Brian Trevino¶
Brian Trevino was a DJ and the romantic partner of Jared Dawkins, a member of Ezra Cruz's personal security detail. Originally from New Orleans and Louisiana Creole---mixed Black and Hispanic, with roots in the city's specific Creole culture of French colonial, West African, and Spanish heritage---Brian lived with Jared in their shared apartment and worked a combination of DJ gigs, weddings, corporate events, and Uber driving to make ends meet while pursuing music professionally. His Mixcloud mixes caught Ezra's attention at the band house in Brooklyn, creating one of the earliest moments where Jared's personal world intersected with the world he was protecting.
Physical Description¶
Brian stood five-seven and was built compact and solid---stocky through the chest and thighs, with a low center of gravity that made him feel planted in any space he occupied. His build came from his father's side, and it was the kind of frame that didn't announce itself from across a room but was impossible to ignore up close. He didn't get pushed around in a crowd, and when he hugged someone, they felt held. The weight was functional---years of hauling speaker stands, equipment cases, and crates of vinyl had added density without bulk.
His skin was warm medium brown with golden undertones, the kind that caught light like amber and deepened noticeably in summer. When he was healthy and rested, there was a glow to it. When he was running on no sleep after back-to-back gigs, it went slightly ashy. The palms of his hands were lighter than the backs, and his knuckles ran a shade darker.
Brian's face was an open broadcast system---everything he felt moved through his eyebrows, mouth, and eyes simultaneously and honestly. The first thing most people noticed was his smile: broad, genuine, free and frequent. He smiled at strangers, at good music, at Jared's voice on the phone. It was wide enough to show his teeth---healthy but never orthodontically corrected, slightly crowded on the bottom row, with a distinctive diastema between the front two that gave the smile its signature. The gap between his front teeth was the kind of detail people remembered.
His eyes were warm brown---not remarkable by shape or color, but remarkable by energy. During a gig, they lit up, bright enough to hype a room from behind the booth. Off-stage, they were warm and steady. His nose had a medium bridge that caught light, with wider nostrils that flared when he was breathing hard from hauling equipment or working a hot venue.
Brian wore his locs long, past his shoulders---years of patience and commitment grown into something that had become inseparable from his identity. They swung when he turned his head, fell forward when he leaned over the decks, and made a soft percussion against his back and jacket when he walked. He maintained them with coconut oil, which served as the base note of his scent. The locs were rooted in Black culture and in New Orleans' specific Creole tradition, a deliberate cultural statement he wore without apology.
His hands were smaller than he would have liked---the one thing about his body that nagged at him. But they were always moving: quick and dexterous on the crossfader, expressive when he talked, warm-blooded and running hot year-round. The calluses on his palms came from loading speakers and equipment cases in the dark. His nails were kept short---long nails and faders didn't mix. Despite their size, his hands did everything: hauled equipment, worked the decks with precision, gestured through conversations, cooked rice with burned sofrito, and found Jared in the dark.
Body Marks¶
Brian carried stretch marks on his sides from a growth spurt that had happened fast---faded to lighter lines against his warm brown skin, visible when his shirt rode up. A childhood scar from New Orleans marked him somewhere his body remembered even if he didn't think about it often. Years of hauling DJ equipment had left the accumulated evidence of physical labor---small nicks, a burn mark from a hot speaker grill, the kind of damage that Jared noticed before Brian did.
Tattoos and Jewelry¶
Brian wore his history on his body in specific, chosen ways. A fleur-de-lis on his inner forearm faced him when he worked the decks---a private New Orleans marker, simple linework. On the other arm, an audio waveform of a specific song that another DJ would recognize immediately. Small studs in both ears, gotten as a teenager in New Orleans, were so much a part of his face that he looked wrong without them. A thin chain around his neck stayed tucked under his shirt---the kind of thing Jared's fingers found when they were close. A ring on one hand carried personal meaning he didn't explain to strangers.
