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Bruce’s arm aches where the staples pierced his skin. He has blood in and on and around his mouth and cheap paint slowly cracking on his face and he is sweating through his turtleneck as Jerome Valeska, recently resurrected murderer, marches him toward a shiny trailer. Time for the main event, he’d said, after stapling Bruce’s arm in three places, a funny look on his stretched taut face. Two cronies of sorts march behind them, but Jerome waves them away as they draw close to the trailer.
“C’mon, kiddo,” Jerome drawls, hooking his hand around Bruce’s elbow and bounding through the door to the trailer. Bruce’s shoulder jars with the force of the tug and he stumbles after Jerome, the door clicking shut behind him. His elbow is hot and itchy where Jerome’s big hand grabbed at him.
“What are we doing here?” he asks, keeping his voice as steady as he can. His eyes dart around the trailer, taking in the drab interior, the tattered couch, the little fold-out table, the half open sliding door closet with glittery things inside, the bed crammed in down at the far end of the trailer. There is plenty of detritus around he could use to attempt to knock out Jerome, but Bruce doesn’t trust the dangerous look in his eye, like a rabid animal ready to bite. He doesn’t trust that he could win. He sits primly on the beat up couch instead.
“S’time for a quick change, Brucie,” Jerome explains, striding over to the tiny closet. “Can’t go before our adoring public in this drab little number.” He rifles through the fabrics in the closet, tugging things out at random — shiny pants, glittery jackets, tall boots, a number of hats and gloves, scattering them across the floor of the trailer. Bruce wonders if whoever lives here — the ringmaster? — is dead, or just tied up somewhere.
“I see,” Bruce says. He digs his nails into the thin cushion of the couch. One nail pierces through the fabric, pressing into the padding inside. Jerome looks over his shoulder, fingers buried in a particularly velvety looking orange waistcoat.
“Now, don’t try any funny business, darlin’,” Jerome says, eyebrows arched. “Or else I’ll gut you right here, from your pretty neck down to your groin, our eager audience be damned. Okay?” He says it like it’s nothing — Bruce isn't even sure he means it, Jerome loves a rapt crowd, adoring or fearful, unless he’s changed since his death at the gala last year — but Bruce nods quickly anyway. He isn’t eager to test the waters and end up choking on his own blood.
Like Jerome last year, his mind supplies unhelpfully. He can see the scar on Jerome’s neck from where he sits, diagonal and pink, like it never had time to heal right. It probably hadn’t, Bruce considers. Jerome had been dead for a year, and then alive again, and had anyone even bothered to stitch his neck up? He wonders if it pains Jerome, a phantom reminder of the pain of Theo Galavan driving the knife in, blood welling up in his mouth.
“Which one d’you think?” Jerome asks, a little too loud, and Bruce snaps his head up. In his hands Jerome clutches two unspeakably gaudy coats, one sparkly and purple, one red with a shiny gold pattern, both with bright flowers in their lapels. Bruce licks his lips and finds his mouth dry, his tongue heavy and sticky.
“The red,” he says at last, and Jerome flashes his teeth in what Bruce is sure would be a grin were his mouth not stretched and mutilated into a permanent rictus.
“Excellent choice!” Jerome crows, tossing the purple coat aside. It catches the light as it falls. Jerome runs his long fingered hand appreciatively over the fabric of the red coat, lingering over the flower in the lapel with a touch that would seem almost gentle had Bruce not already seen those clever hands wielding a knife with deadly precision tonight, had those long fingers not rubbed blood over Bruce’s mouth and fisted in his curls and tugged at his earlobes at every chance Jerome got.
“I think that’s everything,” Jerome goes on, almost to himself. He has several articles of clothing draped over the couch next to Bruce, each more garish than the last. As his hands go to the buckle at the back of his neck, Jerome leans down, bringing his face close to Bruce.
“Remember, Bruce, no sudden moves,” he says, voice low. “I meant what I said. You’ve gotten big, but you can’t take me. I’ll show you what your pretty guts look like here and now if you try something.” He undoes the buckle, baring more of his neck, those D-rings on the collar clinking against each other as he folds it down. A sick, strange feeling swirls in Bruce’s gut. It isn’t fear. He has gotten used to the feeling of fear biting at his spine in Jerome’s presence. Something else gnaws at his insides.
