Crush
Note: all the usual disclaimers apply. Not my house, not my TV show, I'm not making money off of this, but this fic is my creative work, so do me a favor and don't take/repost/what-have-you without permission. This fic is compliant with Season 2 of Fox's Gotham. Rating for harsh/occasionally insensitive language and... I guess scenes of peril? Threat of bodily and psychological harm? I mean it centers on a pair of girls kidnapped by a gang of killers, things can get a little heavy, but not too much heavier than the show itself, f-bombs excluded.
Also: I'd like to profess my infinite love for the characters Claire Temple from the Marvel TV universe and Sara from the film Creep 2, both of whom are spiritual predecessors to Isabel in various ways and neither of whom deserve the shit they find themselves putting up with. xoxo enjoy reading!
1.
I had a dream where you were standing there with a gun up to my head.
You were asking how it felt, to which I said "I cannot lie, there is a tingling down my spine. You have revenge, I'll have it too— what's mine is yours, and yours is mine." – Lucius | Madness
Isabel Montalvo had a problem, and that problem took the form of a five-foot-eight crazy man with sharp teeth who might or might not want to literally eat her.
(She looked him in the eye and shuddered. Make that "might." Definitely "might," no "not" about it.)
She could have avoided this. She wasn't initially the center of his focus, that would be Jane, but she saw him prowling around her tiny, timid friend and saw red. "Hey, fatass Claudio Sanchez!" she'd yelled at him. "Why don't you pick on somebody your own size?" Then, just like that, his attention had switched to her. Damn it.
She wasn't even supposed to be here. She and Jane had been in the wrong place at the wrong time: driving back from a venue in the middle of the night, taking a shortcut down a side street, when a body bounced off of their hood. Jane freaked, certain that she'd hit one of the city's many homeless people, she was a murderer, she was going to jail, and she'd stopped immediately and leaped out, followed by a concerned Isabel.
That's when they'd been jumped by the Maniax. Isabel realized who their attackers were pretty early on, as soon as she saw the first one with all that hair as he rounded the car to grab Jane: she'd been following the story with alarmed fascination since their escape from Arkham two days before, and by now their faces were familiar to her. She started to scream, to warn Jane, to yell for help, and then she'd been grabbed from behind by a mountain-sized human, his hand crushed over her mouth. The one with the hair got Jane, and that was about all she was able to see before someone got a blindfold on her and she was duct-taped within an inch of her life, mouth and hands bound.
She was loaded into the back of some vehicle, Jane as well—she identified her by the brush of her hair, the sound of her crying beneath the duct tape—and then they were on the move. The whole thing had taken about a minute.
Isabel was afraid too, but she didn't cry. Fear too often had something of a paralytic effect on her, giving her the appearance of mild catatonia as her mind raced to figure out the quickest way to become safe again. Just then, that meant listening to their captors chatter away in the front seat, raucous and cheerful and as oblivious to the girls trembling in the back as if they were just completing a grocery run.
After a minute, a whine cut through the noise, a slightly lispy voice: "My shoulder hurts."
A throaty chuckle. "I'm not surprised. You got some air, man."
"I never agreed to it! Jerome threw me onto the car."
A lilting voice in response to that, merely inches away from Isabel's ear, made her start badly: "Dobkins, I told you, you'll never learn to stage a convincing fall if you don't practice."
She hadn't known anyone was in the back with them, and neither had Jane, if her frightened little gasp was any indicator. Jerome, context clues said, and she remembered his mugshot, remembered it because in addition to his being a good-looking redhead, she'd been surprised to see that he was around her age. Eighteen seemed pretty young to be a convicted murderer.
She hadn't seen him on the street when she'd been grabbed—maybe he was the one who'd blindfolded her, since the big guy's arms had kept her pinned till the blindfold was in place—so his presence now was an unpleasant surprise. Still: better him than someone else, she thought. The news said he'd murdered his mother, and yeah, that was bad, but the others' rap sheets included rape and cannibalism (and God knows what the big guy did—she couldn't remember, and maybe that meant it wasn't that bad, but she wasn't willing to bet on it). If she'd had to pick one of the guys to be closest to, it would be him.
That didn't mean she was happy about it. Neither was Jane—as soon as Jerome spoke up, she pressed sideways into Isabel, hard, like she was trying to fuse with her. Isabel didn't mind the contact, and wished her hands were free so she could put her arms around her, reassure her.
