I sit on the cold, damp, concrete outside my apartment, waiting for Jonathan's arrival. Reaching into my bag, I pull out a book called "Before I Go to Sleep." Getting lost between the pages of the book, I hear a car honk and Jonathan whistle at me, rolling my eyes I dogear the page I was on and walk towards Jonathan's car. A black Porshe, with tinted windows.
"Hey Jonathan.. Thanks for picking me up I didn't think they'd allow me to stay there."
He looked at me with concern, "What happened?"
"Well Riddler killed my boyfriend." I give him an angry glare "Wonder who told him to do that."
"Okay I told him to rough him up. NEVER did I say kill the bastard. I wanted to do that." He snickered as he started to drive.
I frown and look out the window "He never had to DIE. Yes, he was an asshole but death was never necessary in this situation."
"It was. Well it would of been in the future. Not today necessarily but it would of happened to him."
"Whatever.." I mutter as I reach for the radio, and flip through the stations until I come across one that plays a song by For All Those Sleeping. But Jonathan's pale hand reaches out and turns it off,
"I'd rather have no music than bad music."
"This isn't bad music. Its kickass music!" I say firmly. But Jonathan just laughs
"Yeah sure." And he gives me an ignorant smile.
Why do I even like him? I ask myself as I look over his feature and in his blue eyes. He is kinda sweet when he wants to be, and cute. I think. Suddenly realizing I must be losing my goddamn mind.
"So where the hell do you even live? Seems kinda far away to be commuting to Arkham every single day."
"I live in an apartment in downtown Gotham."
"A shitty apartment?" I ask.
"No, one of the penthouses downtown." He said as if this was no big deal.
"How do you afford all of this stuff? I mean this is a nice car, and a penthouse?"
He softly laughed "When you have the ability to kill some people who are.. Causing issues with Mafia members. They'll pay you a lot to kill them slowly and painfully."
"Oh." I mumble as I look out the window, heading into the congested downtown area.
"Was that the answer you were looking for?" He asked sarcastically. "But we'll be at my house in.. Say 5 minutes?"
Jonathan drove carefully and navigated in and out of the streets, taking back alleys and cutting across lanes. Staring up in awe I admire the beautiful city. As much hate and crime and evil that happens around here, the slights are pretty wonderful. We turned towards a garage entrance that was under a large, white building. Going deeper and deeper into what seemed like catacombs Jonathan found somewhere to park. He smiled at me and said
"Here we are." and got out of the car, quickly I jump out and stand close to Jonathan. The parking lot was kinda dark and very quiet, which honestly scared me. Seeing my discomfort he put his arm around me while we approached some elevators. Going to the Master of Fear for comfort when your scared. For some reason, I feel like that's a terrible idea. I thought to myself as he pushed a button on the elevator, level 42.
As we stood in the white and grey toned elevator Jonathan peered down at me "Did the garage scare you?" he asked.
"I wasn't scared, I just.. Didn't want to be in there."
"So, you were scared. Of what perhaps?"
"If I tell you I feel like you might exploit the knowledge."
He put out his pinkie and smiled "Pinkie swear I won't use these particular fears against you. Just curious, I promise."
Rolling my eyes, I shook pinky's with him. "Well it was really dark, and I don't mind the dark but when its in a parking garage, and its really quiet and shit and I feel like I'd get totally lost in there and someone would probably sneak up on me and kill me."
"So Mazeophobia, Linecostraphob, Achluophobia, Sedatephobia, and Scelerophobia. And what I'd say is a case of paranoia. So Charlotte, are you afraid of me?" He asked.
"Well.. No."
"I don't believe you. So you most definitely have Scelerophobia. The fear of bad men."
"No. I don't" I mumbled as the elevator dinged to reach his level.
"Its not shameful to have fears. You just need to overcome them." he said as he stepped of the elevator and led me down a very short hallway, which only seemed to have 3 or 4 doors. "I had fears, such as Kakorrhaphiophobia, fear of rejection. But you can handle any fear, and poof" he added a little hand gesture. "Its gone!" He reached into his coat pocket to find some keys and unlocked the door. "Oh by the way Charlotte, the rest of my guest bedrooms are currently under alterations so you and I could share a bed, or one of us could take the couch. Your decision."
And he swung the door open, revealing a large two-story front room, with a wide ceiling. To the right a large kitchen with a beautiful dinning table with what I'm pretty sure is fake flowers as a center piece. Two of the walls were entirely glass and a deck outside. Showing the entire Gotham city skyline. Turning to my right a modernesk spirl staircase that lead to a hallway which I couldn't see, but an entire study was shown next to it with a fireplace. A wall of bookshelves made some form of privacy to a desk with all forms of papers on it. Looking back to the main living room, the entire area was made of mainly modern furature and more bookshelves and a flatscreen TV, with a variety of movies stacked up next to it. All the walls were a light shade of grey, but to liven it up there was plenty of art on the walls. And the couches were a eggshell shade of blue. Taking in everything in the apartment, I couldn't help but mumble "Damn."
"So you don't mind staying with me for a few days?" He asked, smiling at the awe on my face.
"No, not at all.." I mutter and set my bag on the floor. "But to be honest, I never really thought of you as one who'd be into all the modern decor."
"Eh, thought it looked good. But let me show you the rest of the apartment." He said, while grabbing my hand and leading me up a staircase. As we approached the top, he flicked a few lights on showing 4 doors in the hallway that led to the right. Opening one he mumbled "Bathroom." and quickly shut it. He snickered to himself as I looked at the beautuful art on the ways in amazement. "Enjoying everything?" he asked as I just simply nodded.
Opening the second door, he led me in. The only room with a wallcolor other than white or grey, the walls were an electric shade of blue, and the room was actually quite large. A long black workbench dominated most of the space, with dozens of different sized containers with different colored liquids in it. "This is where I make the toxin." There were more bookshelves in this room, lining the walls. But on the shelves there were mostly ore containers, and notebooks. Some of these containers had post it notes on them, with things such as "Concentrated" or "Being Tested" on them. He started to walk out, in which I followed him down to another room. This time when he opened the door, he annoucned "This is my bedroom."
A room, a smaller than his lab was what I was presented. One of the walls was completely covered by windows, and the rest of the walls were a deeper shade of grey than the rest. A large red area rug covered most of the dark wood flooring. Against one of the walls, there was a bed with red covers and black framing. next to it a matching nightstand. On a seperate wall there was a large dresser, alongside it, what looked like a walk in closet. Jonathan smiled as he lead me out and opened the final door. Another room, roughly the size of his lab with light green walls. Again lined with bookshelves and it had large plush chairs, and a beautiful view of the lake that surrounded Gotham city. I stepped inside, for some reason loving this room. Also it had a nice fireplace along one of the walls. And a glassdoor that led to another deck outside. Along the walls there was lots of photgraphy.
"You never seemed like the type of guy who really gave a shit over art and stuff." I said as I looked at all the amazing photos.
"Yeah, I know. I don't really care but it looks nice and impresses people so I live with it." He said smuggly. "So, how about we go downtown to eat?" He asks.
"Um, yeah sure!" I said, giddy as hell. I guess staying with batshit crazy criminal's has there advantages.