Ginger - Jerome Valeska x Reader

Summary: You are the new Medical Examiner at the GCPD and despite your young age you are respected and admired by everyone. Nobody would ever think that a sweet and clever girl like you could be friend with both the Riddler and the Penguin. But above all, how could you be involved with a person like Jerome Valeska?

Pairing: Jerome Valeska x Reader, Ed Nygma x Oswald Cobblepot

Warning: swearing, multiple chapters, just Jerome being… well Jerome, angst possibly

A/N: hello! This is based from a dream I once had, therefore, it is not entirely related to what really happened in Gotham and I will make some changes to the real story. Also, I haven’t started season 4 so I’m not aware of the last events. In this fic, Lee is not the ME anymore, since she is still somewhere south with Mario, hence it will be Y/N who will be there for Jerome’s revival. English is not my first language, I apologize in advance for any mistake. Hope you enjoy!

***

Part Two|Part Three|Part Four|

You were really young but you were already a fully graduated student with a brilliant career. You had always been clever, it was a surprise for no one when you got into university at the age of 15. That is why, despite your young age, barely twenty years old, you were already working as Medical Examiner in the GCPD. At first, no one of your colleagues took you seriously, for you were really too young and could have been the daughter of some of them. However, once you started working, you proved them wrong.

Now, you were a fully respected girl, everybody trusted your judgment and recognised your incredible intelligence. To be fair, you were still seen as “too young”. Although, this time your youth was not seen as a problem, in fact, it was like you became the little sister that needed protection. You could definitely take care of yourself, but every cop in the GCPD had developed a soft spot for you. Especially the famous and notorious James Gordon.

Almost every cop had seen you and Jim’s friendship coming. He was overprotective and treated you like a little sister, always worried that seeing so many corpses at such a young age was not the best for you. On the other hand, you admired Jim and were always happy to help him solve some cases. It was true though that Jim was sometimes annoying, often treating you like a child. But despite that, your friendship was the golden perk of the GCPD.

That day you had just finished examining another corpse when you heard a lot of noises coming from the police area. You had always been a curious person, that is why you immediately found yourself walking straight towards it. You found the mayor and his right hand, Mr Nygma, walking through the department.

Saying that you were excited would have been an understatement. In the lab, there were still all the paperworks done by Mr Nygma, and you were fascinated by them. So now, despite him being a criminal, you were dying to meet him and ask him a few questions. You started walking towards him, more like running, with your working glasses bouncing on your nose and your eyes glimmering with excitement. Next to the couple there was, needless to say, Jim who was talking with Oswald about something you ignored, while Ed was looking around until his eyes met yours.

“Excuse me?” You asked as soon as you stopped in front of the men. Right after hearing your voice, Jim stopped talking to Oswald to look at you with nothing but worry and concern in his eyes.

“Y/N! Leave. Now.” He was acting again like the protective big brother, but you were having none of it today, not when Edward Nygma stood just in front of you.

“Now Jim, is this the way to talk to a lady? Please, be more nice”, Oswald said with a smile, extending his hand and introducing himself.

“Shut up, Penguin!” Came Jim’s angry voice.

You noticed Oswald visibly tensing and straightening his lips. He clearly didn’t like being called like that. You knew that Jim and Oswald had a peculiar history together, but still you did not like the way he was treating him, especially considering Oswald had been nothing but nice with you.

“His name is Oswald, Jim.”

Your voice was cold and firm, something Jim was not used to. He was taken aback, clearly confused by your sudden weird behaviour. Oswald waved his hand, like he was dismissing Jim’s rudeness. Like he was used to be disrespected. You didn’t like it at all. You didn’t exactly know why you were reacting like this, but you above everyone else understood how awful was being called names against your will. You hated it.

“Please, Miss, I am sure Jim meant no disrespect.”

Oswald was smiling, but you could sense that it was not genuine. It felt like a façade. How many fake smiles had you made every time someone called you “little one”? Too many to ever tolerate that action again, even when it was not meant for you.

“Y/N, please leave, these are not men you should be talking to.” Jim’s voice was still harsh, you knew that it was only because he didn’t want you to be involved with criminals, but it was time for Jim to understand that you weren’t a child. After hearing those words, Oswald’s eyes darkened a bit. He liked you and was definitely annoyed by Jim’s reaction. As for Ed, he was silently watching everything and was insanely curious about you. He didn’t miss your uniform as ME and he was wondering how someone so young could held a position like that. You must have been quite clever.

