note - I heard from a few of you that you haven't watched Gotham or aren't caught up but are reading anyway bc you like my work, and 1. that is tremendously flattering, thank you and 2. consider maybe watching some Jerome clips off Youtube just to get a grasp of who we're dealing with? Specifically, for this chapter, look up the bit where he plays Russian Roulette with Greenwood, because it's mentioned in the text but won't make much sense if you haven't seen it, plus that clip gives you a pretty good understanding of the group vibes and Jerome's whole deal specifically. And if you have seen Gotham, you should go watch it anyway, because it's only two minutes long and it's wonderful. PSA over, enjoy the chapter!
2.
Cheer up, tune it out
Take your mask off, have a shot
Are you a sick kid or a trick?
It's gonna mess you up – Autolux | Soft Scene
"Isabel," Jane said softly. "Stop pacing."
"Can't."
"You're putting me on edge."
"Sorry," Isabel said, but she made no move to stop moving back and forth long-wise down the room, fingers knotting together, then unknotting, then knotting together again. Jane sighed, then sat up from where she'd been lying on the couch, trying unsuccessfully to fall asleep.
"So what's on your mind?" she asked gamely.
"Okay," Isabel said. "So they obviously don't know who you are. That's leverage, right? I mean, if we tell them, maybe we can turn this from death trap in the making to kidnapping for ransom."
"Oh, absolutely not," Jane said. When her friend turned to shoot her a confused look, she gestured to indicate the room in general. "The wooden pieces are all mahogany. The rest are designer, and not one of them costs under five grand. Whatever these guys are after? It's not money." Her voice, so timid and soft around the Maniax, was stronger now, slightly lower in pitch, unfalteringly confident. She knew this stuff, had grown up surrounded by it.
Isabel scraped her nails along her undercut, eyes going distant in thought. "So they obviously already have it."
"That, or someone's bankrolling them."
"Publicity, then," Isabel decided, and Jane pointed at her with a sleepy wink, you've got it. "Okay, then… we need to keep them in the dark. They can't find out who you are."
"Yeah, that's what I was thinking," Jane said, ignoring the painful swoop of her stomach, the fear as the reality of her situation hit her again for the twentieth time this hour.
"Yeah… yeah, that'd be a huge get for them, murdering the daughter of Coil's CEO."
"God," Jane sighed, rubbing her hand over her tired eyes, "at this point, he'd probably thank them for it."
"Still. People would talk, and that's what these guys seem to want, right?"
"Yes, Isabel, thank you for reminding me that my murder would tick all these guys's boxes," Jane said dryly, leaving her hand over her face.
"Shit," Isabel said, and paused awkwardly. "I'm sorry. You know I don't always—"
Jane dropped her hand, gave her friend a quick smile, more to reassure her than because she actually felt like smiling. "It's fine. You're just trying to figure a way out of this, I know. It's like I can hear you thinking."
Isabel paused in her pacing, tilted her head back as far as it would go, and groaned.
"I cannot believe you asked that guy for a knife," Jane added.
"You miss a hundred percent of the shots you don't take," Isabel fired back, only half-sarcastic. "And anyway, he and Greenwood actually seemed to dislike each other, and these guys are from Arkham, which means they don't play by the usual rules—to put it mildly. I might get lucky."
"Or you might get stabbed, because you're introducing a knife to the mix."
"Please," she scoffed. "You know damn well there are knives in play already—and guns, and like, flamethrowers, and probably all sorts of weird scary shit that I can't even imagine. I have to try to at least even the field."
Jane watched her friend move back and forth through the room for a few more seconds, and then, very quietly, she pointed out, "If you stab him, the rest of them will kill you."
Isabel froze mid-step, then, a moment later, visibly shrugged the comment off, resuming her pacing. "Yeah, well, we'll burn that bridge when we get to it," she mumbled. After a second, she turned back to her friend, almost accusingly: "Why aren't you a mess right now?"
