#im capable and i know that. but im so fucking tired. its fine. itll be fine eventually. life carries on whether i want it to or not

[autism-corner]

scary

[steampoweredskeleton]

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Ignore

[scaryscarecrows]

Roots and Leaves, Pt. 6

DC did it first. Take your grievances to them.

Jason and Sheila e-mail back and forth for about a week before she says that she has Thursday off so if he has Thursday off does he want to meet for lunch again?

Last time wasn’t bad. Not a lot of staring or people or anything. He can…he can probably do it again. And it’s a few days away still, so he has time to psyche himself up or, worst case scenario, fake his death and move to Canada.

And it’s been a week and she hasn’t pulled out the Pity Card on him yet and maybe…maybe this’ll all work out okay. She might never be Mom, because Catherine’s always gonna be Mom, but…but she could be Mother, maybe. He can see that in the distant (or not-so-distant?) future.

But he’s not going to rush into things, that’s what got him here in the first place. Patience, grasshopper.

Thursday rolls around and he hasn’t faked his death and moved to Canada, so he has no choice but to put on jeans and a hoodie and resign himself to a couple of hours, easy, of no sunglasses and no e-book shield.

Sorry, any small children who might come out of this traumatized.

Okay. He brings his Kindle anyway, and his sunglasses for the journey, and sticks to his normal Civilian Weaponry-couple’a knives, one pair of brass knuckles tucked into a hidden pocket in his hoodie. Last thing he needs is for someone to pick up a bullet, match it to the Red Hood’s, and come knocking on his door. His luck is bad enough that’s exactly what would happen.

Besides, it’s noon on a Thursday, and even in Gotham that’s a slow hour. Bank robbers gotta eat, too.

The monorail ride there is literal Hell (three fighting couples, two crying kids and old man with no personal spaaaaace!) and he’s literally gasping for air when he stumbles out of the car. He likes people. Honest. If he legitimately hated them all, he wouldn’t risk his life to help them. But interacting with them…he could do without that, mostly.

Whatever. Whatever. It’s over, he lived, he’s had worse.

(And no, he doesn’t hear faint cackling in his head, and that’s final.)

It’s windy today, the type of wind that buffets people every which way and is determined to keep his hood off his head. He fidgets with the drawstrings until it’ll stay and buries his hands in his pockets. Wind sucks. He can feel pollen and dust and Gotham Grime being blown onto his skin.

“Jason!”

Is he there already?

Sheila…looks a lot more haggard than she did before. He tries to remember if she’d mentioned being horribly busy, doesn’t think she did, and figures that to be fair, he hasn’t mentioned the bruise that goes halfway up his back.

She smiles, her awkward driver’s license smile, and waves. Yeah, she doesn’t…it must’ve been a long week, or maybe a rough drive or something. She looks tired.

“Hi.” He’s not sure what to call her, still. Miss Haywood is too disconnected, Sheila’s too personal, and it’s way, way too soon for Mother. Names are a pain. “I’m not late, am I?” He knows he’s not. “Monorail was packed.”

“So was the subway. Can I…?”

Her arms are half-out and he figures she’s asking for a hug. He can do a hug, as long as it’s a short hug.

“Yeah. Thanks for the warning.”

Holy crap, she feels frail. But to be fair, barring Dick’s tackle-hug, everyone’s felt frail since…since. So it could just be him. Hugs are weird now.

(“HUG YOUR DADDY!”)

No. Not today. Everything’s fine.

It’s a sort-of short hug, short enough, anyway, and he wonders, abstractedly, if a day will ever come that he’s used to that sort of thing again. If it even matters whether he does or doesn’t.

It does. Of course it does. And the day will come, in time, and he’ll be better, be normal, be what people want him to be.

Little steps.

* * *

They’ve fallen into a companionable silence and for once Jason’s not jumping whenever someone walks by in a purple sweater or anything when Sheila forces her lips out from between her teeth and says, “I know you were Robin.”

Well. That’s, uh, there’s that out of the way.

“Yeah.” There’s clearly no point in denying it. She probably put it together when Batman came knocking. “For a little while, yeah. I was.” He tastes blood, wonders how long he’s been doing that, and wishes he had gum. Or a mint. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right off, I just…old habits die hard, I guess.”

“Oh God, no, no, I didn’t mean-” She takes a drink. Her hands are shaking, she’s shaking and he doesn’t know what’s wrong. “I just. I thought I should probably make it clear that I did know, so you wouldn’t…I know I was absent, but I don’t want…you shouldn’t feel like you have to hide things from me.”