“I belong to you but others use me more often than you do, what am I?”

You looked at Ed, that was the first time he spoke since he arrived at the GCPD department. You were aware of his habit of telling riddles and you found yourself amused by him.

“Your name” you replied.

Ed smiled, took a step forward and extended his hand in front of him, smiling, “Edward Nygma, pleasured to meet you.”

You smiled broadly and shook his hand, Jim rolled his eyes and Oswald chuckled lightly. Ed was a smooth charmer.

“Pleasure is all mine, Mr Nygma. I’m Y/N Y/L/N, the ME. I was wondering, may I have a word with you?”

Jim started to protest but Ed nodded his head and he quickly disappeared with you before Jim could say another word.

***

Needless to say, your little encounter with Ed had caused you a little problem with Jim. For days all he and the other cops would do was keeping an eye on you and telling you that people like Edward Nygma and Oswald Cobblepot were too dangerous to hang out with. You weren’t a fool and you knew that they were criminals, but for the past few weeks they had been perfect and decent human beings with you. Actually, Ed helped you with your studies on the rotting of corpses and Oswald visited you from time to time for a chat. Now that he was mayor, it was not a problem for him to enter the GCPD department. He clearly liked you a lot, mainly because you respected him as a human being and because you never referred to him as The Penguin. For you, he was just Oswald. He wasn’t a murderer, a criminal, the mayor, a person to make fun of. He was just a normal man. A friend, even. He grew fond of you, just like Ed, even though they had different reasons.

Ed was fascinated by your intelligence and the skills you showed in your job. He found in you someone as passionate as him for science and riddles. A mind like yours could understand his and although Ed was a murderer and a bit crazy, you never mentioned anything and you based your judgment only on what you saw and on how he and Oswald treated you. You were not one of those who judged by the book’s cover. Yes, they were criminals. Yes, you wished they never committed any bad actions, but you couldn’t change the past and that didn’t mean they could not have you as a friend. Moreover, they never underestimated you because you were too young to work as ME. Unlike anybody else, your age never mattered to them.

Obviously Jim was not happy and he didn’t share your same lines of thought, but he soon accepted the idea that you cared about Oswald and Ed, and there was nothing he could do about it. Therefore, his main concern now was to be sure that both of them kept you away from dangerous situations. If anything would have ever happened to you, the entire GCPD would have gone after Ed and Oswald. Lucky for them, both Ed and Oswlad cared too much about you to ever involve you in criminal affairs.

However, despite everyone’s efforts to keep you away from danger, soon enough you found yourself deep into a massive problem and this time neither Jim Gordon or the entire GCPD, nor Oswald or Edward could protect you.

***

It was a day like any other and you were in your lab focused on your work when you heard Jim’s voice shouting: “There must be some other options. You can’t involve Y/N in this!”

You raised your eyebrows and heard footsteps loudly approaching your door. The voice of Captain Barnes came hard and firm: “She is the ME! Whether you like it or not, it’s her job.”

Then the door swung open and Captain Barnes entered the room followed by Jim, Harvey and two other cops carrying what looked like to be a dead man.

“Good morning, gentlemen. How can I help?” You greeted them and instructed the two cops to put the dead body on the table.

“Doctor Y/L/N, someone tried to bring back to life this corpse, we would like to be sure they didn’t succeed and that he is still dead” said Captain Barnes.

You raised your eyebrows, you were aware that a group of people was working on a project at Indian Hill, which goal was to bring back to life the dead, but you never actually met one of them yourself. You were fascinated by this kind of research, you knew it was unethical but still you were a woman of science and you could not help being fascinated by all of this.

“Please, Captain if yo-“

“Of course Captain, I’ll work on it” you said interrupting Jim. You didn’t know why he was trying so hard to convince Barnes to not let you work on this case, but this was your job, you had to do that, but more importantly you wanted to do that. Jim sensed that there was nothing he could say to persuade you to give up, so he sighed and let you do your job.

You look at the poor thing laying on the table. His face was missing, it must have been cut off. You felt sorry for whoever this man was and thought that whoever stole his face must have been some kind of a twisted creep.

