August Morgan

Name: August James Morgan
Nicknames: Gus
Face/Model Claim: Henry Cavill
Age: 38
Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual
Nationality: American
Hometown: The Bronx, New York City
Relatives: Father (Gabriel, deceased), Mother (Mary, living), Wife (Bette, living, separated for three years, divorce proceedings initiated.)

Job: Former Detective at the 41st Precinct in The Bronx, New York. Current bartender at a slum bar.
Skills:
Weapon(s):

Height: 6'5" inches tall
Weight: 230 lbs
Eye Color: Blue
Hair Color: Dark Brown

Scars/Marks: Various small scars on his body from his strenuous work on the police force. Two long scars with faint stitch scars on his left forearm and right abdominal area. Both scars were obtained in the same fight. The forearm scar starts at an inch below his wrist on the top side of his forearm and travels across diagonally towards his elbow, stopping at the outer side of his arm and a few inches below his elbow. It is a defensive wound approximately 5 inches long. Abdominal scar starts at his right side, at his mid rib cage, and travels across and downward toward his groin before turning sharply and upward toward his left hip, ending a half inch past his navel, between his groin and navel, the entire scar a skewed but crude "L" shape. It is approximately 9.5 inches long and 4 inches across.

Appearance: Gus knows how to wear a suit well, as the later days in his promotions to detective on the police force required a more professional look than the uniformed officers. There was something about a well-tailored suit and a clean cut appearance that had people acknowledging his authority over other uniformed officers, giving him the appearance of being more trustworthy, when he was anything but.

However, after his downfall and when he had to take on a different job, Gus reverted back to the appearance of his mid-career days, when he was on a strike force as a plain clothes officer. Denim jeans, boots, and a t-shirt under an open flannel shirt was his usual get-up then, and now he wears it with the addition of a week's worth of stubble and barely kept bedhead, instead of a clean shaven and perfectly combed appearance.

Personality in Brief: Currently, Gus battles occasional depressive episodes, though always in private, as he doesn't trust anyone enough to speak of his troubles and also believes it to be bad manners to do so, anyway. Because of his strict upbringing, the things he saw while working on the police force, and his own guilt over things he has done, Gus rarely believes that people are inherently good. He is prone to believing that everyone has a clear or ulterior motive as a means to selfishly obtain what they want. Because of his recent divorce proceedings, he is closed off, especially to women, appearing callous and cold.

Flaws:

Gus tends to be closed off in social situations. He is more likely to stand back and observe than he is to initially engage. This usually gives off the impression that he is cold, which he doesn't mind.

He can be quick to anger if the right buttons are pushed. When he is experiencing anxiety, he can be irritable and brusque.

His moral compass is different from most, his jaded world view leading him to a "the ends justify the means" mentality.

Gus suffers from the following phobias in varying severities:

- Pnigophobia a.k.a fear of choking (Severe; takes precautions to avoid)

- Nyctophobia a.k.a fear of darkness or the absence of light (Severe; takes precautions to avoid exposure)

- Hylophobia a.k.a fear of forests (Moderate; due to an experience he had on the job, he takes excessive precautions to prepare if he has to venture into any type of wilderness)

- Algophobia a.k.a fear of pain (Moderate; due to an attack and subsequent recovery time, he is fearful of experiencing extreme pain)

Any Other Notes:

- He speaks with a Bronx accent, though because of his later promotion to Detective on the police force, he consciously attempted to thin out his accent to appear more professional. He never reverted back, however his accent is still audible, just not as thick as it was when he was growing up and in his twenties. However, when he's angry, his accent tends to thicken up.

- He's an excessive chewer, often chewing the same bite of food for minutes before swallowing. Regularly takes OTC medication for jaw pain as a result. He avoids certain foods that make his jaw pain worse.

- He must have light or the option of light at all times.

- He frequently carries pain medication on his person.

History:

EARLY CHILDHOOD

August Morgan was born in The Bronx into a strict family. For generations, his ancestors were either military men or police officers. More often than not, even when their military career was over, the men in his family became police officers. With a father who may as well have had a career as a drill sergeant in the Army and a submissive mother who knew to keep her mouth shut, August grew up in what some people would consider an abusive household. Since it was August's normal, he didn't (and to some extent, still doesn't) consider it to have been abusive. He was raised much the same way as his father before him, and his father before him, and his father before him. It was a repetitive cycle of men raising their sons the way that they were raised and August wasn't spared from that.

