This was a reader request!
And, as Avery good friend in the Discord mention d, it's our 8th year Anniversary for Order!
I love all of you.
You've taken a spite fix into new heights. Made a story of but of a vent. Made a sad person happy.
Thank you so much.
The World would be bleaker without you.
I genuinely, truly, mean that, from the bottom of my heart.
My world would be bleaker without all of you.
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Kyle... Kyle was exhausted. He was always tired. He could sleep anywhere. At anytime. It wasn't uncommon to find he passed out in precarious places.
Joker had made him a lookout. A position that required constant vigilance.
It was sick joke, one where the punch line would inevitably end in his death, the second he failed and fell asleep.
He somehow kept consciousness, and it felt weeks were taken off his life everyday.
He watched his face age prematurely everyday.
He won a bet with a Two Face Goon, and fell asleep the second the knife hit his eleventh toe.
He woke with ten, happy.
He remembered a brief period when Scarecrow tired having goons. Doctor and Therapist flunkies who diagnosed him with narcolepsy.
We woke to Scarecrow being a solo act.
He fell asleep at the wheel of a get away car.
Only to wake to a fat man with a unibrow steering while his foot weighed down the gas pedal.
He fell asleep walking to the hideout, waking up to unibrow pulling his clown mask in place, giving him a brief rundown of his job. He didn't remember walking to the line up.
Unibrow covered for him. Brief moments of wakefulness consumed by fat boy covering for him.
Unibrow brought him food.
Unibrow tossed a jacket over him at the hideout.
Kyle handing his a hundred dollar bill when. He woke up at the start of a poker game.
Gary waking up to Kyle dragging him to the Doc due to a gunshot on his thigh.
Gary patching him up with rubbing alcohol from broken glass falling from a skylight The Batman crashed through.
Gary volunteering them for Jokers newest assignment, his hand limply held aloft in the air by Unibrow.
Kyle blinking sleepily as a stern faced, scowling woman barked orders at them
Gary bodily shoving him away from a grill he almost fell face first into.
The woman, his Boss, throwinng him into a job that had him moving constantly, dirty dishes he'd move right from left, dirty, rinse, stack, clean, stack. Grab the bucket, walk the diner, gather dishes, take cash from half remembered and familiar faces.
And suddenly, he was awake.
He remembered waking up.
He remembered Gary knocking on his door to wake him up. He remembered Gary dragging him to his new job. Remembered writing the time he started work, and all the dishes, and all the conversations.
He suddenly felt awake.
He remembered her face, from a half awake Halloween, his New Boss in a red wig onstage, he spent his first week at her restaurant blushing, remembering the maid outfit.
He started making real conversation. Saying things, and hearing things he'd remember.
It was weird, him being awake enough to remember his missing, but not missed, extra toe.
Or Gary. The guy with the unibrow.
He couldn't remember when he entered his life exactly, but he also could remember a time where Gary wasn't in his life. Helping him keep the rhythm of his consciousness. Bringing him leftovers from the day before, or cheap takeout, or even food that was nicked from the New Boss's diner.
He couldn't remember when Gary became a consistent part of his life, but he wasn't mad.
Especially when he came back into consciousness one day with a clean shaven face, and Gary stacking cups on the rack for the dishwasher, while he sat underneath the sink napping.
He made an effort to be more awake than what he was. To actually have a conversation with the Unibrow.
He made an effort. Something he couldn't remember ever doing before.
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Giovanni remembered the first time his Father showed him the family business. He watched as his Father gunned down the snitch that had stuttered the Family secrets to a Mole, one Loyal to the Family. He remembered his Father hostlering the gun, his large hand pressed against Giovanni's back to lead him to watch the final gasping breath of the Rat's last breath. Kneeling him and himself down to say the prayers over the dying man's body. His final rights before his final rest.
Life was good. Filled with the very finest, the best clothes, the best cars, the best food his Nonna had brought over from her home in Italy.
Life was good. Great. Perfect.
Until it wasn't.
His Father suddenly comes himself away in his office, and through the door he could hear the meetings and calls, the yelling, the deals made.
He followed along with the complex hierarchy made and broken and remade between Families. And he just... Didn't care. He knew his Father expected to take over the family business, but he was happy just writing a long life, learning how to cook and knit from his mother and Nonna. Living easy, until life would force him into being the head of the household. Like his father expected him to be. Like his Family expected him to be, like Life expected.
Sure, he nodded along, and listen avidly to every lesson his Father taught him. He dutifully heaved bodies over boats, or wiped down pistols and played them just so next to bleeding heads.
He went to Mass three times a week with his Ma, or Nonna. Sunday, Monday, Thursday, he'd sit in confessional, barely veiled admissions of guilt he felt no shame in falling from his lips.
And then Falcone came.
His Father raged. Territory lost. Family gone.
Falcone came himself, and in his Family's sitting room, held his Mother, while he Father bled out.
He used his looks, his weight, baby fat in his cheeks and stomache to play the fool. 'Dad was a business man?! Please don't hurt my Mommy! Don't hurt my Nonna!"
Falcone had laughed, saying no 'respectable' son would look like him. Would beg like he did that night.
He didn't care. His simpering begging had saved his and his Family's life that night.
His hobbies and interest, taken from his Nonna and Mother leant him a shield, a well-spoken and well circulated weakness.
He bided his time, waited until his Father's lessons would serve purpose, until he could exact revengethat weakly beat in his chest in Honor of his Father.
Then... The Clown came.
A fucking Clon managed to put Falcone in a tight corner. Limited the man's plans in away Giovanni knew he could never amount to. Not because he couldn't, because he knew, the moment the Clown had taken over miles of Falcone Territory, only to literally blow it up, that he could of, he just... Didn't care enough.
