Jerome's character is just too brilliant, I couldn't resist writing something to do with him.

You & I

Chapter One

You.

No sleep, no chance, no need
Forget about it
One life, live free, big dreams
We're all about 'em

You're finding it, take it, take it in, it's all here
You and me, no one else, nothing else but us right now

- You & I - Crystal Fighters.

I used to be different, you know. You never knew the me before you, just as I never knew the you before me. I could tell you now, in great detail, of my life before Arkham, before every Asylum I had been thrown into at and after the age of sixteen.I could tell you about High School, and how I liked Maths and hated Spanish. I could tell you that, once, I had a father who loved me and a mother who tolerated me. I could blather on and on about how, once, I was considered being the quiet, weird one who girls would say could have been so much prettier if she just tried harder.

Trying harder was not my forte, until I met you. I tried to much harder after that. I became better. I became the me that I was supposed to become.

I suppose, in a way, that this is the story of that.

When you were admitted to Arkham, I already called the Asylum my home.

You walked around like you owned the entire joint; like the world was your oyster and your oyster alone. There was no pretence in your arrogance - can I even call it arrogance? You simply ruled your own world with such surety that I, for a moment, was entirely jealous of you. I wished so desperately to be that way; to not be the quiet, angry shell of a person I pretended to be. I was the quiet type of crazy, the kind that sulked in silence and wanted to be left alone.

But you...you came along, didn't you?

Unstable, they called me. The Doctors, I mean. Mad Madeline was the name so commonly associated with my person, from such a young age. A good call, apparently, because I turned out to be a jumble of messy marbles flying about the world. Head always spinning; mind always grinning. Grinning? Yeah, you could say grinning.

I grinned more when I met you.

And that meeting was the day you arrived. There's a recreational room at Arkham, as you will know. I place lined with tables and chairs and books and board games, all to keep the inmates of Arkham Asylum entertained in those small hours of freedom. I was sitting alone, as usual, reading a book I vaguely remember being called Clown Girl (a book I never finished, thanks to you). You waltzed in, all striped out and looking the Arkham part.

You looked straight at me and grinned in that way that only you can grin, and the world...it fell apart, rather than in place.

Perhaps you came to sit beside me because I was the only other person closest to your eighteen years of age (I was nineteen when I met you, you know) and you wanted someone with the same youthful craze as you. You didn't seem eighteen though. Even in your childish fits of laughter, you seemed so much older. You worried me at first, simply because I didn't know whether you wanted to murder me or fuck me.

'Hello, beautiful,' you quipped, throwing yourself down onto the seat beside me. I had taken you in quickly, as I did most people. Your hair was ginger and slicked back in a messy way that suggested your hands had been running through it too often. Lovely hair. My favourite colour, you know - orange. You had light freckles, pale skin and white teeth that always seemed to be on show. I noticed your hands quickly, too. Nice hands. Long and unmarked.

I always loved your hands.

You were and are not conventionally handsome. You have a boyish charm, though, that draws any person toward you - if they do not not know the real you, I mean. I meant that to be offensive. Kind of. Because, from any other perspective but mine (and I think it often too, you know) you are a cruel individual.

'Hello,' I had greeted, dropping my book onto the table and considering you. 'You're new'.

Having been moved from Asylum to Asylum with the same bunch of people, I knew a new face when I saw one.

'I am,' you agreed, with that almost mocking smile always staying right there. 'What a rush, huh - walking through those doors? Felt like first day of school all over again, sweet cheeks, I'll tell you that much'. You clucked and stretched your legs. Always moving, always busy. 'I'm Jerome, in case you were wondering. Killed my mom, if you were wondering that too'.

A soft smile had inched its way onto my face, a very nearly a humorous smile. You had seen this, because your own look turned to excitement at what was about to come out of my mouth, or perhaps it was because I had smiled when you told me you had murdered your mother. I folded my book closed. 'We have one thing in common, Jerome, at least'.

You laughed. It startled me, but only because the noise was so abrupt and quick to fall out of your wide open mouth. People stared, guards jumped. 'Haha! That's a hoot, ain't it?! Didn't you just love it?' You voice dropped to a low growl as you leaned toward me, knees parted and elbows resting on them. You have dark eyes that can become so suddenly hooded and dangerous that, in that moment, I could only stare at you in interest. 'Now I gotta know your name, beautiful'.

My cheeks painted pink at the nickname you kept throwing so carelessly my way because, in fact, I was not beautiful. I was short and skinny, with scratched up arms and eyes too big for a face like mine. My hair was a frizzy, short mess, for I never really bothered to a run a comb through it. I was nothing special, and I had never been something special.

Until you came along, that is.

'Madeline,' I told you, and the smile spread wide across your face.

'Madeline,' you repeated, over the sounds of the guards clapping their hands and ordering the inmates to stand in a line as we were pushed back into our cells. 'I'll be seeing more of you, Madeline'.

And that, as they say, was that.

That night, after the first day I had met you, I lay in those terrible Arkham beds and wondered what had possessed you to kill your mother. Had it been neglect? Disinterest? Jealousy? I hoped there was a motive, because Crazies without motives were the ones that could turn on your for stepping on their toe. There's already been a few heads smashed into walls since Arkham had opened and I had started to walk its walls.

I wondered if I would talk to you again and, like a blathering teenage girl, I had hoped I would. You see, back then, if no one took an interest in me, then I would not bother taking an interest in them. This often led to me being a complete and utter loner.