Before Barnes and the others left the room you managed to ask, “excuse me, Captain, who is this man?”

“This, Y/N, is Jerome Valeska.”

Ginger - Jerome Valeska x Reader {Part Three}

Summary: You are the new Medical Examiner at the GCPD and despite your young age you are respected and admired by everyone. Nobody would ever think that a sweet and clever girl like you could be friend with both the Riddler and the Penguin. But above all, how could you be involved with a person like Jerome Valeska?

Warning:just Jerome being Jerome, violence, swearing, angst maybe?

A/N:helloguys! Here is the third part! I want to thank you all again for the love and interest you are showing for this story. This part was a bit difficult to write, I hope I hadn’t messed things up. I hope you enjoy it!

Tag list:@crimsonredcoco@jinkanubis@melli-1808@darling-youre-beautiful

Part One|Part Two|Part Four|

***

“So you don’t know where he is?”

You huffed in annoyance. That was the millionth time Jim asked you that question. It had been around fifteen minutes since he found you tied up to a chair. As soon as he saw you, he started panicking and asking you what the hell happened and, above all, where was Jerome. It didn’t take long until Captain Barnes and Harvey joined him, ready to start an interrogation and figure out where Jerome had gone. You told him what he needed to know, you certainly hadn’t mentioned your little chat with Jerome, and you undoubtedly haven’t mentioned the amount of times Jerome had threatened your life. You didn’t like lying to Jim, but at the moment he didn’t need to worry about futile stuff. The truth though, which you tried to avoid as best as you could, was that a part of you didn’t want to mention to anybody your conversation with Jerome. It felt like it was something just between you two. You wondered if you weren’t going mad.

“I told you, Jim. He surprised me from behind, stole my gun and left me here. Now, believe me when I tell you that I was as shocked as you are right now.”

“I thought he was dead” said Captain Barnes through gritted teeth.

“Yeah me too. But hey” you said, a little bit too arrogantly, while briefly raising your arms in the air, “here we are”.

Harvey chuckled, he had always appreciated your sassy behaviour. Unlike Jim, who shot a scolding glare in your direction. Captain Barnes decided to let your little comment pass, he had more important issues to worry about. “Any clues of where he might have gone?”

“He asked me who has his face” you replied.

Jim looked at Harvey, “Dwight. C’mon let’s go.” But before he and Harvey could go, Alvarez entered the room with a worried look on his face.

“Captain! You must see this. It’s Jerome.” And with that said, everybody rushed outside the room directed where all the other cops were watching a television. You stopped immediately as soon as you saw the ginger. Apparently he succeeded in finding his face. You couldn’t help but be horrified when you noticed the way Jerome had reattached his skin together. You couldn’t even imagine the pain he had to go through while using a stapler on those open wounds. So here you were, worrying if Jerome had felt pain instead of him being free again and about to murder someone. What was wrong with you?

“… so feel free to kill whoever you want. Tonight you are free!” said Jerome laughing. Then the video stopped and all the lights went off. You heard people screaming outside the GCPD and you rushed outside only to find complete and absolute darkness. Jerome had caused a blackout in the whole Gotham. You were amazed by him. You didn’t know why you weren’t disgusted or horrified by his actions. He was a psychopath, but he was also very clever and somehow you didn’t hate him like any sane person should have done.

“Y/N! I have to go, Alfred just called. Jerome took Bruce. You stay here!” Jim told you before running away with Harvey.

Like hell you were staying there!

***

You were walking around the circus, looking everywhere for Jim or, even better, a ginger head. You managed to convince Alvarez to tell you where Jim was and as soon as you got what you wanted you ran away. To be honest, you didn’t know why you wanted to find Jerome before Jim. A part of you was scared that Jim would have killed him and, strangely enough, you didn’t want that. You told yourself that the only reason behind this sudden and weird behaviour of yours was because you wanted to study him, that your interest towards him was merely scientific. You were carefully avoiding getting involved with the people there. Everybody seemed transformed and gone crazy. There were people killing each other, torturing and beating other people. They weren’t human beings anymore, they were as wild as animals, if not worse. You were only there for Jerome. This thought was somehow amusing, for you were trying so hard to avoid every contact with these people in the circus but you were going straight to the most dangerous of them all. But you knew, somehow you did, that Jerome wouldn’t hurt you, unlike this bunch of barbarians who didn’t care less about you. Not that Jerome did, but you didn’t want to pay attention to this specific thought.