“Rest assured,” Bruce says, keeping his voice haughty and stiff. “I have no intention of dying here in this trailer.” He wrinkles his nose, the corner of his mouth turning down. Jerome’s brows furrow, and he straightens back up, nimble hands undoing the buckles and buttons and straps on the strange white outfit.
“Not the most dignified place to die,” Jerome agrees lightly, tugging the shirt over his head. Bruce wonders, briefly, which of his followers lent him that strange little outfit — surely what remained of his own belongings were put into storage after his demise — before all trains of thoughts in his head are abruptly halted by inch after inch of pale, freckled skin being revealed.
Jerome’s body is lean and angular. Whatever preservation process has kept his body in stasis for the last year and a half has not lost him any of that wiry muscle tone. Bruce remembers how startlingly strong Jerome had been, the hot line of his body pressed against his own, dragging him backwards, little knife biting into his neck. His ribs have an asymmetrical bumpy shape to them, as if they were broken and never healed properly, and between the many freckles dotting his skin are thin white scars, weaving out a tapestry, a history of violence on the body. Almost instinctively Bruce’s hand flies up to his throat, to the pale scar Jerome left behind, hidden beneath his turtleneck. The staples in his arm ache.
With an odd little hop, Jerome kicks his way out of the white outfit. The D-rings and buckles clink lightly as they hit the floor. Jerome bends over the couch, picking up a delicate white button up shirt and shrugging it over his shoulders. He keeps darting his eyes over to glance at Bruce as his long fingers hook button after button into place, and each stray look sends an itch up under Bruce’s skin, pooling at his joints and the staple punctures.
“Say, Brucie boy,” Jerome says at last, in this faux casual tone that Bruce can’t read any nuance into, thanks to that permanent grin and the skin stretched taut by staples. He finishes buttoning up his shirt with a flourish and picks up a pair of what can only be described as shiny jodhpurs, and hop-turns to face Bruce more fully as he gets his legs into the garment. “How old are you, anyway?” He shimmies into the jodhpurs, the fabric catching the light. Bruce furrows his brows and feels the paint crack along his forehead.
“Fifteen,” Bruce says tightly. Jerome’s eyes glitter, and he bares his teeth.
“Fifteen,” he hisses, tight between his teeth. He taps his jaw with one finger, almost whimsically, fingernail clinking against a staple. “Y’know, Bruce, I think you’re gonna be the youngest person I ever killed. Ain’t that special?” He tugs his jodhpurs up firmly over his hips and does up the zipper, but leaves the button undone, to Bruce’s confusion and dismay. “When I was your age…” He scoops up a black ribbon between his fingers and winds it under the collar of his shirt, tying it into a big bow in a practiced motion. “I was the terror of Haly’s Circus.” He plops down on the couch next to Bruce, bumping their shoulders together, and Bruce resists the urge to curl inward.
What Bruce doesn’t do is protest, doesn’t say that he followed the news broadcasts when Jerome murdered his mother, that he watched Jerome’s bloody little video recorded in the GCPD bullpen the year after, that he knows Jerome was only eighteen when he died choking on his own blood. He doesn’t point out that Jerome isn’t that far removed from his own age, all things considered. He doesn’t even scoot away from Jerome on the little couch. He does, however, knock his knee against Jerome’s.
“What were you like?” Bruce asks. The longer he can keep Jerome talking, the more likely it is that Jim Gordon and the GCPD will be able to track Jerome down, the more likely it is that he will be saved. Jerome, hand wrapped around a pair of tall black boots, tilts his head at Bruce, crooked jaw cocked to the side, an expression on his face that looks almost gobsmacked.
