[The amount of people thinking Batman sucks here and also who validate Jason really blow his mind. He cannot comprehend.]
He's only human. He just didn't make it in time.
[Which is probably sadder and a much harder blow to accept that there being any other good or bad explanation. He was simply a man who happened to be late the one time he shouldn't have been.]
[ It is sad. Sometimes things happen, and there is no reason. The world is just like that—most of them know that very well. ]
No man can always be in the right place at the right time, I suppose. [ A pause. As sincerely as he's able: ] I have only felt a sliver of your suffering, and it was still tremendous. I'm sorry. ...I am glad you are alive and here with us, now.
[HE TRULY WISHES PEOPLE WOULD STOP BEING NICE TO HIM. He is at his limit.]
Look-- [He pauses to reconsider what he's going to say.] Thanks, I guess. But you don't have to hand me all this... I don't know, you don't have to pat my ass. It was a long time ago. Don't like re-living it, but I've--handled it.
But I am not... 'patting your ass', so to speak. [ this is the most he's ever cursed, congrats ] I could not be stoic about this, even if you asked me to be.
[DON'T LAUGH. He looks, unfortunately, a bit amused at Dimitri parroting him for that specifically. Alright, Dimitri. Dipping your toes into the naughty business.]
I don't blame you. I wouldn't be either. [Except he'd be waaaaaay more angry about it. He has problems with anger.] It just... feels weird.
Not exactly used to people being able to stick their eyes into my brain.
[ It's okay. Same hat. Sometimes you are just fiercely compressed rage in a human shape. ]
Mm. It's quite the invasion of privacy.
[ He leans back a little where he's sitting, gaze turned up thoughtfully. ]
It is valuable, in a way. To understand what others are feeling. [ not that he lacks for empathy, but connecting to other people is hard sometimes. ] I only wish we could control it.
[He glances at Dimitri, but his gaze lingers. Because… it’s a little baffling how rational and optimistic Dimitri can be.
As barbed as Bruce is sometimes, this… reminds him of Bruce. This… cling to hope. To… a better vision. Can’t relate.
Though the fact he can’t relate is what baffles him in a surprised way. It’s like he’s looking at the timeline of himself that could actually pretend not to be someone who came back messed up. How can someone be that way and not turn out like him?]
[ Sometimes, optimism is a learned and forced trait. At heart, he is an idealist—and a pessimist. The world is so cruel, and for what? Why?
But he wants to hope for better. ]
It isn't so bad to share sometimes.
[ This is deeply hypocritical of him to say. But it doesn't matter, because the stardust twinkles back to life!
You are fifteen, and it has been two years since you lost your parents, your friends, your most cherished servants. Everything.
But you have recovered from your wounds—the physical ones, anyway—all just history and scar tissue. You are still young, and you are stronger than anyone in your Kingdom, and you have the Goddess's blessing in your blood—you could twist metal in your hands since you were just a child.
Childhood is a long-ago concept though, and you are an adult now, commanding a battalion of your own. An army under your eventual crown. The Grand Duke, your uncle, is counting on you, and you have studied feverishly the art of war, of swords and lances, and nothing can stand in your way as you go to meet a rebel army in the western lands of your vast, frigid territory.
And it is—invigorating. Gratifying. You feel, for the first time in a long while, as though you have some control over your life. And more than anything, it feels right, the way adrenaline burns bright in your blood, all that blistering anger and grief finding expression in the slash of a blade, the brutal twist of a lance. You are righting something wrong. You cannot see your own face, but it must be a wild thing for how frightened you leave your enemies. It must be a smile, for how full and heavy your heart feels.
It is not until after you kill their leader that the rebellion settles, quiet eventually falling over the battlefield. You are told that you handled yourself with skill, a force to be reckoned with, before you go walking over the dirt, packed down by the beat of horse hooves and greaves, stepping between bodies until silver glints in the corner of your eye.
You crouch beside a fallen soldier's body, cut from shoulder to waist, struck down in a single blow. Clutched tight in his palm is a locket's chain; your hand moves before your mind does to squeeze the tiny, silver heart that hangs there open.
It holds nothing special. Just a lock of blonde hair, as fair as your own, nearly dropping through your fingers.
—And it's only then that you really wake from the haze of battle. It takes this simple thing to remind you that this was your enemy, but also a man, who surely loved someone enough to carry a piece of them onto the plain of battle, fighting a terrifying, hopeless fight against a royal army that you yourself vanguarded. You do not think death is so romantic that he died thinking of whoever this hair belonged to—a daughter, a mother. A lover, perhaps.
