A/N: Another day, another re-write. I recently started rethinking Blood and Chocolate and have come up with things I could have put in there, things I wish I had put in there, and just all in all, too much stuff for me to edit it. Therefore, I am going to do a complete overhaul of the story.

I will be keeping the original up as people really seemed to enjoy it.

Now, if a soft side of Jerome is something you can't stomach, steer away. Jerome is his happy, homicidal self in this, but he is in an incestuous relationship with his sister and cares for her deeply. She is the only person he harbors any softness towards and the only person he always keeps at his side.

As for Nika. She is mostly indifferent to people. The only person she cares to spend time with is Jerome. While small and quiet, Nika is the more violent and uncontrolled one and she also seems to snap at the smallest provocation.

WARNINGS FOR THIS STORY: Incest (This is a given, so if it is not your forte, you know where the back button is), sexual content, violence (because it's Gotham, so things are going to get bloody), and language.

WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: Possible trigger warning for mention of parental abuse and mentions of incest.


"But I have always known I couldn't live without you. That is a constant, like the sun rising in the east or my having five fingers on each hand. That is love, Lucia, and it doesn't go in for showy swooning or pretty phrases or extravagant gifts. It is plain and deep, like the sea when no one is looking at it."

Cesare Borgia to Lucrezia Borgia


Close.

Unnaturally so, but close, nevertheless.

That is how the Gotham Gazette reported the relationship between the Valeska siblings, Jerome and Nika, when they were apprehended for the murder of their mother. But any investigator or journalist with even the slightest amount of skill could detect within seconds of being in the presence of them that there was more there than just undying loyalty and sibling affection.

There was love.

The kind of love that most people dream about but could never hope to accomplish or ever come across.

Bonnie and Clyde.

Mickey and Mallory Knox.

Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia.

All people that Nika Valeska had drawn and written about in the journals in her room. It was from these journals that Jim Gordon would learn the truth about the relationship between she and her brother.

In Nika's eyes, Jerome was an angel. Despite detailing at least six murders in the first four pages of her second journal, she seemed immune to the darkness she described spreading in her brother, referring to it only as a shadow to her own. It was dreamy and romantic the way with which she wrote. But deeper in, Nika's own shadows spread with inky darkness. Pages upon pages of sketches and poems, dark epitaphs to her desire to see her mother dead. As well as the horrors that had befallen those who had harmed her brother in the past. She was bare and truthful in the revelations of her sins, showing no shame in her words.

Jerome's was a bit more graphic and eclectic. Less collected and poetic than his sisters. But his feelings for her were plainly portrayed and just as deep as hers. And his sins, and crimes against those who had done his sister harm, were just as horrendous, standing in stark contrast to the innocent boyishness of his face.

The journals were inevitably handed over to Doctor Hugo Strange, the head of Psychiatry at Arkham Asylum, the place where Jerome and Nika were doomed to spend the rest of their days.

Separated indefinitely.

Though, Jim suspected that Strange would try to find a loophole to get around that. He did not seem happy about the Judge's ruling. Bullock had told him not to think it was out of compassion for the mental damage that separation would cause the Valeska siblings.

"I'll bet you my salary it's only because he's pissed that the Judge is trying to control what goes on in that nut hut of his," Bullock stood outside the courthouse with Jim as the Valeska's were hauled away, a huffy looking Strange following them in a separate car. "No. He wants those two together."

Jim looked at his partner. "For what reason?"

Harvey shrugged.

"Beats the hell out of me," he watched as the reporters dispersed. "Strange has always given me the creeps. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if he was tickled pink at the idea of having siblings in an incestuous relationship in his Asylum."

Jim straightened and tucked his hands in his pockets.

"Any time I think that I've seen everything," he sighed, his breath swirling in the cold of the air. "Gotham throws another surprise at me."

Harvey chuckled, clapping him on the shoulder.

"Oh please, matricide with a side of incest?" he grinned at Jim's facial expression. "That's not even the weirdest thing we've seen this week."

Jim stared ahead.

"What possesses someone to do that?" Harvey arched an eyebrow at him in question. "Sleep with their own sibling?"

Harvey studied him for a moment before leaning against the car.

"I'm not defending it or anything, but what else were they supposed to do?" when Jim looked at him, he held up his hands. "From what I could tell, the Valeska's were outsiders even within the circus. All of the workers turned a blind eye to what Lila was doing to her son, and from what Nika told me, some of Lila's lovers, the workers, even participated in it."

He sighed.

"Who else were they supposed to turn to for their emotional needs," he lowered his voice. "Most people have a support system. Jerome and Nika only had each other."

Jim studied him.

He could see the truth in what Harvey was saying, could even understand it to some degree, and as they walked off down the street to their car, he wished he could time travel. To see what had led the Valeska siblings down the dark path that had ended at Arkham's gates.


A/N: This was just an introduction chapter. The rest of the chapters will take place in chronological order for the events of the show with my own spin. It will start from their childhood and lead into the show.

I hope you enjoy the re-write. Reviews are appreciated and loved.