Jerome, Jerome, where art thou? | Dwight Pollard
Requested; Yes
Summary; dating a member of your father’s cult, which prioritises the maniac Jerome Valeska felt like a good idea at the beginning. However, you should have been more aware of where your boyfriend Lance’s loyalty laid, he was a member of a cult after all.
A/N; I named the character myself, so that it would be easier to read and flow easier within the sentences. It’s also under Dwight where the character isn’t exactly much of a character in the show, and the father daughter relationship, if you get me, and it will be the same on my masterlist. Thank you for sending in the request hun, I really hope that you like it xx
Warnings; language, mentions of death, bad parenting, crazy people, murder
Dwight, the man who thought himself a notorious villain, rebelling against death and experimenting with its limits was a father. Most would have doubted such a statement that lacked hard evidence, however, the proof was provided in your veins, running through them was the same genetics that he had passed on.
Your mother was not in the picture, some days it was pleasant to imagine that she was living peacefully outside of Gotham. Unfortunately, not many folk managed to escape the city, whether their exit be by the hand of a lunatic or a mystery, they were the only routes out.
Or they were for most people, you had discovered your own through a crowd. And not any mass of people, the particular spawn was of the cult of Jerome Valeska, the legend who smiled in the wakening of his legacy. There were a number of followers, and almost all appeared the same, insane and stuck to the cause.
Lance was muscle to each strike that was ordered by your father. He was a good man, behind a thousand cogs of eye opening realisation. This was the path that he was devoted to, and had chosen to walk down, confident in the future that it would bring.
But there was another consumption that his antics had hungered him with. A praise that he was almost blinded by, it was a young woman with a father who thought himself far more lethal than he was. The only thing that could make him potentially dangerous were his goals, if he managed to defy a dead body and resurrect it, he would be a figure of grandness.
That had yet to happen, and as you all awaited, weeks and on for the experiments to provided promising results, you spent time with Lance, away from the curious eyes of the fellow members, who were surprisingly patient for their destructive appetites.
The woman was no other than yourself, in the midst of the overall mission, you came to find Lance’s presence soothing, he made your brain buzz in a good way, and he never failed to bring out a toothy smile from your eager lips.
And to find yourself wrapped in his taught arms of a night again was no surprise. Things had slowed or the moment, and a part of you dreaded the revival of the mad redhead. When he came back to life, you’d all answer to him, and he would spiral out his followers, ordering them to bring chaos upon the streets of Gotham.
Once that had sounded nice, however the closer that that dream came to becoming a reality, it made you consider the result. The chances of your boyfriend being shot on a road by a detective would have risen, and every thing that you had learnt to care for would be lost.
Lance shuffled in the cot, his face contorted in concentration, although his gaze was directed at the greyness of the wall. The solidness of a the colour made you realise that you were in the middle of all of this, the whole charade of your father’s schemes.
No, not the middle, on the lines. The separation of magnificence and absolute disregard for human life seemed to be a very thin difference, one that apparently had not minded either of the important men in your life. But once noticing this scary detail, you couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Even as you watched the man that you claimed to love shuffle up from under the sheets and redress himself in his dark clothing choice. A sigh fell from your lips as you thought of these reprimanding complications.
If you were to lay down your claims, you‘d be insulting everything that your father had worked so hard towards. And he was proud of himself, he acclaimed his image as a great villain of Gotham, and albeit him not being such an icon, it was a great sight to see, him being happy about himself.
Years ago, he was a wreck, a critic of himself. There’d be nothing crueller than offering an opinion where it wasn’t asked for, and harming his ‘composed’ demeanour. However, he could not be offended if you were to confide your thoughts in somebody else, and the perfect listener was in the same vicinity and room.
The quilt remained pardoned against your chest as you sat up and watched the man that had won your affections pull his trousers up the trunks of his legs, the upright position that you had accustomed yourself to be in gaining his intrigue.
It was apparent that something was weighing on your mind. And so Lance came to slide the front of his body upon the bed, his face nearer to your own so that he could pay the utmost attention to whatever was being a burden in your noggin.