He surely died with a mind for nothing but miserable pain. Blinding fear. You think it will take months for his family to learn of his demise. You realize that you enjoyed killing him. The gratification, the rightness of it all—you wake up to how awful it is, and how wretched you are. And you are just—a frightened child again, shivering and clutching a locket in the midst of death and destruction by your hand. You know you will kill again—there is so much more you must do—and it will feel as disastrous as it does now, because you will carry this guilt beside you like a companion even if it won't fix what you've broken, even if it means nothing to those you have and will hurt.
You are no stranger to cruelty. But this is the day you learn that you are so capable of it.
He sighs and drops his head into his hands, scrubbing his face. ]
[Oh boy. Dimitri. My dude. Jason is grimacing, but mostly because these feelings are not bewildering or... so out there he can't relate. Whew. You can fit so much trauma in these bad boys!
He reaches out to gently and reassuringly squeeze Dimitri's shoulder for a moment. What do you say after that?]
War for the man actually on the battlefield is terrible. [Jason understands that much.] ...I've never been in the army, but I have been in a gang. Surprisingly not very different approaches.
I've... also been with some assassins. A group of them; they have their own little league. I've been there. Loving the death of someone else, being a tool for bigger ideals.
[ He tenses stiffly. He's practiced and able to smother down visions of Duscur, but this is different. There's a moment where it's not clear he's listening, the heels of his palms against his eyes.
Eventually, ]
...I'm sorry. It is nothing I want anyone to relate to.
[ He's pretty unhappy that Jason knows what it's like. He's not pleased that the tables have turned on him like this. ]
But I was not manipulated. [ If Jason were used as a tool, taken advantage of—then he can be forgiven. He was so young when he was hurt so grievously. ] I will never be able to undo that day, or any of my other sins. I have never grown out of being that person. [ His skin is cold, because above all else, this is what scares the wits out of him. ]
I wasn’t. Not really. I stayed because I wanted to be stronger. To belong. I left because I realized they didn’t want the same justice I wanted.
[His lips thin, but his expression is is more gentle.]
You won’t. [Jason isn’t going to pretend like this isn’t true, or offer platitudes.] You can’t undo what’s already been done.
But I think you’re wrong about the other part. I think you can grow out of being that person. I think you’re already trying. You would have already killed someone here if that wasn’t true. Right? Have you killed anyone here yet?
[ imagine how funny it'd be if dimitri was like actually i killed alphinaud
He does appreciate that Jason doesn't bother trying to appeal to the past. It's done, and it's over. Mistakes don't undo themselves. ]
Not this time, and not yet. But I... killed Shinobu once before. [ ... ] Can someone decent grow out of a monstrous core? How do you learn to temper your own thoughts, when they can go so very dark?
[ He doesn't expect answers to those, really. He glances over. ] What is the justice you want?
[STOP it’d be just as funny having to tag back this thread if we find out you killer someone this week.
He wants to tell Dimitri a decent person can, but he knows there is a nuance to this.] If the person is willing to try, sure. Isn’t much different that a monster growing out of a good core. [He lifts his eyes to Dimitri, then glances away.]
First of all: you don’t. I can’t make myself not have dark and angry thoughts, but… I can keep them from consuming me. By… surrounding myself with better people, people who can keep me grounded. Who give a shit, but who will call me out if I need it.
[He does not say friends and family, but that.]
Getting rid of the people who hurt others without remorse or thought is my justice. The ones who get off on playing sick games with innocent people. I kill them. If I can help their victims feel safer because they don’t have to worry about some bastard being out there, alive, waiting, getting to live, then I’ve done what I’m supposed to do.
[ relying on friends and family... who does that? they're the ones relying on him. maybe jason is right, and it's more about managing anger than denying it entirely, but he clearly struggles with the idea. ]
Given your history, I can see where your conviction comes from. [ he says so softly. there's not really any judgement in his tone, because he would do the same. ] Part of me believes... that there are people who only need the opportunity to be good. To live to their best potential. But there is no turning a blind eye to those that delight in the suffering of others and hurt innocent people for personal gain.
[ he takes a deep breath then, slightly shaky until it's all exhaled out. ] It infuriates me. If I found the people who killed my family, I would rend them limb from limb—they would find no quarter while I still draw breath. But... that same impulse to cause harm frightens me, too.
[That is, like, the most Bruce Wayne thing Dimitri could have said to them. He shoves him off the seat (no).
At the sigh, he reaches up to squeeze Dimitri's shoulder reassuringly. He frowns in a knowing way.]
