Living in Gotham is like having an abusive partner.
She will lure in with the pretty lies, the promises and dreams and beauty. The charm of living amidst gothic towers and giant art deco monuments to the indomitable human spirit, every building the passion and ego of some grand industrialist, some lucky financier, some genius architect backed by more money, and less morals, than Wall Street could muster on a bull rally.
Every brick, every ounce cement poured seemed to beckon the common man, to tell them to do things.
The bigger, the better.
You'll look at the neon signs and billboards lighting the streets during nights where nobody slept, you'll look at the blimps tearing through fogs and cloudy skies, whether it rained or snowed, carrying the names of titans of industry, carrying goods and people and showing off the sheer productive genius that made Gotham's prosperity.
You'll think you could have it, that you could share in that profit, in the American Dream packaged in a shape so brutal, so beautifully cruel, that it now seems plausible.
So you'll want her, you'll chase her and you'll have her, despite everyone telling you she's bad news. You'll give her all of you, all of your hopes and dreams and worth, you'll serve it all into a platter and feed it to the beast with a smile on your face.
She'll burn you.
But it'll be your fault for not trying hard enough, your fault for not being good enough, for being less smart and less gritty and less lucky than the other guy.
She'll beat you.
But it'll be your fault for going to the wrong places, saying the wrong things to the wrong people. It'll be for your own good, so you could learn, so you could be better.
She'll kick you while you're down.
But it'll be your fault for falling into desperation, for seeking relief rather than pulling yourself up by the bootstraps and doing things. Because that's why you came to Gotham, to get away from the boring grind of suburban life in bumfuck, Mississippi and start doing things.
The bigger, the better.
So you'll stay and grit your teeth and tell yourself it's just part of the process, you'll look at the other guy, and tell yourself you could be like him, you could make a fortune, get your name on magazines, get blinded by the flash of cameras, get your fancy degree and six figures job while living in a four bedroom apartment that costs less than some people's cars, or whatever else brought you to Gotham City on a winter morning.
Everyone will know how that story goes, including you.
Everyone knows the highs, Gotham has the highest highs.
The early mornings sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes while listening to the sounds of a city that never sleeps, the drives by places so filled with urban beauty that you'll feel like you're the main character in a movie, that you'll actually grow and make it out.
Going out and being able to get a job with less than five words and a handshake, working a whole day before getting more pay than anywhere else in the world for equal labor.
Taking a walk and seeing billboard with vacancies, opportunities, new companies being launched, new warehouses getting refurbished and demanding workers, you'll see the rich paying premium for the skills of the poor, you'll read newspapers about the poor getting the right idea, meeting the right people, and becoming richer than all of their ancestors combined.
You'll see news reports about billionaires funding hospitals right there in your city. You'll see rich playboys making fools of themselves every other night. You'll listen to the radio, and hear about this or that new legend prowling the night.
You'll hear about the Batman putting fear in the hearts of crooks, you'll hear about some blonde gal putting muggers down just by screaming, you'll hear about an old man beating down hardened criminals if they had the misfortune to approach the wrong places.
It will be new and novel and fantastic, it will be prosperity and adventures and thrills in a place where you can afford to buy groceries, pay the bills and keep a nice roof over your head.
Everyone knows about the lows too, Gotham has the lowest lows.
The nights where you can barely last a minute without hearing a gunshot, the days when the talkshow hosts stop smiling and tell you to lock your door, to stop drinking tap water, to stay put and hide yourself because the Joker was on the loose and taunting the bat, because Scarecrow was out and he was making a new toxin, because Riddler was hiding and he just hacked every news outlet telling the dark knight about a new game they could play.
The nights where some down on his luck crook decides to stab you over a wallet, because his body demanded drugs, his bank account was empty, and there was no employer or foreman stupid enough to hire a crackhead in Gotham City.
The days where your pretty blonde coworker who always had a smile, suddenly stopped showing up at her job, right after Victor Zsazs stopped showing up at his cell.
The times where you finally get that right idea, open a business, start doing bigger and better things, only for a handful of wise guys in suits and ties to greet you one evening, and they'll make you an offer you can't refuse.
If you're smart, you'll agree. If you aren't, well, a few broken bones should be enough to teach you a lesson you won't forget.
Unless someone was having a bad day.
Then there nights that just won't end, nights where madness escapes the island and starts infecting everything, you'll hear about the Joker getting a dirty bomb somehow, tha Arkham got raided and every nutjob is making a run for it.