Sensory Identity¶
Voice¶
Brian's voice was a warm baritone with a permanent New Orleans drawl that no amount of time in New York erased. Deep enough to feel in your chest when he was close, it carried the cadence of a city where music and speech were the same language---vowels that stretched, consonants that softened, the specific rhythm of NOLA that couldn't be faked or taught. When he was tired or emotional, the accent thickened. When he was comfortable, it drawled further. That voice could also command a venue, hype up a crowd, get a room dancing---the DJ voice that filled spaces was the same throat as the 3 AM phone voice, just different registers. He used endearments freely---"baby," "cher," "babe"---and his speech was woven through with Creole French fragments and NOLA English slang, layered naturally. The French came out more with family or when emotion was running high. The NOLA English was constant.
Sound Signature¶
Brian's presence had a layered soundtrack: the soft percussion of his locs swaying against his jacket, constant under-the-breath humming (Jared could read his mood by the track), solid planted footsteps that you felt through the floor before you heard them, and the mechanical percussion of DJ life---equipment cases rolling, cables being coiled, the click of a laptop opening, the hiss of headphones at half-volume. When he was prepping for a gig, the apartment filled with the sounds of his work.
Scent¶
Coconut oil was the constant base note---the oil he used in his locs, always present against the warmth of his skin. Over that, layers shifted by hour and activity: whatever he had last cooked (garlic, sofrito, rice steam), the Honda Civic's interior (slightly musty cloth seats, coffee stains), venue residue after gigs (sweat, fog machine, other people's cologne), and his own specific soap. Jared knew every layer and could read Brian's night by scent alone.
Temperature¶
Brian was a furnace. His whole body radiated heat year-round---standing next to him, you felt it. His skin was warm to the touch in every season. In summer, he was the first one sweating. In winter, he was the one everyone leaned into. In bed, Jared either gravitated toward the heat or kicked off blankets. The warmth was one of the first things anyone noticed about physical proximity to Brian.
Cultural Presentation¶
Brian's daily style was streetwear with NOLA flavor---graphic tees, clean sneakers, joggers or jeans, sometimes a Saints cap. Lived-in and comfortable, not performatively trendy. His locs carried most of the style. Button-downs were saved for wedding and corporate gigs, where he dressed professionally because the job demanded it. He didn't think much about fashion as a system; he wore what was comfortable and what looked like him.
His body language was smooth and rhythmic---music lived in his movement. There was a looseness in his hips and shoulders that came from growing up in a city where the body and music were the same language. He didn't rush. His stride was shorter than a taller man's but more fluid. Behind the decks, his whole body became part of the mix.
Health¶
PTSD¶
Brian's PTSD originated from witnessing his father's death at a gig when Brian was seventeen. His father---a DJ himself, the man who had taught Brian everything about the craft, who had been so much like him in temperament (happy, laughing, magnetic)---was stabbed and killed during an altercation between two patrons at a venue while Brian was assisting with equipment. Brian saw it happen.
The PTSD manifested in three layered ways. Hypervigilance ran underneath his warmth---he sat facing doors, clocked exits, scanned venues while smiling. The humming got quieter when he was threat-assessing. Most people never noticed because the warmth was so genuine, but Jared saw it. Startle-freeze responses hit when unexpected loud sounds occurred---not the controlled loudness of a venue but a car backfiring, something dropping, a shout from the street. Brian didn't flinch; he froze. The whole broadcast system went silent. Hands stopped. Humming stopped. He came back, but it took a beat. Sleep disruption was chronic---nightmares, difficulty falling asleep, waking up sweating. The insomnia and the DJ schedule blurred together; he had built a life where being awake at 3 AM was normal, which masked how much of it wasn't a choice.
Every gig Brian worked was an act of returning to the type of space where the worst thing in his life had happened. That he still DJed---still chose his father's life, still walked into those rooms---said everything about who he was.
Asthma¶
Brian's asthma was moderate and sometimes limiting. He had lived with it since childhood, carried a rescue inhaler, and used a daily controller. Most days it was background noise, but fog machines, poor ventilation, and humid nights were his triggers. He had turned down gigs at certain venues because of the air quality. Hauling equipment on hot, humid nights could set it off. The weed he smoked for insomnia and anxiety didn't help the lungs. Jared knew the sound of Brian's breathing changing before Brian reached for the inhaler.