Oh. That’s. He doesn’t know what to say. Bruce, God knows, has the emotional capabilities of a Himalayan Salt Lamp. Thankfully Jason hadn’t been the type to go through crushes every two weeks, or he probably would have been in Hell. He certainly wouldn’t have…it’s not like he would have shut down the conversation, but sharing and caring? That would have been awkward and best not repeated. Alfred was the go-to for that sorta thing.

All right, then. Since they’re dropping sudden bombshells ‘n all…he has to know.

“You worked for Joker.” There. It’s out. He said it.

And now he kinda regrets it-the self-loathing on her face is a pretty good match for his own, and he can’t tell himself it’s anything less than deep, deep wishing to have made better choices.

“I did.” She straightens up, begins tearing apart a piece of bread on her plate. “Briefly. I’m not proud, but he had a line to my mother, knew where she lived, knew her schedule…knew.” She swallows hard. “Knew she had to rubber-band her jam jars because she couldn’t open them otherwise. I panicked. But it was only for a couple of months-pills, he wanted pills, as much as I could get him. And then he just…went away. I don’t know what he did with them.”

Honestly, after everything, he can’t…he doesn’t have the right to say much. And honestly? There was that one guy, who accidentally cut the fucker off in traffic and couldn’t get away from him.

And look at him. The first man he killed, that wasn’t…oh, sure, he probably had it coming, at least a little, but Jason wasn’t thinking about that or considering it like he does now, he just…he wanted to kill Bruce. Because that was right and reason at the time even though he knows it’s insanity now.

No, he can’t say much.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly, and it’s suddenly easier to look at his hands. “I didn’t…that sounds awful.”

“No.” She tips his chin up and it’s an effort not to pull away and to remember that it’s fingers, warm human fingers, and not the pointy end of a crowbar against his skin. “You deserved to know. It’s only fair.”

Truth be told, it’s a relief to know that she hadn’t…yeah, technically she could’ve…maybe done something different, but she hadn’t wanted to work for him. She wasn’t like the ones he’d christened Dumb and Dumber that…they enjoyed that kinda work.

Lunch is finished in relative silence after that, though, and he’s wondering what’s going to happen now when she rifles through her purse and swears.

“Damn…I meant to grab an old photo album I wanted to show you, with some old family pictures and things.”

Pictures of Willis? Yeah, he’s good. Pictures of other people might be interesting, though.

“Next time?”

“My apartment’s a few blocks over.”

Something feels off. He’s paranoid, he knows he’s paranoid, but something…she’s been shaky and weird all afternoon and he doesn’t…

Calm the fuck down, you freak out when someone window-shops for too long!

“Is everything…is everything okay?”

Or maybe something is wrong-she pulls a napkin over and there’s suddenly a pen in her hand.

“I really do want you to see these pictures, Jason,” she says, but her hand is moving and there’s the ever-so-faint skrit-skrit of pen on paper. “I swear you got my mother’s eyes.”

The napkin slides over to him and he glances down. Her handwriting’s spikey and awful-doctor writing to the bone-but his is no better and he can read it well enough.

An old colleague has been hanging around the hospital lately.

Oh.

That explains a bit.

“Sure.”

Her shoulders drop and she crumples the napkin, nails picking it into shreds.

“I’m sorry to do this to you,” she says softly, nearly too soft for him to hear, and he’s quick to shake his head.

“No, no, I don’t mind, I’m glad you…if there’s anything I can do to…”

Shit, she looks like she’s going to start crying and that is indeed PANIC in his throat. Tears are not good.

“You’re a good boy.” Her voice is watery but there are no tears to be seen. Thank Jesus. “I promise next time we have lunch it’ll be normal.”

Oh, good, things haven’t plummeted down to fiery Hell because of all the revelations flying around.

“Everything’s gonna be fine,” he says, and whoops that’s his ‘all will be well, citizen, never fear!’ voice. But it must work, because the about-to-cry look disappears. “Um. Do you wanna…it looks like it’s gonna rain, should we get going?”

And so they do.

* * *

The wind has picked up and it smells like rain. He’s not looking forward to patrol later.

The wind’s not so bad, though, to stop Sheila from lighting up with a self-depreciating, “I know I’m a doctor and should know better, but I honestly don’t care.”

“I can’t really say anything.” He holds up his own pack and rattles it before pulling one out. It’s not as calming as it usually is and he doesn’t know why.