“Well,” Jerome says after a moment, “the usual circus brat shit. Fooling around with the acrobats… Mucking out stalls… Catching and killing all the rats that snuck into our trailer… Laying flat on my back in my cramped bedroom while that whore who raised me fucked a neverending parade of men in the next room… Dodging blow after blow…” For a moment his jaw tightens and his eyes burn and his fingers go white-knuckle tight around the boot in his hand, like he might swing it and clobber Bruce with it, and Bruce’s throat ties itself in a little knot. And then, like all the air has gone out of him, Jerome relaxes, bumping his shoulder against Bruce’s.
“It was a funny little life, wasn’t it?” Jerome goes on, pulling the boots on, up to his knees. “A joke of a life.” He’s staring down at his feet. Bruce doesn’t move, doesn’t make a noise, but his chest feels tight and strange. “The girls at the circus seemed to think so. I was so handsome, and they all wanted to kiss me.” He reaches over with one hand and picks up the velvety orange waistcoat in one hand, running his thumb over the fabric, his voice a low gravelly grind. “Well, maybe more than kiss.” Jerome’s grin turns into more of a leer as he finally glances over at Bruce, thumb worrying at one of the waistcoat’s buttons.
“Oh,” Bruce says, more of an involuntary noise than anything.
“Yeah, oh.” Jerome leaves the waistcoat laying over his thigh and reaches up to pinch at Bruce’s earlobe. “Have you ever kissed a girl, Brucie?” He tugs. Bruce feels hot and strange under his ribs.
“Yes,” Bruce replies, tight and cold. He thinks of Selina, Silver, Selina again. Bites the inside of his cheek, attempting to banish the shape of Selina’s eyes fluttering closed as she moves in close from his mind. Jerome’s knuckles bump into his jaw, and that chases those thoughts away much more effectively.
“Oh, I bet you have,” Jerome says, giving Bruce’s ear one last tug before picking up the waistcoat and popping up to his feet with a funny little jump. He turns to face Bruce as he pulls the waistcoat over his arms and begins to do up the buttons. “I bet all the little heiresses can’t wait to tear themselves off a chunk of Bruce Wayne, orphan boy billionaire.” He follows up that sneer with one of those nasty choking noises he’s been making all evening, gurgling around the puncture deep in his throat.
“That’s not entirely—” Bruce starts to reply, but Jerome steamrolls over him, kicking the toe of his shiny boots against Bruce’s foot.
“Have you ever kissed a boy, Bruce?” Jerome asks, pointed and sharp. Bruce’s jaw snaps shut, his throat flushed and burning. He feels sweaty all over.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Jerome says, doing up the final button on the waistcoat, and Bruce pointedly doesn’t correct him that he’s wearing it wrong, that it is more flattering to leave the bottom button undone, lest the fabric of the waistcoat bulge in an unseemly way. Jerome can look stupid while he enacts his theatrical attempted murder plan if he wants.
“What’s your point?” Bruce snaps, feeling strangely tense. He balls his hand into a fist, and feels the way his tendons flexing makes the staples in his arm shoot new bolts of pain into his flesh.
“Just making conversation,” Jerome replies, mock offended, one hand fluttering up over his heart. “Can’t we shoot the shit? Ain’t we pals?”
Bruce shoots him a dead serious look, as serious as he can manage with his face painted up like a clown.
“Fine,” Bruce says, all edges. “Have you ever kissed a boy?” It bursts out of him, leaving a filthy taste on his tongue. Jerome blinks at him for a moment before doubling over, wheezing sharply before making another gurgling noise.
“Oh Bruce,” he manages, after a second. “Of course I have.” His voice gets rough and low, like it’s a horrible little secret. “My first kiss. I was seven.” He looks Bruce dead in the eye. There’s something in his eyes that turns Bruce’s stomach. “You know how kids are. Nobody told me I wasn’t supposed to. That it was wrong. Uncle Zach bloodied my nose and knocked three teeth out for it when he caught us.” He grins broadly, the skin at the edges of his mouth splitting and cracking slightly. “Not that it stopped me from doing it again. Never been one for rules, me.” Jerome makes a little fluttering gesture with his hand, and Bruce aches. He doesn’t want to care, but he does anyway.
“That’s awful,” he says, and his voice breaks a little bit. Jerome raises his eyebrows, jaw crooked to the side.
