Gotham: Panic Attack

Violets are Black

I had my hood up the entire way home, because otherwise people might recognise me as Violet Paige: bored daughter/accessory of a celebrity by night, more-bored daughter/accessory of a celebrity by day. My Mother had made the great decision to send me to Gather House so that she could get the media to concentrate on little Winn.

This, of course, had proved to be her worst decision - and the decision that may have gotten rid of my sanity according to some people. To be fair, most of those people were less sane than me - they probably made love to their latest inside scoop in their spare time. That sounded dirtier than it was meant to, okay?

I let myself into the massive mansion-esque building with a keycard, and then wipe my feet on my Mum's latest bearskin rug. Winn's right, she's nowhere to be seen - and would have come to greet her least favourite daughter at the factory gates if she was.
'Winn?' I call up into the belfries of this prison.
'Hey V!' Skips the cheery 20-something
down the stairs. He waltzes towards me and rifles through my bags.
'You're not five. You're 25.' I groan.
'I know! But young years were more fun.' He chortles and stands back upright to look me in the eyes.

'Welcome back Winn.' I taunt. It isn't really fair to joke about that to him. He takes cover in nostalgia like a bomb shelter from the other shit that life brings - that's a roughly rephrased version of what the psychs said, anyhow.
His dewy eyes seem to linger too long on mine just for a moment, and I know that that wasn't a friendly glance from the 20 year old man-child. It would be a mystery to me how and why he was able to guess what I was thinking.

'How was your day?' Chirruped Winn, changing topics and personalities as if they were games in an Atari Console.
'My day was fine. I went out to town.' I deadpan, not willing to talk to him and hoping that this tone of voice will make that clear to him.
It didn't. What a surprise.

On all of those movies and sitcoms, Winslow Schott would have been the geeky guy who will always get the girl. However, this wasn't TV, and he probably needed professional help.

I gave up on conversational attempts with him instantly - and began to walk up the stairs to my bedroom quarters. One of the good things about living in such a massive house is that you get somewhere around 3 separate rooms all to yourself.

My lifeless body thuds down onto the warm bedsheets, and I stretch my legs after a long night of not sleeping. This short but sweet moment of time is shattered by the noise of the door slamming open. There may as well have been a bloody trumpet procession. My Mum was home.