A/N: Written by Lillith, AKA VectorCrocodileFangirl. This is the first of many prompts about our favorite character (as you can ascertain from our username), Ghoul. And these will NOT be in the order of the prompts list. Just fair warning.
This one shouldn't need much backstory, but this is where we'll put those kind of notes in the future. Basically, Ghoul is preparing to run away from home.
He looked in the mirror.
Skin bleached an unhealthy blue. Thin stitch tattoo's running across his body. Makeup extending from the sides of his mouth, across his face and to his jaw line, as well as around his eyes (mostly to conceal the dark bags under them from many sleepless nights). He'd found a shirt with a Jack-o-lantern design and green pants and had torn them, topping the outfit with the appropriate hat and pointed shoes, making him look like a scarecrow.
This was the persona he'd been looking for. This was Ghoul.
He'd gotten the name from a song he'd been listening too. It hadn't been one of his favorites; too slow, too mellow for his tastes. But he'd heard the word 'ghoul', and everything had fallen into perspective. So, after growing out his pale blonde hair (making sure it escaped the notice of his parents, not that they ever noticed him anyways), he'd put all of his energy into making his mental image of 'Ghoul' a reality.
It was better than he'd hoped. It was something out of one of his music videos—no, better. He looked like he should have been born like this. It fit him perfectly.
When his parents saw him, his mother nearly had a heart attack. His father yelled at him for a solid hour about 'preserving the family name' and how bad it would have been if one of the company's clients had seen him.
His younger sister Bethany, ever the snob, had tailed him around the house, continuously chattering about how much trouble he was going to be in, how surely he'd be disinherited, and the like. Truth be told, he heard none of it. It wasn't the same kind of selective hearing as most days; pretend to look interested, nod occasionally, etc. No, it wasn't like that at all. He'd stopped pretending to care because really, he didn't. He was done with the Winthorp name. All that was left was to throw together a few necessities and hightail it out of there. He highly doubted they'd come after him, or make any attempt to find him. With their second, perfect child still in their grasp, they wouldn't care about their 'disturbed runaway' son.
He'd managed to find an old Halloween bag—a plastic Jack-o-lantern—and filled it with the contents of the safe he had hidden behind a secret panel in his closet, where none of the housekeeping staff would find it. Smoke bombs, grenades, and assorted gadgetry, all with a ghastly monster theme. His collection had been accumulating over the years, some of it which he had made, the rest aquired by delinquents for a significant fee. The only use he'd ever had for his family's money. With the arsenal safely hidden in his pumpkin, and a small fortune in unmarked bills in hand, he was ready to leave. No need for anything else. There were no momentos or personal belongings worth weighing himself down. A clean break was better anyways; his family would forget about him soon enough. He wanted it to be that way for him, too.
So, without a clue as to what was waiting for him in the dark world outside of his even darker home, Ghoul left Stewart Carter Winthorp III behind, headed for someplace that, even with his new look, he'd have no trouble blending in.
Gotham.