Work Text:
Growing up, I realized that everyone wants you to have a solid grasp on who you are at such a young age. You were expected to have at least an inkling of the one thing you wanted to do with the rest of your life right out of kindergarten. It never made sense to me. In high school, you’re expected to know for sure. If you didn’t know, you were told to hurry up before you graduate or it’ll be too late!
I never understood how everyone could function so easily. Even the failures somehow failed successfully. The world wasn’t built for dysfunctional people like me - or, at least, Miami wasn’t. Carmine told me new wild stories about Gotham every time he visited, usually with a touch of disdain. It sounded like heaven to me. Surely, in a city like that, I’d fit in and find at least some semblance of who Ryan Campbell is, right? Apparently not.
The first time I met Oswald, I felt as if maybe things would change. As he had made his way up the hill to the chicken coop, the first thing I noticed about him were his eyes. Clear blue, with a smoldering fervor deep inside them. He was a man who knew exactly what he wanted, and it was clear he had the ambition to reach for it. He had caught me after talking to Carmine, claiming to sense something similar in me. I was different, he told me. The fact that I didn’t seem to care about anything was refreshing to him.
After he left, I locked myself in the bathroom and stared into the mirror. “Who are you?” I said after a few minutes of deafening silence. “What do you want?”
My reflection didn’t answer. Typical.
The second time I met Oswald, I wasn’t in any better of a mood. My anxiety over my crisis failed to fade, and Liza’s suspicious behavior wasn’t making it any better. I had called Oswald, frantic after catching Liza spiking Carmine’s tea, and reveled in the fact that he hadn’t sounded surprised to hear from me. “Meet me at Robinson Park in one hour. We’ll talk there.”
It was cold when I got to the park, though I hadn’t waited long for Oswald to arrive with a large man practically a foot taller than him in tow. I explained what I had seen in detail, and he nodded thoughtfully when I finished. “We shouldn’t do anything to raise suspicion just yet,” he mused. We? “I highly doubt Fish’s goal is to kill Falcone, just get him out of the picture, so you needn’t worry for his safety. But, that doesn’t mean this is over.”
The smolder was back in his eyes, an almost dangerous blaze that I’m sure would leave me burned if I decided to get too close. But I didn’t care.
After a few silent moments, I told him he was right about what he said the last time we spoke. I didn’t care about anything a Falcone should care about. I didn’t want the money, the power, any of it.
“Everyone wants something,” he had said. “But I cannot seem to figure out what you want.”
“I want to be your friend.”
He looked almost taken aback. To be fair, I hadn’t known I was going to say that until the words were already out of my mouth. “As… honored as I am to accept your offer of friendship, that’s not exactly what I mean.”
“Well,” I said, “we’ve only just met. You’ll have plenty of time to figure me out.”
Now, I was still no closer to finding out anything about myself. After 3 years of living in Gotham, I still had no idea who Ryan Campbell was. And I feared I never would.
“Everyone has a motive, a passion,” Oswald was telling me, back at the club. “Something that drives them.” If only that were true, I thought wryly.
“Have you figured out what mine is yet?”
Oswald looked at me, long and hard. Sometimes, I wondered how someone like him must see the world. Someone full of life, full of passion and ideas and the drive to do something must see the world in such vivid colors. Deep emerald green. Rich, flowery lilac. The same bright, icy blue as Oswald’s eyes that seemed to stare right into my soul and refused to stop looking for a vibrant color that I wasn’t sure existed in me.
“No, not yet.”
I huffed out a laugh; dry and humorless. “Be sure to tell me if you do.”
Oswald’s gaze softened uncharacteristically, the shards of ice in his eyes melting into warm, inviting pools. “I will.”