Growing up in a rough neighborhood, August was seen as wealthy by his poverty stricken friends, even though his father's salary as a police officer kept them in the lower middle class. His father often cut corners and took bribes in order to obtain more money than his salary would offer him, and he frequently moonlighted as a bouncer or security for some of New York's seedy nightclubs and gentleman's clubs. A serial adulterer, August's father was gone more than he was around, and his mother never dared speak up against the lack of his presence. To this day, August wonders if that was because she was afraid of the slap she would get, or if she just preferred him gone as a respite to the frequent disrespect and abuse.

As a young child, August was deathly afraid of the dark. He frequently stole batteries from his father's workroom in order to keep in a flashlight for after he went to bed. Too afraid of his father to reveal his phobia, his father eventually found out from the missing batteries. As a means to "toughen up the coddled boy," Gabriel would lock August in a dark closet for 15-30 minute intervals in order to try and use exposure to "cure" August of his fear. August was never cured of his fear. The exposure technique that his father used only made his phobia worse. Mary spoke up after several exposure treatments over the course of six months, voicing her concern and frustration over her son's screaming in the closet. She earned herself a black eye. Eventually, August learned to cope by disassociation. He keeps his fear private, often getting angry if anyone questions his need for light.

During his exposure treatments, August gained another phobia as a result of his fear of the dark. One night, during a rare supper that his father was present for, Gabriel threatened to put August in the dark coat closet after discovering more batteries missing. August sucked in air out of fear and lodged a piece of half-chewed food into his windpipe. With air supply cut off, he began to choke. His father accused him of faking to get out of punishment, calling him a "pussy" for being scared. It was only once August started to lose consciousness that Gabriel listened to Mary's frantic cries for help and August was given the Heimlich maneuver to dislodge the blockage. Since that night, August eats extremely small bites and never swallows without chewing those bites into a an easily passable paste. Because of his odd way of eating, it takes August a long time to finish a meal, and he frequently supplements with vitamin infused nutrient shakes to keep his weight up.

MID TEENAGE YEARS

August was never going to be anything other than a military man or a police officer. It was ingrained in him since his birth. His father would frequently boast about the "low life thugs" he'd either busted or taught a lesson, telling tales of fist fights and shoot outs, leading August to have a warped sense of hero worship for his father despite the horrible way that he was raised. When his father was killed in the line of duty when August was 17 years old, August took it especially hard. His father's killer was apprehended, but was murdered before he could see a trial, having been put in general population at the prison while awaiting trial. The man was found beaten, with multiple skull and limb fractures. Every finger and toe had been smashed and shattered, knee caps crumbled, and brain matter splattered on the cell walls. In the cell, there was a single prison-issue sock filled with padlocks. The official explanation was that another inmate who had history with his father's killer had gotten even, but the inmate swore of his innocence, citing that there was no way he could have done the extent of damage to Gabriel's killer without being stopped before the final result of the condition of the body.

Devastated by the lack of justice, as August would have far preferred Gabriel's killer to have rotted in a small cell, he decided to proceed with his plans of becoming a police officer early, resorting to accompanying his father's former partners when he could. It was extremely dangerous and against the law, but that wasn't uncommon for his father and his police officer friends. August learned all that he could from his late father's friends. However, in doing so, he was treated to a more realistic picture of what his father had really been like during his life and career. August's mentors treated him as though he were a "chip off the ol' block," revealing their dirty tactics and Gabriel's infidelities.

EARLY ADULTHOOD

Disgusted by his father's abuse of power and dirty dealings, August promised himself that he would never be like his father. He graduated high school that summer with honors and obtained a scholarship to complete a Criminal Justice degree. Once he had completed his degree, he went in for training and soon after, became a police officer, assigned to his father's old precinct.

For years, August upheld the law and did his best to help people. However, humanity was rarely what he had hoped it would be, and though he rose in the ranks of the department, the situations that he experienced slowly demoralized him over the years. There were just too many bad people out on the streets. It made him long for a nice, quiet town to serve in. Then again, a nice, quiet town would leave him bored after his constant calls in The Bronx. He eventually became so jaded, just as his father had, that he judged people before they even had a trial. "Innocent until proven guilty" didn't exist to him anymore. After years of watching criminals get out of their charges based on flawed laws and watching the victims of those crimes have to continue in their pain, he began to grow tired of life in general. None of it was fair. None of it at all.