She had a point. Of the two of them, Jane was most likely to be racked with anxiety at any given moment, paralyzed by fear of the violent, the strange, and the unknown—three things Gotham City specialized in. It was part of why she and Isabel were so close—Jane needed someone to look after her, and Isabel needed someone to look after.
"I don't know," Jane admitted after a second. "Too tired, maybe? Or maybe just too burned out." She scrubbed her hands over her eyes again, still distantly aware of the danger, but without any of their captors actually present, she found that the usual fear had taken a backseat to more immediate needs.
It helped that Isabel was around. She'd already put herself between Jane and the bad guys several times tonight and come out on top each time. It made Jane feel like maybe this would turn out better than expected.
Isabel nodded, but her expression was distant. To call her attention back (Jane knew that look, she knew it meant Isabel was running through worst-case scenarios, a tendency of hers that stretched her thin and made her tense), Jane asked a question she'd been wondering for a while: "Do you think Jerome will help us?"
The question got instant results: Isabel scoffed, looking over at her, her expression scornful. "I think Jerome is playing games," she said.
Jane frowned. "What do you mean?"
"There is something deeply not right about that boy," Isabel declared. "He looks like the kind of guy that pulls wings off of butterflies."
"No argument there, but if you think he's screwing us, then why are you giving him the time of day?"
Isabel sighed, raking her fingers through her hair. "I have to negotiate with someone, and so far, creepy or not, I like him best for it. I mean, what's my other option? Greenwood?"
At the mention of the cannibal's name, a cold chill ran down Jane's spine. The memory of the way he'd looked at her before Isabel had intervened on her behalf was an unwelcome one, and she tried to shake it off fast, before it could really get its hooks in her. "Fair point," she muttered.
"Not to get all Stockholm-y," Isabel continued, "but if we can make Jerome like us more than he likes the rest of his crew… I don't know." She stopped pacing again, resting her hands on her hips, her expression thoughtful.
Jane practically recoiled at the idea. "I don't want him to like us," she protested. The truth of it was, as frightened as she felt of Greenwood, something about Jerome spooked her almost as much. Maybe it was the red edges of his eyes, or the way he moved, like something simultaneously predatory and unnatural. Whatever the reason, she felt certain that he was as much of a threat as Greenwood, and the thought of further contact with him…
"Yeah, I'm not thrilled about it either," Isabel said absently. "But until we find someone else saner than he is… and anyway, we're not part of his target demographic, which is more than I can say for at least two of the others."
Jane didn't want to ask. She really didn't. She made herself do it anyway. "What did he do again?"
Still lost in thought, Isabel sounded unbearably casual when she responded. "Killed his mom."
Jane drew in a breath through clenched teeth. "Jesus."
"Yeah, well, I'll take that over raping or eating girls our age; the odds seem just a bit better. Hell, he might have even had a good reason."
"Isabel!" Jane exclaimed, scolding. "God."
"Oh, like we're strangers to shitty parents," Isabel said, growing defensive. "Please. We can't afford to get pearl-clutchy about this, at least not before we get the whole story."
"Sure, but we can't afford to assume that asshole murder boy was justified, either," Jane said, in the willful tone she only ever felt safe to use with Isabel. It got her friend's attention, the way it usually did, and after a second, Isabel looked abashed.
"You're right," she admitted. "I know. I'm just trying to make this easier."
"I know," Jane said, yielding in turn. "I just… I don't think having Jerome on our side will end up any better than trying to make it out of this alone."
Isabel frowned, shook her head. "What do you…? I mean, he's obviously got power within the group, he has access to weapons, he could—"
"He could use the fact that we want stuff from him against us," Jane interrupted. "He could pretend he's going to help us just to like… lure us into something. Or just make us cooperate. Bottom line is we have no reason to think he'll take our side, and about a hundred to think he'll screw us. I don't want to open myself up to that. I don't want you to, either."