Emotional Tells¶
Brian's emotional state was readable through three simultaneous channels. His humming shifted: happy meant loud and rhythmic, stressed meant quiet and repetitive (the same four bars over and over), and upset meant the humming stopped entirely. Jared tracked Brian's emotional temperature by what was playing in his throat. His hands shifted in parallel: happy meant moving, gesturing, tapping; nervous meant cracking his knuckles one at a time, methodically; angry meant dead still, gripping whatever was nearest. If Brian's hands had stopped, something was wrong. And his smile persisted---his face defaulted to warmth, which meant when something was actually wrong, the smile was the last thing to go. He would be smiling while his body was tense, his humming had stopped, and his hands were gripping. The moment the smile dropped, he was past the point of holding it together.
Inner Life¶
Temperament¶
Brian was a magnetic extrovert with a private core. He read rooms the way he read crowds---instinctively, in real time---and adapted fluidly, drawing people in with a gravitational pull similar to Ezra Cruz's, though at a different frequency. Where Ezra's magnetism ran on intensity, Brian's ran on warmth. He needed periods alone or with just Jared---the adaptability was a genuine skill and sometimes a mask. When something went wrong, he could be the energy in the room or the calm in the corner, depending on what was needed. The gap between public Brian and private Brian was significant: strangers thought they knew him because his face was so readable, but the face was the lobby, not the house.
Relationship with Appearance¶
Brian's relationship with his own appearance was complicated. Colorism, mixed heritage, being shorter than most men around him, and the locs as a deliberate cultural statement in a world that had opinions about Black hair---all of it carried weight he didn't always articulate. The self-consciousness about his hands was the most visible expression of a broader awareness of how his body was read by others. He was quietly proud of his locs and his smile but didn't talk about either.
Central Contradiction¶
The man who controlled the energy of a crowd held that power in hands that felt too small for the job. Big presence, small hands---it was Brian's physical contradiction, and it reflected something deeper about how he moved through the world: enormous warmth and capability housed in a frame and a set of tools that he privately worried weren't enough.
Background¶
Brian grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana Creole through and through, where the city's deep musical culture shaped his ear and his ambitions from childhood. His father was a DJ---the man who taught Brian everything about the craft, who shared Brian's temperament (happy, laughing, the kind of guy who made everyone in the room feel something). Brian learned to DJ at his father's side, assisting with equipment and absorbing the grammar of reading a crowd before he was old enough to work his own gig.
When Brian was seventeen, his father was killed at a venue when an altercation between two patrons escalated and his father was stabbed. Brian was there, assisting with equipment, and he saw it happen. The event shattered Brian's world and became the source of the PTSD that would thread through the rest of his life.
After his father's death, a mentor in the DJ community---someone who had known his father and recognized what the kid needed---helped Brian keep going. Brian continued DJing, inheriting his father's calling even as the venues where he worked remained the landscapes of his worst memory.
Brian eventually moved to New York, where he met Jared Dawkins. He worked wedding and corporate gigs and drove Uber when money was tight, supporting himself while pursuing the Mixcloud mixes where his actual talent lived. He and Jared shared an apartment and a life built around odd hours---Brian's late-night gig schedule and Jared's unpredictable detail work meaning they sometimes went stretches without overlapping at home.
Brian drove a Honda Civic with a busted aux cord, which meant he called Jared when he was driving home from gigs because the radio was garbage and Jared's voice was better than static. The 3 AM calls were also because Brian was awake anyway---the insomnia and the DJ schedule intertwined so thoroughly that neither he nor Jared always knew which one was keeping him up.
His mother remained in New Orleans. The relationship was warm but complicated by distance and by the shared grief of losing his father. She called, he answered. She worried. He reassured.
Music¶
Brian's DJ work spanned the practical and the creative. The wedding and corporate gigs paid the bills; his Mixcloud mixes were where his actual talent lived. The mixes caught Ezra Cruz's ear during a visit to the band house in Brooklyn, when Jared's phone played one of Brian's tracks and Ezra's whole face changed. The moment represented a potential turning point for Brian's career, though the full implications had not yet played out at the time of the first mention.
