Mama Gotham

Stop And Stare

Despite the soft smile that usually graced his face her presence, Jervis Tetch was not a happy kid. Which was why Alyssa was so confused when he showed up at her house one day with the singular widest smile she'd ever seen.

He grabbed her hand – something else he never did – and yanked her outside with him before the door even closed behind his sister, who had come to play dolls with Jamie.

"What's happening?" Alyssa gave him a look.

"You gotta see this!" he said, his grin still firmly in place. He spun to face the cracked sidewalk in front of the shack of a house, a hand digging into his pocket. "Hey!" he called out to the first person he saw; a blurry looking man who was more than likely only standing on that corner for...business reasons.

"Jervis, what are you doing?" Alyssa's voice took on a worried tone. One of the staple rules of living in Gotham slums was not to call out to this type of person. Even those doing business with them approached quietly.

"Just trust me, 'Lyssa." he walked up to the man with a confidence the Jervis she knew yesterday did not posses, leaving her to run after him.

She missed the initial conversation that took place. By the time she caught up with Jervis he'd taken his hand out of his pocket to reveal one of the beat up pocket watches he liked to tinker with. The ticking coming from it sounded...odd...

"Listen to the watch." Jervis said smoothly. "The way it's ticking....synchronizes with your heart beat, doesn't it?"

Alyssa looked between her friend and drug mule with a frown. Any other day such a man would be threatening them with his gun by now. But he wasn't. Instead he seemed....she wasn't sure. His eyes were glassy, and his arms hung limp at his sides like a rag doll's. To be honest, she was surprised the man's feet were still holding him upright.

"Look into my eyes." Jervis was saying. "Not above them, not around them, but deep into their center...."

Though this man's eyes were a thousand yards away, Jervis' were lively and gleeful when they looked to her.

"Tell him to do something."

"Huh?"

"Tell him to do something." he repeated. "Anything."

Quietly thinking her friend had finally snapped and lost his marbles, Alyssa gave the older man a look. "....Jump up and down."

To her utter amazement, the man did so instantly, the contents of his jacket pockets shaking as he did so.

"What in the –?!"

Jervis laughed. "Stop." he ordered the man, who immediately froze. "Bark like a dog!" A series of yips and growls started coming from his mouth.

"Jervis, what's happening?"

"It's the watch!" he exclaimed, holding the old thing up to show her. "I don't know how but, something about the way it ticks, it can make people do anything!"

"You made a pocket watch that can control people?" Alyssa said incredulously. Her friend nodded.

The day Jervis first showed her what he could do, Alyssa had been very young. Though living in Gotham was a hard thing to do, even she had been an innocent child once.

It was perhaps this day, that began to put an end to that.

She turned to the barking man with a mischievous sort of smirk that only a child can manage. "Hey Fido!" she drew his attention. "You got any cash on you?"