“What is it darling?” The man asked, his large hand coming to cradle the curve of your face. His skin was rough from the dirty work that he had proceeded to do in the name of the apparent visionary, including capturing his body in its metal cradle, and bringing it to where the entire crew of you, even if you weren’t initially a member of the cult, squatted.
The concern in his voice sounded real, and you believed it to be, and for the moment it was. There was an ironic purity to it, even more so as you worried for his well being also.
“We should get out, whilst we still can.” It was a personal, opinionated confession, one that you could be criminalised in the eyes of criminals by. Your honesty earnt a scoff from the half dressed man, the air flying from his mouth in disbelief.
“Holy fucking shit, you cannot be serious.” Lance laughed to himself, stunned by the words that had passed through your concerned tone. He put space between the pair of you, shaking his messy head of hair and raking his hand through his locks. “We were in this together, and now you just wanna split?”
“It’s not like that, I never chose to kiss the feet of some dead dude. The reason I am here is my father, this is his road, that he so happened to drag me down. I never wanted any of this, and it will only end up in a great mass of bodies in the streets, it always does in these situations.”
It was as though Lance was not listening to the argument behind your formatted mind, he was more focused on the stone cold statements that you had surpassed in private to him.
“You never wanted any of this, what about me?” That was not what you had meant at all, he was blinded by the build up of anger in his bones, too much so that he couldn’t listen to any denials of such a rhetorical answer. “Was I just entertainment for you, a distraction, or where you trying to distract me from the most important inclusivity of my life?”
This life that your father had led you into was one big charade, Lance had became a great part of it. If it were not for him, you’d have disappeared far away from these antics long ago, but you couldn’t bear to leave him.
Not when he was so blinded by a ridiculous dream that he’d put his life on the line for it. A man barely out of his teen years that he hardly knew anything about, a corpse that your father had attempted to resurrect, but to no avail managed to do so.
“Not at all, you know me.” You half begged, a frown quarrying the centre of your face, separating it into two halves. “I would never do that, I care about you!”
“I thought that I knew who you were, but you’re just another rat trying to survive off of the streets of Gotham.” He spat, grabbing a hasty hold of your upper arm, throwing a robe for you to dress yourself in out of modesty, allowing you to put it on before he pulled you through the halls of the base.
“You’re hurting me.” Before he would have not hesitated to stop whatever he was doing if you were to have said those words, now however, it was clear that all had changed.
Lance didn’t even pass her a second glance, not until he reached the tall room in which was storing Jerome’s body on a platter, and her father, the mastermind, if you could call him that, behind the entire operation.
“Honey.” A great smile widened his mouth at the sight of you. Dwight was pleasantly surprised to have your presence at such a moment, in which he was trying to do the unimaginable, and it made him feel proud.
But Dwight’s feeling did not last, for he noticed the aggressive grip that Lance had pierced into your arm, a furrow of his brow hinted his confusion. The man stalked closer, poison in his eyes as he looked at your boyfriend.
“She’s a traitor.” Lance informed him, but Dwight could only laugh, and it sounded almost familiar, as though he had been practising to sound like the Valeska boy.
“She, is my daughter. Now if you aren’t so inclined, loosen your grip on her, or I’ll have to make quick work of you.” Lance allowed your limb to slip from his grip, and you were fast to move away from him.
It ached, not only where he had kept a tight hold on you, but the fact that he was so easily swayed to call you out on your attitude. If he were to convince your father of your viewpoint, you would lose both of them.
So, as much as it pained you, you grabbed one of the knives that was laying around, and threw it into his chest. His throat gurgled as his blood rose through the column, and skewering sounds of sobs tore past the barrier of your lips.
Dwight was confused as Lance’s body fell limply, and harshly to the ground, but once more, he felt pride. Pride that his daughter, you could protect yourself, and that you would not allow any man treat you like an object, even if you loved them.
“It’s okay.” He came to put his arm around your shoulder, offering you a fatherly comfort. “It will be okay, when Jerome rises, we will all be saved from this worldwide machine of sanity.”
He thought he was providing an image of personal peace and freedom, but it only internally put fear into you. You didn’t want Jerome or anyone else to rise from the dead, but this was Gotham, and these things happened all the time.