Dobkins yelped back that he didn't want to be good at stage falls, and the initial person he'd been talking to mocked him (she didn't remember his name, but she could see his face in her mind's eye, the guy with the wild hair), and Jerome dropped out of the conversation entirely, which made her nervous. If he wasn't talking, he was freer to focus on her and Jane, and that couldn't be a good thing.
She was tense for the entire ride, waiting for an unwelcome touch, waiting for a low voice to suddenly say ugly things into her ear. Once or twice, she thought she felt ghost touches, but couldn't be sure—her skin was probably crawling because she was waiting for something to touch it, the way it did when she spotted the occasional spider at home then lost track of it. Ultimately, though, it appeared Jerome wasn't interested in them—at least for now. The ride ended after about half an hour, and the girls were rushed out of the vehicle by rough hands. Isabel stumbled once, and someone hit her in the face for it. Any half-baked plans to try escaping fled her mind at that point—she froze up, the burning pain across her face dredging up old memories, and by the time she roused herself from them, she'd already been muscled onto an elevator.
"Going up!" Jerome's voice was close to her ear again. She wondered if he'd been the one to hit her.
Eventually—after what seemed like a really long time—the elevator stopped. She and Jane were escorted along for about fifty paces, taking several sharp turns, then, with no ceremony, something ripped through the duct tape binding her hands, loosening them. She froze, uncertain, until she heard a door slam and the lock click. Then, slowly, she peeled the duct tape from her mouth, and, when her actions weren't met with another reproving slap, she lifted her hands and ripped off her blindfold.
They were in a long room, low light, dark, stylish décor, no windows. Two doorways, but Isabel didn't immediately investigate: she went to Jane, who was in the process of removing her own blindfold, and hugged her tight.
"Oh, my god," whispered Jane into her shoulder. Her face was wet. "What is this? Is this a kidnapping? Is this because of my dad?"
"I don't know yet," Isabel said. "I don't know what they want, but I know these are the guys that dropped a bunch of people off the roof of the Gotham Times yesterday."
"They did what?" Jane demanded, shrill.
Isabel pulled back, though she kept her hands on Jane's shoulders. "You didn't hear? I didn't tell you about that?"
"No, you didn't tell me about that!"
"They dressed them in white and spelled out 'Maniax' in red spray paint on their chests before throwing them off the edge! Assholes killed an extra person for punctuation."
"Oh, my god, we're going to die," said Jane, her voice reaching dog-whistle pitches as she started to cry again. Isabel pulled her back into her arms, and the two girls held one another tightly for another few moments, until Jane started to calm down.
"You're not crying," Jane said finally.
"No."
"You're angry," Jane said, her breathing slower, almost sleepy.
Isabel was angry. She was angry at these human shitstains for just stealing her, more so for stealing her best friend, and she was furious that one of them had hit her. None of this was useful, though, her feelings just futile and childish, so she didn't say any of that to Jane. She just said, "Of course I'm angry; what kind of dipshit spells 'Maniax' with an x?"
Jane laughed—and it was maybe more of a hiccup/sob than a real laugh, but it was something, and Isabel felt that angry knot in her chest loosen a little. If she could make Jane feel better about this, then she would feel better, too.
Isabel leaned back and the two exchanged a meaningful look: Isabel's expression read you good for now? And Jane's, answering, reassuring, said I'm good. Isabel nodded, let go of her friend, and turned to examine the room in detail.
Rich people live here, was her first thought, and then, amended as she noticed that the furnishings looked brand new: or at least, rich people own the place. The room was a long den, full of heavy, dark wooden furniture, including a sectional couch that covered almost an entire wall, thick red rugs, red accents. Giant plasma TV mounted on the wall. No windows, which she thought was odd, but certainly appropriate if their captors didn't want them knowing where they were.
She checked the door nearest to her first to find it solidly locked. Across the long room, there was another door set into the left-side wall: she opened this to find a bathroom, also with no windows, though there was a mirror. It's not nothing, she thought, staring at it, trying to figure out the best way to break it without injuring herself. She could do that, rip some of the upholstery off the couch, wrap one edge of a big piece to protect her hand and then use it as a knife—
She heard a door open, a little squeak from Jane, and Isabel abandoned the plan immediately, hurrying out back into the main area. The wild-haired guy was back, and he was approaching her friend with a look on his face that Isabel did not like.
"Look at you—you're pretty," she heard him say.
That's when she lost it, and said what she said about him being a fatass Claudio Sanchez, and he turned on her fast.
She backed up as he advanced on her, trying to keep a few feet of space between them, which worked until it didn't: her back hit the wall, and his hands hit the wall on either side of her, blocking her exit.
