Chapter 4: Chapter 4: Midnight Snack
Vampire Rule N°3: Would you like it if someone fu**ed your sandwich? No? That's why virgin blood is superior.
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"Thank you for your purchase…" A monotonous voice told John as he left the store, the miserable looking clerk with huge bags under his eyes then returned to his book.
John didn't bother answering, instead leaving the store with two hundred dollars worth of wooden boards, trash bags, bleach, deodorant, nails, plain white sheets and various tools.
Transporting the whole thing without vehicle was a hastle, and it did make him look like a nutjob, but this was Gotham and nobody gave a shit when it wasn't their turn to give a shit.
'I need to get myself some proper clothes next,' John thought, completely unbothered by the various people sizing him up to see if he was a good mark, 'I'll do that after I get my appartment situation sorted out.'
It took him a thrity minutes walk and bus ride to get back home, and two different people tried to rob him along the way.
Then again, he did live in Brideshead, and that was as East End as it could get.
He stopped breathing while going up the stairs, now knowing better than to to suffer the stench, opened his door and was welcomed by the sight of his very own crackhouse.
And with the spoils he got from his little visit in that corner boy's stash, he even had the heroine.
A thousand dollars worth of dope, sitting right there in his bathroom, and he had absolutely no use for it.
Selling it was beneath him, giving it away was stupid, throwing it in the sewers? Killer Croc might get high and come back for more, but it was also a huge waste.
A small, insidious voice in his head told him to just work the package, he would surely come across many more g-packs and he wasn't exactly in a position to refuse a thousand bucks.
But he crushed it swiftly, spreading this filth around would just create more dopefiends, kill other users and create a whole bunch of orphans who will surely become the next generation of gangbangers and drug addicts.
This kind of bullshit would just lower the overall blood quality.
And that was something he couldn't accept.
'At least I got the two grands and a gun' He smiled, genuinly pleased with himself, 'That's more than this body could hustle in four months of work.'
Playing stick-up boy wasn't sustainable, and for people who can't take a couple bullets in the chest and shrug it off, not very safe either.
But he didn't need to do it for long, and he could eat a few shots if need be, so he wasn't too worried at the moment.
Dropping his supplies, John got to work turning his filthy crackhouse into a less disgusting crackhome.
He used some disinfesting wipes to clean his hands and nails, until now stained with blood and grim. He wouldn't catch an illness, but it was no reason to let himself go.
Not to mention how rude it would be to make someone sick after eating them.
With his hand no longer making Grandpa Nurgle proud, he put on a pair of gloves.
Then another pair of gloves, just to be sure.
Only then did he open up the first trash bag, start scooping up some of the trash and ignored how utterly disgusting it was, if old John didn't get shot then he would've died of some medieval sickness.
One bag turned into two then three and four, and the slowly the piles of cardboards, plastic, aluminum cans, stained papers and other trash started disapearing.
One hour, two packs of trash bags and a whole bottle of detergent later, John's house was now clean enough to be a pigsty.
Hurray!
'A couple more days of intense cleaning, and it might just become fit for human presence.' He thought, sitting on mattress and whishing he could reward himself with some food.
It was at this moment of light celebration that a new york sized rat choose to take a stroll right in front of John.
'Maybe more than a couple days, all things considered.'
It was almost 4 AM, and he would rather be ready to sleep by then, so he decided to make haste and finish his work for the night.
Grabbing the plain sheets and the nails along with a hammer, he started turning them into makeshift curtains.
He then boarded them up with every single plank he got, before covering it up with two more layers of white sheets as an added precaution.
Call him paranoid, but he would rather not get burned alive because he was too lazy to make sure the sun couldn't pass through.
He finished his work by using his last three new sheets to improve his bedding situation.
Laying out the first one under his plastic-wrap covered mattress as a carpet of sorts, wrapping the second one around the mattress itself and finally using the last one as a protective cocoon.
The one his previous body owned was used normally, covering him head to toe as a final measure.
It wasn't the kind of things he pictured when he thought about life as a vampire, but now that he got there, it became an obvious necessity.
And another burden.
Once he's wealthier, he could start considering a safer and more glamorous way of protecting himself without looking like a complete freak show.
But even then, he would need many safe houses around the city, or the country even, and they were more likely to look like this than some luxury mansion.
That was the distant future though, and his present was here and it demanded his full attention.
Minutes passed, and he felt himself growing more and more sleepy, more tired.
He tried to resist the torpor as much as possible to make future plans easier.
John knew he could force himself out of day sleep if push comes to shove, but it would requiere so much blood that his current reserves would be emptied three times over.
