( ben barnes + cis male ) — have you seen charles greco ? this thirty-eight year old is a personal financer who resides in manhattan. he has been living in nyc for thirty-eight years, and is known to be charming and confident, but can also be conniving and arrogant, if you cross them. people tend to associate them with beaten italian leather boots and smiles that never meet his eyes. @codstarters
triggers for neglect, drug use, gambling, & personality disorders.
general information.
full name: charles greco. handle: charlie. title: n/a. age: 38. date of birth: november 12, 1983. place of birth: manhattan, new york. zodiac: scorpio. gender: cis male. nationality: italian-american. religion: atheist. orientation: greyromantic heterosexual. relationship status: single.
physical attributes.
face claim: ben barnes. height: 6'1″. weight: 170 lbs. hair color: dark brown. eye color: dark brown. tattoos: none. distinguishing marks: deep brown eyes. outfit/clothing style: beaten boots, expensive jeans, dark shirts, worn leather, fitted suits.
background information.
hometown: manhattan, new york. current residence: manhattan, new york. past residences: manhattan, new york. spoken languages: english, italian, german, russian. financial status: upper class. education level: college graduate. organization: potential illegal ties.
familial information.
mother: alessia greco. father: unknown. siblings: none. children: possibly a few bastard children.
personality.
moral alignment: chaotic neutral. mbti: estp-a - the entrepreneur. enneagram: type 9: the peacemaker. temperament: choleric.
biography.
one thing was incredibly clear to charlie greco from the moment he could comprehend the hand that life had dealt him: nothing would come easy, and nothing would be worth the time if it was.
his mother always had the means of making a decent living for her son and herself, but squandered all of her earnings on selfish means instead. she was certainly a beautiful woman: alluring both physically and with a wit sharp as a blade’s edge, but all of her attention had always been selfish. surely it was habit taught to her from a young age, something she never bothered to break before she involved herself in other human interactions. but it was likely her beauty and charm that had seduced the man who impregnated her, and the likes of his name were never so much as whispered around offspring. charlie has never known the man’s name.
babies should be a joyous occasion, and yet alessia greco found a way to make it entirely self-involved. her body had to bear the pain, her child was what made everyone so pleased, her creation. anyone who dared to involve themselves in the mess of his mother’s life was sure to see how narcissistic the beautiful italy born-and-bred woman was, and yet no one pressed a finger onto the issue.
but such is the way of the world, so often are children abandoned to their fates.
he was a beautiful baby, but grew to be an awkward toddler, an awkward little boy. alessia made no attempt to hide her disgust at how her creation could be so gangly and ungainly, could stow away for hours with quiet toys that suggested knowledge more than play with other children. but perhaps that was for the better — she couldn’t very well brag and show up with something like him, her offerings would be meager in comparison to children who were the spitting images of their beautiful parents. simple genetics, the awkward transitional period of a child, were held against a child who knew nothing of the world or such disgust from his mother. charlie was six, and alessia greco was the love of his life. all mothers should be, for little boys.
but as he grew older, as his awareness developed, and as the blinders fell from his eyes charlie became aware of his mother’s feelings. while he was utterly devoted to her, drew pictures of her at school or told stories about my mom and me, she was ashamed of his too-long legs and chubby cheeks. his loss of innocence came across the dinner table (boxed macaroni and cheese again, so mom could go out again for the night), when he told her “i love you, mommy” and alessia heaved a sigh and responded with a purfunctory, “yea.”
grades meant nothing. educational achievements meant nothing. unconditional love from a child meant nothing, and charlie began to realize that if he wanted something more than boxed macaroni and cheese for dinner every night (if alessia even bothered to make it) he would have to get it himself. however it wasn’t as simple as taking it — simply taking things earned him a swift but stern slap across the face and if he hadn’t learned in his younger years, charlie surely understood alessia’s feelings with those.