You heard someone screaming and cheering; you had suddenly a bad feeling about this. You started running towards the loud noise and what you saw made your stomach clench and your heart sink. Jim was beating Jerome to death. You froze, unable to move a single muscle. In the middle of a cheering crowd, probably happy to see some violence, you were the only one as still as a stone. You watched helplessly as Jim vigorously punched Jerome in the face. But it was when a really strong punch hit Jerome, ripping the skin of his face apart, that you screamed, pure horror written all over you.

“Jim! Stop! Stop!”

Jim turned around to look at you, he was still shocked and disgusted by Jerome’s face, but when his eyes landed on you, his shock turned into worry and anger.

“What the hell are you doing here?!”

He was mad at you. You could understand that, after all you could have ended up dead. The streets weren’t safe, people were killing and hurting others just for the sake of it. You could have been kidnapped, hurt or worse. You knew that what you did was stupid but you didn’t have time to worry about it now. You would deal with Jim later. Now, the only thing you could think about was helping Jerome. You rushed to his side, picking up his face from the floor and putting his head on your lap. He was unconscious.

“Y/N get away from him!” came Jim’s angry voice.

You were shaking, your hands trembling, not knowing how to fix Jerome. Since you weren’t replying to him, Jim grabbed you from the shoulder and tried to push you away from Jerome’s body. You started screaming and rebelling against him.

“Let me go! Jim let me go!”

Surprisingly enough, he listened to you. You weren’t expecting him to give up so soon.

“You are crying” Jim said taken aback. You didn’t notice it until Jim mentioned it. You touched your cheek with one hand and realized that indeed you were crying.

“What’s going on, Y/N?” Jim’s voice was harsh.

You looked at him, not recognising the man in front of you. Was he really the man you knew? Your friend?

“What you did..” you took a deep breath, staring at him dead in the eyes, “was cruel.”

Jim scoffed, “cruel? Have you any idea of who this man is? Or are you just blind?”

“I know he is a murderer and that he is capable of hurting. I didn’t know that you were as well.” Your voice was distant, cold. Jim took a step back after hearing it. Those words had hurt him more than Jerome’s punches.

“What are you talking about?” He was staring at you, disbelief written all over him.

“You had the high ground” you said, gulping, “and yet, you decided to hurt him more, even though he was already unconscious.”

“He’a a fucking criminal, Y/N!” Jim shouted.

You stood up and pointed a finger right at him, “for what I’ve seen, you are not that much better than him.”

“You gotta be kidding me.” Jim couldn’t believe what you were saying. Honestly? You didn’t know either why you were reacting like this. You didn’t like violence, especially against people who couldn’t even defend themselves. You knew there was something else behind it, but you were too exhausted and shocked to think about it. You decided to ignore Jim, you didn’t have anything more to say to him, and kneeled next to Jerome. Looking at his face full of injuries and blood made you cry again. You lightly touched the cut on his lips, noticing that Jim’s punches had made it worse. This time, fixing him would be more complicated. Nevertheless, you were going to fix him.

***

It had been a week since you arrived in Arkham Asylum and fixed Jerome. Unfortunately, you didn’t work there, therefore, after stitching back his face, you were sent away. You didn’t know if he had woken up or if he stayed in a coma. You hadn’t talked with Jim ever since, nor with anybody else in the GCPD. Apparently, Jim asked Captain Barnes to instruct Arkham to keep you away from Jerome; Barnes agreed. You kept going to work, after all that was your job, but you only spoke with someone when it was necessary and strictly related to work. Jim had tried to talk to you, but you were having none of it. Especially now that he was responsible for the fact that you couldn’t enter Arkham.

You were sat on Oswald’s couch, drinking tea and mentally cursing Jim Gordon. You weren’t a person who used to give up easily, so you came up with a plan. Lucky you, the mayor of Gotham was your friend.

“Y/N dear, you know I don’t like Jim Gordon that much” was Oswald’s reply, “but this time I’m afraid I have to agree with him.”

Your heart sank. All the hopes you dared to have were starting to fade. You never thought that Oswald wouldn’t have helped you.