Then again, pretty much everything was possible if he had enough blood to waste.
By 4h in the morning, his mind and body were a sluggish mess.
At 4h30, he could barely move.
[Hidden Task Complete!]
[Safe Haven N°1]
[Objectif: Create a relatively safe haven with reduced chances of burning alive during the day.]
[Reward: 1 Exp Point]
'Nice!'
He blacked out a few minutes after.
.
.
.
The next night, John woke up to a feeling of growing hunger.
[Blood Points: 25/100]
He needed to feed soon unless he wanted to risk another frenzy, and who knows what he could do without a proper target right next to him?
While going about his business the night before, he made sure to scout out a few good spots where he could get a nice meal, so to speak.
Nothing too fancy, a good enough nightclub here, a fancy bar there, a 24h gym and one of the many, many community colleges open in Gotham.
'The problem is, I look like a crackhead.' He glanced at his clothes, old, ratty and covered in dubious stains.
That meant he had to do another investment.
After making sure his stuff was properly hidden, he stopped breathing and left his fairly disgusting house for a horrifyingly gross stairway.
He really needed to find a better place.
. . .
'Getting new clothes in this economy might've been a bad idea,' A troubled John left the clothing shop with naught but a few bags and a much lighter wallet.
The young lady who made the sale though, seemed very happy.
How on earth could a couple outfits cost him a thousand bucks?!
All he got was some casual wear for night to night life in the city, some warmer clothes and winter coat with the added benefit of further concealing his figure, some sportwear to avoid tearing his pants while taking advantage of that enhanced agility and a few smart casual pieces to build a decent image in the eyes of the people he plans on eating.
...Alright, it might be quite a lot of clothes.
And he did buy more than he first intended…
He also might have accidentally avoided the cheaper stores and ended up on higher end boutique instead…
'Still, a thousand dollars is just robbery.'
He purposefully ignored how he made double that amount through actual robbery.
At least, he could go on a proper hunt after dropping his bags in the crackhouse, it would be his very first hunt.
'I hope I won't end up biting some coked up slut.' He thought, and that was a genuine worry he had.
Such were complications of a vampire's life, wondering wether or not your next got fucked within the last couple days, something you can really only figure out after taking a bite.
[New Task Available: The Limits of Your Palate].
[Objectif: As a vampire, only the blood of the living can sustain your unlife. Most of the regular food turns to ash within your mouth, others will disgust you on a fundamental level. But there are some meals you can tolerate, or even enjoy to some extent! Finding out will allow you to avoid suspicion by publicly eating, concealing your true nature.]
[Reward: 1 Exp Point.]
'…' John started at the red mission text, before wordlessly dismissing it.
He however changed his plans to dropping off the bags, checking out that decent-looking diner in Grand Avenue, potentially vomiting his weasley black guts out, then going to some seedy nightclub to torture his enhanced hearing and sink his teeth on some hoe.
Then maybe vomiting a second time, for vastly different reasons.
Nobody said being a vampire was easy.
He walked into a poorly lit alley, hearing the distant bangs of gunshots two streets down, knowing the cops won't bother sending someone and the citizens wouldn't bother reporting it either.
In an instant he disappeared, unbeknownst to the people shopping and scamming and touting in the dead of night.
No one noticed him going from roof to roof, his body moving at speeds mere human could only imagine.
No one cared when he emerged from another dark corner, and only the would be thieves cared enough to look at him and his large shopping bags, but he was too big and too unsettling for them to try their luck.
He wasn't complaining though.
Again he went up those darn stairs, passing by another tenant and girlfriend who tensed as they met, fearing the worst.
John paid them no mind, content to go back home and putting his bags near his bed. He stripped down, pausing for a moment to admire his compact, rock hard muscles, the many scars he collected in this lifetime all but gone, leaving him with smooth pale skin.
He put on a clean black t-shirt with a matching leather jacket, a pair of jeans and Chelsea boots.
Well-dressed enough to stand out from the local crackheads and small-time thugs, but not enough to attract needless attention.
He looked like he could rock a nice suit, but dressing like that in these parts was just asking to be robbed.
Satisfied with his looks, he checked his status hoping to lose that rather offensive title, alas it was still there.
[Titles: Crackhouse Resident, Jailbait.]
The stench of the hood was still on him, and losing it would take more than a new wardrobe.
Figuratively speaking, of course, he doesn't have a wardrobe.
John emptied his pockets, counting the dirty twenties and tens until he got roughly eleven hundred dollars, he put a grand safely in his jacket's inner pocket, and left the rest in his jeans.
He was ready to go.