“Really? I thought it was kinda funny.” Jerome snickers nastily, whatever wretched vulnerability was in his eyes shuttered away again.
“Well it’s not. It’s horrible,” Bruce says, digging his nails into his thigh, trying to keep his voice even.
“So serious.” Jerome’s gravelly voice gets all soft. “You remind me of him.” He chucks Bruce under the chin with one freckled hand. Heat climbs up Bruce’s neck to pulse in his cheeks.
“The boy you kissed?” Impossibly, his voice stays steady. Jerome’s gaze is unwavering. In fact, Bruce is pretty sure he hasn’t blinked in a full minute. Sweat has glued his turtleneck to his sides.
“Sure,” Jerome says easily. And then, before Bruce can poke at what he means by that, continues, “You want a kiss, Brucie?” The glint of his teeth jolts through Bruce, electric and cold. He blinks at Jerome.
“Um,” Bruce says. His mind is a barren wasteland. His arm aches. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth. He glances down at his legs and then looks back up at Jerome.
“If you insist,” Jerome breathes, and, taking Bruce’s jaw in the palm of his hand, crashes their mouths together.
Jerome’s mouth feels strange, rubbery and loose against Bruce’s mouth. His short blunt nose bumps against Bruce’s, and his nails dig in under the line of Bruce’s jaw, like he’s trying to pry his face off too. He bites down on Bruce’s lip and licks at the seam of his mouth, his brow colliding with Bruce’s, and Bruce stays very still, but he burns under his ribs.
After a moment, Jerome pulls away, straightening back up, and Bruce lets out the breath that Jerome’s mouth had trapped in his throat. Jerome snatches up the garish red coat and starts pulling it on.
“There,” Jerome says. He sounds pleased. “Now you’ve kissed a boy.” Bruce looks away from Jerome’s face as Jerome turns to face him again as he straightens out the coat. “Couldn’t let you go to your grave without doing that. Now that would be horrible.”
Bruce doesn’t thank him, but he does watch as Jerome pulls black gloves over his freckled fingers. He swallows, attempting to shuffle something resembling words into order on his tongue.
“What…” he tries, lips slow and heavy, “are you planning to do? After you kill me in front of a rapt audience?” His lower lip aches where Jerome bit him, and when Bruce darts his tongue over the pulsing point he tastes blood. His own? The unwitting ventilated crony’s? Jerome’s, leaking from behind his lips? The salty taste lingers on his tongue, and the pain in his lip, strangely, hurts nearly as much as the staples in his arm.
“Got someone else I gotta kill,” Jerome replies airily, poking at the flower in his lapel until it satisfies his aesthetic sense. Bruce furrows his brows.
“I’ll stop you,” he says, as firmly as he can. Jerome barks out a short laugh.
“No you won’t! You’ll be long dead and rotting in your rich boy grave, silly.” Jerome crouches down in front of Bruce’s knees and pats him on the arm, right over the staples. Bruce grits his jaw and doesn’t wince.
“Although,” Jerome goes on, a thoughtful tone entering his voice, “I’d like to see you try.” He presses his gloved thumb into one of the staples and Bruce gasps, ever so softly. “So don’t die too easy, Brucie boy. Maybe we can have more fun together.” He sounds altogether too pleased at the thought of Bruce thwarting him, his breaths short and panting in his throat.
When Bruce doesn’t respond, only narrowing his eyes and keeping his lips pressed tight together, Jerome leans in, lightning quick, and presses their lips together again. It only lasts a moment but it leaves Bruce’s mouth tingling and his skin burning. When Jerome pulls away, his green eyes are strange and bright.
“Well!” he says, cheery as anything. “Let’s get you to our adoring public. Don’t want to keep them waiting. Places to do, things to be, and all that.”
And then he’s snatching up a tall black top hat under his arm with one hand and closing the other hand around Bruce’s wrist and tugging him up to his feet and toward the door, and Bruce can only grit his teeth and resolve to rescue himself if nobody comes for him in time. He follows Jerome out the door and into the bright, sparkling lights of the circus toward an uncertain future, the feeling of Jerome’s kiss still lingering on his lips, as sharp as any staple.