August met Bette Dallas through a mutual friend at a police charity event in Manhattan when he was twenty eight years old. As cliche as it would normally sound, it was very nearly love at first sight. After they were introduced, they hit it off and talked throughout the charity event and when she gave him her number at the end of the night, he called her an hour later and asked her to have dinner with him the next night. It was a fast, bold move but she had been just as intrigued by him as he had been by her...and she accepted. Six months later, they moved in together. A year after that, on Bette's 30th birthday, he proposed. She accepted and what followed was a lengthy engagement, due to an increase in the arguments they had over his long hours at work.

They had agreed that they didn't want to have children, but Bette became pregnant two years into their engagement. Gus was terrified of becoming a father, but he and Bette agreed that they would proceed with the pregnancy and become parents. When Bette miscarried in her tenth week of pregnancy, Gus was silently relieved. August and Bette married five years after they met on the anniversary of the day they met.

During their relationship, Gus went through many ups and downs professionally in his career. He began to adopt his father's methods for the purposes of making sure that criminals would go to where they belonged, which involved tampering with crime scenes, planting evidence, and "hiring" witnesses to testify in exchange for looking the other way on minor crimes. In some bigger deals, he obtained profits from stolen goods to help to pay for the lavish wedding that Bette wanted. He justified what he did by telling himself he was not only doing a good thing for Bette, but for the community as a whole, as the more seasoned offenders and serious crime was being taken off the street. With that justification, he slept very well at night, but would occasionally have unexplained bouts of insomnia that lasted for days at a time.

A year after his marriage to Bette, when he was thirty three years old, August joined a search party with other officers to assist a neighboring department in finding another police officer that had been overtaken and abducted during a drug bust. The intel that August received from his C.I. (whom he made his C.I. in order to help him skip some charges in exchange for a substantial monetary payment) put the missing police officer in a run down shack in the woods several counties over. His C.I. drew them a map, to the best of his recollection as he had only been there once, and a search party was organized. Not wanting to spook the suspects and endanger the hostage police officer's life, it was decided to go in on the ground and have aerial coverage on standby only. They went in at night for cover and, thankfully for August, the full moon was just enough light for him to only feel somewhat nervous. During the search, it was discovered that the map that had been drawn was incorrect and they split up in teams to search. With instruction to stay quiet in case scouts were patrolling the area, August moved forward with his team to search a particular quadrant. In a foolish move, August moved off only twenty feet from his team in order to relieve himself. He had not said a word and the team moved on without him. Dark cloud cover had moved in once the search was underway and before he realized what was happening, the moon was covered and the forest was left in total darkness. August tried to use his cell phone screen as a beacon, for his team, but there was no answer. He radioed in to the ear pieces of the others, whispering that he was lost. His team answered that they were on their way back and to stay where he was.

His anxiety grew with the passing minutes as he stayed still and when he heard footsteps coming towards him, he walked back toward them to rejoin his team. Unfortunately, the footsteps were not from a team member, but rather a scout for the men who had kidnapped the officer. When the scout saw a figure approaching him, he turned and ran. In a split second decision, August ran after him. He didn't shout so as not to alert the team, but whispered into his radio that he was in pursuit. However, the radio picked up the background noise of the brush of the forest being run through, and his callback wasn't understood. Rather than waste time stopping and losing track of the scout to radio in again, August abandoned the call, certain he could catch the scout.

His fear of the dark started to catch up with him as the chase went on and he did his best to counter it with focus on catching the scout. He'd have caught the scout far sooner if he hadn't have had the fear. Eventually, he did catch the scout, tackling him to the ground. The two struggled and fought with their fists, but in the scuffle, August saw a split second glint and held his arm up in defense. The first slice of the knife was delivered to his arm and then he was on his back in a split second, unsure what had happened, though he'd been tackled. With the breath knocked out of him, he tried to grab for the wrist of the hand that held the knife and missed. He then felt the knife stab into his side, high in his torso at the rib cage, and he reached over and grabbed the wrist of his assailant with his other hand. The scout made the decision not to keep stabbing, but to open Gus up instead. He began to cut, dragging the knife while pressing down, while Gus pushed against him to get the knife out of him. As they struggled, Gus and the scout battled for control of the depth of the knife and the shirt that Gus was wearing helped to keep drag on the knife. Once the scout got the knife across his abdomen, though not deep enough due to August struggling, he started to go for an attempt to disembowel August. August released his grasp from the wrist with his other hand long enough to try one last maneuver to save his own life. He tightened his hand straight and shot his now free hand forward, catching the scout in his throat. He twisted the scout's wrist at the same time, causing the directional change in his cut and pushed up, finally removing the knife from his torso. The scout heaved for air and stumbled away a few feet. August tried to hold on to his wrist but the pain of what had just happened started to come alive. The scout jerked his arm away and, satisfied that he'd downed the officer, took a few moments to catch his breath before he turned and spit in August's face. August moved to pull his gun and the scout ran. He didn't have to run far for Gus to lose visual sight of him.