You sound like B. The one I had been waiting on. [He hesitates. It wouldn't be hard to link Bruce to Batman this way, but he thinks--here, what's going to matter. To Dimitri?] Someone killed his family, too, in the streets outside a theater. A thief. He watched it happen. They shot his parents and left him alive. He was... I don't know, eight or nine.
He told me he was angry for a long time. He didn't think about anything but finding and hurting the person who did it. It's why he started doing what he does. He said every day he plays a risky game, wondering when he'll go too far past his morals. When he'll kill someone. He said it's hard. He told me... after what the Joker did to me, it was the hardest. There are a lot of times he wants to do it, but he thinks he can't.
[ time for him to spread bruce's secret identity everywhere
Being compared to the guy who Jason had hoped would save him in his last moments is a little sombering. It does all sound very familiar though, enough that his lashes flutter briefly, affected. ]
I do not think he's wrong. One must cross a line to take a life, and there is no walking back.
[ Making the decision to kill, particularly in anger... people can raise whatever banner they want, but it doesn't make it good or noble. At his core, he thinks Bruce is right. He continues though, straightening up a little. ]
Even so, there are people that must answer for their crimes. As someone who has already spilled blood—and as a king who must act as a blade for his people—I would sooner kill them than leave the task to someone else. I would see someone put to the sword before they are left to run rampant against innocent people.
...I would have killed that man for doing that to you. [ He would've made it hurt. ] And it is that nature that will likely drive me too far, some day.
[Listen to Dimitri... kinning and validating Batman. Tch.
Jason just watches him, listening, finding this conversation very familiar. Slowly, he looks away finally with his eyes at the last part. A long time ago, he would have begged to hear Bruce say those words to him. But Bruce never would.]
Is it really so scary, being someone like me? [He doesn't really ask it hoping for Dimitri to answer.] Don't worry. That's what I'm here for. So Bruce doesn't have to get his hands dirty.
And I'm sure you have someone you know who would probably do the same for you.
[ He looks a little surprised, though it fades into something somber. ]
...I do. But I would rather handle it myself.
[ It has to be done, and it feels wrong to shunt the responsibility onto someone else. Because it does hurt, and it does scare him, and that's precisely why he should be the one to do it. ]
I do not think you're frightening though, Jason. [ He reaches up, resting his hand carefully atop Jason's own, grateful. ] Justice is... subjective. Easily twisted. But mine is not so different from yours, I think.
And I believe only a good person can do what you do without going too far. [ Someone a little worse than Jason would be killing people for any perceived crime. ] Though it must take its toll on you.
I think trying to handle it alone will make you more likely to cross the line.
[He's just saying. Can he talk? Not really, not when he does what he does. But from being around Bruce, listening to Bruce. The man would find it amusing he's giving this kind of advice to someone else.
He glances down at Dimitri's hand, but doesn't shake it off. He looks away instead.]
I only kill the worst, so it doesn't bother me as much as you think. People like that don't deserve to breathe or live.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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He sits, quiet for a bit, waiting to see if the tension in Jason's shoulders eases any. ]
...I'm sorry. [ he's sincere; not in that he's guilty, obviously, but that it happened. ] I wish... whoever you were waiting was able to save you.
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His arms do relax more, though. He looks less like he will ferally sprint away into the woods and disappear.]
I’ve wished that for a long time too.
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...Were you ever able to learn why he didn't?
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He's only human. He just didn't make it in time.
[Which is probably sadder and a much harder blow to accept that there being any other good or bad explanation. He was simply a man who happened to be late the one time he shouldn't have been.]
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Ah.
[ It is sad. Sometimes things happen, and there is no reason. The world is just like that—most of them know that very well. ]
No man can always be in the right place at the right time, I suppose. [ A pause. As sincerely as he's able: ] I have only felt a sliver of your suffering, and it was still tremendous. I'm sorry. ...I am glad you are alive and here with us, now.
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Look-- [He pauses to reconsider what he's going to say.] Thanks, I guess. But you don't have to hand me all this... I don't know, you don't have to pat my ass. It was a long time ago. Don't like re-living it, but I've--handled it.
[Somewhat poorly, but IT'S FINE.]
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Have you...? I'm glad.
[ maybe sometimes people do get better. ]
But I am not... 'patting your ass', so to speak. [ this is the most he's ever cursed, congrats ] I could not be stoic about this, even if you asked me to be.
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I don't blame you. I wouldn't be either. [Except he'd be waaaaaay more angry about it. He has problems with anger.] It just... feels weird.
Not exactly used to people being able to stick their eyes into my brain.
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Mm. It's quite the invasion of privacy.