Isabel was shaking her head, just a little, but enough that Jane knew her words weren't going very far. Knowing how stubborn her friend was, knowing she couldn't do much more to change her mind, Jane made herself relax, laying her head back down onto the couch and stretching out a hand. "It'll keep till tomorrow," she said, trying her best to sound soothing instead of just scared.
Isabel seemed to want to say something to that—how can you know that, maybe, or something along those lines, but she restrained herself. "Come on," Jane added, a little encouraged that Isabel wasn't shooting her down anymore. "I'm tired but I'm scared to sleep alone."
"I'm not sleepy yet," Isabel replied automatically, chewing on the edge of a fingernail, but after a minute, she seemed to reconsider, and turned to come over to the couch. "I'll sit with you, though. Make sure nobody sneaks up."
"You're a balm to my wounded soul," Jane said, giving her a small smile that she was sure wasn't convincing. Isabel shot her a dry look in response, reaching over her to a red throw blanket draped across the top of the couch and unfolding it over her. The blanket was soft plush and had a pleasant heaviness to it, and despite their dire circumstances, Jane sighed at the feel of it weighing on her body, more aware than ever of the weariness she was feeling. It had been a long day and a late night to start with, and now, drained by the danger of the evening, she wanted nothing more than to sleep.
Once Jane was draped in the blanket, Isabel settled at her feet, pulling her legs up beneath her and watching the door with a sort of testy wariness. Jane bent at the middle so she could touch her friend's hand, and told her, "You need to sleep, too."
"Mm. Not right now. You rest, we'll talk about… all this—" she gestured vaguely at the room around them—"later."
Jane shook her head, but she knew her well. Isabel wasn't going to sleep until she was damn well ready, no matter what anyone said. Jane arguing would likely just make her more determined to keep a watch, so she just curled up, reassured by the feeling of her blanketed feet pressing against Isabel, and eventually, she was able to numb the horror of the day long enough to drift to sleep.
Jerome was having a good day, and he'd only been up for an hour.
But oh, what an hour. After fancy French omelets for breakfast, over various weaponry, he'd finally put an end to the so-called power struggle between himself and Greenwood. All he'd had to do was accept a twenty percent chance of death (and then a twenty-five percent chance, and then a thirty-three percent chance—but those were all lower than fifty percent chance, which was what he'd forced Greenwood to face, and he'd bet correctly that Greenwood had been too much of a coward to accept those odds).
He was the boss. Theo said so, and more than that, Jerome had made sure everyone knew it. Man, what a rush.
Now that that had been taken care of, and he had a couple of hours to burn before their event later today, his thoughts turned towards the girls they'd nabbed the night before.
There was Jane: tiny, blonde, huge blue eyes. Skinny jeans, rainbow t-shirt, black tattoo down her bicep. Paralyzed by her terror, which was a funny thing to watch. All in all, she wasn't all that interesting.
Isabel… Isabel was interesting.
She was a tall girl, strong-looking—he didn't envy Greenwood the blow he'd taken to the family jewels. Last night, as Jerome was falling asleep, he'd wondered how her right hook might feel: she didn't seem the kind of girl to pull it out of fear of pain. That was interesting. She had light brown skin and silky black hair, except where it had been shaved down over her left ear, showing off a line of silver piercings. No visible tattoos. Wearing a white tank top and a black army jacket over cutoff black shorts and ankle-high Doc Martens patterned with roses—and if the shorts were a little unusual for September, she'd said they'd come from a show. Venues got hot, and anyway, that just meant her legs were on full display, and she had nice legs.
She'd had the balls to ask him for a knife. Wasn't that great?
Jane was her weak spot, that much was obvious from the various ways she'd shifted her body to block her friend from his view, and Greenwood's. He'd been about eighty percent sure that Jane wasn't her sister when he'd asked (they could've shared just a mother or just a father, but they looked so drastically different that he doubted it), but still, the vibes had been there, that single-minded protectiveness, the way she'd been willing to put herself in the line of fire if it meant detracting their attention from the one she was shielding. That was a useful piece of information.