He showed off his sharp teeth in a menacing grin, and told her "You're less pretty. Still. You look plenty tasty."
Oh, for the love of—"Are you the cannibal one?" she asked directly, afraid but focused, keep his attention away from Jane. She tried to calculate the odds of actually winning this fight should he attack her: he was actually about an inch shorter than she was, but outweighed her, and he had crazy on his side. Should've broken the mirror.
His grin, if anything, grew, though his unblinking eyes never left her. "That's right," he said with a little nod. "You heard of me, sweetheart?"
"No duh," she said, biting, and regretted it when his expression shifted a little, got angrier, a little more threatening. Quickly, she changed the subject, hoping to distract him from the fact that she'd essentially called him an idiot: "What do you want with us? What are we here for?"
"Right now?" He tilted his head, and she felt the unwelcome touch of his fingers, running down her cheek. "For fun."
Her eyes flicked over his shoulder, just for a second, just long enough to look past where Jane was standing, eyes wide in horror, and see that he had left the door cracked open behind him.
She reached up, grasped his shoulder, watched him frown like he was wondering why she wasn't cringing away from him. She tightened her grip and drove her knee as hard as she could into his balls.
He grunted in pain, pitching forward abruptly. She felt his hand scrabble at the side of her head, like he was grasping for a hold in her hair, but his fingertips slid across the short buzz of her undercut, failing to get a good grip, and then she was ducking away from him, breaking through the barrier of his arm and rushing to Jane. She grabbed Jane's hand, yanking her around, and pulled her headlong towards the door.
Which, as they drew within a few feet of it, flew fully open.
Isabel skidded to an abrupt stop, Jane bumping into her and jostling her another step forward. In the doorway stood Jerome.
His hair was damp, the moisture turning it darker red, and his skin was a little heat-flushed along his cheekbones and neck—he'd clearly spent the fifteen or so minutes since they all arrived showering, and now wore a quilted red robe over what looked like bona fide old-person (or rich-person) pajamas. The outfit straddled the line between cozy and fancy and either way seemed an odd choice for an asylum escapee.
He stood in the center of the doorway, making no move to come further into the room, appearing content to observe the tableau before him: the two girls, wide-eyed and frozen, clearly in the midst of making a break for it, and then his compatriot across the room, snarling in pain and gasping for breath. His eyes crawled over the scene, then landed on Isabel. With Jane hiding behind her and the cannibal in no shape to speak yet, she was clearly the spokesperson for the group, and his eyes bored into her, his voice sounding a little like he was trying not to laugh as he asked, "What's going on in here?"
Behind Isabel's back, Jane held her hand tight, and Isabel took courage. "Your friend wants to eat us," she spat, the vocal equivalent of a cat arching its back and ruffling its fur to look bigger and more intimidating. Truth was, the odds were stacked well against them, and she knew the likelihood of bluffing her way into a more advantageous position by acting like she had a handle on things was low, but she had to at least try.
Jerome looked past her at his colleague, then at her again. He took a step closer (she and Jane instinctively stepped back, a detail she hoped would escape his notice, but given the way his eyes started to shine, she doubted it had), then leaned in a little, and said in low tones, like he was imparting a secret, "Yeah, well… he's a cannibal. That's what they do."
She felt the need to recover the ground she'd lost in flinching away from him, and dropped Jane's hand (hearing but ignoring her friend's little whimper of disapproval) before taking a step closer, lifting her jaw in defiance, holding his gaze. She was a tall girl at 5'9. He still had a few inches on her.
"Is that why we're here?" she demanded. "To be your friend's lunch?"
Bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet, Jerome leaned closer, screwing up his face in a disapproving, cartoonish squint. Even more quietly, his tone conspiratorial, he said, "He's not my friend."
He paused after this, watching her, checking for a reaction to this information. She was quick to press her advantage: "Oh, good!" she exclaimed, flashing him a quick smile that didn't go to her eyes. "He's not my friend, either. Want to help me get him?"
Jerome laughed at that, a rather unsettling high-pitched cackle, and then straightened his shoulders and looked past her, towards his colleague. "Greenwood?" he said, his voice ringing out clear, his tone patient, but expectant.
Right. Greenwood. That was his name. Isabel didn't feel much better at the reminder. She turned to see that Greenwood had recovered, somewhat, though he was using his forearm braced against the wall to hold him upright. He was glaring at her, didn't bother to look at Jerome as he spat, "The bitch attacked me."