he learned his charm from her, but it wasn’t easy being the odd child he was. still, with a desire to achieve, charlie applied himself to the art of manipulation. he discovered it was simple with the charm of a child: people were more likely to assist if you added a few tears, a little naievety. his teachers began to understand his plight as home as difficult when he spun the yarn of his mother having become deathly ill. his peers found him appealing when he shared goods pilfered or traded from others (without their knowledge for the former), and the reputation he earned himself in his youth formed the personality that perfected at puberty.
while all of these tricks worked outside of the household, charlie never managed to pull the wool over his mother’s eyes. but where unconditional love once stood in tolerance for alessia and her narcissism, now contempt remained. charlie fell out of love with his mother at twelve, and never looked back.
on the summer at the end of his freshman year of high school charlie left an odd-looking boy. in the fall of his sophomore year he returned transformed, as if the summer heat had been a chrysalis and the ugly caterpillar emerged a butterfly. now if you held up a picture of alessia greco beside charlie you could see he was her child, all it took was a shot of growth hormone and the deepening of his voice. abyss-black eyes were the stark difference between the two of them (ignoring the thick black hair that sprouted from his face if he didn’t tame it back to stubble every four or so days), and alessia noted how much she despised the way he stared at her now. it made her skin crawl if only because it seemed as if he was looking through her.
and he was. now he saw her for what she was: a selfish woman who had only wanted him to brag about her own achievements. but he hadn’t been worth bragging about when he was small, and now that he towered over her she wanted him to be seen with him. but charlie refused, perhaps a little too politely for her to understand at first, and it was only in a binge of some substance abuse that he took a stern hand with her. only when she struck him first out of a dead sleep — staring at him for near twenty minutes before lashing out at him. it was the threat of never touch me again that he punctuated so perfectly, threatening to hold back no means to defend himself should she raise another hand at him.
alessia mourned for herself the loss of her baby boy. all that was left was a man who was nothing more than a reminder of her failed relationships throughout the years. you’re just like them. you’re just like them.
but he was nothing like them. perhaps the only similarity being how much he despised her, as they all did in the end.
over-achieving won him an early high school graduation by one year and excellent grades a near free-ride through college. he was always good with numbers, always good at calculations and the choice to step into the mathematical field was easy. alessia was notably absent when he gained his college diploma, if only because charlie couldn’t be bothered to let her know of the date. any by now he’d escaped the clutches of her den and made his own home somewhere on the other side of the city. he was sure he would never purposely cross paths with her, and if they did meet it was purely accidental. purely venomous.
his first steps into the world of banking began the same as any other bland story: a teller whose talent for numbers opened gateways of opportunity. charlie was twenty-two when he was offered the position of personal finance. he was twenty-four when he began taking private, rich clients, and it was only a few months into that position that he met “slick ricky” dimatteo. the meeting wound up more fateful than any singular moment he had with his mother, at least it was opportunistic. silver-tongue and charm allowed for charlie to step into the world of second set of books, illegal numbers … extra money.
now he looked exactly like the son of alessia greco. fine suits, hundred-dollar hair cut, winning smile the smiles never met his eyes — that died in his childhood, with his innocence, but he when he wagged his tongue people listened and were apt to believe the words that oozed from his lips. honest life turned to opulence … he was sure he could have had more if he wanted it, but sitting on the outskirts of a life of real crime was comfortable for him. when he stole away in the middle of the night to confirm the collection of illegal debts owed he kept his own two hands clean (so what if his command got people hospitalized, right?) and charlie prided himself on the ability to forget what he had seen. things are so often lost in the black abyss.
potential connections.
clients: charlie works as a personal financer - he cooks two sets of books. this can either be a legitimate client or one that seeks to make bets or otherwise gamble their money in some form through his other connections.
past flings: 30+ please. charlie is a one and done kind of person. he’s not at all unfamiliar with his needs and has never expressed romantic interest in any of the women he’s slept with.
arm candy: someone who attends high-class events with him. typically someone who understands his humor, and also understands that in the world of money appearances are everything. best suited to someone he’s more friends with than a stranger. (davina yueng).
friends: legitimate or otherwise. if they aren’t connected to his illegal business, they don’t know about it. if they are friends with him through said illegal business, obviously they know. (abby rosen).
i’m open to various other connections, these are just some ideas!