Eh. It’s been a long day, that’s all. He’s not used to interacting with people on a personal level anymore, which is his own fault and probably not necessarily a good thing.

The first few drops have started to fall when they arrive at her building-big, square, and simplistic. She fishes out her keys while they’re in the elevator (which smells like new car, for some reason).

The hallway is deserted. It’s a little creepy, to be honest-his own building might be crap, but there’s always activity. And then, of course, there was Arkham’s hallways, or what he could hear of them. Noisy. Always noisy. But this? Wayne Manor was silent like this. It unsettled him then and it unsettles him now. Call him a city boy, whatever, but he needs noise.

The brass knuckles and knives in his jacket are warm and comforting and he knows he’s not gonna need ‘em, but they make up for this creepy-ass silence.

Sheila opens the door and motions him inside. It’s dark inside-blackout curtains, probably-but he can hear the rain. It smells like new car in here, too, and he wonders, off-handedly, why-

-it’s not empty. He’s walked into one too many ‘empty’ buildings to be very, very attuned to the sound of somebody breathing. Okay. Be calm, back out and shut the door.

He’s about to do exactly that when the light switch clicks and bathes the whole place in stark white. White walls, white floors, white furniture.

Which only makes Harley Quinn stick out like a sore thumb in all that red and black.

“BAY-BEE!” She could never hope to match Joker’s grin, but she gives it a good go, stretching her makeup. Okay. Change of plans. Get Sheila out of here (and preferably out of the building), deal with Quinn. “It’s been a whiiiiile!”

He takes in the mallet leaning against the couch and the shotgun (are those fuzzy dice? Really?) in her hands and comes to the conclusion that great, she’s riding the crazy train.

But maybe she hasn’t seen Sheila yet. Where’s that goddamn light switch?

He moves, only a little, only to feel the unmistakable press of a gun against his lower back.

“Don’t. Move.”

And the world drops out from under him.

No. No, no, no, she said she quit, it was over, she said they’d let her go, she said-

The door shuts. He twists so he can still see Quinn in his peripheral. Sheila’s face is a blank mask-no tears, no joy, no nothing. Just quiet determination and he doesn’t understand, she said…

“Mom?” The word feels thick and wrong in his mouth, but maybe…maybe she’s brainwashed or hypnotized or something, maybe she doesn’t…isn’t…

“Sorry, kid.” The words are harsh but her tone isn’t. Quinn giggles in the background but she sounds so far away and Sheila’s still pressing a gun against him. “It was you or me, and, well…it had to be you.”

What?

“Aww, come to mama, baby!” Quinn giggles again before straightening up and scowling. “Now.”

His feet drag him forward, sneakers scuffing against the white carpet an’ Heaven’s s’posed ta be white, innit, so why does this feel like Hell and what’s going on she said she said-

For once horrible, desperate second, he wants Bruce. Bruce wouldn’t…yeah, he’d thought, at first, that he’d left him but he knows that he didn’t, he really didn’t, he just…

Bruce wouldn’t have pulled a gun on him, he wouldn’t and God, if he’d just fucking talked to him-

“I did what you wanted, Quinn.” Sheila’s voice is so, so flat and is this all she wanted from the beginning? Is it? “Now call your man.”

Quinn doesn’t even look at her. She’s looking at Jason like she always did-like she’s torn between wanting to rip his head off and wanting to wrap him in a blanket and keep him.

This is his own goddamn fault, he just thought…just once, just once-

“Quinn!” Desperation now, and the gun wobbles against his hoodie as she steps out from behind him. “I did what you said! Call your man!”

Okay. Okay.

He forces himself to take a few deep breaths that taste like that last cigarette outside and says, voice as steady as he can make it, “Let her go, Harley. Leave her alone, I’ll. I’ll do what you want, just. Just let her go.”

“Aww, look at you!” Her pigtails sway and he finds himself oddly hypnotized by the movement. “I knew ya had to be Robin for a reason.”

Yeah. Yeah, he was Robin and that’s all he’ll ever be, the one that fucked up.

“Please, Harley.”

“Nyeh…” She adjusts her grip on the gun, finger dancing near the trigger, and looks down at her knuckles. “Eeny, meanie, miny, moe, catch a Batman by the toe. If he hollers, let ‘im go, eeny…meanie…miny…moe!”

He sees it before she does it, but there’s no time-he’s moved maybe half a centimeter before the gun goes off-

-and Sheila.

Falls.