Night where you have to wait in front of the tv or radio or whatever else you can get your hands on and fucking hope that the anchor sighs in relief and tell you that the threat is contained.
That someone, be it the police, Batman, Darth Vader, Carmine Falcone or the ghost of Joseph Stalin, that someone, anyone, fixed the mess and kept the monsters chained so you can go to sleep easy and show up to work the next day
And that was all fine, on some level, because that's what everyone signed for, that's what everyone expected, what people got used to eventually.
What wasn't fine, even for John Harker, was the moments in between.
He took a walk, a rather calm, unenthousiastic walk, in the middle of the night just as the city started to relax from the tense paralysis that struck the very moment the news started hitting.
It had taken a whole day for people to start feeling comfortable again, for the busses to fill up, the salarymen to return to their offices, the blue collar workers to continue keeping the society going, for the hospitals and clinics to stop looking like military bases as everyone with a gun, a badge or just the right reputation kept watch…
But the air was still heavy, the people were still too quiet, the sirens and gunshots and screams and shouts much too rare even for inhuman ears, the actions and movement that gave him a taste of the production and consumption ever happening were still too scarce, and the sheer lifeblood of Gotham was still flowing ever so slowly.
And nowhere did it flow as slowly as the East End.
This was the time John hated the most.
There was nobody hanging by the rowhouses, no old heads chatting up after a long day of work, no younglings getting up to no good, barely any cars driving by, and only the sheer minimum of activity the neighborhoods needed to function.
Each street he crossed, every corner he observed, every single stretch of the domain he carved up with long hours and gallons of blood, every single yard he took from Rupert Thorne's dying hands were all just as petrified.
It was slow, it was tired, and it was utterly disgusting.
So he started walking faster and faster, finding nothing of value in the land he controlled, finding nothing to be done to spare him from another evening stuck behind a desk and pushing papers, making calls and trying to put down any fire, to rouse the people from their stress induced stupor, to prepare them for what he, and everyone else who spent more than a year in Gotham knew would happen soon.
He kept his eyes and ears open, watching out for any possible tail, because the night he'd stop doing it was the night he would be caught lacking.
He took note of every single household, most people staying inside, in their room or living room watching the telly, waiting for something to happen, feeling like something should happen.
He took note of both single people coping alone, couples either getting stronger or weaker in times of crisis, he took notes of children being comforted by parents, and domestic conflicts traumatising the next generation of workers, criminals and freakshows.
One night at a time.
He took note of the occasional pervert, proto-gooners being the only constant across his domain, no amount of social panic or stress or feeling of pressure could stop them from…well, releasing the pressure in any way they saw fit.
His senses being utterly violated by their actions, and the contents they consumed, was likewise a constant.
Such was one weakness of those with enhanced perception.
He started running. Running faster than a man, faster than a car, returning to familiar shadows under neon lights, always in the blind spot of the occasional camera.
He ran away from the households and people and gooners rubbing one out while watching Alf for some reason, he ran and jumped and crossed an entire district.
Until he was getting closer to what was once one of the most unstable, miserable, criminally-infested places in Gotham, where the architecture had been less gothic spires and more ultra-low incomes housings and commie blocks dressed up as a labyrinth of industrial brutalism, aesthetic slums and rotten communities.
Brideshead.
The very heart of the collection of neighbourhoods making up the East End proper, the very place he woke up within cursed with the dark gift and the least interesting way of understanding its intricacies, the place where he got shot and started seeing crimson text trying and failing to properly translate inhuman instincts and powers into plain english and mathematics.
Gotham's very own brick and cement permanent Hooverville, according to some, at least until recently.
Now it was the only place that felt somewhat alive during this lonely night.
The closer one approached, the more they started seeing construction crews finishing up on the night's work, fixing up the streets and pavement and everything they couldn't do during the day lest they congest the traffic.
There were cars and trucks lacking any sense of uniformity working and moving together, transporting goods and people and merchandise and keeping this small isle of prosperity going strong, making sure the injections of plundered money didn't go to waste.
Businesses were still open, shops and pubs and twenty four hour stores did not make an exception to their policy now that the crisis proper had been dealt with and mostly averted, people were still moving, buying things, selling products, time, labor and services and maintaining a functional economy.
And it happened because of sheer fucking will.
Because the people felt safe doing it, felt hopeful that they could make that next dollar if they stayed out another minute, felt certain that trouble wouldn't find them even at this stressful times, even so late at night, even in the fucking East End.