But you...you came to me and you gave a shit about just a tiny bit of my story.

I suppose that's how you got me hooked.

I suppose that was your plan.

You found your way around the Asylum quickly, knowing exactly who to befriend and who to cast a cold shoulder to. Sionos was first. He was the one who would always lean toward the ladies of the Asylum, but after the indecent shortly after his arrival, he had stayed far away from me.

Greenwood was an easy one to befriend. He was brutish and sly and entirely crazed in a way that I hoped sincerely I was not - he ate people, Jerome. How could that not bother you?

Helzinger followed shortly after. He was stupid, yes, but strong and oddly loyal. Another smart move on your part.

Then Dobkins. Rapist. Is there anything else I can say on that? I am mad, Jerome. I wish I was not, but I am. I've looked at the doctors notes and seen my diagnoses (Sociopathy and Impulse control disorder) and, oh, hadn't Doctor Isis just loved diagnosing me with that last one, J. I bet she'd felt so damn special. I've gone off track. I may be all of those things, but I know that a cannibal and a rapist are not calls for good company.

You found me again the next day and, this time, you decided you wanted to talk to me. You sat as you had the day before; beside me, but with both legs on either side of the bench seat and with your pale hands clasped before you. You might not have noticed, but that day I'd had to hold back an insane amount from just going forward and grabbing those lovely hands of yours.

Hands that killed without thought.

I remember that bugging me, when I first learnt that about you. The fact that you killed so meaninglessly...there was no method. We both had reasons for killing our mothers, but after that...you just went insane. Mad.

And you took me with you.

Your knees spread wider as you spoke to me, as you leaned closer and closer to my patiently listening face. Your mouth moved like lightening, but your eyes...your eyes stayed perfectly fixed on my face. You barely even blinked. You spoke of the circus you grew up in, and the mother you hated so much. 'She'd bone some guy every night,' you drawled, stretching your arms out in front of you. 'But that would leave me to wander about the grounds. You ever been to a circus, Madeline?'

Ah. A moment for me to talk. I shook my head. 'Never'.

You tutted and sighed. 'Madeline! They're so exciting - always something happening at a circus, always people to see! We're gonna go someday,' you said with an air of finality. A slap on the table settled that matter. 'And you're gonna smile for me'.

I smirked. 'Will I?' I wondered what your hair felt like. My hands had twitched to touch it. No one, in a long time, had spoken to me like you had then. With interest and meaning.

You closed your mouth, for once, and gave me a smile that would send children running. Grabbing either side of the bench, you scooted forward in your seat. 'Face me,' you said.

I furrowed a brow. 'I am, Jerome'.

Still holding the bench in your long fingers, you leant back and held all your weight. 'No, no,' you sang. 'Turn your whole body toward me - like I am'. Your eyes were dark and your smile was stretching. I hadn't noticed, but your new friends stared and smirked and snickered from across the room. I had stayed so quiet in this hell hole of a place for so long, and you just had to come along and ruin that for me.

I did as told, though. I always did in the beginning, didn't I? Out of politeness and need to please you, I always did as I was told. It went quickly. I became me, just as you had planned.

I moved with as much grace as my slim limbs would allow. I wore the striped dress and, with my legs sidled over the bench, it rose up my leg and revealed the plain, worn white shoes we were all ordered to wear.

Once I was settled, you tilted your head like a child. 'Did you smile when you killed her?' you inquired. Your hands, still curled around either side of the bench, were so close to my nearly exposed knees. When had a last been so close with another human being? When had someone taken such interest in me? Oh, you knew what you were doing, and I had let you so easily.

I blinked, recalling the relief I had felt once my mother was no longer in the world. 'Yes'.

You leaned forward, teeth bared and eyes ablaze. I saw you, then. The you that was you. You'd showered since yesterday, when you had first arrived, because I could smell the cheap soap that held in your hair. I could see the length of your eyelashes touching the skin just above your eye. Every inch of you seemed to be vibrating, and it was only then that I realized me legs had moved further apart. I wet my lips and watched you speak. 'Why?'

'Because she didn't like what I became-' her Mad Madeline, Jerome, the daughter that shouted at her own head and scratched her arms until they bled '-so I leaned across the table, at dinner one night before dad came home, and somehow my fork found its way in the side of her neck. Again and again and again-'

You breathed out deeply, eyes darker than ever and lips quirked up at the sides. 'Oh, Madeline,' you sang, voice almost hidden by the low tone of your voice. Your eyes, hooded and dark and terrifying, bore into my own wide, innocent ones. I knew how to play you, just as you knew how to play me. It was part of us - to manipulate others and to laugh whilst doing it. 'If this room were empty, I'd fuck you right here'.

I blinked and snorted. 'That's not something you say to someone with Impulse Control Disorder, Jerome'.

And you had laughed.

First chapter! Like or hate? Hopefully like, but hey-ho. Review, leave me love! If there are any mistakes, I'd be really grateful if anyone pointed them out. I've revised this chapter as much as I can, but I'm half asleep and have to be in London early tomorrow. If you're wondering how Jerome being too soft on her, wait until Madeline starts to grow that back-bone she's been telling you about. I can't imagine Jerome liking that, can you?

Also, I do this with most of my fics so readers can get insights to when the hell I will update, but my tumblr is qarlgrimes. Holla.

Chow!