"Hmm," said Jerome, sounding bored, and Isabel carefully reached behind her, grabbing Jane's hand again and backing up a little, turning so she could keep both guys in her peripheral vision at once. "T wants you."
Greenwood paused. His gaze slid away from Isabel and landed on Jerome. "Which T?" he asked, sounding suspicious.
"You know," Jerome said, folding his arms across his chest, lifting one at the elbow so he could cradle his chin in two fingers, peering dramatically up at the ceiling as if in thought, "that is an excellent question." He dropped the pose again in a heartbeat, giving Greenwood a grin that Isabel would describe as threatening. "You should go find the answer."
Greenwood wasn't glaring daggers at Isabel anymore—instead, he was scowling at Jerome, an expression that made him look younger, almost petulant, but whoever "T" was, their summons appeared to have enough power over him to force him to shelf his anger towards Isabel. He forced a grin and straightened up from his lean against the wall, spreading his hands theatrically. "Fine." He made a point of moving close to the girls on his way out of the room, and even though Isabel was expecting it, when he snarled abruptly into her ear on his way past, she flinched away.
He didn't do anything else, though. Jerome waited patiently, hands clasped behind his back and eyes turned demurely to the floor, until Greenwood left the room, then, springing into action, he turned and closed the door firmly behind him.
"That's better," he announced, and turned again to smile at the girls. After a moment of silence, during which he simply smiled, showing off his pearly white teeth, and the girls huddled together and stared back, their expressions ranging from fearful frown (Jane) to hostile half-glare (Isabel), he gestured abruptly towards the long couch against the wall. "Sit," he encouraged them.
The girls exchanged a quick look. Isabel, ever the leader, decided that if Jerome was bothering to be nice, then she would take advantage of the niceness (at least, as long as it lasted—she was too aware that he could just be leading her into a false sense of security, and that was in fact the most likely outcome, so she resolved not to let her guard down). She answered the question in Jane's eyes by inclining her head towards the couch, and the girls moved as a unit towards it.
Jerome orbited them, never drawing nearer than about three feet away, walking along the edge of the room as they crossed it. He kept his distance until they sank slowly down onto the couch in unison, Jane with both arms wrapped around one of Isabel's, and then he darted across the room at a breakneck run and jumped towards them. The girls jerked back, Jane squeaking in alarm, but he just landed in a crouch on the low coffee table just in front of the couch, the expensive wood easily holding his weight with barely a creak.
He smiled at them, arms looped loosely around his parted knees, and as if totally oblivious to the unsettling effects of his approach, he said, "Why don't you tell me your names." It wasn't a request.
Isabel was quickly getting the impression that showing weakness, showing the fear she felt was just feeding into the egos of her captors (he had to have known how alarming that move was), so she worked her face into a stony scowl and tried hard to keep her voice level as she said, "I'm Isabel."
He nodded, licked his lips, and turned his smiling gaze on Jane. When a few seconds passed in silence, Isabel elbowed her friend, gently, and was rewarded with a small word: "Jane."
"Jane," he greeted her with a nod; "Isabel." He pressed a hand to his narrow chest. "I'm Jerome."
"I know who you are," Isabel said.
His smile, if possible, widened. "You think so? Aw, baby," he said, tilting his head at a sharp angle, "you don't know nothin' yet."
She couldn't quite keep the look of revulsion from crossing her face—she knew so because Jerome laughed, sounding delighted. She thought it best to keep the conversation going, to move on from the fact that she already thought he was the worst. "So, what, are you like the good cop in this scenario?" she asked, shifting her shoulder to subtly obscure Jane a little more from his view.
His smile disappeared in favor of a thoughtful look. "Uh—maybe." At her skeptical glance, he leaned in a little and confessed, "I've never been the good cop before."
"Huh. How do you like it?"
He made a high-pitched, contemplative noise. "I'll reserve judgment for now. Are you sisters?"
Isabel looked pointedly at where Jane was clutching her hand, Jane's white skin contrasted against hers, which was considerably browner, and then back at him. "No."
He held up his hands, don't shoot. "I'm just askin'. You never know these days, what with the… decay of the nuclear family and all." He cleared his throat. "So what're these?" He reached out, flicked the purple wristband Isabel was wearing with the tip of his middle finger.
"We were at a show tonight," she said, reluctant.
"Really? Who was playing?"
Her brow furrowed, you can't be serious, and when he met her look with an expression of innocent curiosity (one that she didn't trust for a second), she felt her own features flatten with irritation and impatience. "Queens of the Stone Age," she told him, though her tone made it sound more like fuck you.