“I see” was your simple reply. You put the half full cup on the table and got up. You weren’t really giving up, of course, but you knew that insisting with Oswald wouldn’t bring you anywhere. Instead, and this you learned it from Ed who knew Oswald better than anyone, the best way to gain something from him was faking hurt and disappointment. Well, you weren’t faking it. You truly were disappointed.

“Thank you anyway, Oswald” you said with a tight smile.

Oswald, as predicted, tried to stop you from going. “Y/N, please I-“

You raised your hand to interrupt him, “I understand, Oswald. I’ll find another way.”

Oswald looked at you carefully, his eyes scanning you as if he was thinking about something. He seemed to arrive at some kind of conclusion because his eyes got suspicious.

“This is important to you, isn’t it?”

You couldn’t help but blush. The way Oswald said “this” sounded more like he was implying something else. As if he was implying “he”. Surely, that must have been your imagination. Your blushing didn’t go unnoticed. Oswald closed his eyes and sighed.

“Fine, I’ll help you” he said at last. He moved towards his desk to write something down on a piece of paper, which he handed to you as soon as he finished. “Here you go.”

You smiled broadly and hugged him tightly.

“Thank you, Oswald, this means a lot to me.”

Oswald hesitantly hugged you back, he was still new to this hugging stuff.

“Now I know he does” he said softly, barely a whisper.

You stiffened a bit. You decided to stay silent, surely you must have misheard Oswald’s words. It was better this way, you weren’t ready to face the truth. For now, you would just focus on your achievement. Still, Oswald’s words stayed in your mind; they were weighing on your soul, difficult to ignore, burning in your mind and making your heart beat in a dangerous way. You needed distraction.

“Where is Ed?” you asked untangling yourself from Oswald.

Oswald’s eyes hardened a bit, still you could see the pain inside them.

“He’s with… a friend, I suppose.”

You sighed. You had known for quite awhile that Oswald was in love with Edward and you were sure that the latter felt the same. You had hoped for the two to finally realize their feelings and bring their relationship to the next level. Apparently, this wasn’t happening any time soon, if the look on Oswald’s face was anything to go by.

“You should tell him” you told your friend.

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

You took Oswald’s hand in yours and smiled at him softly, “don’t be afraid, Oswald.”

He gulped and looked down at his feet, “I’m sure Ed doesn’t feel the same.”

“Feeling the same about what?”

Both you and Oswald froze. Ed chose the worst time to come back home. But maybe this was finally it! The occasion Oswald was waiting for to tell Ed about his love for him.

You smiled and greeted Ed, “Hello Ed, Oswald has something important to tell you.”

“Y/N!” Oswald screeched.

Ed looked worried and in a moment he was in front of Oswald, definitely too close to be considered a friendly move. Friends don’t stand this close to each other and they don’t look at one another with such love in the eyes.

“What is it, Oswald?”

You decided to leave them, after all, you also had someone to see.

***

It took a bit of a fight with the director and the guard but after showing them the mayor’s permission they let you go. Now you were officially Jerome’s doctor. You hoped that in this past week nothing happened to him. You didn’t have much faith in the doctors here at Arkham, not because they weren’t qualified enough, mostly because they didn’t care about their patients. For them, they were just criminals who didn’t deserve care. You weren’t like them. When you became a doctor, you made an oath to cure and help everyone, whether they were good or bad people. While you walked through the corridors you could hear inmates screaming and crying, laughing and shouting. You closed your eyes, trying to calm your breath. You felt sorry for this people. You knew they were criminals but they were also sick and in need of help.

You finally arrived in the common area where all the inmates spent their free time and you immediately looked for a ginger head. You found him easily and as soon as your eyes landed on him, your heart started pounding against your chest. He was sitting with his back towards you, so he didn’t notice you entering with two guards.

“Jerome Valeska. It’s time for your appointment with the doctor” one of them said.

Jerome didn’t even turn around, he just replied with an arrogant scoff, “I won’t see any doctor.”

“Oh yeah? And here I thought you liked me.”

It took barely three seconds after you spoke for Jerome to rapidly turn around. When his eyes met yours, he grinned widely.

“My my, if it isn’t my favorite doctor.”

“Hello Jerome, fancy coming with me?” you said trying to hide your smile.

Jerome grinned again and got up, walking towards you without taking his eyes off you. You noticed that the stitches had been removed and you silently cursed whoever was the idiot who did it. At least, you thought when Jerome was close enough to you, his wound was healing well.