He was happy being mediocre.
His Father was Great.
His Father wanted their Family to be Great.
But Giovanni was happy taking orders.
You could stay alive taking orders.
Happy being the mediocre man who could get shit done, and occasionally take care of business, but don't expect it everytime, he needed a nap every once in a while after a good meal.
It still rubbed his pride the wrong way when that sleeping guy somehow floated along, barely managing to stay alive after scores and Joker's temper. So he pushed the lanky, hollow faced man along.
He somehow cemented himself in Giovanni's head as his Number Two.
Reliable, somehow.
And then Joker, who he still wasn't sure if The Clown knew who he really was, or just didn't care, had assigned him and his barely awake man to a new job.
And When the New Boss had asked for their names, a 'normal' person, he could tell, Giovanni realized this was his chance. To truly break ties with the Legacy he didn't really care to be a part of, or avenge.
Gary was happy to just be a Goon.
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Marcus was always big. Mama said he was too big to push out, and that's why she had the scar on her stomache. Granny said she never had enough yarn to knit him a hat big enough. His friends said he was big enough to beat any rival teens that tried to jump them in the street.
But Marcus felt his biggest when he was with his sis, Birdie.
Where he was big, tallest in his class, built bigger than any League linebacker, like his football coach always says, Birdie was small and scrawny, fragile like her namesake.
It wasn't her real name, but it fit.
His Mama wasn't ever home, but not cause she ran off, like so many of his friends parents, but because she worked three jobs. She had too.
Medical bills added up faster than rent prices rose.
Birdie was bright. Happy and flighty. Nothing held her attention. She was knitting with Granny. Granny would be her knitting needles and then she'd be using Kool aid packets as water paints. Mama would buy her water colours for paint, and she'd be stabbing her fingers with a needle shed found to sew a new dress out of sheets. He'd sell radios he stole with his friends to buy her a sewing machine, and she'd moved onto learning to play drums with pots and pans from the kitchens.
He couldn't keep up with Birdie.
Birdie was smart, even though she didn't go to school, like he did. Birdie was clever, in a way he envied.
Birdie was jealous he could be "normal".
She admitted it when she was in her seventh session of Chemo.
Her hair had already started to fall out. Mama, Granny, and him had went to his barber to shave theirs off. She brought a notebook and pencils to draw, when she admitted it, when Granny and Mama went to talk with the doc.
"You get to do what I can't." Birdie had said.
"You can do what I can't." Marcus had said, gesturing to her drawing of the Nurse checking her vitals.
Birdie had weakly shoved a dull pencil in his hand and started to teach him to draw.
Granny began babysitting kids, to help with bills. Under the table, because she'd lose her government benefits if the feds found out. He helped where he could, before Fog, his Boss, pulled him away for scores, teaching kids to knit, and draw and paint, just the same way Birdie learned, the same way she tried to teach him. Their hands were hardly bigger than his Sis.
Mama began pulling tricks. He wasn't happy she had too, but he stayed outside the door, headphones loud enough to cover the grunts, soft enough to hear her screams just in case he had to break down the bedroom door to break some fuckers nose. Fog would make sure he wasn't on the street for those nights. Him and Granny would do laundry in the bathtub every night, so Mama wouldn't have to smell the men, so she wouldn't scrub her hands bloody because she was so particular about how clean they needed to be. OCD Granny called it. He called it shame.
Birdie hated the hospital food. Everytime he and his friends would visit with new toys, paints, skeins of yarn, she'd bitch about how bland it was. He'd bring her hot sauce, or a sandwich baggie of Granny's mix of seasonings. She was happy with that.
Until her ninth birthday. The cake was simple. A pile of bread and bland frosting. She wanted Granny's cast iron pineapple upside down cake. The one 'where it sticks to your teeth and makes your mouth drool.'
He didn't have the heart to tell her she'd died. He told Birdie she was busy babysitting, making all the hoes kids lunch and dinner, just like she used to.
Mama came home one day, him and a few of the kids he'd taken to caring for since Granny went, covered in flour, and sugar, and milk, and eggs.
Mama had a panick attack to the state of her home,and Marcus had broken down with her.
"Birdie wanted Granny's cake!" He'd cried over and over again, in his Mama's arms, in a way he hadn't been held since before Birdie got sick. She'd rubbed his back, rocking him back and forth like she did when Birdie threw up, shushing him. She'd put him and the kids and herself to work, cleaning the messy kitchen. When att the Trick's kids went home, she showed him what to do.
It was terrible. Burnt, lopsided, somehow raw in the center, but Birdie squealed in delight when he brought it to her the next day.
He swore he'd make a perfect one, next time he smuggled her a treat. He spent months, eggs, sugar, and flour, making Birdie a perfect Granny cake.
And she'd gone.
A tiny casket him and his friends carried.
He sang the hymns Granny taught them.
He wore her face on a shirt everyday.
He spent he score money of eggs, and flour, and sugar.
He gave cookies to his daughter before she weaned off milk.
He meakly showed off his home cooked offerings to his New Boss, and she'd smiled for the first time. It scared him.
He'd pulled out the index cards his Granny and Mother had written to the dark haired kid His Boss had swooped up, and taught him what he knew.
His Daughter, Shania, named after his Granny,his Mama, his Birdie, loved that Pineapple Upsidedown Cake.
She loves to draw, and knit, and paint, and bake.
He taught her everything.
Because he was clean. He came home and could go straight in for a hug, without worrying of she'd get second hand Joker Toxic, or blood on her.
Because he could take of her.
He'd take care of his Raccoon feeding girl.
His artistic little, flighty girl.
He could finally care for his Birdie.