Blood Rush
A/N: All cards on the table, this is a brother/sister trope. And yes, it does mean :-O incest. This is your only trigger warning. I won't be putting any more disclaimers in the following chapters. And yes, there will be smut. It's a Jerome Valeska fanfic, what do you expect? If you wish to continue, I hope you enjoy this twisted bit of fiction. Cheers. :D
Chapter One: A Tale of Haley's Circus
Delilah Valeska hated her name.
Of course, many people would think that she hated the fact that her name referred to the temptress who conned Samson into telling her his weakness to his formidable vigor. Oh, it's because it's a biblical name, that's why she hates it. No. That's not it.
That wasn't the reason. The whole "Hebrew Jezebel" seemed to fit her just fine in Haley's Circus as the provocative, 18-year-old fire dancer. No doubt her costumes brought in prying eyes of older gentlemen and younger boys just hitting puberty. It seemed appropriate that her name be coined as illicitly tempting as she drew in most of the crowd in her overture performance, the first act of the night to lure the unsuspecting crowd into awe and excitement: one of many acts to bring in the profit that allowed the Circus Family to keep the show going and performances to improve upon the income.
So, Delilah appreciated her name as far as the job was concerned.
Maybe she hated her name because of the song "Hey There, Delilah"?
No.
She didn't hate her name because of the song devoted to a runaway beauty. Though obnoxiously chorused by drunks and jocks, Delilah thought the song was quite enduring, and honored to hear it in an innocent rhyme.
Paul Cicero named their daughter Delilah Valeska, in hopes that if he had named her after her mother, it would bring Lila closer to him due to the failing relationship. He'd have thought that Lila would have been honored, as a person would be…wouldn't they? He thought that Lila would come to love him more, and in the off chance, she'd love Delilah afterwards.
No such luck. And the love never came even when her twin brothers, Jerome and Jeremiah were born a year later.
"Harlot, slut, Jezebel, tramp, and trollop" had been Lila's favorite nicknames to use for her prepubescent daughter. Even before Delilah began to bleed, Lila damned the girl as nothing else but a teasing whore. "At least I don't lead them on," she'd tell Delilah, after a successful fire dance. How could an eight-year-old girl lead people on to begin with? Delilah assumed that Lila's ferocious name-calling came from a place of jealousy…but that didn't make it any less hurtful.
While Jeremiah was cherished as a mathematician and prodigal son, whom Lila was sincerely warm to, Jerome and Delilah took a backseat of their mother's affections. Jeremiah didn't even put that much stock in the circus to begin with—Jerome participated as a stage hand and Delilah had been destined to take the ol' fire dancing role once she could start walking. One would think a mother would be ecstatic when their toddler learned to twirl fire rods instead of counting to five or learning the alphabet. Not that one, that old hag.
A few accidents happened; and then, in the pit of night, Jeremiah was sent away for his safety, and Jerome and Delilah took a front row seat to a wave of emotional and physical abuse. Accusations were thrown around: "Jerome is trying to kill me, he tried to set me on fire. Delilah knows, she knows; but she won't say anything. I know that she's in on it." Jeremiah's complaints got him sent away, and that seemed to give permission to Lila and anyone else that she let in the trailer to beat the crap out of Jerome and berate Delilah…
The Circus, though vowing that they took care of their own, ignored the bitter cries and angry squalls from the Valeska trailer home. One could hear Delilah and Lila screaming at each other in fury, glass shattering, things thumping against the wall; all the while another set of voices—Lila's current charmer at the time and Jerome—echoing as beat downs and berating took place at the opposite of the trailer.
When the beatings would get worse, Delilah would try to put herself between any of Lila's boyfriends and Jerome when he'd get too bloody enough to be able to stand. And the worse things would happen when Lila pulled Jerome out of the trailer, leaving her daughter with a strange man. No one would talk about it, but Jerome would know what happened when Delilah wouldn't say much that night.
But alas, the Circus would try to make things "right". Either they'd throw that stranger out of the territory that they reserved or they'd move again. Police weren't necessarily welcomed, due to the fact that most of the Carnies weren't accepted by society—even the bearded lady took more flack than what anyone would expect.
Why did Delilah hate her name…? To an outsider, they wouldn't understand.
18-year-old Delilah Valeska. Red hair. Green eyes...a recessive trait from dear old dad. Beautiful. But inside, rotting from a childhood of neglect and humiliation. A feeling of lesser than, but a dark mind lulling in a fantasy of one day returning Lila's lack of love tenfold.
Tall as she was fair, she held the Hebrew name of Delilah with certainty. Despite her past and present, she held her head up high, knowing that whatever didn't kill her made her ever much stronger...and perhaps more dangerous. Not to say she didn't suffer any scars; her close contact with lit torches and flying embers were the hazards of being a fire dancer. Sometimes only a few small embers landed on her. Sometimes, she had caught a bare foot in one of the ignited ribbons and came close to death. Though, lots of practice and a high pain tolerance made most of the scars only reminders of amateurish mistakes. Everyone's gotta start somewhere.
Delilah's attempts to appeal to her mother's affections had long since been abandoned. Rather, when someone called her 'Lila' as a nickname, she cringed and met the audacity with a disdainful "Deedee".
So, the Circus family referred to her as Deedee. Deedee "Delilah" Valeska.
Jerome had become as dead inside as his sister.
Let Lila run around and be the whore she was. The bitch, too, had picked up strongly on her desires for flesh and booze—Fine, stay drunk and fuck.
Lila, the petty slut, provided only one bed in the room beside hers for Jerome and Delilah to share. Even as they became teenagers, she had remarked,
"No use in hiding the two of you. You and your brother are as good as you're ever going to find. Pathetic and a waste of time, a waste of mine."
A constant reminder that brother and sister would never find anyone whom they could be worthy, the two of them sought each other's company after the nights that left them bruised and beaten. And they both longed to see Lila dead. Such pillow talk were long, hypothetical conversations about what to do with Mother. Could they burn her? A simple slip of my hand, Deedee mentioned to Jerome casually one night. They could probably smother her with her own pillow during one of her blackouts? Anyone would believe it, I would, Jerome had considered it when Lila's snoring overrode all other thoughts of being a gentle son.
But the Circus took care of their own.
To kill was to be killed. And exiled.
But one day, something seemed different between brother and sister. Loneliness met comfort; an absence of love from their parents was replaced by a different kind of love.
This tale of Haley's Circus is one for the books.