[ He leans back a little where he's sitting, gaze turned up thoughtfully. ]
It is valuable, in a way. To understand what others are feeling. [ not that he lacks for empathy, but connecting to other people is hard sometimes. ] I only wish we could control it.
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As barbed as Bruce is sometimes, this… reminds him of Bruce. This… cling to hope. To… a better vision. Can’t relate.
Though the fact he can’t relate is what baffles him in a surprised way. It’s like he’s looking at the timeline of himself that could actually pretend not to be someone who came back messed up. How can someone be that way and not turn out like him?]
I’d rather not let people know how I’m feeling.
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But he wants to hope for better. ]
It isn't so bad to share sometimes.
[ This is deeply hypocritical of him to say. But it doesn't matter, because the stardust twinkles back to life!
But you have recovered from your wounds—the physical ones, anyway—all just history and scar tissue. You are still young, and you are stronger than anyone in your Kingdom, and you have the Goddess's blessing in your blood—you could twist metal in your hands since you were just a child.
Childhood is a long-ago concept though, and you are an adult now, commanding a battalion of your own. An army under your eventual crown. The Grand Duke, your uncle, is counting on you, and you have studied feverishly the art of war, of swords and lances, and nothing can stand in your way as you go to meet a rebel army in the western lands of your vast, frigid territory.
And it is—invigorating. Gratifying. You feel, for the first time in a long while, as though you have some control over your life. And more than anything, it feels right, the way adrenaline burns bright in your blood, all that blistering anger and grief finding expression in the slash of a blade, the brutal twist of a lance. You are righting something wrong. You cannot see your own face, but it must be a wild thing for how frightened you leave your enemies. It must be a smile, for how full and heavy your heart feels.
It is not until after you kill their leader that the rebellion settles, quiet eventually falling over the battlefield. You are told that you handled yourself with skill, a force to be reckoned with, before you go walking over the dirt, packed down by the beat of horse hooves and greaves, stepping between bodies until silver glints in the corner of your eye.
You crouch beside a fallen soldier's body, cut from shoulder to waist, struck down in a single blow. Clutched tight in his palm is a locket's chain; your hand moves before your mind does to squeeze the tiny, silver heart that hangs there open.
It holds nothing special. Just a lock of blonde hair, as fair as your own, nearly dropping through your fingers.
—And it's only then that you really wake from the haze of battle. It takes this simple thing to remind you that this was your enemy, but also a man, who surely loved someone enough to carry a piece of them onto the plain of battle, fighting a terrifying, hopeless fight against a royal army that you yourself vanguarded. You do not think death is so romantic that he died thinking of whoever this hair belonged to—a daughter, a mother. A lover, perhaps.
He surely died with a mind for nothing but miserable pain. Blinding fear. You think it will take months for his family to learn of his demise. You realize that you enjoyed killing him. The gratification, the rightness of it all—you wake up to how awful it is, and how wretched you are. And you are just—a frightened child again, shivering and clutching a locket in the midst of death and destruction by your hand. You know you will kill again—there is so much more you must do—and it will feel as disastrous as it does now, because you will carry this guilt beside you like a companion even if it won't fix what you've broken, even if it means nothing to those you have and will hurt.
You are no stranger to cruelty. But this is the day you learn that you are so capable of it.
He sighs and drops his head into his hands, scrubbing his face. ]
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He reaches out to gently and reassuringly squeeze Dimitri's shoulder for a moment. What do you say after that?]
War for the man actually on the battlefield is terrible. [Jason understands that much.] ...I've never been in the army, but I have been in a gang. Surprisingly not very different approaches.
I've... also been with some assassins. A group of them; they have their own little league. I've been there. Loving the death of someone else, being a tool for bigger ideals.
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Eventually, ]
...I'm sorry. It is nothing I want anyone to relate to.
[ He's pretty unhappy that Jason knows what it's like. He's not pleased that the tables have turned on him like this. ]
But I was not manipulated. [ If Jason were used as a tool, taken advantage of—then he can be forgiven. He was so young when he was hurt so grievously. ] I will never be able to undo that day, or any of my other sins. I have never grown out of being that person. [ His skin is cold, because above all else, this is what scares the wits out of him. ]
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[His lips thin, but his expression is is more gentle.]
You won’t. [Jason isn’t going to pretend like this isn’t true, or offer platitudes.] You can’t undo what’s already been done.
But I think you’re wrong about the other part. I think you can grow out of being that person. I think you’re already trying. You would have already killed someone here if that wasn’t true. Right? Have you killed anyone here yet?