“Missed me, doc?”

You folded your arms against your chest, “don’t get too cocky, Jerome, I’m only here to see your injuries.”

Jerome didn’t believe you and he chuckled. “Of course you are.”

After that you headed towards the hospital room. You were aware of Jerome walking right behind you with the two guards walking at his side. Most importantly, you were too aware of his stare, which sometimes lingered too much where it shouldn’t have. As soon as you arrived, you told the guards to leave you alone and asked Jerome to sit on the medical bed.

“So eager to have me on a bed, I see.”

You blushed and turned your back to him. This only made him laugh, pleased to have embarrassed you. You decided to let the comment go, you weren’t there to flirt with him, just to make sure he was okay.

“Now, stay still and don’t speak, I have to check your face” you said, trying to be as serious as you could.

Jerome smiled devilishly, “please, feel free to check wherever and whatever you want.”

You lightly smacked his shoulder and tried to hide a small smile, and he laughed again. Then you started touching his face very carefully, not wanting to hurt him. As soon as your fingers touched his skin, his laughter stopped and he stared at you dead silent. His eyes were glaring directly at you, not leaving your face even for a second.

His injuries were already turning into scars, that was good, you thought. You were trying to be as delicate as you could, especially when you applied some lotion on the wounds that hadn’t healed as fast as the others.

“Geez, little one, you’re not going to break me or something” he huffed.

You looked at him, more serious than you had ever been, “I don’t want to hurt you, Jerome. It must be already painful enough without me making it worse.”

For once, he didn’t laugh nor grinned. Instead, he kept looking at you and the intensity of his stare made you tremble. You were unable to look away. You could feel your heart beating so fast you were worried Jerome could hear it too.

“Good then that it doesn’t hurt, otherwise you should have kissed it better, like a good doctor.”

His voice wasn’t amused, he wasn’t mocking you or playing around. He was serious, and you still couldn’t breathe. You should have moved away, put some distance between you two, tell him that his injuries were healing well and go away, never come back. Instead, your hands stayed on his cheeks.

“Yeah, I should have” you breathed out. You felt like you were as light as a feather, like you weren’t even there. Jerome’s eyes were swallowing you whole. Suddenly, he stood up and you were forced to look up at him due to the hight difference between you two. You moved a bit closer, your head screaming at you to run away, and you could feel your hands sliding down to his neck and shoulders. Jerome’s arms met your waist and in that moment you could swear you didn’t remember how to breathe. You didn’t have much time to think before Jerome’s lips met yours, without meeting any fight from your side.

Ginger - Jerome Valeska x Reader {Part Two}

Summary:You are the new Medical Examiner at the GCPD and despite your young age you are respected and admired by everyone. Nobody would ever think that a sweet and clever girl like you could be friend with both the Riddler and the Penguin. But above all, how could you be involved with a person like Jerome Valeska?

Warning: just Jerome being Jerome

A/N: so here is the second part! I must say, I had a lot of fun writing Jerome, he’s such an amazing character. I also want to thank you all for your interest in this story! It truly means the world to me. Hope you enjoy the second part!

Tag list:@crimsonredcoco @chims-kookies (who for some reason I can’t tag) @jinkanubis

***

Part One|Part Three|Part Four|

You had never seen something like that. Sure, since you started working as ME you had seen quite the amount of horror. You were barely twenty but you had already seen your fair share of mutilated corpses and a considerable amount of blood. Despite that, you had never seen something like that.

The poor thing, who went by the name of Jerome Valeska, suffered a really bad mutilation. Judging by the nature of it, the person responsible for that didn’t know what they were doing, or maybe they were in a rush; that would have explained those long and irregular cuts. You felt sorry for him, strangely as it may have sound, and you were glad he was dead, more because you would never wish for anyone to wake up and find out that their face was gone than because he was a notorious criminal and deserved to be dead. At least, you thought while bandaging his head, Jerome Valeska would never have to deal with his face, or lack of it. In fact, you made every single test and examination you could think of, nevertheless the diagnosis was the same: dead. Whoever tried to bring Jerome Valeska back to life had failed.

Your thoughts once again went to the person responsible for Jerome’s injuries. While working as ME, you acquired a certain respect for the dead, whatever their actions were during their lives. You were genuinely disgusted by those who would have the guts and the audacity to mutilate or hurt a corpse.