It happened because most everyone in the area was making a livable wage, because countless small and medium sized businesses were using their profits to pay their employees and grow their operations instead of paying dividends to their vampiric overlord, because reliable labors and skilled workers and produced goods were sold at a competitive premium outside of Brideshead.
Because there were people armed and willing and trusted to keep the peace and make sure the trouble stayed outside of their homes, because there was a frustrated inhuman former assassin prowling the streets eager to take care of anything and anyone security personnel couldn't.
It happened thanks to the efforts of a ghoul who slept less then three hours a day, handled the day to day grind of managing accountants, lawyers, while representing the man who all but ruled over the fifty thousands souls who lived within countless six story tenements, brutalist commie blocks and plentiful housing projects that made up the neighborhood known as Brideshead.
So as he looked at the way his domain should be, at the way people recognised him, not as a monster or vigilante but as Johnny Blue Eyes, as John Harker, the man who made money flow and things happen, the man giving them jobs and opportunities and second, third or fourth chances to get their lives in order.
As he walked more slowly, smiling and spending an inconsequential amount of blood to simulate the warmth of humanity, the Blush of Life making his face more flushed by the cold, letting his body heat up, his dead heart beat and his body produce those trace amounts of smell and pheromones within his sweat that made people just a little bit more comfortable.
John couldn't help but realize that while he did expel Rupert Thorne's influence from much of the East End, much like he once expelled Hungry and his rival petty gangs from Brideshead, he couldn't call all that land his domain.
He did not assimilate it, the way he absorbed Brideshead and all of its people into his own personal interest, he did not make his prosperity theirs, did not make their people into his retainers, his assets, his kine to guide and harvest and care for until they've reached their ultimate potential.
He didn't fix their social weaknesses and frailty, did not open, expand and fund initiatives and rehab centers to work alongside his raids and plunders against the criminal elements, did not tailor jobs to their needs, did not encourage productivity and avail them zero-interest loans and investments and resources to make them grow.
It wasn't that he didn't want to.
He simply lacked the time required to micro-manage it the way he did it the first time around, nor did he have enough reliable custodians and servants capable and willing to take such responsibility.
Bubbles would quite literally collapse from exhaustion, if he added the burden of the whole East End on him.
That means that he needs to consolidate, build new foundations, and acquire some more personnel based on more relevant factors than the taste of their build, how it would feel to have them try and crush his head like a watermelon, or the way it made his brain buzz when he thinks about the combat applications of their power.
He walked toward the low rise building containing all sixty seven employees and eleven interns managing the funds, commitments and daily operation of the Harker Foundation, a simple art deco building renovated by local crews, cleaned and maintained by local low-skilled workers, and doing more to keep this part of the city functional than the government ever have, or would.
There was no Harker written in huge letters in the front, no signature logo somehow conjuring up loyalty in the heart of the people, and no opulent show of force and wealth.
Just a lower than average amount of windows, a higher than average amount of blackout curtains, and some very, very strong material and structural integrity.
"Good evening, Berta," He greeted the overweight redheaded front desk worker who took every single night shift since they had their operations move from his building in Gotham Heights to Brideshead itself for convenience and integrity purposes.
She nodded at him, looking every bit as done with life as she did every other day before, still playing Spider Solitaire on her monitor. Only pausing to write down his name and the time he entered. Doing the exact things required by the job and not a single thing more.
She never asked questions, firmly believed that talking about her job was the same as working, and thus something that should never be done outside of work hours.
She didn't care about whether he looked too pale after a few hours, or if he sometimes spent the entire day in the office where only Bubbles or his bodyguard could enter.
Truly a perfect worker.
He took the stairs to the fifth floor, the one where only a single window could be found, and it was on the opposite side to the small room he often crashed in, the place where he could already feel two people with a trace of his blood waiting for him.
The ability to feel his ghouls was yet another thing that the systemic representation of his powers could not, and had not conveyed properly.
Another reason to reject its limitations and avoid relying on a glorified crutch that restricted the scope of his powers, and pushed him away from reality.
John opened the door, and came face to face with Bubbles, for the first time since he left to deal with the trouble in Arkham, in addition to one very pissed off Larissa trying to pretend she wasn't angry, frustrated and worried.
She was doing a very good job at it, the poker face and utterly dead look in her amber eyes, the copious amount of eyeliner only further hiding the micro-expression that might give her away.