Brian wanted to break through professionally---to stop driving Uber, to stop doing corporate gigs, to be known for his Mixcloud mixes and his actual talent. His father had never gotten there. Brian wanted to finish what his father had started.
Habits and Coping¶
Brian coped through three primary channels. Music was the inheritance and the regulation---the mixing, the playlists, the constant humming were not just his job or his personality but how he stayed regulated. When the PTSD was loud, he put on headphones. When he couldn't sleep, he mixed. Driving was meditative---the late-night roads, the motion, the anonymity served as his decompression chamber. The Civic was where he processed. Cooking was grounding ritual---the rice with burned sofrito, the Creole recipes learned from family, the repetitive motions and familiar smells connecting him to home, to his body, to the present moment. He fed people as an act of care and self-regulation simultaneously.
His vices were intertwined with his coping. He smoked weed---not heavily, but regularly---to take the edge off the insomnia and anxiety. It was legal in New York, common in DJ culture, and Jared didn't love it but didn't push. The weed complicated the asthma. He overworked, taking every gig and every Uber shift he could get, which looked like hustle but was also running---if he stopped moving, the stillness caught up. The asthma suffered for it. And he avoided sleep, filling the night with music, driving, and phone calls to postpone lying down in the dark where the nightmares lived. The DJ schedule was a lifestyle choice that was also avoidance, and somewhere underneath the routine, he knew it.
Motivations¶
Brian wanted to make it as a DJ and finish his father's story---the conscious goal, the one he would have told you if you asked. What he needed, at a level he may not have recognized, was to grieve. The overwork, the sleep avoidance, the constant motion---he had been running from his father's death for years, and what he needed was to stop and feel it. What he feared, underneath everything, was that the music would take someone else. Music had taken his father. Music put Jared in Ezra's orbit, in the proximity of fame and its dangers. Brian loved music and was terrified of what it cost. Every time Jared worked a detail at a venue, Brian's lungs tightened---and it wasn't just the asthma.
His moral compass centered on loyalty. He stayed on the phone when Jared couldn't talk. He took gigs he didn't want to pay his half of rent. He would have starved before letting someone he loved go hungry. Honesty and protection were expressions of that loyalty---he told the truth and he protected what was his. The breaking point was when those values conflicted: when staying meant being lied to, when protecting meant leaving. His default in conflict was the wall---the broadcast system shutting off, silence filling the space. But when pushed past the wall, he erupted into volume and anger, and then hated himself for it. The man whose father was killed at a loud, heated altercation did not want to be the person who escalated.
Social World¶
Brian's inner circle was small. Jared, his mother in New Orleans, the memory of his father, and a music mentor who had helped him after his father's death. Beyond that, the circle thinned quickly. Brian was friendly with everyone---he made spaces feel welcoming, knew people's names, brought energy to rooms---but he didn't let people into his actual life. He was the connector who wasn't connected, the life of the room who was quieter than expected. People would have been surprised how few of them had his real number.
Proximity¶
What it felt like to be near Brian depended entirely on who you were. Strangers got the warmth and the DJ magnetism---the broad smile, the easy energy, the sense that this man made every room more comfortable. People who knew him sensed the complication underneath: the hypervigilance, the sleep deprivation, the breathing that changed in certain venues. Jared got the full broadcast---the furnace heat, the 3 AM calls, the freeze when a car backfired, the way Brian's hands went still before the smile dropped. The irreducible constant of Brian's proximity was warmth. Even when the PTSD was running and the lungs were tight and the grief was close, the man radiated heat.
Relationship with Jared¶
Main article: Brian Trevino and Jared Dawkins - Relationship
Brian and Jared's relationship was built on warmth, odd hours, and the ordinary rhythms of two people making a life work on unpredictable schedules. Brian called Jared late at night after gigs, and Jared picked up because he always picked up. When Jared's work on Ezra's detail placed him in situations he couldn't discuss due to his NDA, Brian's response was to stay on the line, not push, and offer rice with burned sofrito when Jared came home.