He stopped in the kitchen, setting the sword on the counter and grabbing a box of leftover pizza from last night out of the fridge. When he straightened up and closed the door, Theo was standing there.
Jerome didn't jump, just leaned against the fridge and tilted his head and gave him a cool, interested look.
"Jerome," Theo said, flashing his polished, practiced, politician smile. "Congratulations."
Jerome smiled, flourished his free hand, made a bar of his arm across his stomach and bowed over it. "Thank you," he said, putting an artificial deepness into his voice.
He felt pretty good about Theo, all things considered. Theo had broken him out of the joint, was interested in giving him the tools to do exactly what he wanted, and seemed to be both amused by and supportive of his ambitions, all while clothing him and feeding him and housing him in this cushy place. Sure, it was because the man had an ulterior motive, but honestly, Jerome would've felt worse about him if he hadn't. This way, their interactions had the feeling of an exchange: it was fair. Jerome didn't owe him anything other than what he would already freely give. That, he could be happy about.
Theo's eyes went to the pizza box in Jerome's hand; he nodded towards it. "Is that for the girls you took last night?"
"Well, I thought they might be hungry," Jerome answered, the corners of his mouth dropping in cartoonish thoughtfulness.
"Indeed they might. It's very kind of you to think of them."
Jerome grinned. Kindness didn't figure into it, and despite Theo's placid face, he damn well knew it. Just one more reason to like him.
Theo's expression shifted into something closer to solemnity, and he stepped closer, putting a hand on Jerome's shoulder. "Look in on them if you like. Just be sure not to tell them anything, hmm?"
Jerome raised his eyebrows, inquisitive. He knew the reasoning behind the instruction; he just wanted to hear Theo say it.
Theo obliged. "We both know it's unlikely that they'll survive. Even more unlikely that they'll manage to escape—but still. No use taking chances, and anonymity in this is key for me. You understand, yes?"
Jerome smiled, beatific. "I understand."
Theo returned his smile, clapping him once on the shoulder. "Good boy." He nodded at the pizza box. "Go feed the girls. Keep them happy."
Jerome snapped into a quick salute. "Aye, aye, Captain!" he boomed, the mocking in his tone outweighed by the theatricality of it, and as Theo snorted, mildly amused, he slipped past him, grabbed his sword and headed towards the den where they were keeping the girls.
They were awake when he unlocked the door, a bit to his disappointment—huddled together on the couch, the way they were when he left them. He paused just past the threshold, kicking the door closed behind him as he used his sword hand to flip the lid of the pizza box open. He grabbed a cold slice (French omelets might be fancy, but he was a growing boy, and a couple of eggs wouldn't exactly hold him for the day), folding it in half and shoving it into his mouth before venturing over to them and tossing the box down on the table in front of them.
They both stared at it. Isabel, after a second, raised suspicious eyes to him.
"It's not poisoned," he reassured them. His mouth was full, and her expression turned confused.
He lifted a finger, wait a second, and grabbed the crust of the pizza with his other hand, pulling it free, chewing the mouthful he'd managed to bite off and swallowing before repeating himself. "It's not poison-ed," he repeated, emphasizing each syllable.
Her suspicion didn't fade, but Jane reached past her, snatching up a slice. Jerome chuckled, the sound exploding from his chest, well, look at the cojones on the fraidy-cat. Isabel was more reluctant to follow up, looking suspiciously between him and the pizza, but when he continued to work on his piece with relish, she slowly reached for one as well.
For a minute or two, they all ate in companionable silence. Predictably, Isabel was the one to break it.
"Your friend… the weaselly one, Dobkins? He was sitting there watching us when we woke up."
"Ooh," Jerome said, raising his eyebrows like she'd said something salacious.
She tossed her pizza crust into the box and leaned forward, elbows on her bared knees. "He's the rapist, right?"