He raised his eyebrows. "Queens of the Stone Age, huh? Does that mean you like son-of-a-bitch redheads?"
Isabel decided she'd had enough of his line of questioning. She pulled out of Jane's grip, leaning forward, slapping her hands down on the table on either side of Jerome's velveteen house shoes, and, tilting her head back to look him straight in the eye, glaring, she said, "What are we doing here? What do you want with us?"
"Whoa, whoa, hey," he said, expression morphing immediately to one softer, of concern. (She didn't trust this one, either.) He shifted, moving his feet to the floor, knees knocking hers even as she moved quickly back in response to his sudden proximity. He settled on the edge of the table, leaning close. "Easy. Easy. Listen." He reached forward to grab her hand—she tried to jerk back at the touch, but he just brought his other hand in to reinforce his grip, holding hers so tightly between his that she couldn't pull it away.
"You two were a practice run," he told her, looking her soulfully in the eyes. "One of several. That's all. It wasn't personal."
"A practice run," she repeated, her fingers loose, refusing to clasp his hand the way he was clasping hers. "So… practice, if the practice is over, then we should be allowed to go. Right?" She didn't believe that, but he was talking bullshit, and unless she pushed, she'd never get to the bottom of… whatever all this was.
He hummed, a soft sound, as he looked thoughtfully upwards. "Well."
And there it is, she thought, her eyes sliding shut, just for a second. There was more to this than whatever "practice run" load he was trying to sell her. Obviously there was more.
Jerome was talking again. "The shot-callers think it'd be good to have a few… spare parts in the mix. You know how it is—everything's going good, you're establishing your criminal empire, nothing but smooth sailing… and then suddenly, the police roll up and you're in need of hostages." He grinned his wide grin at her again, like he expected it to disarm her (or frighten her). "Best to have the hostages on standby instead of gambling on being able to grab a few from the mix, you know?"
Isabel didn't know. She tried pulling her hand out of his, and this time he let her, clapping his palms instead to his spread knees.
"At least, that's the idea. Now, me? I like winging it, but ultimately, I'm not in charge, so…" He clicked his tongue against the side of his mouth and shrugged a little dramatically, what are you gonna do.
"So we're you're… live-in hostages?" she tried. It didn't sound any better out loud.
He gave her a single finger-gun. "Atta girl. You got the idea."
"And the fact that we're your human shields is supposed to be, like, insurance against us getting raped, or eaten, or murdered?"
He wrinkled his nose. "Not good insurance. We can always grab more girls off the street, if we need to."
"That's… great. That's reassuring."
"Hey," he said consolingly. "Consider the bright side: in a fight between you and Greenwood? I'm rooting for you."
"Really?" she asked, and when he nodded, looking earnest, she went for broke: "All right, then put your money where your mouth is and give me a knife."
Jerome grinned, and that grin turned almost immediately into another of those unsettling high cackles.
"I'm serious," she argued, leaning forward a little again, intentionally catching his eye. "He might be shorter than me, but he outweighs me, and he's crazy. Plus, I kicked him in the nuts, and there's, like, no way he's not gonna hold a grudge over that. If you'd rather see me win out over him, I need an advantage."
His laughter faded, though the manic grin remained, and he stared at her, not blinking. She nodded, just a twitch of her head, encouraging, and said, emphatically, "Give me a knife."
He narrowed his eyes just a touch. "You always cause this much trouble, or is that a… recent development?"
"Always," she said without missing a beat.
Now, it was his turn to nod, his smile taking a turn from devious into outright wicked. He stared for just a beat longer than was comfortable, and then, abruptly, he stood. "Know what, Trouble? I'll think about it. In the meantime—might I suggest that the two of you get some sleep? We've got some busy days ahead. Who knows what we'll need you to do? You don't want to be at a disadvantage from the start."
"Thanks for the advice," she grumbled, leaning back to give him a little more room to get by.
He headed towards the door, turning after a few paces, walking backwards. "Nice meeting you, Isabel. Jane," he said, shooting a particularly malevolent look over her shoulder at her friend.
She waited until he'd actually left the room, the lock clicking behind him, before muttering, "Wish I could say the same, asshole."
A/N - Dustin Ybarra is cute and did a great job as Greenwood. Too bad Isabel hates him, lol.
Gotham is a fabulous sand box, Jerome is a wonderful awful character, and I'm looking forward to continuing this! Love me some feedback, so drop me a line if you feel so inclined. See you soon :)