We Were Born Sick • Gotham Fanfiction •

LII: Flightless Bird

"We ate the birds. We ate them. We wanted their songs to flow up through our throats and burst out of our mouths, and so we ate them. We wanted their feathers to bud from our flesh. We wanted their wings, we wanted to fly as they did, soar freely among the treetops and the clouds, and so we ate them. We speared them, we clubbed them, we tangled their feet in glue, we netted them, we spitted them, we threw them onto hot coals, and all for love, because we loved them. We wanted to be one with them. We wanted to hatch out of clean, smooth, beautiful eggs, as they did, back when we were young and agile and innocent of cause and effect, we did not want the mess of being born." - Margaret Atwood

~()~

~(Flashback)~

Oswald blew out a sigh as he returned the scattered chairs to the tables; it had been nearly an hour since the last patron at Fish's club had left and the doors locked behind them. Normally the bar staff took care of the cleanup after a busy night, but lately they had been short handed and everyone had been having to pick up the slack.

He looked over to see Butch drag a bag of trash through the room towards the exit near the dumpster and then his gaze stopped on Bird who was sitting at the bar with several papers in front of her.

At first he thought she was going over the books for the night or even double checking the liquor inventory, but as he walked closer he could see she was looking at various pamphlets. Each one with pictures of college campuses on brightly glossed papers, complete with pictures of students who were all smiles.

"What are you doing?" Oswald asked, sliding onto the stool next to her.

"Making a list." Bird simply answered, as she continued to write on the notepad she'd lifted from Fish's office earlier that night.

"May I see it?" He questioned, leaning closer to try and get a look at it.

"No." She chuckled, as she turned it over and tried to quickly gather up everything and changed the subject, "You want to go do something when were done here? I'm not ready to go home."

Instead of an answer all she got from her best friend was an intense stare as he silently demanded to know what was going on.

"We could get something to eat." Bird suggested, "Or go for a walk. Ooh, you could come over and we can rent a movie and stop by the mini-mart on the way to my apartment for snacks!"

"Bird." He complained, shaking his head back and forth. He nodded to the notebook and college pamphlets she was trying to hide with her arms, "What is all of this."

"My mom brought them to me." Bird side-eyed him before explaining, "She came in here last week looking for me, you know?"

"I hadn't heard." Oswald said, reaching up and loosening his tie in an attempt to better catch his breath.
He wasn't sure what exactly was going on, but if Bird was debating leaving the club –leaving him, for any reason then it had to be stopped.

"It was a disaster." She sighed, rubbing her tired face as she remembered, "I was upstairs organizing a supply closet because Fish said I wasn't dressed up enough to be down here." Stopping to roll her eyes, she pulled in a breath and continued, "And while she was wandering around some guy was following her and ended up pushing her down and grabbed her purse."

Oswald shook his head as he listened to what had happened, they'd had more than few incidents like that lately.
With Maroni's side gaining more power and territory, some people didn't have the same apprehension over committing crimes in Falcone's territories as they used to.
Just another sign that the old man was losing his foothold as a mob boss.