He radioed in that he was down and the scout had gotten away. He lied, saying his injuries were minor and he'd get back to where they'd arrived to form up before proceeding in the forest. He told them to hurry because the scout was most assuredly running back to warn the rest. August remained where he'd fallen, alone in the dark, bleeding heavily. Fear took him over as the adrenaline started to wear off and the pain hit him full force. A section of the search party found him two hours later, unconscious.

When he woke in the hospital, Bette was by his side and he was in for a long recovery. He later found out that the scout had gotten back to the shack before the other officers could advance, and their police officer hostage was left there, having bled out from his throat being slashed. August has, and will always, take blame for the officer's death, knowing that the simple action of walking off from his group to take a piss was what led to the events that got the man killed.

Once able to return to work, Gus sought his revenge. First, he used legal means to get charges pressed on his C.I. No one even questioned when he wanted to talk to his C.I. alone, the other cops hoping the guy would get an ass kicking for messing up the map to the shack. Once inside the interrogation room with his C.I., Gus disconnected the camera observation and talked to his C.I. The man threatened to take Gus down for all the dirty methods he'd used but Gus scared him into silence by asking him if he knew how fast he could make him disappear in prison, regardless of whether he was ratted out or not. He offered him a deal, which he said he would take to the District Attorney. Help him find the group that killed that police officer in exchange for a plea deal on reduced charges. The C.I. accepted and ratted out the group. The men were apprehended, ten in all, one by one over the course of a year. The scout was never caught.

MID LIFE DOWNFALL

Aggression over his assailant never being caught and the guilt of the death of the police officer crept up on him and he received two complaints of excessive force on his record in the next six months. Both were quickly squashed by the department's legal counsel and Gus was given a promotion up to Detective, which meant far more desk work and research than roaming the streets. Gus knew that was intentional and didn't celebrate his promotion. He became bored quickly and did all he could to follow up on leads and assist in arrests. Most of the time, the Captain of his precinct would find an excuse to keep him off the street and inside the precinct where he could be deemed secure, while assisting with interrogations and research on perpetrators. August and Bette began to argue frequently and his tongue became so sharp with her that she left him twice before he'd apologize and ask her to come back. She wanted marriage counseling, but he refused, insisting that their love for one another should be enough.

Some time later in his case studies, he was able to connect several unsolved sexual assaults to one suspect profile, indicating a serial rapist. Each was the same, the victim was a prostitute and had been approached by a man in a black, shiny sedan. The man was masked and offered the women large sums of money for a couple hours, so long as he got to keep on his mask. Some of the woman claimed that he'd told them he was a celebrity and didn't want to be seen. Others claimed that he'd said he was a stock broker who had recently been in an accident and wore the mask because he thought it was less threatening than bandages. Regardless, money did most of the talking and the women had been knocked unconscious by being hit in the back of the head, and woke up restrained, assaulted, and alone after being dumped in an alley. Though rape kits had been performed, the cases were put on the back burner because the victims were prostitutes. There was no DNA evidence, suggesting the suspect had used condoms during his assaults. No hair or skin cells either. Only clothing fibers.

There was little Gus could do until the rapist struck again and six months later, he did. Gus asked the Captain to work on the case. Once he had access to the victim, he questioned her about her assault and found that it had matched the others. As he escorted her out to the lobby, a man was brought in in handcuffs after having been arrested for battery from a fight at a bar and was also facing charges for assault of a police officer because he'd resisted arrest physically. The man told the arresting officer that he knew someone in high ranking of the department and he could kiss his job goodbye. That didn't concern Gus at all. Everyone talked that game when they thought they were hot shit. What concerned him was the fact that the victim he was escorting out stopped dead in her tracks and stared after the man as he was being hauled away. Gus asked her if she was okay and, visibly shaken, she said she was. Gus wasn't so sure. When the women placed her purse on the counter at the lobby check in, Gus gave her his card and told her to call him day or night if she remembered anything. As he went to leave her, he hooked his pinky finger on the strap of her purse and took a large step forward as he turned, pulling the purse over and spilling the contents on the floor. He apologized and knelt down to help her clean up, and slyly pocketed a lipstick case in all the commotion.