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He does appreciate that Jason doesn't bother trying to appeal to the past. It's done, and it's over. Mistakes don't undo themselves. ]
Not this time, and not yet. But I... killed Shinobu once before. [ ... ] Can someone decent grow out of a monstrous core? How do you learn to temper your own thoughts, when they can go so very dark?
[ He doesn't expect answers to those, really. He glances over. ] What is the justice you want?
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He wants to tell Dimitri a decent person can, but he knows there is a nuance to this.] If the person is willing to try, sure. Isn’t much different that a monster growing out of a good core. [He lifts his eyes to Dimitri, then glances away.]
First of all: you don’t. I can’t make myself not have dark and angry thoughts, but… I can keep them from consuming me. By… surrounding myself with better people, people who can keep me grounded. Who give a shit, but who will call me out if I need it.
[He does not say friends and family, but that.]
Getting rid of the people who hurt others without remorse or thought is my justice. The ones who get off on playing sick games with innocent people. I kill them. If I can help their victims feel safer because they don’t have to worry about some bastard being out there, alive, waiting, getting to live, then I’ve done what I’m supposed to do.
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Given your history, I can see where your conviction comes from. [ he says so softly. there's not really any judgement in his tone, because he would do the same. ] Part of me believes... that there are people who only need the opportunity to be good. To live to their best potential. But there is no turning a blind eye to those that delight in the suffering of others and hurt innocent people for personal gain.
[ he takes a deep breath then, slightly shaky until it's all exhaled out. ] It infuriates me. If I found the people who killed my family, I would rend them limb from limb—they would find no quarter while I still draw breath. But... that same impulse to cause harm frightens me, too.
It all just seems an impossible balance.
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At the sigh, he reaches up to squeeze Dimitri's shoulder reassuringly. He frowns in a knowing way.]
You sound like B. The one I had been waiting on. [He hesitates. It wouldn't be hard to link Bruce to Batman this way, but he thinks--here, what's going to matter. To Dimitri?] Someone killed his family, too, in the streets outside a theater. A thief. He watched it happen. They shot his parents and left him alive. He was... I don't know, eight or nine.
He told me he was angry for a long time. He didn't think about anything but finding and hurting the person who did it. It's why he started doing what he does. He said every day he plays a risky game, wondering when he'll go too far past his morals. When he'll kill someone. He said it's hard. He told me... after what the Joker did to me, it was the hardest. There are a lot of times he wants to do it, but he thinks he can't.
He thinks it makes you no better than them.
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Being compared to the guy who Jason had hoped would save him in his last moments is a little sombering. It does all sound very familiar though, enough that his lashes flutter briefly, affected. ]
I do not think he's wrong. One must cross a line to take a life, and there is no walking back.
[ Making the decision to kill, particularly in anger... people can raise whatever banner they want, but it doesn't make it good or noble. At his core, he thinks Bruce is right. He continues though, straightening up a little. ]
Even so, there are people that must answer for their crimes. As someone who has already spilled blood—and as a king who must act as a blade for his people—I would sooner kill them than leave the task to someone else. I would see someone put to the sword before they are left to run rampant against innocent people.
...I would have killed that man for doing that to you. [ He would've made it hurt. ] And it is that nature that will likely drive me too far, some day.
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Jason just watches him, listening, finding this conversation very familiar. Slowly, he looks away finally with his eyes at the last part. A long time ago, he would have begged to hear Bruce say those words to him. But Bruce never would.]
Is it really so scary, being someone like me? [He doesn't really ask it hoping for Dimitri to answer.] Don't worry. That's what I'm here for. So Bruce doesn't have to get his hands dirty.
And I'm sure you have someone you know who would probably do the same for you.
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...I do. But I would rather handle it myself.
[ It has to be done, and it feels wrong to shunt the responsibility onto someone else. Because it does hurt, and it does scare him, and that's precisely why he should be the one to do it. ]
I do not think you're frightening though, Jason. [ He reaches up, resting his hand carefully atop Jason's own, grateful. ] Justice is... subjective. Easily twisted. But mine is not so different from yours, I think.
And I believe only a good person can do what you do without going too far. [ Someone a little worse than Jason would be killing people for any perceived crime. ] Though it must take its toll on you.
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[He's just saying. Can he talk? Not really, not when he does what he does. But from being around Bruce, listening to Bruce. The man would find it amusing he's giving this kind of advice to someone else.
He glances down at Dimitri's hand, but doesn't shake it off. He looks away instead.]
I only kill the worst, so it doesn't bother me as much as you think. People like that don't deserve to breathe or live.