His ears are ringing. They’re ringing and everything’s so white except her, all blonde and blue and so fucking red because Harley didn’t miss and if he’d been quicker, he should have been-

“Aww, don’t be sad!” Harley’s not alone, of course she’s not. He should have known from the start stupidstupidstupid. “Doncha know what happens to people who know too much?”

Her eyes are open. They’re open and they’re looking at him like this is his fault and it is if he hadn’t…

S’like Joker said, once.

“Good boys know how to lay down and DIE.”

“Mistah J had a spot for ya, baby.” Huh? “But you up an’ left us before it was time! So since it’s his birthday-” The fucker has no birthday he just appeared one day too evil for Hell. “-I thought I’d get my puddin’ somethin’-” She winks. “Real nice.”

And they’re on him.

Harley’s goons are dumb, but they’re also big and they manage to drag him down for a minute before he gets a knife out of his sleeve and drives it into the nearest jaw.

“Andre!” Yeah, Andre ain’t comin’ back from that any time soon. “I thought we taught you manners!”

He reclaims his knife and scrambles back up and okay okay maybe he can get outta this-

WHAM!

Lights out.

[sinsfox]

Care to tell us about Ban's depression and all?

yoko you just had to ask this since i mentioned it to you huh

OF COURSE I CAN TALK ABT IT

this is gonna get long, so ima put it under the cut but theres going to be content warning galore, but itll be tagged

im really not going to beat around the bush here. 

i headcanon ban to have depression, but at this point, it seems to me to be implied that he does. would it be professionally diagnosed? fuck no. ban gives less than a shit about himself, i dont think he would be obligated to figure out why he feels hollow or dulled. why life is a bore, and he only ever feels alive in a fight or when hes ‘killed’.

to him its a feeling he can easily shrug off and ignore and he easily puts up a front of being the easy going, out there kind of guy that he is. eccentric and melodious in his tone, fight enthusiastic and seemingly taking his interest in whatever seems convenient at the time. stealing what he wants, even if its the clothes off someones back. drinking ale and laughing it up like no tomorrow until he passes out.

but at the end of the day, hes lonely. hes tired. despite the things that are fun that he does have fun with, its still hard to completely forget the void that he feels and how much duller things seem nowadays ever since the incident in the fairy kings forest.

it only got worse since that day.

his childhood was the start of it all.

his parents neglected him and his sister. his little sister died from starvation at four years old. that was the first time ban felt alone. his parents cared nothing for them. ban was used to try and obtain food for his mother and father, while not being allowed to eat himself. his father would beat him if he did eat. his father would beat him if ban even slept. it wasnt a good environment. ban ran away from home often.

then ban was caught stealing and was sent to prison and that was where he met zhivago and they escaped together. and ban took to secretly meeting zhivago whenever he could and was given food by him to eat. zhivago helped him survive. zhivago taught ban all he needed to know about thieving and even saved his life from starvation and from being kidnapped and almost being sold to a noblewoman who tortured and killed children.

zhivago adopted ban. he referred to ban as his son in a conversation with ban himself. telling him how he had one son named therion who was nothing like ban, a shy kid. and how he had another son named ban who was a troublemaker with a bad mouth.

hearing that made ban happy. and he felt like he had family again.

then one day when they were to do a heist together, ban got impatient and went on his own. and got caught by the guards and was beaten by them. and zhivago was handed two choices: save ban or save therion. ultimately zhivago made his choice and abandoned ban ( he was crying when he made his choice ) for the sake of saving his own son, which he was too late in doing.

that was the second time ban felt alone in the world.

years pass, ban is a bandit now. he goes after the fountain of youth after hearing talk of it in a bar. he enters the fairy kings forest. he persists in getting to the fountain. thats when he meets elaine. and in seven days he grew close to her and helped her battle her seven hundred years of loneliness. and he fell in love with her and was going to bring her brother back to the forest, and make him take her place so ban could take her away.

but then a demon attacked. and elaine, who ban wanted to save with the fountain of youth, fed the water to ban which made him immortal. and he kills the demon, but elaine dies before he can even begin to help her.

that is the third time ban felt alone in the world.

and he was heart broken.

its at this point in time that ban believe he cannot be close to anyone, for they are going to leave him. by dying or by abandoning him. he refuses to fight when he is arrested and accused of a false crime but what can he do. he has no proof against their claim, and they cannot do anything to an immortal being. so he takes the brunt of it all and allows himself to be executed over and over again in his time captured.

its at this point that ban wishes he could die. because he doesnt want to live. not when he had nothing to consider a family from his little sister dying so young, his parents neglecting and abusing him. zhivago was his ideal father, he never held a grudge against the man for abandoning him but it still left a hefty hole for ban to carry. and elaine was killed before him and she used the last of her strength to save him instead of herself.