You were cleaning your hands and humming a song distractedly so you didn’t notice any movement behind you. After all, it was a morgue, the only thing alive there was you. Or at least that’s what you thought.

“Such a lovely song.”

You jumped, instantly shocked , and froze into place. You took a calming breath deciding that it was probably nothing to worry about and to turn around and face the direction where the voice came from. You were sure it was a voice, you weren’t mad, but the only person in the room aside from you was Jerome. And he was dead, right? He had to be dead. But when you turned around you met the previous dead Jerome, perfectly alive and sitting on your table with his legs swinging like he was a child.

“Well, aren’t you a pretty little thing” he said chuckling, clearly amused.

You raised an eyebrow, looking at him with disbelief written all over your face. Your heart was beating faster than ever, inside you were a tornado of emotions: fear, shock, annoyance and curiosity above all the others. You took a step closer, eyeing him carefully. Just few minutes ago you were 100% sure he was dead, you could have bet your head that there was no life in Jerome’s body. And yet, here he was looking at you, talking and breathing. Science had never gone that far… until now.

“Fascinating” you muttered to yourself while taking another step forward. Jerome tilted his head to the right, maybe he was expecting another kind of reaction from you. Little did he knew that you were a woman of science, therefore, when facing a situation like this, your first instinct would always be curiosity rather than fear.

Jerome looked at you up and down, his eyes scanning every part of you. If you weren’t too focus on finding an explanation, you could have sworn his eyes lingered a bit too much on your breast.

“Hello, Little one, I’m Jerome” he said standing up quickly. He was suddenly too close, you noticed. Some part of your brain screamed at you to step back, call Jim, stay away from him. But the other part of you, the pure scientific part of you, was begging you to not report anything, at least for now, and keep studying him. You had to understand how it was possible for Jerome to be alive, again.

“I know who you are” you replied.

He grinned widely and opened his arms in a theatrical way, “of course you do! I am quite famous after all.” He was definitely proud of himself and his actions, you could tell as much. You had indeed heard of him and the Maniax!, but if there was something you didn’t like that would have been some egocentric murderer.

“No,” you replied flatly, “I’m your doctor. Never heard of you before now.”

Jerome laughed hysterically and started circling you like a shark with his prey. “So tell me, Doc, how is it possible that I’m alive?”

He didn’t wait for your response. Instead, he walked in front of a mirror and stopped there to look at himself.

“Uh that’s strage. I don’t remember dying with my face mutilated” he stated nonchalantly, like it wasn’t a big deal.

“Because you didn’t” was your reply. Jerome looked at you through the mirror and somehow you started feeling intimidated by his stare. “Someone cut your face off.”

Then Jerome did something you weren’t quite expecting, to be honest. He threw his head back and started laughing, as if you told him the best joke in the world. He surely was crazy, you thought.

“Is that right?” he questioned you while getting closer to where you stood. You nodded and before you could realize it, Jerome grabbed the gun left on your desk, the one Jim gave to you for protection, and had one of his hand around your neck while with the other he pointed the gun right at the side of your head. You mentally cursed yourself for not remembering that you had a gun in the room. It wasn’t exactly your fault, considering that usually corpses didn’t resurrect and assault you in the middle of the day. It’s not that you ever needed your gun in the morgue. You guessed there was a time for everything.

“Tell me, Little one, where is my face?”

You couldn’t breathe so you couldn’t have answered even if you wanted to. Jerome must have realized that as well because he loosened his grip and let you breathe. You started coughing vigorously, wishing he could let go of you. Instead, Jerome kept the gun pointed right at you.

“Some guy named Dwight,” you rasped out, “he’s the one who tried to bring you back.”

Jerome seemed disappointed, “Oh? So you’re not the one responsible for my revival?”

He let go of you, so you took a step back and tried to inhale as much air as you could. “No. Some kind of cult is to be blamed.”

“A cult?” He started laughing again. For a maniacal murderer he surely knew how to have fun, apparently. He started circling you again. This time you visibly tensed. By the grin he had, you could tell he was pleased by your reaction.

“Now, where are we? And why are you here instead of my… cult?” Needless to say, he bursted again in a crazy laugh.