He researched the battery suspect and found that he drove a newer model black sedan. He asked more about the suspect from the arresting officer and found out that the man was an executive assistant to a senior board member of a financial firm. Later on that night, he went to a public library computer and researched the man's social media activities. His photo albums were full of women he'd dated and, not surprising to Gus, they were all either blonde or red headed. There was no DNA evidence, but Gus was willing to bet that the fiber threads that were obtained matched some piece of clothing in his residence. He didn't rob the prostitutes or take anything from them that they could recall, maybe he kept the clothing he'd used as a trophy instead.

Regardless, it was enough to convince Gus. He went to the car impound under the guise of looking at another car that was being processed for evidence, and found the black sedan that they had impounded as a "fuck you" towards the suspect for the assault on the officer. He opened the passenger door and slid the lipstick case under the passenger seat. Then he went back inside, sporting a look of concentration, and went to his desk and sat down and looked at files. He waited ten minutes before he took his files up to the Captain and said he'd noticed a black sedan in impound. Then he told the Captain of the way the victim had looked at the man when she heard his voice. The Captain told Gus that it wasn't enough for a warrant. So Gus asked if they could hold the man for a while, with the intent of getting other victims to identify his voice and if that would be enough for a warrant to process the car and search his home. The Captain granted him that and, after Gus found three other victims who said that the voice was definitely spot on, he was able to get the warrant from the judge for the car to be processed and the house to be searched. The car was processed and the lipstick was found, along with fingerprints of the most recent victim.

The search of the suspect's home revealed digital photos of the victims in their most vulnerable state, taken after he was finished with them. The man was arrested and charged, but maintained his innocence despite the evidence. He insisted that he'd been framed and his attorney fought for access to the body cameras of all officers present in the impound garage and his client's home. Try as he did, August was unable to get close enough to the footage to alter or destroy it. Gus wasn't found on the body cameras, however, the log sheet for who enters and exits the garage lot was submitted to the attorney on request, and when the attorney asked for cameras across the entire impound garage, Gus was found crouched down and opening the passenger door to slip the lipstick case under the passenger seat. The lobby sergeant remembered the victim and once he heard about the lipstick case, he reported it to the Captain, who then looked at the lobby cameras to see the very sly pocketing of the lipstick case.

August was put on suspension with pay pending an internal investigation, the result of which led to his full dismissal given the previous complaints and current conduct. While the suspect's attorney tried to argue that all of the digital photos found were planted, the investigation revealed matching fibers to an outfit he wore to carry out his crimes. Regardless, because the warrant to obtain the evidence was acquired through illegal means, the law required that no charges could be filed using the warrant issued. The suspect walked free, and August Morgan destroyed several lives of the assaulted women, who would receive no justice for the crimes committed against them. Not unless a legal warrant could be obtained.

While the law shamed August for what he'd done, the public agreed with his methods, but hated him for ruining justice that could have been obtained by the assaulted women. Bette was the most unforgiving of all and left him once he was arrested for tampering with evidence and obstruction of justice. After going to trial, August took a plea deal and got lucky that his attorney argued that it was the New York Police Department's fault for not making sure he had adequate mental health care and counseling after the attack, having brought in a psychiatrist to confirm that August suffered from C-PTSD as a result of the attack. With that taken into account, August's felony charges were dropped to misdemeanor level in his plea deal. He was sentenced to two years in prison and a $10,000.00 fine. With good behavior and overcrowding, he was released in six months. Bette never visited him or answered his calls.

LIFE AFTER THE DOWNFALL

August remained in the apartment that he and Bette lived in, since she was gone by the time he got back. He went through several jobs over the next year, but finally settled on a bar tending job at a dive bar. It was difficult at first, since people who recognized him around the neighborhood were quick to run their mouths and complain to the owner about his employment. However, the owner of the bar had been a friend of Gabriel, so he wasn't about to fire his late friend's son. Occasionally, August would get to serve drinks to his former police officer friends when they were off duty, though the conversation was always awkward. Eventually, after some time had passed, his old cop buddies got more comfortable with him and once the awkwardness went away, they would sometimes cut up with each other and share old stories.

August was served with divorce papers three years to the date that Bette left him, ironically enough. She still hadn't spoken to him, but he heard from his mother that Bette had met another man and was currently living with him. Or so she'd heard from a friend. His life turned into a depressing routine of solitude, with the occasional fling that meant nothing. Work, eat, and sleep was his life now.