LYONEL GNEIST | D1 [fin]

[shrimp]

T H E
C A R E E R
S E R I E S

ARCHETYPE #1:  W A T C H  M E

LYONEL GNEIST
DISTRICT ONE
SEVENTEEN
MALE

I’m just that young star seen on CCTV,
makin Mama so damn proud.
I can go for hours, but make this shit look easy.
You should know what I’m about.

- - - - - - -

"Factory rejected from the Capitol product line itself - I don't lie about th-," the salesman had sputtered.

The look of sheer I know that you know that I know that you're full of shit so shut the fuck up you fucking salmon on Lyonel's face is enough to make the idiot halve his price. Quietly he hands over the hair bleach (Lyonel's pretty sure it's just diluted laundry bleach but beggars can't be choosers, even in One).

It doesn't kill his hair though, and by the time night falls his roots are back to their platinum sheen. It's a good thing too, because the party's at midnight and he's got to have at least an hour to get ready: perfecting his quiff, picking the outfit that's just the right amount of sexy (but not showing his surprisingly large amount of gnarly chest hair) with a heaping of badassery, applying his eye makeup with precision that mimics his skills with switchblades - fucking flawless.

He leaves the house dressed in leather, lace and studs, his 5'10" form casting long shadows on the cobbled street. His gothic steel-toed-boots make loud clacks on the stone, alerting his friends to his presence (but not as much as his loud exclamation - "Oi fuckheads, you ready or not?").

They may not be the richest in One, but they're definitely one of the best dressed, and they certainly make an entrance as they storm into the house who emanates a harsh vibrating bass with every thud of his heart. Lyonel deftly slithers through the crowd, his lean frame finally making it to the dance floor, where he knows that he can let loose.

It's where he thrives after all, with the lights blazing and glimmering on his put together facade, all smiles and sneers, full of liquor and smoke. And when he wakes up at dawn in a bedroom that's not his own with his arms draped across a snoring body he knows that it's gotta be his element. The figure stirs however, and he relaxes. oh it's just Gwen, he thinks, sliding back into the bed to nuzzle his forehead into the back of his best friend's neck. They're still clothed, no sex last night after all. Boo.

The students at school don't particularly care about that fact though - it's just assumed he's made another notch on his bed-frame. Lyonel can't even say that he's ashamed about it because it's quite the opposite: the attention makes him whole; the attention makes him sane. Without it, who really knows what would happen?

Lyonel breezes through the rest of the day with mean-spirited jokes and back-handed compliments, working to solidify his place as not "nice" but "iconic". Because that's what he is - i'm the King. The teachers tolerate his jokes because he aces their classes, the students don't get in his way because he shows them who's boss at the Training Center, where they're sparring again with fake switchblades. "Why don't we switch to real ones," he sniggers, earning him glares from some of the more conservative members of the troupe.

The bravado disintegrates when he steps through his front door, making sure no one's followed him back home. Grandparents are still at work and he's gotta get dinner on the table. Bet no one knows Lyonel Gneist can make a mean casserole, when there's things to make a casserole out of. He scowls. Someone forgot to go to the market - shit that was me. He makes spaghetti instead, solving integration by parts problems while the water boils.

It's always been like this - the kids at school think he's the best, when really he's one of the worst. All his clothes are hand-me-downs from his six-feet-under father that he's fixed up; his mother won't even talk to him anymore. He gets her a bowl of spaghetti anyway ("Ma, bowl's on the table. Kay awesome.")

It's not easy to sew together your image from scratch, but he's always been great at plans, and this has been the most textbook one he's ever planned. Let the rumors do the work for you.

It's lonely at the top though, and there's always piranhas waiting for you if you stumble even ten feet down, eating you alive. Lyonel can't have that happen because out there he's something. Not a broke kid in a shitty apartment, not the child of a single mother, not another statistic.

He makes the rules, and he'll enforce them until his heart stops beating to the vibrating bass.

- - - - - - -
MATTHEW "VINCE KIDD" PROTHEROE
odair

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

*gasp* A poor Career? You don't say! I love him <3

ACCEPTED!