You took a calming breath trying to keep an eye on him, suddenly aware that he was a criminal and could have you killed in no time. How foolish you had been! Believing that it was possible for you to study him without getting hurt and put yourself in danger. You guessed that was what Jim meant every time he said you were too young to be involved in his cases. Your recklessness would have you killed one of this days. Although this was true, the thought only made you more determined to handle Jerome by yourself, just for the sake of proving Jim that you were not too young and naive.

“We’re in the GCPD and I am the Medical Examiner” you replied.

Jerome hummed and tapped the gun against his chin, “aren’t you too young to be a doctor anyway?”

Your cheeks were red with rage and indignation. You were tired of being underestimated in this way. You took a step closer uncaring of the gun, your bodies nearly touching. He was taller than you and definitely stronger, but the part of your brain that should have told you to stay away from him was suddenly switched off. You looked at him right into his eyes, not caring that your behaviour might have upset him and put you into danger again.

“I’ll have you know, Mr Valeska, the only reason you are talking right now is because this young doctor here was able to repair the awful damages some idiot did to you!”

Jerome’s laughter was the only thing that filled the room after your little speech. However, it wasn’t a mocking laughter, in fact, he sounded impressed.

“Oh oh! We have a little fire in here, don’t we?”

You weren’t exactly thinking in that moment, so you didn’t know how on Earth shoving him off was a good idea. You didn’t have time to realize your action that Jerome had pushed you hard against the wall and pointed the gun at you again. Your head was hurting like hell and you felt like you were crushing under the man’s weight.

“Has nobody ever told you not to play with a psychopath?”

His face was few inches away from yours, you could feel his breath on your cheeks, the intense smell of blood that stained his bandages and the cold metal of the gun touching your forehead.

“Has nobody ever told you not to threaten a doctor in his lab?”

You barely finished your sentence when you took the bisturi right on the table next to you and pointed it at Jerome’s throat.

“Perhaps you want to experience again what happened with Galavan. This time though I’ll make sure you stay dead.”

Jerome let go of you and clapped his hands together, his behaviour totally different from the one he had just moments before.

“Oh right! Where is he? I want to kill him, you know, for betraying me and everything else.” He sounded like he was talking about the weather, not like he was planning another murder.

You put the bisturi in your pocket, just in case you needed it again, although, you didn’t know how efficient it would have been against a gun. However, something in Jerome’s behaviour told you that he wasn’t planning on killing you, otherwise he would have just done it ages ago. After this thought, you tried to calm yourself.

“He’s dead.”

Jerome pouted, “who killed him?”

You raised an eyebrow, “which time?”

Jerome laughed again, “my my, I’ve missed so much! Let me tell you something, Little one, death is boooring.”

You were instantly captured by his words. In fact, you probably looked funny, if Jerome’s amused grin was something to go by. You suddenly remembered that the man in front of you had just came back from the dead, an experience few people could tell.

“How is it? Being dead I mean” you asked softly. You were afraid of upsetting him and, therefore, losing your only chance to know if there was something after life.

Jerome popped up on the table again, “dark and boring” he said. Then, as if something more interesting came into his mind, he clasped his hands and got down again, walking right in front of you.

“I have a question for you, Little one,” he announced happily. “No, scratch that. I have two questions for you.”

You were again very aware of your proximity but faked calm and nonchalance.

“Sure, shoot,” you said without realising it. Jerome looked at the gun in his hand, then looked at you, and laughed like never before. You truly knew how to amuse him. You couldn’t help but smile at your poor choice of words.

“Very well,” he told you spinning you around. You were taken aback by his behaviour, what the hell was going on in that mad head of his?

“What is your name?”

You blinked a few times and he huffed annoyed, “was it such a difficult question, doc?”

“Y/N. My name is Y/N” you whispered, still a bit confused by Jerome spinning you around like you two were dancing.

He grinned and positioned himself behind you, his chest was strongly pressed against your back, and he put his chin on your shoulder while pointing the gun to your head one more time.

“What’s the second question?” You asked, trembling a bit.

Jerome looked at you grinning, his eyes were shining like those of a cat who finally caught a mouse. You wondered if that was a metaphor to describe you two and if he had finally caught you.

“Do you like gingers, little Y/N?”

You couldn’t help a small smile.

Ever think about how The Scientist by Coldplay fits Nygmobblepot perfectly? Because I do. A lot.