"The rapist," he repeated, slowly, then in a rush: "That's taking a pretty limited view on things, don't you think?"
"He was the only one who the news mentioned had a history of it," she said, not breaking eye contact with him. "He scampered as soon as I said something to him, but… it was still unsettling."
Jerome shrugged, pulling a dismissive face. "Dobkins is harmless."
"Sure. Right now. He seemed passive, out of it. Watch him hit a manic phase, though. He could be dangerous."
Jerome squinted at her. "Are you currently taking a psych one-oh-one course, by any chance?"
"No, I just know a thing or two about mental illness," she said steadily. "You given any more thought towards letting me have a knife?"
Jerome wondered if she knew how much she was making him like her. The sheer audacity of asking your kidnapper for a weapon—it pointed to the kind of mind that made things interesting, one that was either really bold or really stupid. (Given that she'd picked a fight with Greenwood within ten minutes of having her hands freed, probably a mix of both.)
"No, I've just been sleeping," he answered. It was a lie. Before Theo had approached him in the kitchen, he had eyeballed the knife rack, had considered wrapping the butcher's blade in a dishcloth and delivering it to her along with the pizza. He'd come down on no, though, at least for now, because there was a lot going on that his co-escapees could be useful for, and as funny as it'd be to watch her stab them over and over and over again, he wanted to see how Theo's plans would play out.
It was still an option, though. Especially if he could trick her into thinking he was on her side—now, that would be funny, given how transparently dead-set against him she was, despite having evidently chosen him as her go-to ambassador for the Maniax. (After all, he was the only choice. Those other guys were just a mess.)
She wasn't happy with that answer. It was fun for him to watch her face—it was an expressive one despite her substantial efforts to keep it under control, betrayed exactly what she was thinking, how she was feeling about him. She did not like him.
"Dobkins could've been Greenwood," she argued. "He could've cut off a chunk of me and had it in the deep fryer before I even woke up."
"In that case, what good would a knife have done you?" he posited, raising his eyebrows, gotchya. She just looked thoroughly unimpressed, and he headed to the sectional part of the couch, scooping up the TV remote on the way. "Anyway. You're massively overestimating Greenwood's ability to be subtle. About anything," he added, and dropped into a full-body sprawl (or at least, as much of his body as he could fit) on the sectional a couple of feet away from them, laying the sword down beside him and turning the TV on.
He pretended to be completely oblivious to the way the girls were staring at him, clearly confused by his making himself at home. After a moment, as he fitted his arm beneath his head to pillow it, Isabel said, "Um."
He didn't move his head, just his eyes, looking sideways towards her, guileless. What?
"Are you, uh… sticking around?"
"Oh, you don't mind, do you?" he asked easily. "It's a few hours before I have to do anything, and the rest of the crew, they're, uh, not great at the hygiene thing—and you can forget about a stimulating conversation. I'd much rather stay here for a while."
His social situation wasn't as dire as he was making it out to be—sure, he didn't want to spend more time around his colleagues than he had to, but he had other options. He could theoretically go see what Babs and Tabitha were up to, but he was currently torn between admiring the two women (as much as he could admire anyone, anyway) and feeling wary of them. Both had a certain reckless vibe that was fun to watch, like hyenas loose on a playground, but he wasn't exactly keen to put his own fingers near the hyenas' mouths, so to speak. For now, as long as the civilian girls held his interest, he'd rather be around them. He was having fun right now, giving that good cop angle a spin.
"…sure," Isabel said at length, sounding very not sure. "All right, cool." She didn't sound like she thought it would be cool.
Jerome pointedly didn't smile, doing his best to appear completely disinterested in the girls on the other side of the couch. He channel surfed until he found something appropriately mindlessly violent, then settled in and pretended to watch.
A/N - still largely setup- things don't start getting hairy till the next chapter, but it's important to have a good foundation. I thoroughly appreciate the likes and feedback, it's lovely to get some interest so early on, and nice to see familiar names! I'll have another chapter for you next week!
