of werewolves, they tend to envision brusque and muscle-bound biped with snarling teeth, a gutturally chilling howl, and a hunger for carnage and chaos. Mike is not that kind of wolf. The Breather can willingly take the form of a much more gangly, lanky canid that sacrifices strength for speed and agility. Mike is a Pine Wolf, characterized by a green coat of soft fur that he can will into needle-like quills. Imbued with the power of nature’s plants, he can encourage the growth of any member of the Plantae kingdom and even grow his own unique flowers and fruits. Mostly, he uses his plants for his own pharmaceutical use - both in medicine and for recreation. That’s right. This wolf grows weed. How many wolves do you know can do that? None he bets.

• Mike goes by his middle name. Some think it’s for the sake of subtlety or subterfuge. It’s really just a preference though.

• Mike really likes eating. He doesn’t often find himself able to afford good food, so when he can, he’ll lift food from buffet places, stock up on dollar store deals, and absolutely annihilate plates upon plates of food. He has a fast metabolism and a big appetite for someone so skinny.

• Mike doesn’t waste food and will go dumpster-diving just to save scraps.

• Mike can play guitar and sing decently but he often feels too embarrassed to do either around others one on one. In a choir or church, it’s easier for him since he’s not the center of attention but he gets awful shy when he tries to do it on the spot. 

• Mike is simultaneously the biggest neat freak and the biggest sloth you’ll ever meet. Where work is concerned, he’s very systematic and organized. His room however, contains a floordrobe, a chairdrobe, and various piles of unsorted things at any given time.

• Mike is very sensitive to most allergens. Pollen, dust, dander, and other irritants can frequently take him down. He takes antihistamines as needed and always wears a mask to limit the chances of it triggering an asthma attack. Also, it helps hide his identity.

• Mike is sensitive to loud noises. The reason he uses a knife is because he can’t fire a gun. It scares him and he always worries he’ll misfire it somehow.

• Mike’s alopecia is somewhat inconsistent. The reason he’s usually smooth is because of stress and poor health. When he does improve his condition and maintain his health, his hair will start to grow in. He usually shaves it all off anyway though.

• Mike’s hair is naturally blond/brown and somewhat curly. He could grow it, a beard, a mustache, and some thick eyebrows out if he really tried and let it grow.

• Mike feels frequent back pain because of his kyphosis. He has a corrective posture shoulder brace to help straighten his back and alleviate the tension and aches but he forgets to use it.

• Mike might have asthma and lung problems that limit his sprint time to about 20 seconds, but those 20 seconds are all he needs. He’s fast, he’s agile, and if he comes at you there’s no chance you’ll be able to stop him. Likewise, if he turns tail on you, you’ll never catch him.

• Mike’s a good climber, a greater swimmer, an awesome surfer, and an excellent runner. He gets frustrated at how easily he gets winded though.

• Since he was a child, Mike has been able to sense the presence of ghosts and other supernatural beings around him. He can’t describe it, but he gets weird tingly sensations or sudden chills if there are spirits nearby. He doesn’t know that there are spirits nearby though, he always thinks it’s just because he’s frail.

• Mike is pretty religious and superstitious. He practices a lot of Mexican traditions and often gets flack for it.

• No one knows about Mike’s chem lab except for a handful of people: those being Lucas, Joseph, and Dmitry.

• No one knows that Mike is the Breather and no one has any implications of it being him either. He’s left very few survivors of his attacks and those lucky few are the only witnesses. He’s very good at what he does and as a medical professional, he knows exactly how to clea up and leave no trace.

• Just because Mike occasionally works for Adam doesn’t mean that he likes him. He’s not keen on Adam or the Noir at all. 

• Getting the jump on Mike may end with the offender getting stabbed. Mike always has a knife on him and he will not hesitate to defend himself before turning tail, as he’s easily spooked.

• He justifies his (independent) killing because he targets very specific people looking to do harm to others. Unlike Adam, Mike is very selective about his targets. This leads to him butting heads with Adam.

• Michael cannot control himself during psychotic episodes. He’s prone to hallucinations and delusions where it’s very possible that he may lash out and attack unprovoked. He fights to keep it under control but when he breaks, he breaks completely and becomes an entirely different person. No one is safe and he feels a terrible, overwhelming sense of guilt when he hurts someone after he comes out of it. He never remembers doing it, but he knows he did it and he can never forgive himself for unintentionally hurting another human being. 

• As a side note, Mike’s psychotic episodes are not random. They have specific triggers that bring them on. Stress makes it harder to control and the subsequent breaks much longer and more intense. 

• Though Mike often treats children and gets along with them in a workplace environment, Mike is not up for babysitting and does not want children of his own.

• No one knows that Mike isn’t an officially licensed doctor.

• Mike works in the same hospital as his sister, coincidentally, but the two have not spoken in years and Mike actively avoids her whenever he can.

• Mike’s all-time favorite movie is Lilo and Stitch. He was positively captivated by it when he was younger and he found himself relating to it a lot. His younger years were very rough for him and it culminated as a result of him being an outcast that most of his peers tried to avoid. He felt very lonely and ashamed of how different he was as he grew older, but he found comfort in the movie’s message on how no matter how different you are, there’s always going to be someone who loves you. It gave him hope that someday he’d find someone who wouldn’t shy away from him and that eventually he might find a family that accepts him and loves him for who he is.

• Michael has a pit-mix he adopted from the pound named Lukas (a pure coincidence). He initially brought the rescue home intending to train him as a guard dog but Lukas is too soft and lazy for that type of work.

• Michael doesn’t actually mind Tanner’s antics. In fact, he thinks Tanner is very admirable in some ways and his personality is actually sort of endearing in his eyes. He just has difficulty keeping up with Tanner’s over-the-top charm and sometimes manic behavior. He does do his best to entertain it however and be a good friend to him. It’s really just the fact that he’s so unsubtle in his killing that annoys Mike. The needless risk makes him anxious and it gets on his nerves.

• Mike’s hypersexual disorder mostly manifests itself as intrusive thoughts and abnormal mental patterns. For the most part, he has it very much under control between self-applied therapy and support from the mood stabilizers he takes (irregularly). Though there have been periods where he just lets it go unchecked and he ends up feeling terrible for weeks afterward. Let’s just say his body count for murder isn’t the only thing approaching triple digits.

• Michael loves surfing but is terrified of sharks.

• Those closest to him find it both fascinating and terrifying how Michael can go from being the sweetest and most down-to-earth person, willing to give complete strangers the shirt off his back, to a merciless, bloodthirsty textbook serial killer with a body count approaching the triple digits.

• Mike is often one to indulge himself in sex and occasionally smokes marijuana despite his conditions. He knows he shouldn’t, but it doesn’t stop him. He claims it helps him relax.