Unfortunately for her, she was dealing with a vampire, who could and did both see and hear the way her heart was beating.
"Took you long enough, boss," Bubbles said, doing the sane and reasonable thing when your rather superhuman coworker is not-mad at your very superhuman employer, and ignoring it altogether, leaning against a desk that cost more than the car he used to drive, "we've got a whole lot of work ahead of us,"
'A lot of work ahead of us' was a euphemism for 'you're gonna have to eat multiple bowls of steaming shit with me'
John knew it, Bubbles knew it, Copperhead didn't give a darn.
But it made the vindictive smile on Reginald's face that much more annoying to see.
"Fuck you," He said with a sigh, walking toward the minor comfort of an overpriced chair, pinching his much too gloomy enforcer's cheek as he passed by because he could.
"No thanks. I'm good, boss" Reginald said without missing a beat, still leaning against the desk and smiling like a man who spent a night and a day dealing with the evils of paperwork while his boss was having fun beating up people and talking to pretty girls, and now knew justice shall be served, "so, you're ready? Need some of that Fish Juice? Or something fresher? Pretty sure Scary-girl over here wouldn't mind doing a quick donation"
"..." Larissa neither confirmed nor denied the accusations, only continuing to stand like a statue, arms crossed.
"Don't call it fish juice," John said, lips curling in distaste, leaning back against his chair, "and no, I'm already full, so stop beating around the bush and hit me with it."
Reginald had the gall to chuckle, the smaller man enjoying this way too much.
"Well, you're the one who asked," He said, picking at his nails, "soooo, do you want the bad news? The horrible news? Or the downright nasty ones first?"
John said nothing, only looking at the man who somehow was both his best friend and most reliable retainer, waiting for him to finish venting his frustration.
Bubbles earned it.
"Ha, you're no fun tonight, guess the Icy gal wasn't feeling too hot 'bout working for ya," Bubbles said, shaking his head, even as Copperhead's face twitched, John filed that for later.
"Reginald," He said calmly.
"Okay, boss," He finally stopped playing around and straightened up, picking up up a folder from the desk and passing it to him, before opening another himself, "let's start with the cost of the stopping all operations, bringing all key personnel to our safehouses, and instructing everyone else to stay home the moment the news it."
He coughed, looking like he swallowed a lemon, the same way Bubbles always did when he saw too many zeros written in red. You could take a hustler away from the streets, but you couldn't stop him from feeling every single dollar lost.
"We had to arrange transportations to either our safehouses within the city, or the ones in the county for the more important assets, provide food and rations and bedding for about eight hundred displaced people, start calling in pricy experts to determine the damage radius of the dirty bomb if it did go off, and how we could minimize losses and harm to our people, it was more expansive than expected since we didn't know if it was chemical, radioactive or how it was made, and thus had to plan for every possibility," Reginald said calmly, even as he looked at the sum in disgust, "it cost us a total of about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, including unfilified orders from any enterprise we own personally, insurance payouts to our people, risk pay to those who had to continue working, bonuses for the security teams who secured King Shark, and compensation for those who residents who were asked to close up shop during the crisis,"
Bubbles looked at him with a look that said, 'I can't believe we paid this much' for this shit, before looking back down to the report in his hands, and taking another deep breath.
"The sum doesn't include the payments we did the day after, since it mostly took the forms of new orders from local businesses to stimulate productivity again," Reginald said in a less concerned tone, "we've placed orders to renovate twenty more buildings, started work on fixing the roads by Morgan and Fayette that got messed up when gangbangers tried using pipe bombs, and restocked the food banks, still made sure not to buy up the whole stocks of course,"
He looked at him with an almost proud look on his face.
"It was set to cost us about 1.3 million dollars across the board, but we've managed to trim it down to 1.1 million," He said with a grin, "convinced the guys sending the materials to use our logistics and transportations crews instead, that's even more money flowing through our turf, a lot more if we can expand the deal and start working with them long term. In any case, we're spending a minimal amount outside of our territory. "
Why did three hundred grand and some change spent during a crisis hurt more than the million dollar investment? Well, it's in the name. One was spending, a loss that only happened to avoid damage, and involved the loss of much opportunity.
The other was an investment into their people, into Brideshead and its long term prosperity.