Taking a walk now that he no longer looked utterly miserable was a rather pleasant experience, but he still didn't fancy lingering in Brideshead more than necessary.
He passed by several drug corners operated by different crews of different sizes, each of them vying from prime real estate and shouting about their product.
"Spider Bags! Spider Bags!"
"Red Tops! It'll make you sparckle! Get some Red Tops!"
"Death Row! Death Row right here!"
He saw kids as young as ten working in the corners as lookouts and touts, getting schooled by their elders.
Some groups were more sophisticated than others, some had better product, others just held so much territory it didn't even matter what kind of weak dope they throw at the fiends.
Addicts will buy it anyway.
Nowhere did he see a shadow of the Cosa Nostra, the supposed kings of the east side, not a word of italian was spoken in the corners, just regular poor English.
No, it was just people from the East Side cannibalizing themselves to get that bag.
Once he got past Brideshead, he started seeing a few police cars patrolling every once in a while, though the slingers were still out there selling their product.
If the cops stopped, the corner boys run.
If they don't, business continues as usual.
The boys in blue were so ineffective it was almost comical, at this point all they could do was arrest people for possession or rough up people they know they can't jail for long.
They were out in the streets fighting the war on drugs, making an innocent man strip down in the cold pavement, punching children and showing them that the authorities were no better than they were.
Stealing drugs and money and jewelry and whatever the heck they could get away with, like stickup boys with a fancy badge and legally obtained boomstick.
Meanwhile, the real gangsters won't ever be caught touching a package or working a street like a bunch of ignorant peasents, and the big shots bringing the dope and coke inside the city were probably out there having a party with the politicians and other wealthy weasels funding the police department.
As for the bat, what he could do? Beat up a fourteen years old living in one room with his siblings and addict mother? The man is too kind for this.
As John blized through the roofs, the streets started getting brighter and brighter, cleaner too.
The towers and rowhouses and urban nightmares that made up the mess of low-income housing projects, the vacant buildings turned warehouses and havens for dealers and addicts alike, the misery and grim and depression of the East Side.
It started fading.
There were more and more civilians going about their business, honest tax-payers trying to survive and stay away from the hell a few miles away from them.
Things started becoming more working class, there were proper cars and shops and people actually looked rather normal and not props in some rapper's song, policemen were out there making folks feel relatively safer; it was still Gotham though, and the cop is not much better than the crook.
Still, it was an improvement.
'Not for me though,' John thought, realizing that staying in the shadows in such a place wouldn't hide him all that well if he didn't know how to sneak around properly.
He jumped down from the roof, one hand sliding across the wall keeping his fall nice and slow, less loud when he reached the ground.
The vampire blended in with the humans, only getting a few second looks, whether it was because of his good looks or the aura of the hood making people uneasy was still unknown.
...Just kidding, he knew he looked that good.
There wasn't exactly a crowd outside, most people in these neighbourhoods were at home getting a good night's sleep before a hard day in the docks and factories and other honest jobs that payed too little for too much efforts.
But they were less careful than East Side folks.
It felt warmer, more humane.
People walking side by side on the side-walk, parents holding their child's hand, young people laughing and joking without keeping an eye out for their opps, or the likely possibility of starting a fight with you because they outnumbered you and felt like you looked at them wrong.
It was cathartic, and made his desire to move out even greater.
He even managed to take a cab! And the driver didn't look like Ted Bundy's uglier cousin!
"Where you going?" The middle aged man asked when he got in.
"Grand Avenue."
"Sure thing, we'll get there in a few if the traffic's good."
The cab driver wasn't much of a talker, so John was left free to lean against window and just the people and the streets, seeing what Gotham was like for normal people.
And sure, there were a couple gunshots here and there, and he did see a few shoplifters and muggers working their hustle, along with ladies of night with few clothes and too much make-up.
But compared to Brideshead? This was a paradise.
The ride felt much too quick for his taste, but he still paid and tipped the good man.
He took a stroll for a couple minutes, and only then did he reach his destination.
In front of him was a sixities diner with two large neon-lit words standing above the entrance.
"Pauli's Diner."
But to him, the name and the signifance wasn't the most interesting part.
"Oh, what do we have here?" He couldn't help but chuckle.
He saw the waitress through the glass, leaning against the counter and reading something, she was a pretty thing, black haired and bright eyed with just the right proportions.
A nice meal.
He could almost forgive the kill-me yellow low-cut uniform with the diner's logo on it, though it did nothing to conceal her rather sizeable bust.
More importantly though, he recognised her.
At this point, John already knew he found his meal for the night.
..........
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