he was powerless to stop any of this from happening. despite that he was only a child, that he was just a human.

meeting meliodas was another of the happier moments in his life. when the man busted him out of prison, literally punching him through the wall, ban knew immediately that meliodas was someone he did not want to lose. there was an interest gained in this man. ban didnt want meliodas to disappear on him. he didnt want him to leave like the rest.

of course history happens, ban gets imprisoned by the weird fangs when he hears that meliodas had passed ( a lie ). and he endures torture yet again to ease the emptiness that wracks his being. bans stated before that dying is just another part of life for him. a daily occurrence. hes mentioned before that hes felt like dying. that its been a long time since he felt like dying.

it doesnt change the fact that hes felt that way.

there are points in time where ban berates himself. degrades himself. hes called himself a bad person. hes referred to himself as a useless piece of shit. that hes powerless. that hes an awful friend. all in regards to being unable to protect those he loves and cares about.

ban cares little about his own well being. its why he fights as reckless as he does, aside from his immortality. ban does not care about himself. theres nothing he likes about him. theres… nothing. he feels nothing for himself. he doesnt even consider himself human anymore unless hes referred to as one.

one wouldnt even think ban feels or thinks this way considering the way he is, as i said before. its easy to think ban is someone who doesnt feel that way but really its been eating at him for over the entirety of his life. ever since his childhood. ever since elaine died. 

and he has terrible ways of coping with it all.

ban drinks himself silly. he lets himself get brutally murdered just come back to life and have it done again when he fights. he seeks out getting arrested to endure torture to feel something than nothing. because hes so tired of feeling nothing.

but in the end, no one except meliodas and elaine ( and king ) are capable of telling really telling bans actual emotions and the way he feels. because around them he drops the face of the fox sin everyone knows. because hes tired. hes empty. he can fake a smile and really well at that. he can put on the face of excitement, the outgoing personality and passion he can exude when needed. but at the end of the day, those feelings and thoughts are still there.

ban has, since gaining immortality, fantasized about death. idealized it. wished he could die. because being immortal is boring. living and dying near constantly runs dry after a time and to think that dying is a daily part of life now is cruel to him when he wakes up like nothing happened.

it was worse when the rumor meliodas had died got around, after hed finally learned to be happy again after the loss of elaine.

when he learned meliodas was indeed alive, and was busted out of baste dungeon to reunite with meliodas, he was happy again.

when the ten commandments and demon clan were released from their seal, and melascula using her magic with the venegeful soul revival, elaine was resurrected and ban was able to reunite with her too, after quelling her anger and hate towards those who had spent their time around ban when she could note and melascula still being kept alive kept elaine alive.

ban was made all the more happier then, too.

but elaine can read bans heart like fairies can. meliodas can read ban like a book because theyre best friends and meliodas understands ban just as ban understands him. and hes able to be open with them, more so than anyone else.

they are the only two he can really be truthful with in regards to his emotions because they are the only two that he trusts enough to let his guard down around and let them see the side that he hides from everyone else.

because he doesnt need more people worrying or whatever in his mind. he doesnt need peoples concerns when hes fine by technicality because hes immortal and nothing will ever come of anything even if he tried to do something. his sense of self-worth is abyssal, he cares so little about himself. hed rather everyone around him be okay and happy than have people worrying over him because its something hes felt for a long time, a very long time. something hes dealt with all on his own ( until elaine and meliodas came into his life ) and hed rather not include anymore people in it.

ban has gotten the short and shit end of the stick too many times to count. hes lost people. hes been unable to save people. he feels powerless in situations he cant do anything to change or fix. he berates himself over these things.

and he tries to keep others out of it because its not something they should deal with, its his own problem. but its hard to deal with it when he doesnt want to. he wants it to go away, he wants to stop feeling and thinking it. but its hard when its constant and he cant do anything about it. aside from drown himself in ale and liquor. and fight so recklessly and with abandon because hell be fine, hell come out unscathed and it gives him something to better focus his energy on than the hollow dull ache in his chest.

thats about the long and short of it

[phagodyke]

I love to talk but I rly do feel like we have to be talking for a minimum of 8 hours straight before I feel like I can even begin to rly broach things on my mind or that have been bothering me a lot that I actually want to talk abt without being vague or deflecting or omitting or lying and if the conversation takes a break at any point it resets back to 0 and its still nice regardless but.