"Good job," John smiled back, that was pretty much a full month of predicted expanses for the domain spent within one day, but they had more than enough liquidity to afford it, "that's not so horrendous, you made it sound like a financial bloodbath,"
"Oh, it will be a blood bath alright, it's just not one that hurt our wallets, for now," Bubbles shook his head, his smile falling a bit, "those government spooks and freak shows rocked the boat big time, and they did so beyond what anyone expected, everyone rushed to cover their asses, including us, but shit hasn't hit the fan the way everyone expected it, instead, everything got quiet…"
John's smile dropped.
"And Gotham hates it when it gets quiet," He said, frowning, "especially when they expected things to escalate,"
"Exactly, the politicians and rich boys already got into their jets and have been sipping cocktails since yesterday night, and every single crime ring from the smallest schoolyard gangs to the biggest of Falcone's lieutenants braced themselves for a big fuck, they waited and waited for things to spill out of Arkham into the city proper, but nothing happened…and they're getting blue balled." Bubbles continued, flipping another page, "now ol' Carmine has been around long enough to take it with a grunt and move on, but the Sicilians have been getting hungry, they ate their share from Thorne's corpse, but they still aren't full. If anything, it just made them more antsy."
John followed suit and read dozens of reports and warnings about the big players moving their men around like they were setting up for a chess game, the five families meeting up a whole four months ahead of schedule to talk about their thing, the head of the Sullivan crime family, known to work for the Roman without ever truly admitting it, had dined with Carmine himself very publicly.
The Sionis Crime Family, who preferred to call itself the False Face Society but was rarely humored in places where they couldn't threaten violence, was likewise getting more aggressive, stocking up on weapons and expanding their operations much too close to the big boys, not quite touching anyone's interests directly, but there were no-man's land and buffer zones for a reason.
Their leader was also known to be less…reasonable than the more civilized brand of criminals Gotham had been accustomed to, at least within the leading groups, Roman Sionis, or Black Mask was a known sadist, erratic, not bothering to hide his violence behind a veneer of respect or tradition.
He wore a black mask that made him look like a corpse, was feared much more than he was respected by even his own men, and though he did have many legitimate ventures, nobody could look at him and ignore the shift from traditional crime syndicates into those more insane groups.
It used to be that the freak shows knew their place in the food chains, they were either petty criminals like the Condiment King, outright literal terrorists like Scarecrow, serial killers like Victor Zsazs and all of them very much below the likes of Falcone or any truly organized crime.
Those of them known to have gangs, like the Joker or Two Face, were likewise erratic, unpredictable and utterly unable to hold large amounts of land for meaningful periods of time.
But now there are people like Black Mask changing things, and others like the Penguin showing that the lines were getting ever more blurred, that a shift was due.
"We're really getting into the time of capes and cowls," John said softly, not certain of how he felt about it.
"No idea what that means, but if it involves shit going down, then yeah, we are," Bubbles said with a nod, "it's like everyone reacted to this mess by throwing sticks of dynamites onto the streets, now everybody's waiting for the spark."
John wasn't nearly foolish enough to believe this wouldn't impact him and his holdings, or that twelve hours of night time was enough for him to both consolidate his influence, grow and maintain his personal power, and still stave off anyone who wished to exploit the territories he worked so hard to obtain.
People will see his domain, and seek to profit off the prosperity he built, to take and racketeer and set up shop in his backyard like the parasites they are.
Others will see it, but only remember the way it was, the prime territory able to absorb endless amounts of drugs of the poorest quality, and produce soldiers, gangbangers and prostitutes aplenty.
Both of them would ruin his work, his people.
Living in Gotham was truly like having an abusive partner.
Because despite all the glaring issues, it often seems impossible to leave her.
. . .
The chapter is more than 4700 words long (without including the author note obviously) I mixed two chapters together since I had a delay in posting, shit happened.
Anyway, daily reminder that the Epstein Files are not fully out yet, that the entity that was initially investigating it had been dissolved by the US DOJ to save roughly 12 million dollars a year (while they had seized billions in assets through its existence)
That you are not angry enough about it, that you should talk about it even if you think it doesn't matter. But it does, it really does.
Oh, and a year or so ago, I had made a note about how some solider had raped someone on video, and how it sent me down a rabbit hole of information which is both verified, and verifiable (if you've got the stomach)
The soldiers' case has recently been dismissed, the charges dropped, they will not be punished.
The people who leaked the video of them gang-raping a civilian man, however, will still be charged.
We live in a society.
Anyway, Hammy Loves you.
Kiss your mother, pet a cute animal, drink some water.
Have a nice day!
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